ill and the power to
confer such great favours upon me, has not in any degree enabled me to
aid or assist you in return."

[312] _The Bee Preserver_, or _Practical Directions for the Management
and Preservation of Hives_. Translated from the French of J. De Gelieu.
1829.

[313] "An oak tree which grows by the side of a fine spring near the
Castle of Dalhousie; very much observed by the country people, who give
out that before any of the family died a branch fell from the Edgewell
Tree. The old tree some few years ago fell altogether, but another
sprang from the same root, which is now [1720] tall and flourishing; and
lang be it sae."--Allan Ramsay's _Works_, vol. i. p. 329: "Stocks in
1720." 2 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1800.

The tree is still flourishing [1889], and the belief in its sympathy
with the family is not yet extinct, as an old forester, on seeing a
large branch fall from it on a quiet still day in July 1874, exclaimed,
"The laird's deed noo!" and accordingly news came soon after that Fox
Maule, 11th Earl of Dalhousie, had died.

[314] The Coalstoun Pear was removed from Dalhousie to Coalstoun House
in 1861.

[315] _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 4.

[316] _Macbeth_, Act IV. Sc. 1.

[317] Lord Forbes was at this time His Majesty's High Commissioner to
the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland: he had been appointed in
1826.

[318] Rev. Edward Irving, minister of the Scottish Church in London, was
deposed March 1833, and died Dec. 1834, aged forty-two.

[319] That is as a lay-member of the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland.

[320] _Lear_, Act I. Sc. 4.

[321] 2_d Henry IV_., Act V. Sc. 3.

[322] No. 25.

[323] The manuscript referred to is now at Abbotsford. It is a small
quarto of 8-3/4 x 6-1/2 inches, bound in old mottled leather, and
consisting of 251 leaves of paper, written on both sides in the Irish
character, apparently in the reign of James VI. It bears the following
inscription in Sir Walter's hand:--"The kind donor of this book is the
Right Rev. Bishop of Cloyne, famed for his skill in science, and
especially as an astronomer." For contents of vol. see Appendix. Dr.
John Brinkley, Bishop of Cloyne, was Astronomer Royal for Ireland.

[324] See letter to Principal Baird, _ante_, vol, i, p. 412 _n._

[325] The first line of the Scottish metrical version of the hundredth
Psalm. Mr. Lockhart tells us, in his affecting account of Sir Walter's
illness, that his love for the old metrical ve