he a Tory, he may become a depute-advocate;—­is he a Whig, he may with far better hope expect to become, in reputation at least, that rising counsel Mr.——­, when in fact he only rises at tavern dinners.  Upon some such wild views lawyers and writers multiply till there is no life for them, and men give up the chase, hopeless and exhausted, and go into the army at five-and-twenty, instead of eighteen, with a turn for expense perhaps—­almost certainly for profligacy, and with a heart embittered against the loving parents or friends who compelled them to lose six or seven years in dusting the rails of the stair with their black gowns, or scribbling nonsense for twopence a page all day, and laying out twice their earnings at night in whisky-punch.  Here is R.L. now.  Four or five years ago, from certain indications, I assured his friends he would never be a writer.  Good-natured lad, too, when Bacchus is out of the question; but at other times so pugnacious, that it was wished he could only be properly placed where fighting was to be a part of his duty, regulated by time and place, and paid for accordingly.  Well, time, money, and instruction have been thrown away, and now, after fighting two regular boxing matches and a duel with pistols in the course of one week, he tells them roundly he will be no writer, which common-sense might have told them before.  He has now perhaps acquired habits of insubordination, unfitting him for the army, where he might have been tamed at an earlier period.  He is too old for the navy, and so he must go to India, a guinea-pig on board a Chinaman, with what hope or view it is melancholy to guess.  His elder brother did all man could to get his friends to consent to his going into the army in time.  The lad has good-humour, courage, and most gentlemanlike feelings, but he is incurably dissipated, I hear; so goes to die in youth in a foreign land.  Thank God, I let Walter take his own way; and I trust he will be a useful, honoured soldier, being, for his time, high in the service; whereas at home he would probably have been a wine-bibbing, moorfowl-shooting, fox-hunting Fife squire—­living at Lochore without either aim or end—­and well if he were no worse.  Dined at home with Lady S. and Anne.  Wrote in the evening.

December 7.—­Teind day;[58]—­at home of course.  Wrote answers to one or two letters which have been lying on my desk like snakes, hissing at me for my dilatoriness.  Bespoke a tun of palm-oil for Sir John Forbes.  Received a letter from Sir W. Knighton, mentioning that the King acquiesced in my proposal that Constable’s Miscellany should be dedicated to him.  Enjoined, however, not to make this public, till the draft of dedication shall be approved.  This letter tarried so long, I thought some one had insinuated the proposal was infra dig.  I don’t think so.  The purpose is to bring all the standard works, both in sciences and the liberal arts, within the reach of the lower classes, and enable them thus to use with advantage the education which is given them at every hand.  To make boys learn to read, and then place no good books within their reach, is to give men an appetite, and leave nothing in the pantry save unwholesome and poisonous food, which, depend upon it, they will eat rather than starve.  Sir William, it seems, has been in Germany.