e years; salary L1200 a year; and if
he writes a certain number of articles it will be L1500 a year to him,"
Moore's _Diary_, under Oct. 29, vol. iv. p. 334. Jeffrey had L700 a year
as Editor of the _Edinburgh_, and L2800 for contributors: June 1823, see
Moore's _Diary_, vol. iv. p. 89.

[44] Sheridan's _Critic_, Act I. Sc. 2.

[45] George Abercromby, eldest son of Sir Ralph, the hero of the battle
of Alexandria.

[46] The following extract from a letter to Professor Wilson, urgently
claiming his aid, shows that the new editor had lost no time in looking
after his "first Number":--

"Mr. Coleridge has yesterday transferred to me the treasures of the
_Quarterly Review_; and I must say, my dear Wilson, that his whole stock
is not worth five shillings. Thank God, other and better hands are at
work for my first Number or I should be in a pretty hobble. My belief is
that he has been living on the stock bequeathed by Gifford, and the
contributions of a set of H----es and other d----d idiots of Oriel. But
mind now, Wilson, I am sure to have a most hard struggle to get up a
very good first Number, and if I do not, it will be the Devil." This
letter was quoted in an abridged form in the Life of Professor Wilson by
Mrs. Gordon.

[47] This probably refers to Archibald, Lord Douglas, who had married
the Lady Frances Scott, sister of Henry, Duke of Buccleuch. Lord Douglas
died on the 26th December 1827. For notices of these valued friends see
_Life_, vol. ii. pp. 27-8; iv. pp. 22, 70; and v. p. 230.

[48] Robert Macqueen--Lord Braxfield--Justice Clerk from 1788; he died
in 1799.

[49] Mrs. Grant of Laggan, author of _Letters from the Mountains_,
_Superstitions of the Highlanders_, etc. Died at Edin. in 1838, aged 83.

[50] Scott had not the smallest hesitation in applying this unsavoury
proverb to himself a few months later, when he unwillingly "impeticosed
the gratillity" for the critique on Galt's _Omen_. See this Journal,
June 24, 1826.

[51] Afterwards Major-General Sir James Russell, G.C.B. He died at
Ashestiel in 1859 in his 78th year.

DECEMBER.

_December 1st._--Colonel R[ussell] told me that the European Government
had discovered an ingenious mode of diminishing the number of burnings
of widows. It seems the Shaster positively enjoins that the pile shall
be so constructed that, if the victim should repent even at the moment
when it is set on fire, she may still have the means of saving herself.
The Br