“The haunch of the deer, and the wine’s red dye,
    Never bard loved them better than I.”

But it was for the sake of sociality; never either for the flask or the venison.  That must end—­is ended.  The evening sky of life does not reflect those brilliant flashes of light that shot across its morning and noon.  Yet I thank God it is neither gloomy nor disconsolately lowering; a sober twilight—­that is all.

I am in great hopes that the Bannatyne Club, by the assistance of Thomson’s wisdom, industry, and accuracy, will be something far superior to the Dilettanti model on which it started.  The Historie of K. James VI., Melville’s Memoirs, and other works, executed or in hand, are decided boons to Scottish history and literature.

February 2.—­In confirmation of that which is above stated, I see in Thorpe’s sale-catalogue a set of the Bannatyne books, lacking five, priced L25.  Had a dry walk from the Court by way of dainty, and made it a long one.  Anne went at night to Lady Minto’s.

Hear of Miss White’s death.  Poor Lydia! she had a party at dinner on the Friday before, and had written with her own hand invitations for another party.  Twenty years ago she used to tease me with her youthful affectations—­her dressing like the Queen of Chimney-sweeps on May-day morning, and sometimes with rather a free turn in conversation, when she let her wit run wild.  But she was a woman of much wit, and had a feeling and kind heart.  She made her point good, a bas-bleu in London to a point not easily attained, and contrived to have every evening a very good literary melee, and little dinners which were very entertaining.  She had also the newest lions upon town.  In a word, she was not and would not be forgotten, even when disease obliged her, as it did for years, to confine herself to her couch; and the world, much abused for hard-heartedness, was kind in her case—­so she lived in the society she liked.  No great expenditure was necessary for this.  She had an easy fortune, but not more.  Poor Lydia!  I saw the Duke of York and her in London, when Death, it seems, was brandishing his dart over them.[460]

    “The view o’t gave them little fright."[461]

Did not get quite a day’s work finished to-day, thanks to my walk.

February 3.—­There is nought but care on every hand.  James Hogg writes that he is to lose his farm,[462] on which he laid out, or rather threw away, the profit of all his publications.

Then Terry has been pressed by Gibson for my debt to him.  That I may get managed.

I sometimes doubt if I am in what the good people call the right way.  Not to sing my own praises, I have been willing always to do my friends what good was in my power, and have not shunned personal responsibility.  But then that was in money matters, to which I am naturally indifferent, unless when the consequences press on me.  But then I am a bad comforter in case of inevitable calamity; and feeling proudly able to endure in my own case, I cannot sympathise with those whose nerves are of a feebler texture.