June 18.—­Corrected proofs for Dr. Dionysius Lardner.  Cadell came to breakfast.  Poor fellow, he looks like one who had been overworked; and the difficulty of keeping paper-makers up to printers, printers up to draughtsmen, artists to engravers, and the whole party to time, requires the utmost exertion.  He has actually ordered new plates, although the steel ones which we employ are supposed to throw off 30,000 without injury.  But I doubt something of this.  Well, since they will buckle fortune on our back we must bear it scholarly and wisely.[345] I went to Court.  Called on my return on J.B. and Cadell.  At home I set to correct Ivanhoe.  I had twenty other things more pressing; but, after all, these novels deserve a preference.  Poor Terry is totally prostrated by a paralytic affection.  Continuance of existence not to be wished for.

To-morrow I expect Sophia and her family by steam.

June 19.—­Sophia, and Charles who acted as her escort, arrived at nine o’clock morning, fresh from the steamboat.  They were in excellent health—­also the little boy and girl; but poor Johnnie seems very much changed indeed, and I should not be surprised if the scene shortly closes.  There is obviously a great alteration in strength and features.  At dinner we had our family chat on a scale that I had not enjoyed for many years.  The Skenes supped with us.

June 20.—­Corrected proof-sheets in the morning for Dr. Lardner.  Then I had the duty of the Court to perform.

As I came home I recommended young Shortreed to Mr. Cadell for a printing job now and then when Ballantyne is over-loaded, which Mr. Cadell promised accordingly.

Lady Anna Maria Elliot’s company at dinner.  Helped on our family party, and passed the evening pleasantly enough, my anxiety considering.

June 21.—­A very wet Sunday.  I employed it to good purpose, bestowing much labour on the History, ten pages of which are now finished.  Were it not for the precarious health of poor Johnnie I would be most happy in this reunion with my family, but, poor child, this is a terrible drawback.

June 22.—­I keep working, though interruptedly.  But the heat in the midst of the day makes me flag and grow irresistibly drowsy.  Mr. and Mrs. Skene came to supper this evening.  Skene has engaged himself in drawing illustrations to be etched by himself for Waverley.  I wish it may do.[346]

June 23.—­I was detained in the Court till half-past [three].  Captain William Lockhart dined with Skene.  The Captain’s kind nature had brought him to Edinburgh to meet his sister-in-law.

June 24.—­I was detained late in the Court, but still had time to go with Adam Wilson and call upon a gentlemanlike East Indian officer, called Colonel Francklin, who appears an intelligent and respectable man.  He writes the History of Captain Thomas,[347] a person of the condition of a common seaman, who raised himself to the rank of a native prince, and for some time waged a successful war with the powers around him.  The work must be entertaining.