ould it be possible; and should
that prove possible, from the time of such clearance being effected, to
be a fund available to all my children who shall be alive or leave
representatives. My bequests must, many of them, seem hypothetical; but
the thing, being uncertain, must be so stated.

Besides, during the unexpected stay in town, I employed Mr. Fortune, an
ingenious artist,[427] to make a machine to assist my lame leg,--an odd
enough purchase to be made at this time of day, yet who would not
purchase ease? I dined with the Lord Chief Commissioner, with the Skenes
twice, with Lord Medwyn, and was as happy as anxiety about my daughter
would permit me.

The appearance of the streets was most desolate: the hackney-coaches,
with four horses, strolling about like ghosts, the foot-passengers few
but the lowest of the people.

I wrote a good deal of _Count Robert_, yet I cannot tell why my pen
stammers egregiously, and I write horridly incorrect. I long to have
friend Laidlaw's assistance.

FOOTNOTES:

[410] _Hudibras_.

[411] John Swanston, a forester at Abbotsford, who did all he could to
replace Tom Purdie.--_Life_, vol. x. p. 66.

[412] Dr. Ferguson, Sir Adam's father, died in 1816.--See _Misc. Prose
Works_, vol. xix. pp. 331-33.

[413] See _Measure for Measure_, Act II. Sc. 1.

[414] _AEneid_ v. 194-7: thus rendered in English by Professor
Conington:--

'Tis not the palm that Mnestheus seeks: No hope of Victory fires his
cheeks: Yet, O that thought!--but conquer they To whom great Neptune
wills the day: Not to be last make that your aim, And triumph by
averting shame.

[415] _King Richard the Third_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

[416] Mr. G.P.R. James, author of _Richelieu_, etc. He afterwards took
Maxpopple for the season.

[417] Mr. Skene tells us that when No. 39 Castle Street was
"displenished" in 1826, Scott sent him the full-length portrait of
himself by Raeburn, now at Abbotsford, saying that he did not hesitate
to claim his protection for the picture, which was threatened to be
paraded under the hammer of the auctioneer, and he felt that his
interposition to turn aside that buffet might admit of being justified.
"As a piece of successful art, many might fancy the acquisition, but for
the sake of the original he knew no refuge where it was likely to find a
truer welcome. The picture accordingly remained many years in my
possession, but when his health had begun to break, and the plan of his
going abroa