[408:2] Colonel Abercrombie.
[409:1] From the original at Kilravock.
[410:1] MS. R.S.E.
[411:1] "I presume this was 'Douglas;' and the expression, 'he now discovers a great genius for the theatre,' I suppose was meant to imply Mr. D. Hume's opinion of its being better fitted for the stage than Agis."—Mackenzie.
[411:2] Mackenzie's Account of Home, p. 102. The original in the MS. R.S.E.
[413:1] "Lives of the Lindsays, or a Memoir of the Houses of Crawford and Balcarres, by Lord Lindsay." Hume's correspondent was James, the fifth earl. He had had the misfortune to be "out in the fifteen," and though a zealous and hardy soldier, he in vain attempted to rise in the army; and at last retiring in disgust, he betook himself to learned leisure. In the pleasing work above referred to, he is thus picturesquely described: "Though his aspect was noble, and his air and deportment showed him at once a man of rank, yet there was no denying that a degree of singularity attended his appearance. To his large brigadier wig, which hung down with three tails, he generally added a few curls of his own application, which I suspect would not have been considered quite orthodox by the trade. His shoe, which resembled nothing so much as a little boat with a cabin at the end of it, was slashed with his pen-knife, for the benefit of giving ease to his honest toes; here—there—he slashed it where he chose to slash, without an idea that the world or its fashions had the smallest right to smile at his shoe; had they smiled, he would have smiled too, and probably said, 'Odsfish! I believe it is not like other people's; but as to that, look, d' ye see? what matters it whether so old a fellow as myself wears a shoe or a slipper.'"
[414:1] Mackenzie's Account of Home, p. 175.
[416:1] He does not, however, mention it in any of the subsequent editions of his History.
[417:1] Scott of Scotstarvet's Staggering State of Scots Statesmen.—A collection of contemporary characters, drawn by a shrewd but bitter and unscrupulous observer.
[417:2] MS. R.S.E.