J.B. corroborated my doubts by his raven-like croaking and criticising; but the good fellow writes me this morning that he is written down an ass, and that the approbation is unanimous. It is but Edinburgh, to be sure; but Edinburgh has always been a harder critic than London. It is a great mercy, and gives encouragement for future exertion. Having written two leaves this morning, I think I will turn out to my walk, though two hours earlier than usual. Egad, I could not persuade myself that it was such bad _Balaam_ after all. _April_ 30.--I corrected this morning a quantity of proofs and copy, and dawdled about a little, the weather of late becoming rather milder, though not much of that. Methinks Duty looks as if she were but half-pleased with me; but would the Pagan bitch have me work on the Sunday? FOOTNOTES: [234] Ben Jonson's _Every Man in his Humour_, Act IV, Sc. 5. [235] The reader will understand that the Novel was sold for behoof of James Ballantyne & Co.'s creditors, and that this sum includes the cost of printing the first edition as well as paper.--J.G.L. [236] Eident, _i.e._ eagerly diligent.--J.G.L. [237] These lines slightly altered from Logan.--J.G.L. [238] Lippened, _i.e._ relied upon.--J.G.L. [239] 2 _King Henry VI_., Act IV. Sc. 10, slightly varied. [240] In a letter of the same day he says--"My interest, as you might have known, lies Windsor way."--J.G.L. [241] William Coulter, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, died in office, April 1810, and was said to have been greatly consoled on his deathbed by the prospect of so grand a funeral as must needs occur in his case.--Scott _used to take him off_ as saying, at some public meeting, "Gentlemen, though doomed to the trade of a stocking-weaver, I was born with the soul of a _Sheepio_" (Scipio). [242] _Quarterly Review_, No. 66: Lockhart's review of Sheridan's Life.