winding
up my bottom for the rest of my life. But there is a worse symptom of
settling accounts, of which I have felt some signs.

Last spring, Miss Young, the daughter of Dr. Young, had occasion to call
on me on some business, in which I had hopes of serving her. As I
endeavoured to explain to her what I had to say, I had the horror to
find I could not make myself understood. I stammered, stuttered, said
one word in place of another--did all but speak; Miss Young went away
frightened enough, poor thing; and Anne and Violet Lockhart were much
alarmed. I was bled with cupping-glasses, took medicine, and lived on
panada; but in two or three days I was well again. The physicians
thought, or said at least, that the evil was from the stomach. It is
very certain that I have seemed to speak with an impediment, and I was,
or it might be fancied myself, troubled with a mispronouncing and
hesitation. I felt this particularly at the Election, and sometimes in
society. This went on till last November, when Lord ------ came out to
make me a visit. I had for a long time taken only one tumbler of whisky
and water without the slightest reinforcement. This night I took a very
little drop, not so much as a bumper glass, of whisky altogether. It
made no difference on my head that I could discover, but when I went to
the dressing-room I sank stupefied on the floor. I lay a minute or
two--was not found, luckily, gathered myself up, and got to my bed. I
was alarmed at this second warning, consulted Abercrombie and Ross, and
got a few restrictive orders as to diet. I am forced to attend to them;
for, as Mrs. Cole says, "Lack-a-day! a thimbleful oversets me."

To add to these feelings I have the constant increase of my lameness:
the thigh-joint, knee-joint, and ankle-joint.

_December_ 21.--I walk with great pain in the whole limb, and am at
every minute, during an hour's walk, reminded of my mortality. I should
not care for all this, if I was sure of dying handsomely. Cadell's
calculations would be sufficiently firm though the author of _Waverly_
had pulled on his last nightcap. Nay, they might be even more
trustworthy, if Remains, and Memoirs, and such like, were to give a zest
to the posthumous. But the fear is the blow be not sufficient to destroy
life, and that I should linger on an idiot and a show.[406]....

We parted on good terms and hopes.[407] But, fall back, fall edge,
nothing shall induce me to publish what I do not think advan