Yesterday I agreed to let Cadell have the new work,[291] edition 1500, he paying all charges, and paying also L500—­two hundred and fifty at Lammas, to pay J. Gibson money advanced on the passage of young Walter, my nephew, to India.  It is like a thorn in one’s eye this sort of debt, and Gibson is young in business, and somewhat involved in my affairs besides.  Our plan is, that this same Miscellany or Chronicle shall be committed quietly to the public, and we hope it will attract attention.  If it does not, we must turn public attention to it ourselves.  About one half of vol. i. is written, and there is worse abomination, or I mistake the matter.

I was detained in Court till four; dreadfully close, and obliged to drink water for refreshment, which formerly I used to scorn, even on the moors, with a burning August sun, the heat of exercise, and a hundred springs gushing around me.

Corrected proofs, etc., on my return.  I think I have conquered the trustees’ objections to carry on the small edition of novels.  Got Cadell’s letter about the Chronicle.

FOOTNOTES: 

[278] Sheridan’s Critic, Act IV.  Sc. 2.

[279] Buckingham’s Rehearsal.—­The expression “To Feague” does not occur in the first edition, where the passage stands thus:—­

“Phys.—­When a knotty point comes, I lay my head close to it, with a pipe of tobacco in my mouth and then whew it away.  I’ faith.

“Bayes.—­I do just so, i’ gad, always.”  Act II.  Sc. 4.

In some subsequent editions the words are:—­“I lay my head close to it with a snuff-box in my hand, and I feague it away.  I’ faith.”

I am indebted to Dr. Murray for this reference, which he kindly furnished me with from the materials collected for his great English Dictionary.

[280] This alludes to the claim advanced by the creditors of Constable and Co. to the copyright of Woodstock and the Life of Napoleon.  The Dean of the Faculty of Advocates was at that time George Cranstoun, afterwards a judge on the Scottish Bench under the title; of Lord Corehouse, from 1826 until 1839, when he retired; he died 1850.

[281] i.e. spending.

[282] The eldest son of “The Man of Feeling.”  He had been a judge from 1822; he died at the age of seventy-four in 1851.

[283] Baron Gifford died a few months later, viz., in Sept. 1826; he had been Attorney-General in 1819, and Chief-Justice in 1824.  Lord and Lady Gifford had visited Abbotsford in the autumn of 1825.

[284] Speech of Lord Chancellor Seafield on the ratification of the Scottish Union.—­See Miscell.  Prose Works, vol. xxv. p. 93.

[285] See Moreri’s Dictionnaire, Art.  “Tanneguy du Chatel.”