[119] Sir Archibald Campbell of Succoth.  He lived at 1 Park Place.

[120] The circumstances under which these sermons were written are fully detailed in the Life, vol. ix. pp. 193, 206.  They were issued in a thin octavo vol. under the title Religious Discourses, by a Layman, with a short Preface signed W.S.  There were more editions than one published during 1828.

[121] Ante, p. 65.

[122] Sir Samuel Shepherd.

[123] Mr. Cooper did not relax his efforts to secure Scott an interest in his works reprinted in America, but he was not successful, and he writes to Scott in the autumn of 1827:  “This, sir, is a pitiful account of a project from which I expected something more just to you and creditable to my country.”

FEBRUARY.

February 1.—­I had my two youths again to breakfast, but I did not say more about my determination, save that I would help them if I could make it convenient.  The Chief Commissioner has agreed to let Heath have his pretty picture of a Study at Abbotsford, by Edwin Landseer, in which old Maida occurs.  The youth Reynolds is what one would suppose his father’s son to be, smart and forward, and knows the world.  I suppose I was too much fagged with sitting in the Court to-day to write hard after dinner, but I did work, however.

February 2.—­Corrected proofs, which are now nearly up with me.  This day was an idle one, for I remained in Court till one, and sat for my picture till half-past three to Mr. Smith.  He has all the steadiness and sense in appearance which his cousin R.P.G. lacks.[124] Whether he has genius or no, I am no judge.  My own portrait is like, but I think too broad about the jowls, a fault which they all fall into, as I suppose, by placing their subject upon a high stage and looking upwards to them, which must foreshorten the face.  The Chief Baron and Chief Commissioner had the goodness to sit with me.

Dressed and went with Anne to dine at Pinkie House, where I met the President,[125] Lady Charlotte, etc.; above all, Mrs. Scott of Gala, whom I had not seen for some time.  We had much fun, and I was, as Sir Andrew Aguecheek says, in good fooling.[126] A lively French girl, a governess I think, but very pretty and animated, seemed much amused with the old gentleman.  Home at eleven o’clock.

By the by, Sir John Hope had found a Roman eagle on his estate in Fife with sundry of those pots and coffeepots, so to speak, which are so common:  but the eagle was mislaid, so I did not see it.

February 3.—­I corrected proofs and wrote this morning,—­but slowly, heavily, lazily.  There was a mist on my mind which my exertions could not dispel.  I did not get two pages finished, but I corrected proofs and commentated.