April 14.—­Wrote to Lord M. last night.  I hope they will keep the peace in the county.  I am sure it would be to me a most distressing thing if Buccleuch and Harden were to pull different ways, being so intimate with both families.

I did not write much yesterday, not above two pages and a half.  I have begun Boney, though, and c’est toujours quelque chose.  This morning I sent off proofs and manuscript.  Had a letter from the famous Denis Davidoff, the Black Captain, whose abilities as a partisan were so much distinguished during the retreat from Moscow.  If I can but wheedle him out of a few anecdotes, it would be a great haul.

A kind letter from Colin Mack[enzie]; he thinks the Ministry will not push the measure against Scotland.  I fear they will; there is usually an obstinacy in weakness.  But I will think no more about it.  Time draws on.  I have been here a month.  Another month carries me to be a hermit in the city instead of the country.  I could scarce think I had been here a week.  I wish I was able, even at great loss, to retire from Edinburgh entirely.  Here is no bile, no visits, no routine, and yet on the whole, things are as well perhaps as they are.

April 15.—­Received last night letters from Sir John Scott Douglas, and from that daintiest of Dandies, Sir William Elliot of Stobs, canvassing for the county.  Young Harry’s[247] the lad for me.  But will he be the lad for Lord Montagu?—­there is the point.  I should have given him a hint to attend to Edgerston.  Perhaps being at Minto, and not there, may give offence, and a bad report from that quarter would play the devil.  It is rather too late to go down and tell them this, and, to say truth, I don’t like the air of making myself busy in the matter.

Poor Sir Alexander Don died of a disease in the heart; the body was opened, which was very right.  Odd enough, too, to have a man, probably a friend two days before, slashing at one’s heart as it were a bullock’s.  I had a letter yesterday from John Gibson.  The House of Longman and Co. guarantee the sale [of Woodstock] to Hurst, and take the work, if Hurst and Robinson (as is to be feared) can make no play.

Also I made up what was due of my task both for 13th and 14th.  So hey for a Swiftianism—­

    “I loll in my chair,
    And around me I stare
    With a critical air,
    Like a calf at a fair;
    And, say I, Mrs. Duty,
    Good-morrow to your beauty,
    I kiss your sweet shoe-tie,
    And hope I can suit ye.”

Fair words butter no parsnips, says Duty; don’t keep talking then, but get to your work again.  Here is a day’s task before you—­the siege of Toulon.  Call you that a task? d——­ me, I’ll write it as fast as Boney carried it on.

April 16.—­I am now far ahead with Nap. I wrote a little this morning, but this forenoon I must write letters, a task in which I am far behind.