, the letter closed. But there was a
postscript. It contained these words:--"Remember, Milor, that
_delicaci ensure_ everi succes." The _delicacy_ of the day is
exactly, in all its circumstances, like that of this respectable
foreigner. "It ensures every _succes_," and is not a whit more moral
than, and not half so honourable as, the coarser candour of our less
polished ancestors.

To return to Mr. Bowles. "If what is here extracted can excite in the
mind (I will not say of any 'layman', of any 'Christian', but) of any
_human being_," &c. &c. Is not Mr. Gilchrist a "human being?" Mr.
Bowles asks "whether in _attributing_ an article," &c. &c, "to the
critic, he had _any reason_ for distinguishing him with that
courtesy," &c. &c. But Mr. Bowles was wrong in "attributing the
article" to Mr. Gilchrist at all; and would not have been right in
calling him a dunce and a grocer, if he had written it.

Mr. Bowles is here "peremptorily called upon to speak of a
circumstance which gives him the greatest pain,--the mention of a
letter he received from the editor of 'The London Magazine.'" Mr.
Bowles seems to have embroiled himself on all sides; whether by
editing, or replying, or attributing, or quoting,--it has been an
awkward affair for him.

Poor Scott is now no more. In the exercise of his vocation, he
contrived at last to make himself the subject of a coroner's inquest.
But he died like a brave man, and he lived an able one. I knew him
personally, though slightly. Although several years my senior, we had
been schoolfellows together at the "grammar-schule" (or, as the
Aberdonians pronounce it, "_squeel_") of New Aberdeen. He did not
behave to me quite handsomely in his capacity of editor a few years
ago, but he was under no obligation to behave otherwise. The moment
was too tempting for many friends and for all enemies. At a time when
all my relations (save one) fell from me like leaves from the tree in
autumn winds, and my few friends became still fewer,--when the whole
periodical press (I mean the daily and weekly, _not_ the _literary_
press) was let loose against me in every shape of reproach, with the
two strange exceptions (from their usual opposition) of "The Courier"
and "The Examiner,"--the paper of which Scott had the direction was
neither the last nor the least vituperative. Two years ago I met him
at Venice, when he was bowed in griefs by the loss of his son, and
had known, by experience, the bitterness of domest