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I got headaches by my folly when I was young, and now I am old they come uncalled. Infirmity gives what indiscretion bought. June 20. My course is still the same. But I have a painful letter from Lockhart, which takes away the last hope of poor Johnnie's recovery. It is no surprise to me.
Lockhart says: "I observe, as the sheet is passing through the press, the death of the Rev. George Thomson the happy 'Dominie Thomson' of the happy days of Abbotsford: he died at Edinburgh on the 8th of January 1838." Burns's "O poortith cauld and restless love."
The Professor, he says, talked away famously, quite oblivious of the fact that the tea was made, and the breakfast-dishes were smoking on the table. He spoke much of Blackwood, who then lay dying, and described him as a man of the most refined literary taste, whose opinion of a book he would trust before that of any one he knew. Wilson inquired if his guest had made the acquaintance of Lockhart.
In 1830 or 1831 he made, on commission from the publisher Cadell, twenty-four sketches to illustrate Walter Scott's poems published in 1834 and while doing this he was entertained royally at Abbotsford, and made excursions with Scott and Lockhart to Dryburgh Abbey and other points of interest.
He was afterwards elected member for Edinburgh in 1832, and Speaker of the House of Commons in 1835. On Mr. Abercromby's retirement in 1839, he was raised to the Peerage as Lord Dunfermline. He died at Colinton House on April 17th, 1858, aged 81. Of this illness, Sir Walter had written the following account to Mr. Lockhart, a week after its occurrence:
"That faith I fain would keep, That hope I'll not forego: Eternal be the sleep Unless to waken so," wrote Lockhart, and the verses echoed ceaselessly in the widowed heart of Carlyle. These men, it is part of the duty of critics later born to remember, were not children or cowards, though they dreamed, and hoped, and feared.
Lockhart, who, though not yet a very old man, was verging towards the close of a literary life of great toil. He was much with his son-in-law and daughter in Scotland and in London, and they sometimes stayed with him in Sussex Place. At length he had his books taken down to Abbotsford, where they still are, in a room called the Lockhart Library.
I remember two years ago, when Lord H. began to fail somewhat in his limbs, he observed that Lord S. came to Court at a more early hour than usual, whereas it was he himself who took longer time to walk the usual distance betwixt his house and the Parliament Square. I suspect old gentlemen often make such mistakes. A letter from Southey in a very pleasant strain as to Lockhart and myself.
The two readings are as far apart as is heaven from hell, as far as the true from the false. It is strange that both Lockhart and Shairp should have stumbled on the explanation of Burns's righteous satire in these poems; should have been so near it, and yet have missed it.
"Who's there?" It was Porter's voice. An instant later there was a crash of glass, an explosion seemed to shake the house, and there was a rush of many feet. I leaped to the door and flung it open, Lockhart, Wilson and Brown crowding close behind me. A body of men filled the hallway, and Porter was struggling in the hands of three ruffians.
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