scences_ and other
scattered or unpublished matter which Mr. Douglas has appended, exhibits
the whole history of this period with a precision that could not
otherwise have been hoped for, especially as pecuniary misfortunes were
soon, according to the fashion of this world, to be complicated by
others. For some two years before the catastrophe Lady Scott had been in
weak health; and though the misfortune itself does not seem to have
affected her much after the first shock, she grew rapidly worse in the
spring of 1826, and, her asthma changing into dropsy, died at Abbotsford
during Scott's absence in Edinburgh, when his work began in May. His
successive references to her illness, and the final and justly-famous
passage on her death, are excellent examples of the spirit which
pervades this part of the _Diary_. This spirit is never unmanly, but
displays throughout, and occasionally, as we see, to his own
consciousness, that strange yet not uncommon phenomenon which is well
expressed in a French phrase, _il y a quelque chose de casse_, and which
frequently comes upon men after or during the greater misfortunes of
life. Neither in his references to this, nor in those to another
threatened, though as yet deferred blow, expected from the
ever-declining health of the Lockharts' eldest child, the 'Hugh
Littlejohn' of the _Tales of a Grandfather_, is there any tone of
whining on the one hand, or any mark of insensibility on the other. But
there is throughout something like a confession, stoutly avoided in
words, but hinted in tone and current of quotation and sentiment, that
the strength, though not the courage, is hardly equal to the day. The
_Diary_, both here and elsewhere, is full of good things, pleasant wit
still, shrewd criticism of life, quaint citation of wise old Scots saws
and good modern instances, happy judgment of men and books,--above all,
that ever-present touch of literature, without mere bookishness, which
is as delightful to those who can taste it as any of Scott's gifts. And
perhaps, too, we may trace, even behind this, a secret sense that, as
his own Habakkuk Mucklewrath has it in the dying curse on Claverhouse,
the wish of his heart had indeed been granted to his loss, and that the
hope of his own pride had gone too near to destroy him.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Some say L130,000, but this seems to include the L10,000 mortgage
on Abbotsford. This, however, was a private affair of Scott's own, not a
transaction of