w, as they were
travelling together, a quotation from Prior led Scott to make another,
slightly altered for the occasion, and he adds:

'This seemed to put him into the train of Prior, and he repeated several
striking passages both of the _Alma_ and the _Solomon_. He was still at
this when we reached a longish hill, and he got out to walk a little. As
we climbed the ascent, he leaning heavily on my shoulder, we were met by
a couple of beggars, who were, or professed to be, old soldiers both of
Egypt and the Peninsula. One of them wanted a leg, which circumstance
alone would have opened Scott's purse-strings, though, _ex facie_, a sad
old blackguard; but the fellow had recognized his person as it happened,
and in asking an alms bade God bless him fervently by his name. The
mendicants went on their way, and we stood breathing on the knoll. Sir
Walter followed them with his eye, and planting his stick firmly on the
sod, repeated, without break or hesitation Prior's verses to the
historian Mezeray. That he applied them to himself was touchingly
obvious, and therefore I must quote them.

'"Whate'er thy countrymen have done,
By law and wit, by sword and gun,
In thee is faithfully recited;
And all the living world that view
Thy work, give thee the praises due,
At once instructed and delighted.

'"Yet for the fame of all these deeds,
What beggar in the _Invalides_,
With lameness broke, with blindness smitten,
Wished ever decently to die,
To have been either Mezeray,
Or any monarch he has written?

'"It strange, dear author, yet it true is,
That down from Pharamond to Louis
All covet life, yet call it pain:
All feel the ill, yet shun the cure;
Can sense this paradox endure?
Resolve me Cambray[26] or Fontaine.

'"The man in graver tragic known
(Though his best part long since was done),
Still on the stage desires to tarry;
And he who played the Harlequin,
After the jest still loads the scene,
Unwilling to retire, though weary."'

[Sidenote: John Gay (1685-1732).]

Gay, who enjoyed an unbroken friendship with the brotherhood of wits,
and was treated by them like a spoilt child, was born at Barnstaple in
1685, and left an orphan at the age of ten. He was educated at the free
grammar school in the town, and was afterwards, to his discontent,
apprenticed to a mercer in London. He escaped from this uncongenia