“I have had little enough of individual conversation, except with Ally Gordon, the very pleasant aide-de-camp, and with Dr. Russell the chaplain, who has talked much of Carlyle. He said to a friend who visited him a short time before his death, ‘We are both old men now, and I daresay you find, as I do, that it is well to rest upon the simple answer to the first question in our Shorter Catechism—‘What is your object in life?’—‘To glorify my Maker and to enjoy Him for ever.’
“On Sunday we were at St. Giles’s in the morning, and in the afternoon had a long service and sermon in the picture-gallery. These Scotch services are most wearisome, and the long prayers, informing the Almighty upon subjects on which He is all-wise and we are utterly ignorant, are most revolting.
“One especially feels the length of these prayers in standing, in great heat, in the General Assembly, where we occupy places near the throne, which is raised in a gallery: the Moderator and ex-Moderator sit at a table beneath, and the five hundred members occupy the body of the house. The Moderator, Dr. Smith, is a most beautiful and benign old man, full of simple and true Christianity, who looks, with his courtly manners, as if he never could wear anything but his court dress. To-day we and about a hundred other guests breakfasted with him at his hotel.
“The Holyrood which struck such ‘dismay and terror’ into the hearts of the French emigrant princes is to me most captivating. I am often reminded of Hogg’s admirably descriptive lines:—
‘When Mary turned her wond’ring eyes
On rocks that seemed to prop the skies;
On palace, park, and battled pile;
On lake and river, sea and isle;
O’er woods and meadows bathed in dew,
To distant mountains wild and blue;
She thought the isle that gave her birth
The sweetest, wildest land on earth.’
“On Sunday afternoon I went up Arthur’s Seat with Ally Gordon and the ladies-in-waiting—Lady Margaret Hely Hutchinson and Lady Mary Ashburnham. Most exquisite was the view over the sunlit slopes of Edinburgh in its purple haze. Besides this, I shall have many recollections of the delightful gardens of Holyrood in this still hot weather, the apple-trees bursting into bloom, the hoary chapel with its gothic arches and windows, the Salisbury Crags, deeply purple above, and fading into mist below.”
“May 29.—All has gone well and smoothly, and there is great interest in the Holyrood life—the moving diorama of people, with the varying lights and shades of character which they display, the old-world aspect of all that has to be done, with the pages in their crimson and white liveries, the chaplain and purse-bearer in their court dresses, and the mounted guard. It has all been made especially pleasant by being on such thoroughly friendly terms with the ladies-in-waiting and with one of the aides-de-camp, Ally Gordon: the extreme goodness of the other, who has been vehemently ‘converted,’ being a sort of barrier to intimacy.
“Old Miss Louisa Hope has been amongst the people who have come to Holyrood. She talked much of her friendship with Lord Brougham, with whom she corresponded constantly for many years. She had many religious conversations with him, and he often used to dwell with her, as in his public lectures, on the sublimity of that description of God, ‘eternal, immortal, invisible,’ which has been spoilt in the revised translation by changing the word ‘immortal’ into ‘incorruptible.’ After he had been betrayed into especially bad language in her presence, she wrote a strong remonstrance to him. He said nothing definite in answer, but thenceforth always addressed her as ‘Dearest Miss Hope.’ When she heard that he was not likely to live, Miss Hope wrote to him, saying that she trusted that, if he was able to write himself, he would give her some sign of his assurance as to a future life; but that, if he were not able to write himself, he would not notice her request. Lord Brougham wrote, ‘I trust entirely in the graciousness of Him who died for me,’ and she was satisfied.
“Yesterday we drove out to Winton to Lady Ruthven. It was a lovely day, the sea deep blue, and the trees, especially the sycamores, in their richest foliage. We found the house just set in order after its devastation during the fire which consumed the dining-room three weeks ago, when everything was thrown out of the windows. Dear old Lady Ruthven herself sat all the time on a chair on the lawn watching the flames. She asked if every one was out of the castle, and being assured that it was so, said, ‘Is Peppy (her dog) safe?’—‘Yes, my lady.’—‘Is my blue vase safe?’—‘Yes, my lady.’—‘Then I am quite satisfied.’ And she bade every person on the property go to church the next day to return thanks for her preservation. She received me with the greatest affection, and bade me kiss her.[357]
“At the great dinner at Holyrood in the evening I took in a Mrs. Murray, who talked pleasantly about the old phase of Edinburgh society which she remembered. ‘There were three subjects—wine, law, and contradiction: wine is extinct now as a topic, but the other two, and especially the last, are as much to the fore as ever.’ She said that she had studied law herself, because it was the subject on which her husband was most interested, and she liked him to be able to discuss all his occupations with her.