ould have the effect
of saving my land, which is secured by my son's contract of marriage. I
might save my library, etc., by assistance of friends, and bid my
creditors defiance. But for this I would, in a court of honour, deserve
to lose my spurs. No, if they permit me, I will be their vassal for
life, and dig in the mine of my imagination to find diamonds (or what
may sell for such) to make good my engagements, not to enrich myself.
And this from no reluctance to allow myself to be called the Insolvent,
which I probably am, but because I will not put out of the [power] of my
creditors the resources, mental or literary, which yet remain to me.

Went to the funeral of Chevalier Yelin, the literary foreigner mentioned
on 22d. How many and how various are the ways of affliction! Here is
this poor man dying at a distance from home, his proud heart broken, his
wife and family anxiously expecting letters, and doomed only to learn
they have lost a husband and father for ever. He lies buried on the
Calton Hill, near learned and scientific dust--the graves of David Hume
and John Playfair being side by side.

_January_ 25.--Anne is ill this morning. May God help us! If it should
prove serious, as I have known it in such cases, where am I to find
courage or comfort? A thought has struck me--Can we do nothing for
creditors with the goblin drama, called _Fortunes of Devorgoil_? Could
it not be added to _Woodstock_ as a fourth volume? Terry refused a gift
of it, but he was quite and entirely wrong; it is not good, but it may
be made so. Poor Will Erskine liked it much.[135] Gave my wife her L12
allowance. L24 to last till Wednesday fortnight. _January_ 26.--Spoke
to J.B. last night about _Devorgoil_, who does not seem to relish the
proposal, alleging the comparative failure of _Halidon Hill_. Ay, says
Self-Conceit, but he has not read it; and when he does, it is the sort
of wild fanciful work betwixt heaven and earth, which men of solid parts
do not estimate. Pepys thought Shakespeare's _Midsummer Night's Dream_
the most silly play he had ever seen, and Pepys was probably judging on
the same grounds with J.B., though presumptuous enough to form
conclusions against a very different work from any of mine. How if I
send it to Lockhart by and by?

I called to-day at Constable's; both partners seemed secure that Hurst
and Robinson were to go on and pay. Strange that they should have
stopped. Constable very anxious to have husbanding of