"_I must home to 'work while it is called day; for the night cometh
when no man can work.' I put that text, many a year ago, on my
dial-stone; but it often preached in vain_."--SCOTT'S _Life_, x.
88.

MAP OF ABBOTSFORD, from the Ordnance Survey, 1858, _to face_ p. 414.


* * * * *


SIR WALTER SCOTT'S JOURNAL.


* * * * *




NOVEMBER.


[_Edinburgh_,] _November_ 20, 1825.--I have all my life regretted that I
did not keep a regular Journal. I have myself lost recollection of much
that was interesting, and I have deprived my family and the public of
some curious information, by not carrying this resolution into effect. I
have bethought me, on seeing lately some volumes of Byron's notes, that
he probably had hit upon the right way of keeping such a
memorandum-book, by throwing aside all pretence to regularity and order,