The Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart Volume 8 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1902 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER LXV Sir Walter's Diary begun, November 20, 1825: Sketches of various Friends: William Clerk, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Lord Abercromby, the First Earl of Minto, Lord Byron, Henry Mackenzie, Chief Baron Shepherd, SolicitorGeneral Hope, Thomas Moore, Charles Mathews, Count Davidoff, etc. etc.: Society of Edinburgh: Religious opinions and feelings: Various alarms about the house of Hurst, Robinson, and Company: 'Storm blows over': and Song of Bonny Dundee, written at Christmas. 1825 The Journal, on which we are about to enter, has on the title-page, ' Sir Walter Scott of Abbotsford, Bart., his Gurnal';--and this foot-note to Gurnal, 'A hard word, so spelt on the authority of Miss Sophia Scott, now Mrs. Lockhart.' This is a little joke, alluding to a note-book kept by his eldest girl during one of the Highland expeditions of earlier days, in which he was accompanied by his wife and children. The motto is, --'As I walked by myself, I talked to myself, And thus myself said to me.'--Old Song. These lines are quoted also in his reviewal of Pepys's Diary. That book was published just before he left Edinburgh in July. It was, I believe, the only one he took with him to Ireland; and I never observed him more delighted with any book whatsoever. He had ever afterwards many of its queer turns and phrases on his lips. The reader cannot expect that any chapter in a Diary of this sort should be printed in eoctenso within a few years of the writer's death. The editor has, for reasons which need not be explained, found it necessary to omit some passages altogether--to abridge others--and very frequently to substitute asterisks or arbitrary initials for names. But wherever omissions or alterations have been made, these were dictated by regard for the feelings of livin..