This morning I was visited by a Mr. Lewis, a smart Cockney, whose object is to amend the handwriting. He uses as a mechanical aid a sort of puzzle of wire and ivory, which is put upon the fingers to keep them in the desired position, like the muzzle on a dog's nose to make him bear himself right in the field. It is ingenious, and may be useful. If the man comes here, as he proposes, in winter, I will take lessons. Bear witness, good reader, that if W.S. writes a cramp hand, as is the case, he is desirous to mend it. Dined with John Swinton _en famille_. He told me an odd circumstance. Coming from Berwickshire in the mail coach he met with a passenger who seemed more like a military man than anything else. They talked on all sorts of subjects, at length on politics. _Malachi's_ letters were mentioned, when the stranger observed they were much more seditious than some expressions for which he had three or four years ago been nearly sent to Botany Bay. And perceiving John Swinton surprised at this avowal, he added, "I am Kinloch of Kinloch." This gentleman had got engaged in the radical business (the only real gentleman by the way who did), and harangued the weavers of Dundee with such emphasis that he would have been tried and sent to Botany Bay had he not fled abroad. He was outlawed, and only restored to his status on a composition with Government. It seems to have escaped Mr. Kinloch that the conduct of a man who places a lighted coal in the middle of combustibles, and upon the floor, is a little different from that of one who places the same quantity of burning fuel in a fire-grate![298] _July_ 11.--The last day of the session, and as toilsome a one as I ever saw. There were about 100 or 120 cases on the roll, and most of them of an incidental character, which gives us Clerks the greatest trouble, for it is the grasshopper that is a burthen to us. Came home about four, tired and hungry. I wrought little or none; indeed I could not, having books and things to pack. Went in the evening to sup with John Murray,[299] where I met Will Clerk, Thomson, Henderland, and Charles Stuart Blantyre, and had of course a pleasant party. I came late home, though, for me, and was not in bed till past midnight; it would not do for me to do this often.