my visit. I had fallen into indifferent
health in the previous year, and been recommended Highland air. By Sir
Walter's advice I was sent to live with a friend of his, the Reverend
Doctor Macintosh Mackay, then minister of Laggan, in the Inverness-shire
Highlands, and had passed my time learning from him the Gaelic language.
This excited in me a taste for Celtic Antiquities, and finding in Sir
Walter's Library a copy of O'Connor's _Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores
veteres_, I sat up one night transcribing from it the Annals of
Tighernac. This transcript is still in my library.--WILLIAM F. SKENE.

"27 INVERLEITH ROW, Sept. 1890."

[E] An echo of one of his own singular illustrations (see _Letters on
Demonology_) of the occasional collision between a disturbed imagination
and the organs of sense.

[455] _AEneid_ II. 62.

MAY.

_April_ 30 _and May_ 1.--To meet Sandy Pringle to settle the day of
election on Monday. Go on with _Count Robert_ half-a-dozen leaves per
day. I am not much pleased with my handiwork. The Chancery money seems
like to be paid. This will relieve me of poor Charles, who is at present
my chief burthen. The task of pumping my brains becomes inevitably
harder when "both chain-pumps are choked below;"[456] and though this
may not be the case literally, yet the apprehension is wellnigh as bad.

_May_ 2.--The day passed as usual in dictating (too little) and riding a
good deal. I must get finished with _Count Robert_, who is progressing,
as the Transatlantics say, at a very slow pace indeed. By the bye, I
have a letter from Nathan T. Rossiter, Williamstown, New York City,
offering me a collection of poems by Byron, which are said to have been
found in Italy some years since by a friend of Mr. Rossiter. I don't see
I can at all be entitled to these, so shall write to decline them. If
Mr. Rossiter chooses to publish them in Italy or America he may, but,
published here, they must be the property of Lord Byron's executors.

_May_ 3.--Sophia arrives--with all the children looking well and
beautiful, except poor Johnnie, who looks very pale. But it is no
wonder, poor thing!

_May_ 4.--I have a letter from Lockhart, promising to be down by next
Wednesday, that is, to-day. I will consult him about Byron's Exec., and
as to these poems said to be his Lordship's. They are very probably
first copies thrown aside, or may not be genuine at all. I will be glad
to see Lockhart. My pronunciation is a good d