to his wont, retained such personal feelings as made him object to Sir Gilbert Elliot’s having a seat in the Cabinet; so he was sent as Governor-General to India — a better thing, I take it, for his fortune. He died shortly after his return, at Hatfield or Barnet, on his way down to his native country. He was a most pleasing and amiable man. I was very sorry for his death, though I do not know how we should have met, for the contested election in 1805 [in Roxburghshire] had placed some coldness betwixt the present Lord and me. I was certainly anxious for Sir Alexander Don, both as friend of my most kind friend Charles, Duke of Buccleuch, and on political accounts; and those thwartings are what men in public life do not like to endure. After a cessation of friendship for some years, we have come about again. We never had the slightest personal dispute or disagreement. But politics are the blowpipe beneath whose influence the best cemented friendships too often dissever; and ours, after all, was only a very familiar acquaintance.
It is very odd that the common people at Minto and the neighbourhood will not believe to this hour that the first Earl is dead. They think he had done something in India which he could not answer for — that the house was rebuilt on a scale unusually large to give him a suite of secret apartments, and that he often walks about the woods and crags of Minto at night, with a white nightcap, and long white beard. The circumstance of his having died on the road down to Scotland is the sole foundation of this absurd legend, which shows how willing the vulgar are to gull themselves when they can find no one else to take the trouble. I have seen people who could read, write, and cipher, shrug their shoulders and look mysterious when this subject was mentioned. One very absurd addition was made on occasion of a great ball at Minto House, which it was said was given to draw all people away from the grounds, that the concealed Earl might have leisure for his exercise. This was on the principle in the German play, where, to hide their conspiracy, the associates join in a chorus song.
We dined at home; Mr. Davidoff and his tutor kept an engagement with us to dinner notwithstanding the death of the Emperor Alexander. They went to the play with the womankind; I stayed at home to write.
December 24. — Wrote Walter and Jane, and gave the former an account of how things had been in the money market, and the loan of £10,000. Constable has a scheme of publishing the works of the Author of W[averley] in a superior style, at £1, 1s. volume. He says he will answer for making £20,000 of this, and liberally offered me any share of the profit. I have no great claim to any, as I have only to contribute the notes, which are light work; yet a few thousands coming in will be a good thing — besides the P[rinting] Office. Constable, though valetudinary, and cross with his partner, is certainly as good a pilot in these rough seas as ever man put faith in. His rally has put me in mind of the old song: —
“The tailor raise and shook his duds,
He gar’d the BILLS flee aff in cluds,
And they that stayed gat fearfu’ thuds —
The tailor proved a man, O.”
We are for Abbotsford to-day, with a light heart.
Abbotsford, December 25. — Arrived here last night at seven. Our halls are silent compared to last year, but let us be thankful — when we think how near the chance appeared but a week since that these halls would have been ours no longer. Barbarus has segetes? Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia. There shall be no lack of wisdom. But come — il faut cultiver notre jardin. Let us see: I will write out the “Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee”; I will sketch a preface to La Rochejacquelin for Constable’s Miscellany, and try about a specimen of notes for the W[averley Novels]. Together with letters and by-business, it will be a good day’s work.
“I make a vow,
And keep it true.”
I will accept no invitation for dinner, save one to Newton-Don, and Mertoun tomorrow, instead of Christmas Day. On this day of general devotion I have a particular call for gratitude!!
My God! what poor creatures we are! After all my fair proposals yesterday, I was seized with a most violent pain in the right kidney and parts adjacent, which, joined to deadly sickness which it brought on, forced me instantly to go to bed and send for Clarkson. He came and inquired, pronouncing the complaint to be gravel augmented by bile. I was in great agony till about two o’clock, but awoke with the pain gone. I got up, had a fire in my dressing-closet, and had Dalgleish to shave me — two trifles, which I only mention, because they are contrary to my hardy and independent personal habits. But although a man cannot be a hero to his valet, his valet in sickness becomes of great use to him. I cannot expect that this first will be the last visit of this cruel complaint; but shall we receive good at the hand of God, and not receive evil?
December 27th. — Slept twelve hours at a stretch, being much exhausted. Totally without pain to-day, but uncomfortable from the effects of calomel, which, with me at least, is like the assistance of an auxiliary army, just one degree more tolerable than the enemy it chases away. Calomel contemplations are not worth recording. I wrote an introduction and a few notes to the Memoirs of Madame La Rochejacquelin, being all that I was equal to.
Sir Adam Ferguson came over and tried to marry my verses to the tune of “Bonnie Dundee.” They seem well adapted to each other. Dined with Lady Scott and Anne.
Worked at Pepys in the evening, with the purpose of review for Lockhart. Notwithstanding the depressing effects of the calomel, I feel the pleasure of being alone and uninterrupted. Few men, leading a quiet life, and without any strong or highly varied change of circumstances, have seen more variety of society than I — few have enjoyed it more, or been bored, as it is called, less by the company of tiresome people. I have rarely, if ever, found any one, out of whom I could not extract amusement or edification; and were I obliged to account for hints afforded on such occasions, I should make an ample deduction from my inventive powers. Still, however, from the earliest time I can remember, I preferred the pleasure of being alone to waiting for visitors, and have often taken a bannock and a bit of cheese to the wood or hill, to avoid dining with company. As I grew from boyhood to manhood I saw this would not do; and that to gain a place in men’s esteem I must mix and bustle with them. Pride and an excitation of spirits supplied the real pleasure which others seem to feel in society, and certainly upon many occasions it was real. Still, if the question was, eternal company, without the power of retiring within yourself, or solitary confinement for life, I should say, “Turnkey, lock the cell!” My life, though not without its fits of waking and strong exertion, has been a sort of dream, spent in
“Chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy.”
I have worn a wishing-cap, the power of which has been to divert present griefs by a touch of the wand of imagination, and gild over the future prospect by prospects more fair than can ever be realised. Somewhere it is said that this castle-building — this wielding of the aërial trowel — is fatal to exertions in actual life. I cannot tell, I have not found it so. I cannot, indeed, say like Madame Genlis, that in the imaginary scenes in which I have acted a part I ever prepared myself for anything which actually befell me; but I have certainly fashioned out much that made the present hour pass pleasantly away, and much that has enabled me to contribute to the amusement of the public. Since I was five years old I cannot remember the time when I had not some ideal part to play for my own solitary amusement.
December 28. — Somehow I think the attack on Christmas Day has been of a critical kind, and, having gone off so well, may be productive rather of health than continued indisposition. If one is to get a renewal of health in his fifty-fourth year, he must look to pay fine for it. Last night George Thomson came to see how I was, poor fellow. He has talent, is well informed, and has an excellent heart; but there is an eccentricity about him that defies description. I wish to God I saw him provided in a country kirk. That, with a rational wife — that is, if there is such a thing to be gotten
