doors does not encourage la petite guerre, so we must give him battle in form, by letting both mind and body know that, supposing one the House of Commons and the other the House of Peers, my will is sovereign over both.  There is a good description of this species of mental weakness in the fine play of Beaumont and Fletcher called The Lover’s Progress, where the man, warned that his death is approaching, works himself into an agony of fear, and calls for assistance, though there is no apparent danger.  The apparition of the innkeeper’s ghost, in the same play, hovers between the ludicrous and [the terrible].  To me the touches of the former quality which it contains seem to augment the effect of the latter—–­ they seem to give reality to the supernatural, as being circumstances with which an inventor would hardly have garnished his story.[68]

Will Clerk says he has a theory on the vitrified forts.  I wonder if he and I agree.  I think accidental conflagration is the cause.

December 12.—­Hogg came to breakfast this morning, having taken and brought for his companion the Galashiels bard, David Thomson,[69] as to a meeting of “huzz Tividale poets.”  The honest grunter opines with a delightful naivete that Moore’s verses are far owre sweet—­answered by Thomson that Moore’s ear or notes, I forget which, were finely strung.  “They are far owre finely strung,” replied he of the Forest, “for mine are just reeght.”  It reminded me of Queen Bess, when questioning Melville sharply and closely whether Queen [Mary] was taller than her, and, extracting an answer in the affirmative, she replied, “Then your Queen is too tall, for I am just the proper height.”

Was engaged the whole day with Sheriff Court processes.  There is something sickening in seeing poor devils drawn into great expense about trifles by interested attorneys.  But too cheap access to litigation has its evils on the other hand, for the proneness of the lower class to gratify spite and revenge in this way would be a dreadful evil were they able to endure the expense.  Very few cases come before the Sheriff-court of Selkirkshire that ought to come anywhere.  Wretched wranglings about a few pounds, begun in spleen, and carried on from obstinacy, and at length from fear of the conclusion to the banquet of ill-humour, “D—­n—­n of expenses."[70] I try to check it as well as I can; “but so ’twill be when I am gone.”

December 12.—­Dined at home, and spent the evening in writing—­Anne and Lady Scott at the theatre to see Mathews; a very clever man my friend Mathews; but it is tiresome to be funny for a whole evening, so I was content and stupid at home.

An odd optical delusion has amused me these two last nights.  I have been of late, for the first time, condemned to the constant use of spectacles.  Now, when I have laid them aside to step into a room dimly lighted, out of the strong light which I use for writing, I have seen, or seemed to see, through the rims of the same spectacles which I have left behind me.  At first the impression was so lively that I put my hand to my eyes believing I had the actual spectacles on at the moment.  But what I saw was only the eidolon or image of said useful servants.  This fortifies some of Dr. Hibbert’s positions about spectral appearances.