8vo, 1873),
one cannot fail to see that all the three parties--printer, publisher,
and author--were equal sharers in the imprudences that led to the
disaster in 1826. Whether Mr. Constable was right in recommending
further advances to the London house is doubtful; but if it was an error
of judgment, it was one which appears to have been shared by Mr. Cadell
and Mr. James Ballantyne. It must be admitted that the three firms were
equally culpable in maintaining for so many years a system of fictitious
credit. Constable, at least, from a letter to Scott, printed in vol.
iii. p. 274, had become seriously alarmed as early as August 8, 1823.

That Constable was correct in his estimate of the value of the literary
property has been shown by the large sums realised from the sale of
Scott's works since 1829; and that his was the brain ("the pendulum of
the clock" as Scott termed it) to plan is also shown by the fact that
the so-called "favourite" edition, the _magnum opus_, appears to have
been Constable's idea (_Memoirs_, vol. iii. p. 255), although, according
to the _Annual Register_ of 1849, Mr. Cadell claimed the merit of a
scheme which he had "quietly and privately matured."

[15] Thomas Thomson, Depute-Clerk Register for Scotland under Lord
Frederick Campbell.

[16] Johnson's _Epitaph on Claude Phillips_.

AUGUST.

_August_ 1.--My guests left me and I thought of turning to work again
seriously. Finished five pages. Dined alone, excepting Huntly Gordon,
who is come on a visit, poor lad. I hope he is well fixed under Mr.
Planta's[17] patronage. Smoked a cigar after dinner. Laughed with my
daughters, and read them the review of Hoffmann's production out of
Gillies's new _Foreign Review_.

The undertaking would do, I am convinced, in any other person's hands
than those of the improvident editor; but I hear he is living as
thoughtlessly as ever in London, has hired a large house, and gives
Burgundy to his guests. This will hardly suit L500 a year.

_August_ 2.--Got off my proofs. Went over to breakfast at Huntly Burn;
the great object was to see my cascade in the Glen suitably repaired. I
have had it put to rights by puddling and damming. What says the frog in
the Fairy Tale?--

"Stuff with moss, and clog with clay,
And that will weize the water away."

Having seen the job pretty tightly done, walked deliciously home through
the woods. But no work all this while. Then for up and at it. But in
spite o