There was a very romantic pasturage called the Cow-park, which I was particularly attached to, from its wild and sequestered character.  Having been part of an old wood which had been cut down, it was full of copse—­hazel, and oak, and all sorts of young trees, irregularly scattered over fine pasturage, and affording a hundred intricacies so delicious to the eye and the imagination.  But some misjudging friend had cut down and cleared away without mercy, and divided the varied and sylvan scene, which was divided by a little rivulet, into the two most formal things in nature—­a thriving plantation, many-angled as usual, and a park laid down in grass; wanting therefore the rich graminivorous variety which Nature gives its carpet, and having instead a braird of six days’ growth—­lean and hungry growth too—­of ryegrass and clover.  As for the rill, it stagnates in a deep square ditch, which silences its prattle, and restrains its meanders with a witness.  The original scene was, of course, imprinted still deeper on Russell’s mind than mine, and I was glad to see he was intensely sorry for the change.

April 5.—­Rose late in the morning, past eight, to give the cold and toothache time to make themselves scarce, which they have obligingly done.  Yesterday every tooth on the right side of my head was absolutely waltzing.  I would have drawn by the half dozen, but country dentists are not to be lippened to.[238] To-day all is quiet, but a little swelling and stiffness in the jaw.  Went to Chiefswood at one, and marked with regret forty trees indispensably necessary for paling—­much like drawing a tooth; they are wanted and will never be better, but I am avaricious of grown trees, having so few.

Worked a fair task; dined, and read Clapperton’s journey and Denham’s into Bornou.  Very entertaining, and less botheration about mineralogy, botany, and so forth, than usual.  Pity Africa picks up so many brave men, however.  Work in the evening.

April 6.—­Wrote in the morning.  Went at one to Huntly Burn, where I had the great pleasure to hear, through a letter from Sir Adam, that Sophia was in health, and Johnnie gaining strength.  It is a fine exchange from deep and aching uncertainty on so interesting a subject, to the little spitfire feeling of “Well, but they might have taken the trouble to write”; but so wretched a correspondent as myself has not much to say, so I will just grumble sufficiently to maintain the patriarchal dignity.

I returned in time to work, and to receive a shoal of things from J.B.  Among others, a letter from an Irish lady, who, for the beaux yeux, which I shall never look upon, desires I will forthwith send her all the Waverley Novels, which are published, with an order to furnish her with all others in course as they appear, which she assures me will be an era in her life.  She may find out some other epocha.