The post brought two letters of unequal importance.  One from a person calling himself Haval, announcing to me the terrific circumstance that he had written against the Waverley Novels in a publication called La Belle Assemblee, at which doubtless, he supposes, I must be much annoyed.  He be d——­, and that’s plain speaking.  The other from Lord Aberdeen, announcing that Lockhart, Dr. Gooch, and myself, are invested with the power of examining the papers of the Cardinal Duke of York, and reporting what is fit for publication.  This makes it plain that the Invisible[352] neither slumbers nor sleeps.  The toil and remuneration must be Lockhart’s, and to any person understanding that sort of work the degree of trust reposed holds out hope of advantage.  At any rate, it is a most honourable trust, and I have written in suitable terms to Lord Aberdeen to express my acceptance of it, adverting to my necessary occupations here, and expressing my willingness to visit London occasionally to superintend the progress of the work.  Treated myself, being considerably fagged, with a glass of poor Glengarry’s super-excellent whisky and a cigar, made up my Journal, wrote to the girls, and so to roost upon a crust of bread and a glass of small beer, my usual supper.

July 6.—­I laboured all the morning without anything unusual, save a call from my cousin, Mary Scott of Jedburgh, whom I persuaded to take part of my chaise to Abbotsford on Saturday.  At two o’clock I walked to Cadell’s, and afterwards to a committee of the Bannatyne Club.  Thereafter I went to Leith, where we had fixed a meeting of The Club, now of forty-one years’ standing.[353] I was in the chair, and Sir Adam croupier.  We had the Justice-Clerk, Lord Abercromby, Lord Pitmilly, Lord Advocate, James Ferguson, John Irving, and William Clerk, and passed a merry day for old fellows.  It is a curious thing that only three have died of this club since its formation.  These were the Earl of Selkirk; James Clerk, Lieutenant in the Navy; and Archibald Miller, W.S.  Sir Patrick Murray was an unwilling absentee.  There were absent—­Professor Davidson of Glasgow, besides Glassford, who has cut our society, and poor James Edmonstoune, whose state of health precludes his ever joining society again.  We took a fair but moderate allowance of wine, sung our old songs, and were much refreshed with a hundred old stories, which would have seemed insignificant to any stranger.  The most important of these were old college adventures of love and battle.

July 7.—­I was rather apprehensive that I might have felt my unusual dissipation this morning, but not a whit; I rose as cool as a cucumber, and set about to my work till breakfast-time.  I am to dine with Ballantyne to-day.  To-morrow with John Murray.  This sounds sadly like idleness, except what may be done either in the morning before breakfast, or in the broken portion of the day between attendance on the Court and my dinner meal,—­a vile, drowsy, yawning, fagged portion of existence, which resembles one’s day, as a portion of the shirt, escaping betwixt one’s waistcoat and breeches, indicates his linen.