I844-54* BRIDGE OF ALLAN. 219 



himself a gold eye-glass. Even without that elegant and 

 useful appendage he is much admired. 



" A flock of lambs in the field opposite to us have got 

 up a racing club among them, the first meeting of which, I 

 am sorry to say, was held on Sunday evening. Five of 

 them, called respectively, Lamb, Lambkin, Lambling, Lamb- 

 let, and Lammie, started for the first race, and to the delight 

 of their admiring mothers, each was first. The conquerors 

 were rewarded with a mouthful of cream, and then, with 

 many tail-waggings, were sent back to their racing. To-day 

 the sun is sleepy, and late of showing himself, and the 

 lambs are very quiet. 



" I have some fine light reading in the shape of a pon- 

 derous MS. folio of Evidence before the House of Lords. 

 It was sent after me, to be studied in reference to an action 

 for compensation. I read a little of it now and then, but 

 I am saving my brains, and leading altogether such a life as 

 an owl in easy circumstances may be supposed to do." 



" Three weeks of idleness are now nearly ended ; weeks 

 of as sheer idleness as I ever spent ; and I do not feel a 

 bit conscience-stricken for all that. . . . Yesterday we had 

 a delightful drive. The day was the brightest and warmest 

 we have had. We went by out-of-the-way, picturesque roads, 

 new ones, not afflicted with toll-bars. A novel and most 

 splendid view of the Valley of the Forth repaid Grey- 

 beard for a climb at one point Such a panorama ! I will 

 not spoil it by trying to describe it I felt strongly in look- 

 ing at it, that it was a landscape like the one I gazed at, 

 with prominent marked-out hills, great mountains girdling 

 the horizon, sunny slopes glidling down to the water-side, 

 and a silvery stream reflecting the sky in its bosom [take a 



