I have hinted in these notes that I am not entirely free from a sort of gloomy fits, with a fluttering of the heart and depression of spirits, just as if I knew not what was going to befall me. I can sometimes resist this successfully, but it is better to evade than to combat it. The hang-dog spirit may have originated in the confusion and chucking about of our old furniture, the stripping of walls of pictures, and rooms of ornaments; the leaving a house we have so long called our home is altogether melancholy enough. I am glad Lady S. does not mind it, and yet I wonder, too. She insists on my remaining till Wednesday, not knowing what I suffer. Meanwhile, to make my recusant spirit do penance, I have set to work to clear away papers and pack them for my journey. What a strange medley of thoughts such a task produces! There lie letters which made the heart throb when received, now lifeless and uninteresting--as are perhaps their owners. Riddles which time has read--schemes which he has destroyed or brought to maturity--memorials of friendships and enmities which are now alike faded. Thus does the ring of Saturn consume itself. To-day annihilates yesterday, as the old tyrant swallowed his children, and the snake its tail. But I must say to my _Gurnal_ as poor Byron did to Moore, "Damn it, Tom, don't be poetical." _Memorandum_.--I received some time since from Mr. Riddoch, of Falkirk, a sort of iron mallet, said to have been found in the ruins of Grame's Dike; there it was reclaimed about three months since by the gentleman on whose lands it was found, a Doctor--by a very polite letter from his man of business. Having unluckily mislaid his letter, and being totally unable either to recollect the name of the proprietor or the professional gentleman, I returned this day the piece of antiquity to Mr. Riddoch, who sent it to me. Wrote at the same time to Tom Grahame of Airth, mentioning what I had done. "Touch my honour, touch my life--there is the spoon."[219] _March_ 14.--J.B. called this morning to take leave, and receive directions about proofs, etc. Talks of the uproar about _Malachi_; but I am tired of _Malachi_--the humour is off, and I have said what I wanted to say, and put the people of Scotland on their guard, as well as Ministers, if they like to be warned. They are gradually destroying what remains of nationality, and making the country _tabula rasa_ for doctrines of bold innovation. Their loosening and grinding down all those peculiarities which distinguished us as Scotsmen will throw the country into a state in which it will be universally turned to democracy, and instead of canny Saunders, they will have a very dangerous North British neighbourhood.