at a great dinner given by Sir George Clerk to his electors,
the freeholders of Midlothian; a great attendance of Whig and Tory,
huzzaing each other's toasts. _If_ is a good peacemaker, but quarter-day
is a better. I have a guess the best gamecocks would call a truce if a
handful or two of oats were scattered among them.

_May_ 16.--Mr. John Gibson says the Trustees are to allow my expense in
travelling--L300, with L50 taken in in Longman's bill. This will place
me _rectus in curia_, and not much more, faith!

There is a fellow bawling out a ditty in the street, the burthen of
which is

"There's nothing but poverty everywhere."

He shall not be a penny richer for telling me what I know but too well
without him.

_May_ 17.--Learned with great distress the death of poor Richard
Lockhart, the youngest brother of my son-in-law. He had an exquisite
talent for acquiring languages, and was under the patronage of my
kinsman, George Swinton, who had taken him into his own family at
Calcutta, and now he is drowned in a foolish bathing party.

_May_ 18.--Heard from Abbotsford; all well. Wrought to-day but
awkwardly. Tom Campbell called, warm from his Glasgow Rectorship; he is
looking very well. He seemed surprised that I did not know anything
about the contentions of Tories, Whigs, and Radicals, in the great
commercial city. I have other eggs on the spit. He stayed but a few
minutes.[518]

_May_ 19.--Went out to-day to Sir John Dalrymple's,[519] at Oxenford, a
pretty place; the lady a daughter of Lord Duncan. Will Clerk and Robert
Graeme went with me. A good dinner and pleasant enough party; but ten
miles going and ten miles coming make twenty, and that is something of a
journey. Got a headache too by jolting about after dinner.

_May_ 20.--Wrote a good deal at Appendix [to Bonaparte], or perhaps I
should say tried to write. Got myself into a fever when I had finished
four pages, and went out at eight o'clock at night to cool myself if
possible. Walked with difficulty as far as Skene's,[520] and there sat
and got out of my fidgety feeling. Learned that the Princes Street
people intend to present me with the key of their gardens, which will be
a great treat, as I am too tender-hoofed for the stones. We must now get
to work in earnest.

_May_ 21.--Accordingly this day I wrought tightly, and though not in my
very best mood I got on in a very businesslike manner. Was at the Gas
Council, where I found things getting poor