VOL.  II.

Portrait, painted by Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A., for the Baroness Ruthven, and now in the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland.  Copied by permission of the Hon. The Board of Manufactures, Frontispiece

Vignette on Title-page

     “The Dial-Stone” in the Garden, from drawing made at Abbotsford by
     George Reid, R.S.A.

     “THE NIGHT COMETH.”

     [Greek:  NUX GAR ERCHETAI.]

“I must home to work while it is called day; for the night cometh when no man can work.  I put that text, many years ago, on my dial-stone; but it often preached in vain.”—­Scott’s Life, x. 88.

SIR WALTER SCOTT’S JOURNAL.

JULY.

July 1, [Abbotsford].—­A most delicious day, in the course of which I have not done

    “The least right thing.”

Before breakfast I employed myself in airing my old bibliomaniacal hobby, entering all the books lately acquired into a temporary catalogue, so as to have them shelved and marked.  After breakfast I went out, the day being delightful—­warm, yet cooled with a gentle breeze, all around delicious; the rich luxuriant green refreshing to the eye, soft to the tread, and perfume to the smell.  Wandered about and looked at my plantations.  Came home, and received a visit from Sir Adam.  Loitered in the library till dinner-time.  If there is anything to be done at all to-day, it must be in the evening.  But I fear there will be nothing.  One can’t work always nowther.

    “Neque semper arcum tendit Apollo.”

There’s warrant for it.

July 2.—­Wrote in the morning, correcting the Essay on the Highlands, which is now nearly completed.  Settled accounts with Tom and Bogie.  Went over to Huntly Burn at two o’clock, and reconnoitred the proposed plantation to be called Jane’s Wood.  Dined with the Fergusons.

July 3—–­ Worked in the morning upon the Introduction to the Chronicles; it may be thought egotistical.  Learned a bad accident had happened yesterday.  A tinker (drunk I suppose) entered the stream opposite to Faldonside with an ass bearing his children.  The ass was carried down by the force of the stream, and one of the little creatures was drowned; the other was brought out alive, poor innocent, clinging to the ass.  It had floated as far down as Deadwater-heugh.  Poor thing, it is as well dead as to live a tinker!  The Fergusons dine with us en masse; also Dr. Brewster.

July 4, [Edinburgh].—­Worked a little in the morning, and took a walk after breakfast, the day so delicious as makes it heart-breaking to leave the country.  Set out, however, about four o’clock, and reached Edinburgh a little after nine.  Slept part of the way; read De Vere the rest.[1] It is well written, in point of language and sentiment, but has too little action in it to be termed a pleasing novel.  Everything is brought out by dialogue—­or worse:  through the medium of the author’s reflections, which is the clumsiest of all expedients.