y bear no fruit."

Elsewhere Plutarch tells of a man who plucked the feathers from a
nightingale, and, finding it a very small bird, exclaimed:

"You little wretch, you're nothing but voice!"

And again, the repartee of a Laconian to a man of Sparta who twitted him
with being unable to stand as long as himself on one leg.

"No," replied the other, "but any goose can."

An anecdote of Strabo gives a vivid picture of the clashing of a harper's
performances with the sounding of a bell for opening of the fish-market.
All the audience vanished at once save a little deaf man.

The harper expressed himself unutterably flattered at his having resisted
the importunity of the bell.

"What!" cried the deaf man, "has the fish-bell rung? Then I'm off, too.
Good-by!"

Tournament Scene From "Ivanhoe."

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) was the first of the great
romantic writers of modern England. As a boy he showed an
extraordinary fondness for collecting and learning by heart
the legends and old-time ballads which were current in that
part of Scotland where he was born. Grown older, he found
equal pleasure in studying the records and traditions of
early English and Scottish history.

From childhood he had a remarkable gift for story-telling,
and would weave together strange and curious bits of antique
lore for the delight of his companions. Later, he became for
a while the most popular poet in Great Britain by publishing
a series of romantic poems, among which "Marmion," "The Lady
of the Lake," and "Rokeby" have endured the test of time.

In 1814 Scott turned from poetry to prose and published
anonymously the historical novel "Waverley," which took the
whole English reading world by storm. This triumph was
repeated in the splendid novels which followed in rapid
succession. Between 1815 and 1825 twelve of these so-called
Waverley novels came from his pen. They were translated into
all the languages of Europe and exercised a profound
influence upon the whole subsequent history of European
fiction.

The Waverley novels may be grouped under two heads--novels
of Scottish life, and novels based upon incidents of English
history. Of the former, the greatest are "Guy Mannering,"
"Rob Roy," "The Heart of Midlothian," and "Old Mortality."
Of the latter, the most famous are "Kenilworth," "Ivanho