r our departure for Blair-Adam,
it being near midsummer when the club meets. Anne with me, and Sir Adam
Ferguson. The day was execrable. Our meeting at Blair-Adam was cordial,
but our numbers diminished; the good and very clever Lord Chief
Baron[376] is returned to his own country, with more regrets than in
Scotland usually attend a stranger. Will Clerk has a bad cold, [Thomas]
Thomson is detained, but the Chief Commissioner, Admiral Adam, Sir Adam,
John Thomson and I, make an excellent concert. I only hope our venerable
host will not fatigue himself. To-morrow we go to Culross, which Sir
Robert Preston is repairing, and the wise are asking for whose future
enjoyment. He is upwards of ninety, but still may enjoy the bustle of
life.

_June_ 19.--Arose and expected to work a little, but a friend's house is
not favourable; you are sure to want the book you have not brought, and
are in short out of sorts, like the minister who could not preach out of
his own pulpit. There is something fanciful in this, and something real
too, and I have forgot my watch and left half my glasses at home.

Off we set at half-past eight o'clock, Lord Chief Commissioner being
left at home owing to a cold. We breakfasted at Luscar, a place
belonging to Adam Rolland, but the gout had arrested him at Edinburgh,
so we were hospitably received by his family. The weather most
unpropitious, very cold and rainy. After breakfast to Culross, where the
veteran, Sir Robert Preston,[377] showed us his curiosities. Life has
done as much for him as most people. In his ninety-second year he has
an ample fortune, a sound understanding, not the least decay of eyes,
ears, or taste; is as big as two men, and eats like three. Yet he too
experiences the _singula praedantur anni_, and has lost something since I
last saw him. If his appearance renders old age tolerable, it does not
make it desirable. But I fear when death comes we shall be unwilling for
all that to part with our bundle of sticks. Sir Robert amuses himself
with repairing the old House of Culross, built by the Lord Bruce of
Kinloss. To what use it is destined is not very evident to me. It is too
near his own comfortable mansion of Valleyfield to be useful as a
residence, if indeed it could be formed into a comfortable modern house.
But it is rather like a banqueting house. Well, he follows his own
fancy. We had a sumptuous cold dinner. Adam grieves it was not hot, so
little can war and want break a man