_February_ 18.--I set about Malachi Malagrowther's Letter on the late disposition to change everything in Scotland to an English model, but without resolving about the publication. They do treat us very provokingly. "O Land of Cakes! said the Northern bard, Though all the world betrays thee, One faithful pen thy rights shall guard, One faithful harp shall praise thee."[175] Called on the Lord Chief Commissioner, who, understanding there was a hitch in our arrangements, had kindly proposed to execute an arrangement for my relief. I could not, I think, have thought of it at any rate. But it is unnecessary. _February_ 19.--Finished my letter (Malachi Malagrowther) this morning, and sent it to James B., who is to call with the result this forenoon. I am not very anxious to get on with _Woodstock_. I want to see what Constable's people mean to do when they have their trustee. For an unfinished work they must treat with the author. It is the old story of the varnish spread over the picture, which nothing but the artist's own hand could remove. A finished work might be seized under some legal pretence. Being troubled with thick-coming fancies, and a slight palpitation of the heart, I have been reading the Chronicle of the Good Knight Messire Jacques de Lalain--curious, but dull, from the constant repetition of the same species of combats in the same style and phrase. It is like washing bushels of sand for a grain of gold. It passes the time, however, especially in that listless mood when your mind is half on your book, half on something else. You catch something to arrest the attention every now and then, and what you miss is not worth going back upon; idle man's studies, in short. Still things occur to one. Something might be made out of the Pass or Fountain of Tears,[176] a tale of chivalry,--taken from the Passages of Arms, which Jacques de Lalain maintained for the first day of every month for a twelvemonth.[177] The first mention perhaps of red-hot balls appears in the siege of Oudenarde by the citizens of Ghent. _Chronique_, p. 293. This would be light summer work. J.B. came and sat an hour. I led him to talk of _Woodstock_; and, to say truth, his approbation did me much good. I am aware it _may_--nay, _must_--be partial; yet is he Tom Tell-truth, and totally unable to disguise his real feelings.[178] I think I make no habit of feeding on praise, and despise those whom I see greedy for it, as much as I should an under-bred fellow, who, after eating a cherry-tart, proceeded to lick the plate. But when one is flagging, a little praise (if it can be had genuine and unadulterated by flattery, which is as difficult to come by as the genuine mountain-dew) is a cordial after all. So now--_vamos corazon_--let us atone for the loss of the morning.