Talking of Wordsworth, he told Anne and me a story, the object of which was to show that Crabbe had not imagination.  He, Sir George Beaumont, and Wordsworth were sitting together in Murray the bookseller’s back-room.  Sir George, after sealing a letter, blew out the candle, which had enabled him to do so, and, exchanging a look with Wordsworth, began to admire in silence the undulating thread of smoke which slowly arose from the expiring wick, when Crabbe put on the extinguisher.  Anne laughed at the instance, and inquired if the taper was wax, and being answered in the negative, seemed to think that there was no call on Mr. Crabbe to sacrifice his sense of smell to their admiration of beautiful and evanescent forms.  In two other men I should have said “this is affectations,"[440] with Sir Hugh Evans; but Sir George is the man in the world most void of affectation; and then he is an exquisite painter, and no doubt saw where the incident would have succeeded in painting.  The error is not in you yourself receiving deep impressions from slight hints, but in supposing that precisely the same sort of impression must arise in the mind of men otherwise of kindred feeling, or that the commonplace folks of the world can derive such inductions at any time or under any circumstances.

January 4.—­My enemy gained some strength during the watches of the night, but has again succumbed under scalding fomentations of camomile flowers.  I still keep my state, for my knee, though it has ceased to pain me, is very feeble.  We began to fill the ice-house to-day.  Dine alone—­en famille, that is, Jane, Anne, Walter, and I. Why, this makes up for aiches, as poor John Kemble used to call them.  After tea I broke off work, and read my young folks the farce of the Critic, and “merry folks were we.”

January 5.—­I waked, or aked if you please, for five or six hours I think, then fevered a little.  I am better though, God be thanked, and can now shuffle about and help myself to what I want without ringing every quarter of an hour.  It is a fine clear sunny day; I should like to go out, but flannel and poultices cry nay.  So I drudge away with the assisting of Pelet, who has a real French head, believing all he desires should be true, and affirming all he wishes should be believed.  Skenes (Mr. and Mrs., with Miss Jardine) arrived about six o’clock.  Skene very rheumatic, as well as I am.

January 6.—­Worked till dusk, but not with much effect; my head and mind not clear somehow.  W. Laidlaw at dinner.  In the evening read Foote’s farce of the Commissary, said to have been levelled at Sir Lawrence Dundas; but Sir Lawrence was a man of family.  Walter and Jane dined at Mertoun.

January 7.—­Wrought till twelve, then sallied and walked with Skene for two miles; home and corrected proofs, and to a large amount.  Mr. Scrope and George Thomson dined.