Dined at a dinner given by the Antiquarian Society to Mr. Hay Drummond, Secretary to the Society, now going Consul to Tangiers.  It was an excellent dinner—­turtle, champagne, and all the agremens of a capital meal, for L1, 6s. a-head.  How Barry managed I can’t say.  The object of this compliment spoke and drank wine incessantly; good-naturedly delighted with the compliment, which he repeatedly assured me he valued more than a hundred pounds.  I take it that after my departure, which was early, it would be necessary to “carry Mr. Silence to bed."[321]

May 26.—­The business at the Court heavy.  Dined at Gala’s, and had the pleasure to see him in amended health.  Sir John and Lady Hope were there, and the evening was lively and pleasant.  George Square is always a melancholy place for me.  I was dining next door to my father’s former house.[322]

May 27.—­I got up the additional notes for the Waverley Novels.  They seem to be setting sail with a favourable wind.  I had to-day a most kind and friendly letter from the Duke of Wellington, which is a thing to be vain of.  He is a most wonderful man to have climbed to such a height without ever slipping his foot.  Who would have said in 1815 that the Duke would stand still higher in 1829, and yet it indubitably is so.  We dined with Lady Charlotte Campbell, now Lady Charlotte Bury, and her husband, who is an egregious fop but a fine draughtsman.  Here is another day gone without work in the evening.

May 28.—­The Court as usual till one o’clock.  But I forgot to say Mr. Macintosh Mackay breakfasted, and inspected my curious Irish MS., which Dr. Brinkley gave me.[323] Mr. Mackay, I should say Doctor, who well deserved the name, reads it with tolerable ease, so I hope to knock the marrow out of the bone with his assistance.  I came home and despatched proof-sheets and revises for Dr. Lardner.  I saw kind John Gibson, and made him happy with the fair prospects of the Magnum.  He quite agrees in my views.  A young clergyman, named M’Combie, from Aberdeenshire, also called to-day.  I have had some consideration about the renewal or re-translation of the Psalmody.  I had peculiar views adverse to such an undertaking.[324] In the first place, it would be highly unpopular with the lower and more ignorant rank, many of whom have no idea of the change which those spiritual poems have suffered in translation, but consider their old translations as the very songs which David composed.  At any rate, the lower class think that our fathers were holier and better men than we, and that to abandon their old hymns of devotion, in order to grace them with newer and more modish expression, would be a kind of sacrilege.  Even the best informed, who think on the subject, must be of opinion that even the somewhat bald and rude language and versification of the Psalmody gives them an antique and venerable air, and their want of the popular graces of modish poetry shows they