I have corrected two sets of proofs, one for the mail, another for the Blucher to-morrow.

     [No entry between July 18 and September 5.]

[Mr. Lockhart remarks that it was during this interval that the highest point of his recovery was reached.  The following little note accompanied the review of Southey’s Bunyan to Chiefswood on August 6th:—–­

     “Dear Lockhart, I send you the enclosed.  I intended to have brought
     it myself with help of ‘Daddy Dun,’ but I find the weather is
     making a rain of it to purpose.

     “I suppose you are all within doors, and the little gardeners all
     off work.—­Yours, W.S.”]

     A playful yet earnest petition, showing Sir Walter’s continued
     solicitude for the welfare of the good ‘Dominie Sampson,’ was also
     written at this time to the Duke of Buccleuch:—­

     “ABBOTSFORD, 20th August.

“The minister of ------ having fallen among other black cocks of
the season, emboldens me once more to prefer my humble request in
favour of George Thomson, long tutor in this family.  His case is so
well known to your Grace that I would be greatly to blame if I
enlarged upon it.  His morals are irreproachable, his talents very
respectable.  He has some oddity of manner, but it is far from
attaching to either the head or the heart....

“It would be felt by me among one of the deepest obligations of the many which I owe to the house of Buccleuch.  I daresay your Grace has shot a score of black game to-day.  Pray let your namesake bag a parson.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[390] An amusing illustration of the difficulty of seeing ourselves as others see us may be found written twenty-five years later by Nathaniel Hawthorne, where the author of the Scarlet Letter expresses in like manner his surprise at the want of refinement in Englishmen:—­“I had been struck by the very rough aspect of these John Bulls in their morning garb, their coarse frock-coats, grey hats, check trousers, and stout shoes; at dinner-table it was not at first easy to recognise the same individuals....  But after a while, ’you see the same rough figure through all the finery, and become sensible that John Bull cannot make himself fine, whatever he may put on.  He is a rough animal, and his female is well adapted to him.’”—­Hawthorne and His Wife, vol. ii. p. 70. 2 vols. 8vo.  Cambridge, U.S.A., 1884.

[391] Architects style it Elizabethan, but Sir Walter’s term is not inappropriate.

[392] An amanuensis who was employed by Scott at this time.

[393] British Hotel, 70 Queen St.

[394] See Winter’s Tale, Act IV.  Sc. 2.

[395] See ante, January 15, 1828, p. 111.  Mr. Mackenzie of Portmore died in September 1830, when Sir Walter wrote Mr. Skene the following letter:—­