March 11, [Abbotsford].—­I had, as usual, a sort of levee the day I was to leave town, all petty bills and petty business being reserved to the last by those who might as well have applied any one day of the present month.  But I need not complain of what happens to my betters, for on the last day of the Session there pours into the Court a succession of trifles which give the Court, and especially the Clerks, much trouble, insomuch that a ci-devant brother of mine proposed that the last day of the Session should be abolished by Statute.  We got out of Court at a quarter-past one, and got to Abbotsford at half-past seven, cold and hungry enough to make Scots broth, English roast beef, and a large fire very acceptable.

March 12.—­I set apart this day for trifles and dawdling; yet I meditate doing something on the Popish and Protestant affray.  I think I could do some good, and I have the sincere wish to do it.  I heard the merry birds sing, reviewed my dogs, and was cheerful.  I also unpacked books.  Deuce take arrangement!  I think it the most complete bore in the world; but I will try a little of it.  I afterwards went out and walked till dinner-time.  I read Reginald Heber’s Journal[272] after dinner.  I spent some merry days with him at Oxford when he was writing his prize poem.  He was then a gay young fellow, a wit, and a satirist, and burning for literary fame.  My laurels were beginning to bloom, and we were both madcaps.  Who would have foretold our future lot?

    “Oh, little did my mither ken
      The day she cradled me
    The land I was to travel in,
      Or the death I was to die."[273]

March 13.—­Wrought at a review of Fraser Tytler’s History of Scotland.  It is somewhat saucy towards Lord Hailes.  I had almost stuck myself into the controversy Slough of Despond—­the controversy, that is, between the Gothic and Celtic system—­but cast myself, like Christian, with a strong struggle or two to the further side of this Slough; and now will I walk on my way rejoicing—­not on my article, however, but to the fields.  Came home and rejoiced at dinner.  After tea I worked a little more.  I began to warm in my gear, and am about to awake the whole controversy of Goth and Celt.  I wish I may not make some careless blunders.[274]

March 14.—­Up at eight, rather of the latest—­then fagged at my review, both before and after breakfast.  I walked from one o’clock till near three.  I make it out, I think, rather better than of late I have been able to do in the streets of Edinburgh, where I am ashamed to walk so slow as would suit me.  Indeed nothing but a certain suspicion, that once drawn up on the beach I would soon break up, prevents me renouncing pedestrian exercises altogether, for it is positive suffering, and of an acute kind too.

March 15.—­Altogether like yesterday.  Wrote in the morning—­breakfasted—­wrote again till one—­out and walked about two hours—­to the quills once more—­dinner—­smoked a brace of cigars and looked on the fire—­a page of writing, and so to bed.