[_Edinburgh_,] _June_ 27.--Returned to Edinburgh late last night, and had a most sweltering night of it. This day also cruel hot. However, I made a task or nearly so, and read a good deal about the Egyptian Expedition. Had comfortable accounts of Anne, and through her of Sophia. Dr. Shaw doubts if anything is actually the matter with poor Johnnie's back. I hope the dear child will escape deformity, and the infirmities attending that helpless state. I have myself been able to fight up very well, notwithstanding my lameness, but it has cost great efforts, and I am besides very strong. Dined with Colin Mackenzie; a fine family all growing up about him, turning men and women, and treading fast on our heels. Some thunder and showers which I fear will be but partial. Hot--hot--hot. _June_, 28.--Another hot morning, and something like an idle day, though I have read a good deal. But I have slept also, corrected proofs, and prepared for a great start, by filling myself with facts and ideas. _June_ 29.--I walked out for an hour last night, and made one or two calls--the evening was delightful-- "Day its sultry fires had wasted, Calm and cool the moonbeam rose; Even a captive's bosom tasted Half oblivion of his woes."[290] I wonder often how Tom Campbell, with so much real genius, has not maintained a greater figure in the public eye than he has done of late. The _Magazine_ seems to have paralysed him. The author, not only of the _Pleasures of Hope_, but of _Hohenlinden, Lochiel_, etc., should have been at the very top of the tree. Somehow he wants audacity, fears the public, and, what is worse, fears the shadow of his own reputation. He is a great corrector too, which succeeds as ill in composition as in education. Many a clever boy is flogged into a dunce, and many an original composition corrected into mediocrity. Yet Tom Campbell ought to have done a great deal more. His youthful promise was great. John Leyden introduced me to him. They afterwards quarrelled. When I repeated _Hohenlinden_ to Leyden, he said, "Dash it, man, tell the fellow that I hate him, but, dash him, he has written the finest verses that have been published these fifty years." I did mine errand as faithfully as one of Homer's messengers, and had for answer, "Tell Leyden that I detest him, but I know the value of his critical approbation." This feud was therefore in the way of being taken up. "When Leyden comes back from India," said Tom Campbell, "what cannibals he will have eaten and what tigers he will have torn to pieces!"