7.

JUNE.

_June_ 1.--Settled my household-book. Sophia does not set out till the
middle of the week, which is unlucky, our antiquarian skirmish beginning
in Fife just about the time she is to arrive. Letter from John touching
public affairs; don't half like them, and am afraid we shall have the
Whig alliance turn out like the calling in of the Saxons. I told this to
Jeffrey, who said they would convert us, as the Saxons did the British.
I shall die in my Paganism for one. I don't like a bone of them as a
party. Ugly reports of the King's health; God pity this poor country
should that be so, but I think it a thing devised by the enemy. Anne
arrived from Abbotsford. I dined at Sir Robert Dundas's, with Mrs.
Dundas, Arniston, and other friends. Worked a little, not much.

_June_ 2.--Do. Do. Dined at Baron Hume's. These dinners are cruelly in
the way, but _que faut-il faire_? the business of the Court must be
done, and it is impossible absolutely to break off all habits of
visiting. Besides, the correcting of proof-sheets in itself is now
become burdensome. Three or four a day is hard work.

_June_ 3.--Wrought hard. I think I have but a trifle more to do, but new
things cast up; we get beyond the life, however, for I have killed him
to-day. The newspapers are very saucy; _The Sun_ says I have got L4000
for suffering a Frenchman to look over my manuscript. Here is a proper
fellow for you! I wonder what he thinks Frenchmen are made of--walking
money-bags, doubtless. Now as Sir Fretful Plagiary[527] says, another
man would be mad at this, but I care not one brass farthing.

_June_ 4.--The birthday of our good old king. It was wrong not to keep
up the thing as it was of yore with dinners, and claret, and squibs, and
crackers, and saturnalia. The thoughts of the subjects require sometimes
to be turned to the sovereign, were it but only that they may remember
there is such a person.

The Bannatyne edition of Melville's _Memoirs_ is out, and beats all
print. Gad, it is a fine institution that; a rare one, by Jove! beats
the Roxburghe. Wrought very bobbishly to-day, but went off at
dinner-time to Thomas Thomson, where we had good cheer and good fun. By
the way, we have lost our Coal Gas Bill. Sorry for it, but I can't cry.

_June_ 5.--Proofs. Parliament House till two. Commenced the character of
_Bonaparte_. To-morrow being a Teind-day I will hope to get it finished.
Meantime I go out to-night to see _Frankenstein_