title of
_Duns Scotus_.

A smaller society, formed with less ambitious views, originated in a
ride to Pennycuik, the seat of the head of Mr. Clerk's family, whose
elegant hospitalities are recorded in the Memoir. This was called, by
way of excellence, _The Club_, and I believe it is continued under the
same name to this day. Here, too, Walter had his sobriquet; and--his
corduroy breeches, I presume, not being as yet worn out--it was
_Colonel Grogg_.[73]

[Footnote 73: "The members of _The Club_ used to meet on
Friday evenings in a room in Carrubber's Close, from which
some of them usually adjourned to sup at an oyster tavern in
the same neighborhood. In after-life, those of them who
chanced to be in Edinburgh dined together twice every year,
at the close of the winter and summer sessions of the Law
Courts; and during thirty years, Sir Walter was very rarely
absent on these occasions. It was also a rule, that when any
member received an appointment or promotion, he should give a
dinner to his old associates; and they had accordingly two
such dinners from him--one when he became Sheriff of
Selkirkshire, and another when he was named Clerk of Session.
The original members were, in number, nineteen--viz., _Sir
Walter Scott_, Mr. William Clerk, Sir A. Ferguson, Mr. James
Edmonstone, Mr. George Abercromby (Lord Abercromby), Mr. D.
Boyle (now Lord Justice-Clerk), Mr. James Glassford
(Advocate), Mr. James Ferguson (Clerk of Session), Mr. David
Monypenny (Lord Pitmilly), Mr. Robert Davidson (Professor of
Law at Glasgow), Sir William Rae, Bart., Sir Patrick Murray,
Bart., _David Douglas_ (Lord Reston), Mr. Murray of Simprim,
Mr. Monteith of Closeburn, _Mr. Archibald Miller_ (son of
Professor Miller), _Baron Reden_, a Hanoverian; the Honorable
_Thomas Douglas_, afterwards Earl of Selkirk,--and John
Irving. Except the five whose names are _underlined_, these
original members are all still alive."--_Letter from Mr.
Irving_, dated 29th September, 1836.]

Meantime {p.136} he had not broken up his connection with Rosebank;
he appears to have spent several weeks in the autumn, both of 1788 and
1789, under his uncle's roof; and it was, I think, of his journey
thither, in the last named year, that he used