o--_Vogue la galere!_

Dined with the Lord Chief-Commissioner, and met Lord and Lady Binning,
Lord and Lady Abercromby, Sir Robert O'Callaghan, etc. These dinners put
off time well enough, and I write so painfully by candle-light that they
do not greatly interfere with business.

_December_ 18.--Poor Huntly Gordon writes me in despair about L180 of
debt which he has incurred. He wishes to publish two sermons which I
wrote for him when he was taking orders; but he would get little money
for them without my name, and that is at present out of the question.
People would cry out against the undesired and unwelcome zeal of him who
stretched out his hands to help the ark with the best intentions, and
cry sacrilege. And yet they would do me gross injustice, for I would, if
called upon, die a martyr for the Christian religion, so completely is
(in my poor opinion) its divine origin proved by its beneficial effects
on the state of society. Were we but to name the abolition of slavery
and of polygamy, how much has in these two words been granted to mankind
by the lessons of our Saviour![94]

_December_ 19.--Wrought upon an introduction to the notices which have
been recovered of George Bannatyne,[95] author, or rather transcriber,
of the famous Repository of Scottish Poetry, generally known by the
Bannatyne MS. They are very _jejune_ these same notices--a mere record
of matters of business, putting forth and calling in of sums of money,
and such like. Yet it is a satisfaction to learn that this great
benefactor to the literature of Scotland lived a prosperous life, and
enjoyed the pleasures of domestic society, and, in a time peculiarly
perilous, lived unmolested and died in quiet.

At eleven o'clock I had an appointment with a person unknown. A youth
had written me, demanding an audience. I excused myself by alleging the
want of leisure, and my dislike to communicate with a person perfectly
unknown on unknown business. The application was renewed, and with an
ardour which left me no alternative, so I named eleven this day. I am
too much accustomed to the usual cant of the followers of the muses who
endeavour by flattery to make their bad stale butter make amends for
their stinking fish. I am pretty well acquainted with that sort of
thing. I have had madmen on my hands too, and once nearly was Kotzebued
by a lad of the name of Sharpe. All this gave me some curiosity, but it
was lost in attending to the task I was engaged in; w