where I am to be laid when I go home,
which there is some probability may not now be long delayed. Now, as I
cannot go to Dryburgh Abbey--that is out of the question at present--it
would give me much pleasure if you would take a ride down and bring me a
drawing of that spot, which he minutely described the position of, and
mentioned the exact point where he wished it drawn, that the site of his
future grave might appear. His wish was accordingly complied
with."--_Reminiscences_.

1828.

JANUARY.

"As I walked by myself,
I talked to myself,
And thus myself said to me."

_January_ 1.--Since the 20th November 1825, for two months that is, and
two years, I have kept this custom of a diary. That it has made me wiser
or better I dare not say, but it shows by its progress that I am capable
of keeping a resolution. Perhaps I should not congratulate myself on
this; perhaps it only serves to show I am more a man of method and less
a man of originality, and have no longer that vivacity of fancy that is
inconsistent with regular labour. Still, should this be the case, I
should, having lost the one, be happy to find myself still possessed of
the other.

_January_ 2.--_Caecae mentes hominum_.--My last entry records my
punctuality in keeping up my diary hitherto; my present labour,
commenced notwithstanding the date, upon the 9th January, is to make up
my little record betwixt the second and that latter date. In a word, I
have been several days in arrear without rhyme or reason,--days too when
there was so little to write down that the least jotting would have done
it. This must not be in future.

_January_ 3.--Our friends begin to disperse. Mrs. Ellis, who has been
indisposed for the last two days, will I hope bear her journey to London
well. She is the relict of my dear old friend George Ellis,[109] who had
more wit, learning, and knowledge of the world than would fit out twenty
_literati_. The Hardens remained to-day, and I had a long walk with the
laird up the Glen, and so forth. He seemed a little tired, and, with all
due devotion to my Chief, I was not sorry to triumph over some one in
point of activity at my time of day.

_January_ 4.--Visited by Mr. Stewart of Dalguise, who came to collect
materials for a description of Abbotsford, to be given with a drawing in
a large work, _Views of Gentlemen's Seats._ Mr. Stewart is a
well-informed gentleman-like young man, grave and quiet, yet possessed