The Complete Autobiographical Writings of Sir Walter Scott. Walter Scott
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breakfast, and I went to my work till one, and at that hour treated the Baron to another long walk, with which he seemed highly delighted. He tells me that my old friend the Princess Galitzin is dead. After dinner I had a passing visit from Kinnear, to bid me farewell. This very able and intelligent young man, so able to throw a grace over commercial pursuits, by uniting them with literature, is going with his family to settle in London. I do not wonder at it. His parts are of a kind superior to the confined sphere in which he moves in Scotland. In London, he says, there is a rapid increase of business and its opportunities. Thus London licks the butter off our bread, by opening a better market for ambition. Were it not for the difference of the religion and laws, poor Scotland could hardly keep a man that is worth having; and yet men will not see this. I took leave of Kinnear, with hopes for his happiness and fortune, but yet with some regret for the sake of the country which loses him. The Baron agreed to go with Kinnear to Kelso: and exit with the usual demonstrations of German enthusiasm.
March 25. — I worked in the morning, and think I have sent Croker a packet which may be useful, and to Lockhart a critique on rather a dry topic, viz.: the ancient Scottish History. I remember E. Ainslie, commonly called the plain man, who piqued himself on his powers of conversation, striving to strike fire from some old flinty wretch whom he found in a corner of a public coach, at length addressed him: “Friend, I have tried you on politics, literary matters, religion, fashionable news, etc. etc., and all to no purpose.” The dry old rogue, twisting his muzzle into an infernal grin, replied, “Can you claver about bend leather?” The man, be it understood, was a leather merchant. The early history of Caledonia is almost as hopeless a subject, but off it goes. I walked up the Glen with Tom for my companion. Dined, heard Anne reading a paper of anecdotes about Cluny Macpherson, and so to bed.
March 26. — As I have been so lately Johnsonizing, I should derive, if possible, some personal use. Johnson advises Boswell to keep a diary, and to omit registers of the weather, and like trumpery. I am resolved in future not to register what is yet more futile — my gleams of bright and clouded temper. Boswell — whose nerves were, one half madness, and half affectation — has thrummed upon this topic till it is threadbare. I have at this moment forty things to do, and great inclination to do none of them. I ended by working till two, walking till five, writing letters, and so to bed.
March 27. — Letters again. Let me see. I wrote to Lord Montagu about Scott of Beirlaw’s commission, in which Invernahyle interests himself. Item, to a lady who is pestering me about a Miss Campbell sentenced to transportation for stealing a silver spoon. Item, to John Eckford. Item, to James Loch, to get an appointment for Sandie Ballantyne’s son. Not one, as Dangle says, about any business of my own. My correspondence is on a most disinterested footing. This lasts till past eleven, then enters my cousin R., and remains for two hours, till politics, family news, talk of the neighbourhood are all exhausted, and two or three reputations torn to pieces in the scouring of them. At length I walk him out about a mile, and come back from that empêchement. But it is only to find Mr. [Henry] C[ranstoun], my neighbour, in the parlour with the girls, and there is another sederunt of an hour. Well, such things must be, and our friends mean them as civility, and we must take and give the currency of the country. But I am diddled out of a day all the same. The ladies came from Huntly Burn, and cut off the evening.
March 28. — In spite of the temptation of a fine morning, I toiled manfully at the review till two o’clock, commencing at seven. I fear it will be uninteresting, but I like the muddling work of antiquities, and, besides, wish to record my sentiments with regard to the Gothic question. No one that has not laboured as I have done on imaginary topics can judge of the comfort afforded by walking on all-fours, and being grave and dull. I dare say, when the clown of the pantomime escapes from his nightly task of vivacity, it is his special comfort to smoke a pipe and be prosy with some goodnatured fellow, the dullest of his acquaintance. I have seen such a tendency in Sir Adam Ferguson, the gayest man I ever knew; and poor Tom Sheridan has complained to me of the fatigue of supporting the character of an agreeable companion.
March 29. — I wrote, read, and walked with the most stoical regularity. This muddling among old books has the quality of a sedative, and saves the tear and wear of an overwrought brain. I wandered on the hills pleasantly enough and concluded a pleasant and laborious day.
March 30. — I finished the remainder of the criticism and sent it off. Pray Heaven it break not the mail coach down.
Lord and Lady Dalhousie, and their relation, Miss Hawthorne, came to dinner, to meet whom we had Dr. and Mrs. Brewster. Lord Dalhousie has more of the Caledonian prisca fides than any man I know now alive. He has served his country in all quarters of the world and in every climate; yet, though my contemporary, looks ten years my junior. He laughed at the idea of rigid temperance, and held an occasional skirmish no bad thing even in the West Indies, thinking, perhaps, with Armstrong, of “the rare debauch”. In all incidents of life he has been the same steady, honest, truehearted Lord Dalhousie, that Lordie Ramsay promised to be when at the High School. How few such can I remember, and how poorly have honesty and valour been rewarded! Here, at the time when most men think of repose, he is bundled off to command in India. Would it had been the Chief Governorship! But to have remained at home would have been bare livelihood, and that is all. I asked him what he thought of “strangling a nabob, and rifling his jewel closet,” and he answered, “No, no, an honest man.” I fear we must add, a poor one. Lady Dalhousie, formerly Miss Brown of Coalstoun, is an amiable, intelligent, and lively woman, who does not permit society to “cream and mantle like a standing pool.”
The weather, drifting and surly, does not permit us to think of Melrose, and I could only fight round the thicket with Dr. Brewster and his lordship. Lord Dalhousie gave me some interesting accounts of the American Indians. They are, according to his lordship, decaying fast in numbers and principle. Lord Selkirk’s property now makes large returns, from the stock of the North West Company and Hudson’s Bay Companies having united. I learned from Lord Dalhousie that he had been keeping a diary since the year 1800. Should his narrative ever see the light, what a contrast will it form to the flourishing vapouring accounts of most of the French merchants! Mr. and Mrs. Skene with their daughter Kitty, who has been indisposed, came to dinner, and the party was a well-assorted one.
April
April 1. — A pretty first of April truly; the hills white with snow, I myself as bilious as a dog. My noble guests left about noon. I wrote letters, as if I had not bile enough in my bosom already, and did not go out to face the snow wreaths till halfpast two, when I am resolved to make a brush for exercise. There will be fine howling among the dogs, for I am about to shut my desk. Found Mrs. Skene disposed to walk, so I had the advantage of her company. The snow lay three inches thick on the ground; but we had the better appetite for dinner, after which we talked and read without my lifting a pen.
April 2. — Begins with same brilliant prospect of snow and sunshine dazzling to the eyes and chilling to the fingers, a beastly disagreeable coldness in the air. I stuck by the pen till one, then took a drive with the ladies as far as Chiefswood and walked home. Young William Forbes came, and along with him a Southron, Mr. Cleasby.
April 3. — Still the same party. I fagged at writing letters to Lockhart, to Charles, and to John Gibson, to Mr. Cadell, Croker, Lord Haddington, and others. Lockhart has had an overture through Croker requesting him to communicate with some newspaper on the part of the Government, which he has wisely declined. Nothing but a thorough-going blackguard ought to attempt the daily press, unless it is some quiet country diurnal. Lockhart has also a wicked wit which would make an office of this kind more dangerous to him than to downright dulness. I am heartily glad he has refused it.
Sir James Mackintosh and Lord Haddington have spoken very handsomely of my accession to the Catholic Petition, and I think it has done some good; yet I am not confident that the measure will disarm the Catholic spleen. And I was not entirely easy at finding myself allied