January 2.—­Caecae mentes hominum.—­My last entry records my punctuality in keeping up my diary hitherto; my present labour, commenced notwithstanding the date, upon the 9th January, is to make up my little record betwixt the second and that latter date.  In a word, I have been several days in arrear without rhyme or reason,—­days too when there was so little to write down that the least jotting would have done it.  This must not be in future.

January 3.—­Our friends begin to disperse.  Mrs. Ellis, who has been indisposed for the last two days, will I hope bear her journey to London well.  She is the relict of my dear old friend George Ellis,[109] who had more wit, learning, and knowledge of the world than would fit out twenty literati.  The Hardens remained to-day, and I had a long walk with the laird up the Glen, and so forth.  He seemed a little tired, and, with all due devotion to my Chief, I was not sorry to triumph over some one in point of activity at my time of day.

January 4.—­Visited by Mr. Stewart of Dalguise, who came to collect materials for a description of Abbotsford, to be given with a drawing in a large work, Views of Gentlemen’s Seats. Mr. Stewart is a well-informed gentleman-like young man, grave and quiet, yet possessed of a sense of humour.  I must take care he does not in civility over-puff my little assemblage of curiosities.  Scarce anything can be meaner than the vanity which details the contents of China closets,—­basins, ewers, and chamberpots.  Horace Walpole, with all his talents, makes a silly figure when he gives an upholsterer’s catalogue of his goods and chattels at Strawberry Hill.

January 5.—­This day I began to review Taschereau’s Life of Moliere for Mr. Gillies, who is crying help for God’s sake.  Messrs. Treuttel and Wurtz offer guerdon.  I shall accept, because it is doing Gillies no good to let him have my labour for nothing, and an article is about L100.  In my pocket it may form a fund to help this poor gentleman or others at a pinch; in his, I fear it would only encourage a neglect of sober economy.  When in his prosperity he asked me whether there was not, in my opinion, something interesting in a man of genius being in embarrassed circumstances.  God knows he has had enough of them since, poor fellow; and it should be remembered that if he thus dallied with his good fortune, his benevolence to others was boundless.

We had the agreeable intelligence of Sophia being safely delivered of a girl; the mother and child doing well.  Praised be God!

January 6.—­I have a letter from the Duke of Wellington, making no promises, but assuring me of a favourable consideration of Walter’s case, should an opening occur for the majority.  This same step is represented as the most important, but so in their time were the lieutenancy and the troop.  Each in its turn was the step par excellence.  It appears that these same steps are those of a treadmill, where the party is always ascending and never gains the top.  But the same simile would suit most pursuits in life.