ttle that
he read of new books, or for mere amusement, was done by snatches in the
course of his meals; and to walk, when he could walk at all, to the
Parliament House, and back again through the Princes Street Gardens, was
his only exercise and his only relaxation. Every ailment, of whatever
sort, ended in aggravating his lameness; and, perhaps, the severest test
his philosophy encountered was the feeling of bodily helplessness that
from week to week crept upon him. The winter, to make bad worse, was a
very cold and stormy one. The growing sluggishness of his blood showed
itself in chilblains, not only on the feet but the fingers, and his
handwriting becomes more and more cramped and confused.--_Life_, vol.
ix. pp. 58-9.

[421] See Bickerstaff's Comic Opera, _The Padlock_.

[422] This gentleman published his own Memoirs (2 vols. 8vo, Lond.
1832). They read like chapters from the _Arabian Nights_. He gives a
somewhat different account of his occupation of Zante, which he says was
effected at Nelson's suggestion, and by Lord Keith's authority. Sir
James died in 1832 at a very great age.

[423] _Henry V_. Act v. Sc. 1.

[424] For _By and attour_, i.e. over and above.

[425] Burns's lines to J. Smith.

[426] Delta's lines on Leslie's portrait of Scott may be recorded
here:--

Brother of Homer and of him
On Avon's shore, mid twilight dim,
Who dreamed immortal dreams, and took
From Nature's hand her picture book;
Time hath not seen, Time may not see,
Till ends his reign, a third like thee.

[427] Now at Bowhill.

[428] James Wolfe Murray succeeded Lord Meadowbank on the Bench as Lord
Cringletie, in November 1816, and died in 1836.

[429] A Party Newspaper started by the Tories in Edinburgh at the
beginning of 1821. It was suppressed in the month of August, but during
the interval contrived to give great offence to the Whig leaders by its
personality. Lockhart says of it that "a more pitiable mass of blunders
and imbecility was never heaped together than the whole of this affair
exhibited;" and Scott, who was one of its founders, along with the Lord
Advocate and other official persons, wrote to Erskine, "I am terribly
malcontent about the _Beacon_. I was dragged into the bond against all
reasons I could make, and now they have allowed me no vote regarding
standing or flying. _Entre nous_, our friends went into the thing like
fools, and came out very like cowards." The wretched libels it contained