of.  He must “awake, arise, or be for ever fallen.”  I walked happily and pleasantly from two o’clock till four.  And now I must look to Anne of Geierstein.  Hang it! it is not so bad after all, though I fear it will not be popular.  In fact, I am almost expended; but while I exhort others to exertion I will not fail to exert myself.  I have a letter from R.P.  G[illies] proposing to subscribe to assist him from L25 to L50.  It will do no good, but yet I cannot help giving him something.

    “A daimen-icker in a thrave’s a sma’ request: 
    I’ll get a blessing wi’ the lave, and never miss’t."[295]

I will try a review for the Foreign and he shall have the proceeds.

April 14.—­I sent off proofs of the review of Tytler for John Lockhart.  Then set a stout heart to a stay brae, and took up Anne of Geierstein.  I had five sheets standing by me, which I read with care, and satisfied myself that worse had succeeded, but it was while the fashion of the thing was new.  I retrenched a good deal about the Troubadours, which was really hors de place.  As to King Rene, I retained him as a historical character.  In short, I will let the sheets go nearly as they are, for though J.B. be an excellent judge of this species of composition, he is not infallible, and has been in circumstances which may cross his mind.  I might have taken this determination a month since, and I wish I had.  But I thought I might strike out something better by the braes and burn-sides.  Alas!  I walk along them with painful and feeble steps, and invoke their influence in vain.  But my health is excellent, and it were ungrateful to complain either of mental or bodily decay.  We called at Elliston to-day and made up for some ill-bred delay.  In the evening I corrected two sheets of the Magnum, as we call it.

April 15.—­I took up Anne, and wrote, with interruption of a nap (in which my readers may do well to imitate me), till two o’clock.  I wrote with care, having digested Comines.  Whether I succeed or not, it would be dastardly to give in.  A bold countenance often carries off an indifferent cause, but no one will defend him who shows the white feather.  At two I walked till near four.  Dined with the girls, smoked two cigars, and to work again till supper-time.  Slept like a top.  Amount of the day’s work, eight pages—­a round task.

April 16.—­I meant to go out with Bogie to plant some shrubs in front of the old quarry, but it rains cats and dogs as they say, a rare day for grinding away at the old mill of imagination, yet somehow I have no great will to the task.  After all, however, the morning proved a true April one, sunshine and shower, and I both worked to some purpose, and moreover walked and directed about planting the quarry.