_February_ 26.--At home, and settled to work; but I know not why I was out of spirits--quite Laird of Humdudgeon, and did all I could to shake it off, and could not. James Ballantyne dined with me. _February_ 27.--Humdudgeonish still; hang it, what fools we are! I worked, but coldly and ill. Yet something is done. I wonder if other people have these strange alternations of industry and incapacity. I am sure I do not indulge myself in fancies, but it is accompanied with great drowsiness--bile, I suppose, and terribly jaded spirits. I received to-day Dr. Shortt and Major Crocket, who was orderly-officer on Boney at the time of his death. _February_ 28.--Sir Adam breakfasted. One of the few old friends left out of the number of my youthful companions. In youth we have many companions, few friends perhaps; in age companionship is ended, except rarely, and by appointment. Old men, by a kind of instinct, seek younger companions who listen to their stories, honour their grey hairs while present, and mimic and laugh at them when their backs are turned. At least that was the way in our day, and I warrant our chicks of the present day crow to the same tune. Of all the friends that I have left I have none who has any decided attachment to literature. So either I must talk on that subject to young people--in other words, turn proser, or I must turn tea-table talker and converse with ladies. I am too old and too proud for either character, so I'll live alone and be contented. Lockhart's departure for London was a loss to me in this way. Came home late from the Court, but worked tightly in the evening. I think discontinuing smoking, as I have done for these two months past, leaves me less muzzy after dinner. At any rate, it breaks a custom--I despise custom. FOOTNOTES: [459] Foote's Comedy, Act I. Sc. 1. [460] Scott, who had accompanied this lady to the Highlands in the summer of 1808, wrote from Edinburgh on 19th January:--"We have here a very diverting lion and sundry wild beasts; but the most meritorious is Miss Lydia White, who is what Oxonians call a lioness of the first order, with stockings nineteen times dyed blue; very lively, very good-humoured, and extremely absurd. It is very diverting to see the sober Scotch ladies staring at this phenomenon."--_Life_, vol. iii. pp. 38, 95, 96. [461] Burns's "Twa Dogs."--J.G.L. [462] Mount Benger. [463] John Archibald Murray, whose capital bachelors' dinner on Dec. 8 Scott so pleasantly describes (on page 320), had married in the interval Miss Rigby, a Lancashire lady, who was long known in Edinburgh for her hospitality and fine social qualities as Lady Murray. (See page 378, April 2, 1827.) Miss Martineau celebrated her parliamentary Tea-Table in London, when her husband was Lord Advocate, and Lord Cockburn, the delights of Strachur on Loch Fyne.