sing it. I sincerely
wish them happiness.

_January_ 21.--Went out to Dalkeith House to dine and stay all night.
Found Marquis of Lothian and a family party. I liked the sense and
spirit displayed by this young nobleman, who reminds me strongly of his
parents, whom I valued so highly.

_January_ 22.--Left Dalkeith after breakfast, and gained the Parliament
House, where there was almost nothing to do, at eleven o'clock.
Afterwards sat to Graham, who is making a good thing of it. Mr. Colvin
Smith has made a better in one sense, having sold ten or twelve copies
of the portrait to different friends.[243] The Solicitor came to dine
with me--we drank a bottle of champagne, and two bottles of claret,
which, in former days, I should have thought a very sober allowance,
since, Lockhart included, there were three persons to drink it. But I
felt I had drunk too much, and was uncomfortable. The young men stood it
like young men. Skene and his wife and daughter looked in in the
evening. I suppose I am turning to my second childhood, for not only am
I filled drunk, or made stupid at least, with one bottle of wine, but I
am disabled from writing by chilblains on my fingers--a most babyish
complaint. They say that the character is indicated by the handwriting;
if so, mine is crabbed enough.

_January_ 23.--Still severe frost, annoying to sore fingers. Nothing on
the roll. I sat at home and wrote letters to Wilkie, Landseer, Mrs.
Hughes, Charles, etc. Went out to old Mr. Ferrier's funeral, and saw the
last duty rendered to my old friend, whose age was

"----Like a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly,"[244]

I mean in a moral as well as a physical sense. I then went to Cadell's
for some few minutes.

I carried out Lockhart to Dalkeith, where we dined, supped, and returned
through a clinking frost, with snow on the ground. Lord Ramsay and the
Miss Kerrs were at Dalkeith. The Duke shows, for so young a man, a great
deal of character, and seems to have a proper feeling of the part he has
to play. The evening was pleasant, but the thought that I was now the
visitor and friend of the family in the third generation lay somewhat
heavy on me. Every thing around me seemed to say that beauty, power,
wealth, honour were but things of a day.

_January_ 24.--Heavy fall of snow. Lockhart is off in the mail. I hope
he will not be blockaded. The day bitter cold. I went to the Court, and
with great difficulty returned along the slippery str