Dined with Robert Dundas of Arniston, Lord Register, etc.  An agreeable evening.

November 27.—­Corrected proofs in the morning, and attended the Court till one or two o’clock, Mr. Hamilton being again ill.  I visited Lady S. on my return.  Came home too fagged to do anything to purpose.

Anecdote from George Bell.  In the days of Charles II. or his brother, flourished an old Lady Elphinstone, so old that she reached the extraordinary period of 103.  She was a keen Whig, so did not relish Graham of Clavers.  At last, having a curiosity to see so aged a person, he obtained or took permission to see her, and asked her of the remarkable things she had seen.  “Indeed,” said she, “I think one of the most remarkable is, that when I entered the world there was one Knox deaving us a’ with his clavers, and now that I am going out of it, there is one Clavers deaving us with his knocks.”

November 28.—­Corrected proofs and went to Court.  Returned about one, and called on the Lord Chief-Baron.  Dined with the Duchess of Bedford at the Waterloo, and renewed, as I may say, an old acquaintance, which began while her Grace was Lady Georgiana.[82] She has now a fine family, two young ladies silent just now, but they will find their tongues, or they are not right Gordons, a very fine child, Alister, who shouted, sung, and spoke Gaelic with much spirit.  They are from a shooting-place in the Highlands, called Invereshie, in Badenoch, which the Duke has taken to gratify the Duchess’s passion for the heather.

November 29.—­My course of composition is stopped foolishly enough.  I have sent four leaves to London with Lockhart’s review.  I am very sorry for this blunder, and here is another.  Forgetting I had been engaged for a long time to Lord Gillies—­a first family visit too—­the devil tempted me to accept of the office of President of the Antiquarian Society.  And now they tell me people have come from the country to be present, and so forth, of which I may believe as much as I may.  But I must positively take care of this absurd custom of confounding invitations.  My conscience acquits me of doing so by malice prepense, yet one incurs the suspicion.  At any rate it is uncivil and must be amended.  Dined at Lord C. Commissioner’s—­to meet the Duchess and her party.  She can be extremely agreeable, but I used to think her Grace journaliere.  She may have been cured of that fault, or I may have turned less jealous of my dignity.  At all events let a pleasant hour go by unquestioned, and do not let us break ordinary gems to pieces because they are not diamonds.  I forgot to say Edwin Landseer was in the Duchess’s train.  He is, in my mind, one of the most striking masters of the modern school.  His expression both in man and animals is capital.  He showed us many sketches of smugglers, etc., taken in the Highlands, all capital.

    “Some gaed there, and some gaed here,
    And a’ the town was in a steer,
    And Johnnie on his brocket mear,
      He raid to fetch the howdie.”