came the Court, where sixty judgments
were pronounced and written by the Clerks, I hope all correctly, though
an error might well happen in such a crowd, and----, one of the best men
possible, is beastly stupid. Be that as it may, off came Anne, Charles,
and I for Abbotsford. We started about two, and the water being too deep
didn't arrive till past seven; dinner, etc., filled up the rest of the
day.

_July_ 11, _Abbotsford_.--Corrected my proofs and the lave of it till
about one o'clock. Then started for a walk to Chiefswood, which I will
take from station to station,[399] with a book in my pouch. I have begun
_Lawrie Todd_, which ought, considering the author's undisputed talents,
to have been better. He might have laid Cooper aboard, but he follows
far behind. No wonder: Galt, poor fellow, was in the King's Bench when
he wrote it. No whetter of genius is necessity, though said to be the
mother of invention.

_July_ 12.--Another wet day, but I walked twice up and down the terrace,
and also wrote a handsome scrap of copy, though mystified by the want of
my books, and so forth. Dr. and Mrs. Lockhart and Violet came to
luncheon and left us to drive on to Peebles. I read and loitered and
longed to get my things in order. Got to work, however, at seven in the
morning.

_July_ 13.--Now "what a thing it is to be an ass!"[400] I have a letter
from a certain young man, of a sapient family, announcing that his
sister had so far mistaken my attentions as to suppose I was only
prevented by modesty from stating certain wishes and hopes, etc. The
party is a woman of rank: so far my vanity may be satisfied. But to
think I would wish to appropriate a grim grenadier made to mount guard
at St. James's! The Lord deliver me! I excused myself with little
picking upon the terms, and there was no occasion for much delicacy in
repelling such an attack.

_July_ 14.--The Court of Session Bill is now committed in the House of
Lords, so it fairly goes on this season, and I have, I suppose, to look
for my _conge_. I can hardly form a notion of the possibility that I am
not to return to Edinburgh. My clerk Buchanan came here, and assists me
to finish the _Demonology Letters_, and be d--d to them. But it is done
to their hand. Two ladies, Mrs. Latouche of Dublin, and her niece, Miss
Boyle, came to spend a day or two. The aunt is a fine old lady; the
conversation that of a serious person frightened out of her wits by the
violence and superstit