August 4.—­Spent the morning at Selkirk, examining people about an assault.  When I returned I found Charlotte Kerr here with a clever little boy, Charles Scott, grandson of Charles of the Woll, and son of William, and grand-nephew of John of Midgehope.  He seems a smart boy, and, considering that he is an only son with expectations, not too much spoiled.  General Yermoloff called with a letter from a Dr. Knox, whom I do not know.  If it be Vicesimus, we met nearly twenty-five years ago and did not agree.  But General Yermoloff’s name was luckily known to me.  He is a man in the flower of life, about thirty, handsome, bold, and enthusiastic; a great admirer of poetry, and all that.  He had been in the Moscow campaign, and those which followed, but must have been very young.  He made not the least doubt that Moscow was burned by Rostopchin, and said that there was a general rumour before the French entered the town, and while the inhabitants were leaving it, that persons were left to destroy it.  I asked him why the magazine of gunpowder had not been set fire to in the first instance.  He answered that he believed the explosion of that magazine would have endangered the retreating Russians.  This seemed unsatisfactory.  The march of the Russians was too distant from Moscow to be annoyed by the circumstance.  I pressed him as well as I could about the slowness of Koutousoff’s operations; and he frankly owned that the Russians were so much rejoiced and surprised to see the French in retreat, that it was long ere they could credit the extent of the advantage which they had acquired.  This has been but an idle day, so far as composition is concerned, but I was detained late at Selkirk.

August 5.—­Wrote near six pages.  General Yermoloff left me with many expressions of enthusiastic regard, as foreigners use to do.  He is a kinsman of Princess Galitzin, whom I saw at Paris.  I walked with Tom after one o’clock.  Dined en famille with Miss Todd, a pretty girl, and wrote after dinner.

August 6.—­This morning finished proofs and was bang up with everything.  When I was about to sit down to write, I have the agreeable tidings that Henderson, the fellow who committed the assault at Selkirk, and who made his escape from the officers on Saturday, was retaken, and that it became necessary that I should go up to examine him.  Returned at four, and found Mrs. George Swinton from Calcutta, to whose husband I have been much obliged, with Archie and cousin Peggie Swinton, arrived.  So the evening was done up.

August 7.—­Cousins still continuing, we went to Melrose.  I finished, however, in the first place, a pretty smart task, which is so far well, as we expect the Skenes to-morrow.  Lockhart arrived from London.  The news are that Canning is dangerously ill.  This is the bowl being broken at the cistern with a vengeance.  If he dies now, it will be pity it was not five months ago.  The time has been enough to do much evil, but not to do any-permanent good.