brother did all man could to get his friends to consent to his going
into the army in time. The lad has good-humour, courage, and most
gentlemanlike feelings, but he is incurably dissipated, I hear; so goes
to die in youth in a foreign land. Thank God, I let Walter take his own
way; and I trust he will be a useful, honoured soldier, being, for his
time, high in the service; whereas at home he would probably have been a
wine-bibbing, moorfowl-shooting, fox-hunting Fife squire--living at
Lochore without either aim or end--and well if he were no worse. Dined
at home with Lady S. and Anne. Wrote in the evening.

_December_ 7.--Teind day;[58]--at home of course. Wrote answers to one
or two letters which have been lying on my desk like snakes, hissing at
me for my dilatoriness. Bespoke a tun of palm-oil for Sir John Forbes.
Received a letter from Sir W. Knighton, mentioning that the King
acquiesced in my proposal that Constable's Miscellany should be
dedicated to him. Enjoined, however, not to make this public, till the
draft of dedication shall be approved. This letter tarried so long, I
thought some one had insinuated the proposal was _infra dig_. I don't
think so. The purpose is to bring all the standard works, both in
sciences and the liberal arts, within the reach of the lower classes,
and enable them thus to use with advantage the education which is given
them at every hand. To make boys learn to read, and then place no good
books within their reach, is to give men an appetite, and leave nothing
in the pantry save unwholesome and poisonous food, which, depend upon
it, they will eat rather than starve. Sir William, it seems, has been in
Germany.

Mighty dark this morning; it is past ten, and I am using my lamp. The
vast number of houses built beneath us to the north certainly render our
street darker during the days when frost or haze prevents the smoke from