a palsy while he was
looking at the hounds; his pony remained standing by his side. A sudden
call if a final one.

That strange desire to leave a prescribed task and set about something
else seized me irresistibly. I yielded to it, and sat down to try at
what speed and in what manner I could execute this job of Sir James
Mackintosh's, and I wrote three leaves before rising, well enough, I
think. The girls made a round with me. We drove to Chiefswood, and from
that to Janeswood, up the Rhymer's Glen, and so home. This occupied from
one to four. In the evening I heard Anne read Mr. Peel's excellent Bill
on the Police of the Metropolis, which goes to disband the whole
generation of Dogberry and Verges. Wrote after tea.

_April_ 19.--I made this a busy day. I wrote on at the history until two
o'clock, then took a gallant walk, then began reading for Gillies's
article. James Ferguson dined with us. We smoked and I became woundy
sleepy. Now I have taken collar to this arrangement, I find an open sea
before me which I could not have anticipated, for though I should get
through well enough with my expectations during the year, yet it is a
great thing to have a certainty to be clear as a new pin of every penny
of debt. There is no being obliged or asking favours or getting loans
from some grudging friend who can never look at you after but with fear
of losing his cash, or you at him without the humiliating sense of
having extorted an obligation. Besides my large debts, I have paid since
I was in trouble at least L2000 of personal encumbrances, so no wonder
my nose is still under water. I really believe the sense of this
apparently unending struggle, schemes for retrenchment in which I was
unseconded, made me low-spirited, for the sun seems to shine brighter
upon me as a free man. Nevertheless, devil take the necessity which
makes me drudge like a very hack of Grub Street.

"May the foul fa' the gear and the bletherie o 't."[299]

I walked out with Tom's assistance, came home, went through the weary
work of cramming, and so forth; wrought after tea, and then to bed.

_April_ 20.--As yesterday till two--sixteen pages of the History
written, and not less than one-fifth of the whole book. What if they
should be off? I were finely holp'd for throwing my time away. A toy!
They dare not.

Lord Buchan is dead, a person whose immense vanity, bordering upon
insanity, obscured, or rather eclipsed, very considerable talents. His