Well!  I have toiled through it; it is like a ground swell in the sea that brings up all that is disgusting from the bottom—­admonitory letters—­unpaid bills—­few of these, thank my stars!—­all that one would wish to forget perks itself up in your face at a thorough redding up—­devil take it, I will get out and cool the fever that this turmoil has made in my veins!  The delightful spring weather conjured down the evil spirit.  I sat a long time with my nerves shaking like a frightened child, and then laughed at it all by the side of the river, coming back by the thicket.

May 11, [Edinburgh].—­We passed the morning in the little arrangements previous to our departure, and then returned at night to Edinburgh, bringing Keith Scott along.  This boy’s grandfather, James Scott by name, very clever and particularly well acquainted with Indian customs and manners.  He was one of the first settlers in Prince of Wales Island.  He was an active-minded man, and therefore wrote a great deal.  I have seen a trunkful of his MSS.  Unhappily, instead of writing upon some subject on which he might have conveyed information he took to writing on metaphysics, and lost both his candles and his labour.  I was consulted about publishing some part of his works; but could not recommend it.  They were shallow essays, with a good deal of infidelity exhibited.  Yet James Scott was a very clever man.  He only fell into the common mistake of supposing that arguments new to him were new to all others.  His son, when I knew him long since in this country, was an ordinary man enough.  This boy seems smart and clever.  We reached the house in the evening; it was comfortable enough considering it had been shut up for two months.  I found a letter from Cadell asserting his continued hope in the success of the Magnum.  I begin to be jealous on the subject, but I will know to-morrow.

May 12.—­Went to Parliament House.  Sir Robert Dundas very unwell.  Poor Hamilton on his back with the gout.  So was obliged to have the assistance of Rolland[310] from the Second Division.  Saw Cadell on the way home.  I was right:  he had been disappointed in his expectations from Glasgow and other mercantile places where trade is low at present.  But

    “Tidings did he bring of Africa and golden joys.”

The Magnum has taken extremely in Ireland, which was little counted on, and elsewhere.  Hence he proposes a new edition of Tales of my Grandfather, First Series; also an enlargement of the Third Series.  All this drives poverty and pinch, which is so like poverty, from the door.

I visited Lady J.S., and had the pleasure to find her well.  I wrote a little, and got over a place that bothered me.  Cadell has apprehensions of A[nne] of G[eierstein], so have I. Well, the worst of it is, we must do something better.[311]