ity in age
beloved!"

--See Pope, _Epitaphs_, 9.

[174] David Monypenny had been on the Bench from 1813; he retired in
1830, and died at the age of eighty-one in 1850.

[175] Parody on Moore's _Minstrel Boy_.--J.G.L.

[176] "Le Pas de la Fontaine des Pleurs."--_Chroniques Nationales_.

[177] This hint was taken up in _Count Robert of Paris_.--J.G.L.

[178] James Ballantyne gives an interesting account of an interview a
dozen years before this time, when "Tom Telltruth" had a somewhat
delicate task to perform:--

"_The Lord of the Isles_ was by far the least popular of the series, and
Mr. Scott was very prompt at making such discoveries. In about a week
after its publication he took me into his library, and asked me what the
people were saying about _The Lord of the Isles_. I hesitated, much in
the same manner that Gil Blas might be supposed to do when a similar
question was put by the Archbishop of Grenada, but he very speedily
brought the matter to a point--'Come, speak out, my good fellow, what
has put it in your head to be on ceremony with me? But the result is in
one word--disappointment!' My silence admitted his inference to its
fullest extent. His countenance certainly did look rather blank for a
few seconds (for it is a singular fact, that before the public, or
rather the booksellers, gave _their_ decision he no more knew whether he
had written well or ill, than whether a die, which he threw out of a
box, was to turn out a sise or an ace). However, he almost instantly
resumed his spirits and expressed his wonder rather that his popularity
had lasted so long, than that it should have given way at last. At
length, with a perfectly cheerful manner, he said, 'Well, well, James,
but you know we must not droop--for you know we can't and won't give
over--we must just try something else, and the question is, what it's to
be?' Nor was it any wonder he spoke thus, for he could not fail to be
unconsciously conscious, if I dare use such a term, of his own gigantic,
and as yet undeveloped, powers, and was somewhat under forty years old.
I am by no means sure whether he then alluded to _Waverley_, as if he
had mentioned it to me for the first time, for my memory has greatly
failed me touching this, or whether he alluded to it, as in fact appears
to have been the case, as having been commenced and laid aside several
years before, but I well recollect that he consulted me with his usual
openness and candour respecting hi