12–18 January 1829

This is the third day I have not walked out, pain and lameness being the cause. This bodes very ill for my future life. I made a search yesterday and to-day for letters of Lord Byron to send to Tom Moore, but I could only find two. I had several others, and am shocked at missing them. The one which he sent me with a silver cup I regret particularly. It was stolen out of the cup itself by some vile inhospitable scoundrel, for a servant would not have thought such a theft worth while. My spirits are low, yet I wot not why. I have been writing to my sons. Walter's majority was like to be reduced, but is spared for the present. Charles is going on well I trust at the Foreign Office, so I hope all is well. Loitered out a useless day, half arranging half disarranging books and papers, and packing the things I shall want. Der Abschiedstag ist da.

The day of return to Edinburgh is come. I don't know why, but I am more happy at the change than usual. I am not working hard, and it is what I ought to do, and must do. Every hour of laziness cries fie upon me. But there is a perplexing sinking of the heart which one cannot always overcome. At such times I have wished myself a clerk, quill-driving for twopence per page. You have at least application, and that is all that is necessary, whereas unless your lively faculties are awake and propitious, your application will do you as little good as if you strained your sinews to lift Arthur's Seat.

Got home last night after a freezing journey. This morning I got back some of the last copy, and tugged as hard as ever did soutar to make ends meet. Then I will be reconciled to my task, which at present disgusts me. Visited Lady Jane, then called on Mr. Robison and instructed him to call a meeting of the Council of the Royal Society, as Mr. Knox proposes to read an essay on some dissections. A bold proposal truly from one who has had so lately the boldness of trading so deep in human flesh! I will oppose his reading in the present circumstances if I should stand alone, but I hope he will be wrought upon to withdraw his essay or postpone it at least. It is very bad taste to push himself forward just now. Lockhart dined with us, which made the evening a pleasant but an idle one. Well! I must rouse myself. "Awake! Arise, or be for ever fallen."

Day began with beggars as usual, and John Nicolson has not sense to keep them out. I never yield, however, to this importunity, thinking it wrong that what I can spare to meritorious poverty, of which I hear and see too much, should be diverted by impudent importunity. I was detained at the Parliament House till nearly three by the great case concerning prescription, Maule v. Maule. This was made up to me by hearing an excellent opinion from Lord Corehouse, with a curious discussion in apicibus juris. I disappointed Graham of a sitting for my picture. I went to the Council of the Royal Society, which was convened at my request, to consider whether we ought to hear a paper on anatomical subjects read by Mr. Knox, whose name has of late been deeply implicated in a criminal prosecution against certain wretches, who had murdered many persons and sold their bodies to professors of the anatomical science. Some thought that our declining to receive the paper would be a declaration unfavourable to Dr. Knox. I think hearing it before Mr. Knox has made any defence (as he is stated to have in view) would be an intimation of our preference of the cause of science to those of morality and common humanity. Mr. Knox's friends undertook to deal with him about suffering the paper to be omitted for the present, while adhuc coram judice lis est.

Nothing on the roll to-day, so I did not go to the Parliament House, but fagged at my desk till two. Dr. Ross called to relieve me of a corn, which, though my lameness needs no addition, had tormented me vilely. I again met the Royal Society Council. Dr. Knox consents to withdraw his paper, or rather suffers the reading to be postponed. There is some great error in the law on the subject. If it was left to itself many bodies would be imported from France and Ireland, and doubtless many would be found in our hospitals for the service of the anatomical science. But the total and severe exclusion of foreign supplies of this kind raises the price of the "subjects," as they are called technically, to such a height, that wretches are found willing to break into "the bloody house of life," merely to supply the anatomists' table. The law which, as a deeper sentence on the guilt of murder, declares that the body of the convicted criminal should be given up to anatomy, is certainly not without effect, for criminals have been known to shrink from that part of the sentence which seems to affect them more than the doom of death itself, with all its terrors here and hereafter. On the other hand, while this idea of the infamy attending the exposition of the person is thus recognised by the law, it is impossible to adopt regulations which would effectually prevent such horrid crimes as the murder of vagrant wretches who can be snatched from society without their being missed, as in the case of the late conspiracy. For instance, if it was now to be enacted, as seems reasonable, that persons dying in hospitals and almshouses, who die without their friends claiming their remains, should be given up to the men of science, this would be subjecting poverty to the penalty of these atrocious criminals whom law distinguishes by the heaviest posthumous disgrace which it can inflict. Even cultivated minds revolt from the exposure on an anatomical table, when the case is supposed to be that of one who is dear to them. I should, I am conscious, be willing that I myself should be dissected in public, if doing so could produce any advantage to society, but when I think on relations and friends being rent from the grave the case is very different, and I would fight knee-deep to prevent or punish such an exposure. So inconsistent we are all upon matters of this nature. I dined quietly at home with the girls, and wrote after dinner.

Nothing in the roll; corrected proofs, and went off at 12 o'clock in the Hamilton stage to William Lockhart's at Auchinrath. My companions, Mr. Livingstone, the clergyman of Camnethan, a Bailie Hamilton, the king of trumps, I am told, in the Burgh of Hamilton, and a Mr. Davie Martin qui gaudet equis et canibus. Got to Auchinrath by six, and met Lord Douglas, his brother, Captain Douglas, E.N., John G-. Lockhart also, who had a large communication from Duke of W. upon the subject of the bullion. The Duke scouts the economist's ideas about paper credit, after the proposition that all men shall be entitled to require gold.

We went, the two Lockharts and I, to William's new purchase of Milton. We found on his ground a cottage, where a man called Greenshields, a sensible, powerful-minded person, had at twenty-eight (rather too late a week) taken up the art of sculpture. He had disposed of the person of the King most admirably, according to my poor thoughts, and had attained a wonderful expression of ease and majesty at the same time. He was desirous of engaging on Burns' Jolly Beggars, which I dissuaded. Caricature is not the object of sculpture. We went to Milton on as fine a day as could consist with snow on the ground. The situation is eminently beautiful; a fine promontory round which the Clyde makes a magnificent bend. We fixed on a situation where the sitting-room should command the upper view, and, with an ornamental garden, I think it may be made the prettiest place in Scotland.