s laudable manner, but still one strikingly
illustrative of his ingenious resources, I am enabled to preserve
through the kindness of a brother poet and esteemed friend, to whom
Sir Walter himself communicated it in the melancholy twilight of his
bright day.

[Footnote 52: Chap. xvi. verse 7.]

Mr. Rogers says--"Sitting one day alone with him in your house, in the
Regent's Park--(it was the day but one before he left it to embark at
Portsmouth for Malta)--I led him, among other things, to tell me once
again a story of himself, which he had formerly told me, and which I
had often wished to recover. When I returned home, I wrote it down, as
nearly as I could, in his own words; and here they are. The subject is
an achievement worthy of Ulysses himself, and such as many of his
schoolfellows could, no doubt, have related of him; but I fear I have
done it no justice, though the story is so very characteristic that it
should not be lost. The inimitable manner in which he told it--the
glance of the eye, the turn of the head, and the light that played
over his faded features, as, one by one, the circumstances came back
to him, accompanied by a thousand boyish feelings, that had slept
perhaps for years--there is no language, not even his own, could
convey to you; but you can supply them. Would that others could do so,
who had not the good fortune to know him!--The memorandum (Friday,
October 21, 1831) is as follows:--

"There was a boy in my class at school, who stood always at the
top,[53] nor could I with all my efforts supplant him. {p.081} Day
came after day, and still he kept his place, do what I would; till at
length I observed that, when a question was asked him, he always
fumbled with his fingers at a particular button in the lower part of
his waistcoat. To remove it, therefore, became expedient in my eyes;
and in an evil moment it was removed with a knife. Great was my
anxiety to know the success of my measure; and it succeeded too well.
When the boy was again questioned, his fingers sought again for the
button, but it was not to be found. In his distress he looked down for
it; it was to be seen no more than to be felt. He stood confounded,
and I took possession of his place; nor did he ever recover it, or
ever, I believe, suspect who was the author of his wrong. Often in
after-life has the sight of him smote me as I passed by him; and often
have I resolved to make him some reparation; but it ended in good
r