Having finished Anne[306] I began and revised fifteen leaves of the History, and sent them to Dr. Lardner.  I think they read more trashy than I expected.  But when could I ever please myself, even when I have most pleased others?  Then I walked about two hours by the thicket and river-side, watching the appearance of spring, which, as Coleridge says—­

    “Comes slowly up this way.”

After dinner and tea I resumed the task of correction, which is an odious one, but must be attempted, ay, and accomplished too.

April 30.—­Dr. Johnson enjoins Bozzy to leave out of his diary all notices of the weather as insignificant.  It may be so to an inhabitant of Bolt Court, in Fleet Street, who need care little whether it rains or snows, except the shilling which it may cost him for a Jarvie; but when I wake and find a snow shower sweeping along, and destroying hundreds perhaps of young lambs, and famishing their mothers, I must consider it as worth noting.  For my own poor share, I am as indifferent as any Grub Streeter of them all—­

    “—­And since ’tis a bad day,
    Rise up, rise up, my merry men,
    And use it as you may.”

I have accordingly been busy.  The weather did not permit me to go beyond the courtyard, for it continued cold and rainy.  I have employed the day in correcting the history for Cyclopaedia as far as page 35, exclusive, and have sent it off, or shall to-morrow.  I wish I knew how it would run out.  Dr. Lardner’s measure is a large one, but so much the better.  I like to have ample verge and space enough, and a mere abridgment would be discreditable.  Well, nobody can say I eat the bread of idleness.  Why should I?  Those who do not work from necessity take violent labour from choice, and were necessity out of the question I would take the same sort of literary labour from choice—­something more leisurely though.

FOOTNOTES: 

[286] Son of Lord Medwyn.  Mr. Forbes had lately returned from Italy, where he had had as travelling companion Mr. Cleasby, and it was owing to Mr. Forbes’s recommendation that Mr. Cleasby came to Edinburgh to pursue his studies.  Mr. Forbes possessed a fine tenor voice, and his favourite songs at that time were the Neapolitan and Calabrian canzonetti, to which Sir Walter alludes under April 4.

[287] Mr. Lockhart’s own account of the overture is sufficiently amusing and characteristic of the men and the times:—­

“I had not time to write more than a line the other day under Croker’s cover, having received it just at post time.  He sent for me; I found him in his nightcap at the Admiralty, colded badly, but in audacious spirits.  His business was this.  The Duke of W[ellingto]n finds himself without one newspaper he can depend on.  He wishes to buy up some evening print, such as the dull Star; and could I do anything for it?  I said I was