The news from London assure a change of Ministry.  The old Tories come in play.  But I hope they will compromise nothing.  There is little danger since Wellington takes the lead.

January 12.—­My expenses have been considerably more than I expected; but I think that, having done so much, I need not undergo the mortification of giving up Abbotsford and parting with my old habits and servants.[116]

January 13, [Edinburgh].—­We had a slow and tiresome retreat from Abbotsford through the worst of weather, half-sleet, half-snow.  Dined with the Royal Society Club, and, being an anniversary, sat till nine o’clock, instead of half-past seven.

January 14.—­I read Cooper’s new novel, The Red Rover; the current of it rolls entirely upon the ocean.  Something there is too much of nautical language; in fact, it overpowers everything else.  But, so people once take an interest in a description, they will swallow a great deal which they do not understand.  The sweet word “Mesopotamia” has its charm in other compositions as well as in sermons.  He has much genius, a powerful conception of character, and force of execution.  The same ideas, I see, recur upon him that haunt other folks.  The graceful form of the spars, and the tracery of the ropes and cordage against the sky, is too often dwelt upon.

January 15.—­This day the Court sat down.  I missed my good friend Colin Mackenzie, who proposes to retire, from indifferent health.  A better man never lived—­eager to serve every one—­a safeguard over all public business which came through his hands.  As Deputy-Keeper of the Signet he will be much missed.  He had a patience in listening to every one which is of the [highest consequence] in the management of a public body; for many men care less to gain their point than they do to play the orator, and be listened to for a certain time.  This done, and due quantity of personal consideration being gained, the individual orator is usually satisfied with the reasons of the civil listener, who has suffered him to enjoy his hour of consequence.  I attended the Court, but there was very little for me to do.  The snowy weather has annoyed my fingers with chilblains, and I have a threatening of rheumatism—­which Heaven avert!

James Ballantyne and Mr. Cadell dined with me to-day and talked me into a good humour with my present task, which I had laid aside in disgust.  It must, however, be done, though I am loth to begin to it again.

January 16.—­Again returned early, and found my way home with some difficulty.  The weather—­a black frost powdered with snow, my fingers suffering much and my knee very stiff.  When I came home, I set to work, but not to the Chronicles.  I found a less harassing occupation in correcting a volume or two of Napoleon in a rough way.  My indolence, if I can call it so, is of a capricious kind.  It never makes me absolutely idle, but very often inclines me—­as it were from mere contradiction’s sake—­to exchange the task of the day for something which I am not obliged to do at the moment, or perhaps not at all.