LITERARY AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 329 



not be disappointed indeed. I do not think Mr. Professor can re- 

 fuse them, but I have not yet had time to talk the matter over with 

 him; for at the time the letter came he was particularly busy, and 

 the day before yesterday, he and Johnny left us for a week to 

 visit an old friend, Mr. Findlay, in the neighborhood of Glasgow, 

 from whose house they mean to go and perambulate all the old 

 haunts in and about Paisley, where Mr. W. spent his boyhood, and 

 particularly to see the old minister Dr. M'Latchie, whom I dare say 

 you have heard him mention often ; he lived in his house for seve- 

 ral years before he went to Glasgow College." My father really 

 must have been " particularly busy" at this time, and his powers of 

 working seem to me little short of miraculous ; he had two articles 

 in Blackwood in January ; four in February ; three in March ; one 

 each in April and May ; four in June ; three in July ; seven in Au- 

 gust (or 116 pages); one in September; two in October; and one 

 in November and December : being thirty articles in the year, or 

 1,200 columns. To give an idea of his versatility, I shall mention 

 the titles of Ms articles in the Magazine for one month, viz., Au- 

 gust:— "The Great Moray Floods ;" "The Lay of the Desert;" 

 " The Wild Garland, and Sacred Melodies ;" " Wild Fowl Shoot- 

 ing ;" " Colman's Random Records ;" " Clark on Climate ;" " Noc- 

 tes, No. 51." My mother, while all this literary work was going 

 on, was too good a housewife to be able to spare time for more 

 than the most notable works of the day. She, however, says jocu- 

 larly to her correspondent: "I think I must give you a little litera- 

 ture, as I shine in that line prodigiously ; I have read, with intense 

 interest, as everybody must do, Moore's Life of Lord Byron. 

 Mr. W. had a copy sent to him, fortunately; for strange as it may 

 appear, it is not to be had in the booksellers' shops here, and I sup- 

 pose will not be till the small edition comes out." 



In September and October, the Professor writes, from Penny 

 Bridge and Elleray, the following letters to his wife : — 



"Penny Bridge, Tuesday, September, 1830. 

 "My dearest Jane: — We came here yesterday; and my inten- 

 tion was to take Maggy back to Elleray with me to-day, and thence 

 in a few days to Edinburgh. But I find that that arrangement 

 would not suit, and therefore have altered it. Our plans now are 

 as follows : — We return in a body to Elleray (that is, I and Maggy, 

 14 



