George Dempster

March 22 [1829].--Being Sunday, I read prayers to our guests, then went a

long walk by the lake to Huntly Burn. It is somewhat uncomfortable to

feel difficulties increase and the strength to meet them diminish. But

why should man fret? While iron is dissolved by rust, and brass

corrodes, can our dreams be of flesh and blood enduring? But I will not

dwell on this depressing subject. My liking to my two young guests is

founded on "things that are long enough ago." The first statesman of

celebrity whom I personally knew was Mr. Dempster's grand-uncle, George

Dempster of Dunnichen, celebrated in his time, and Dundas's father was,

when Lord Advocate, the first man of influence who showed kindness to

me.

Walter Scott speaks highly of MP for Dunnichen  George Dempster in his journal.  According to the Jamesboswell.info site:

Following his death in 1818, Sir Walter Scott sent the following epitaph, supposedly written some time earlier by Dempster himself, to John Wilson Croker: (Boswelliana, p. 34)

Pray for the soul of deceased George Dempster,
In his youth a great fool, in his old age a gamester;
What you're to know, on this tomb you shall see,
Life's thread he let go when just ninety-three.
So sound was his bottom, his acquaintance all wonder'd
How old Nick had got him till he lived out the hundred.
To his money concerns he paid little attention,
First selling his land, then pawning his pension;
But his precious time he much better did manage,
To the end of his life from his earliest nonage,
He divided his hours into two equal parts,
And spent one half in sleeping, the other at cartes.

Templars Disbanded

'Returning in less than three minutes, a warder announced ``that the Prior Aymer of Jorvaulx, and the good knight Brian de Bois-Guilbert, commander of the valiant and venerable order of Knights Templars, with a small retinue, requested hospitality and lodging for the night, being on their way to a tournament which was to be held not far from Ashby-de-la-Zouche, on the second day from the present.''...'

The Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert did not fare entirely well in Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe".  The real Knights Templar fared poorly on March 22, 1312, when the order was officially disbanded by Pope Clement V.

Let the Light Enter

The death of the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on March 22, 1832 had an impact throughout Europe.  His dying words have been the inspiration for poets and thinkers.  Goethe and Scott enjoyed a friendly correspondence, exchanging gifts on occasion.  An expression of Scott's sentiment regarding Goethe is found in his Journal:

"February 15 (1827)....I have a letter from Baron Von Goethe,[472] which I must have read to me; for though I know German, I have forgot their written hand. I make it a rule seldom to read, and never to answer, foreign letters from literary folks. It leads to nothing but the battle-dore and shuttle-cock intercourse of compliments, as light as cork and feathers. But Goethe is different, and a wonderful fellow, the Ariosto at once, and almost the Voltaire of Germany. Who could have told me thirty years ago I should correspond, and be on something like an equal footing, with the author of Goetz? Ay, and who could have told me fifty things else that have befallen me?"