ndon, from the indecision of
these foolish Londoners.

I don't care whether I go or no! And yet it is unpleasant to see how
one's motions depend on scoundrels like these. Besides, I would like to
be there, were it but to see how the cat jumps. One knows nothing of the
world, if you are absent from it so long as I have been.

_October_ 8.--Locker left me this morning. He is of opinion the ministry
must soon assume another form, but that the Whigs will not come in. Lord
Liverpool holds much by Lord Melville--well in point of judgment--and by
the Duke of Wellington--still better, but then the Duke is a soldier--a
bad education for a statesman in a free country. The Chancellor is also
consulted by the Premier on all law affairs. Canning and Huskisson are
at the head of the other party, who may be said to have taken the
Cabinet by storm, through sheer dint of talent. I should like to see
how these ingredients are working; but by the grace of God, I will take
care of putting my finger into the cleft stick.

Locker has promised to get my young cousin Walter Scott on some
quarter-deck or other.

Received from Mr. Cadell the second instalment advance of cash on
_Canongate_. It is in English bills and money, in case of my going to
town.

_October_ 9.--A gracious letter from Messrs. Abud and Son, bill-brokers,
etc.; assure Mr. Gibson that they will institute no legal proceedings
against me for four or five weeks. And so I am permitted to spend my
money and my leisure to improve the means of paying them their debts,
for that is the only use of my present journey. They are Jews: I suppose
the devil baits for Jews with a pork griskin. Were I not to exert
myself, I wonder where their money is to come from.

A letter from Gillies menacing the world with a foreign miscellany. The
plan is a good one, but "he canna haud it," as John Moodie[354] says. He
will think all is done when he has got a set of names, and he will find
the difficulty consists not in that, but in getting articles. I wrote on
the prose works.

Lord and Lady Minto dined and spent the night at Abbotsford.

_October_ 10.--Well, I must prepare for going to London, and perhaps to
Paris. The morning frittered away. I slept till eight o'clock, then our
guests till twelve; then walked out to direct some alterations on the
quarry, which I think may at little expense be rendered a pretty recess.
Wordsworth swears by an old quarry, and is in some degree a supreme
author