Constable has been here as lame as a duck upon his legs, but his heart and courage as firm as a cock.  He has convinced me we will do well to support the London House.  He has sent them about L5000, and proposes we should borrow on our joint security L5000 for their accommodation.  J.B. and R. Cadell present.  I must be guided by them, and hope for the best.  Certainly to part company would be to incur an awful risk.

What I liked about Byron, besides his boundless genius, was his generosity of spirit as well as purse, and his utter contempt of all the affectations of literature, from the school-magisterial style to the lackadaisical.  Byron’s example has formed a sort of upper house of poetry.  There is Lord Leveson Gower, a very clever young man.[24] Lord Porchester too,[25] nephew to Mrs. Scott of Harden, a young man who lies on the carpet and looks poetical and dandyish—­fine lad too, but—­

    “There will be many peers
    Ere such another Byron.”

Talking of Abbotsford, it begins to be haunted by too much company of every kind, but especially foreigners.  I do not like them.  I hate fine waistcoats and breast-pins upon dirty shirts.  I detest the impudence that pays a stranger compliments, and harangues about his works in the author’s house, which is usually ill-breeding.  Moreover, they are seldom long of making it evident that they know nothing about what they are talking of, except having seen the Lady of the Lake at the Opera.

Dined at St. Catherine’s[26] with Lord Advocate, Lord and Lady Melville, Lord Justice-Clerk,[27] Sir Archibald Campbell of Succoth, all class companions and acquainted well for more than forty years.  All except Lord J.C. were at Fraser’s class, High School.[28] Boyle joined us at college.  There are, besides, Sir Adam Ferguson, Colin Mackenzie, James Hope, Dr. James Buchan, Claud Russell, and perhaps two or three more of and about the same period—­but

     “Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto."[29]

November 24.—­Talking of strangers, London held, some four or five years since, one of those animals who are lions at first, but by transmutation of two seasons become in regular course Boars!—­Ugo Foscolo by name, a haunter of Murray’s shop and of literary parties.  Ugly as a baboon, and intolerably conceited, he spluttered, blustered, and disputed, without even knowing the principles upon which men of sense render a reason, and screamed all the while like a pig when they cut its throat.  Another such Animaluccio is a brute of a Sicilian Marquis de ——­ who wrote something about Byron.  He inflicted two days on us at Abbotsford.  They never know what to make of themselves in the forenoon, but sit tormenting the women to play at proverbs and such trash.