“Shall this desolation strike thy towers alone? 
    No, fair Ellandonan! such ruin ’twill bring,
    That the storm shall have power to unsettle the throne,
    And thy fate shall be mixed with the fate of thy King."[465]

I fear that the great part of the memorialists are bartering away the dignity of their rank by seeking to advance themselves by a job, which is a melancholy sight.  The ties between democrat and aristocrat are sullen discontent with each other.  The former are regarded as a house-dog which has manifested incipient signs of canine madness, and is not to be trusted.  Walter came down to-day to join our party.

[September 20?]—­Yesterday, Wordsworth, his son [nephew[466]] and daughter, came to see us, and we went up to Yarrow.  The eldest son of Lord Ravensworth also came to see us, with his accomplished lady.  We had a pleasant party, and to-day were left by the Liddells, manent the three Wordsworths, cum caeteris, a German or Hungarian Count Erdoedy, or some such name.

We arrived in London [September 28,] after a long and painful journey, the weakness of my limbs palpably increasing, and the physic prescribed making me weaker every day.  Lockhart, poor fellow, is as attentive as possible, and I have, thank God, no pain whatever; could the end be as easy it would be too happy.  I fancy the instances of Euthanasia are not very uncommon.  Instances there certainly are among the learned and the unlearned—­Dr.

Black, Tom Purdie.  I should wish, if it please God, to sleep off in such a quiet way; but we must take what Fate sends.  I have not warm hopes of being myself again.

Wordsworth and his daughter, a fine girl, were with us on the last day.  I tried to write in her diary, and made an ill-favoured botch—­no help for it.  “Stitches will wear, and ill ones will out,” as the tailor says.[467]

[October 8, London.]—­The King has located me on board the Barham, with my suite, consisting of my eldest son, youngest daughter, and perhaps my daughter-in-law, which, with poor Charles, will make a goodly tail.  I fancy the head of this tail cuts a poor figure, scarce able to stir about.

The town is in a foam with politics.  The report is that the Lords will throw out the Bill, and now, morning of 8th October, I learn it is quoited downstairs like a shovel-board shilling, with a plague to it, as the most uncalled-for attack upon a free constitution, under which men lived happily, which ever was ventured in my day.  Well, it would have been pleasing to have had some share in so great a victory, yet even now I am glad I have been quiet.  I believe I should only have made a bad figure.  Well, I will have time enough to think of all this.