"My spinning-wheel is auld and stiff,
The rock o't winna stand, sir;
To keep the temper-pin in tiff
Employs aft my hand, sir."[19]

Went to dine at the L[ord] J[ustice]-C[lerk's][20] as I thought by
invitation, but it was for Tuesday se'nnight. Returned very well
pleased, not being exactly in the humour for company, and had a
beef-steak. My appetite is surely, excepting in quantity, that of a
farmer; for, eating moderately of anything, my Epicurean pleasure is in
the most simple diet. Wine I seldom taste when alone, and use instead a
little spirits and water. I have of late diminished the quantity, for
fear of a weakness inductive to a diabetes--a disease which broke up my
father's health, though one of the most temperate men who ever lived. I
smoke a couple of cigars instead, which operates equally as a
sedative--

"Just to drive the cold winter away,
And drown the fatigues of the day."

I smoked a good deal about twenty years ago when at Ashestiel; but,
coming down one morning to the parlour, I found, as the room was small
and confined, that the smell was unpleasant, and laid aside the use of
the _Nicotian weed_ for many years; but was again led to use it by the
example of my son, a hussar officer, and my son-in-law, an Oxford
student. I could lay it aside to-morrow; I laugh at the dominion of
custom in this and many things.

"We make the giants first, and then--_do not_ kill them."