their followers by a free
use of the public money. They were generous, but at the expense of
others--like that great local magnate, who,

"Out of his great bounty,
Built a bridge at the expense of the county."

When Lord Cornwallis was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland,
he pressed upon Colonel Napier, the father of THE Napiers, the
comptrollership of army accounts. "I want," said his Lordship, "AN
HONEST MAN, and this is the only thing I have been able to wrest from
the harpies around me."

It is said that Lord Chatham was the first to set the example of
disdaining to govern by petty larceny; and his great son was alike
honest in his administration. While millions of money were passing
through Pitt's hands, he himself was never otherwise than poor; and he
died poor. Of all his rancorous libellers, not one ever ventured to call
in question his honesty.

In former times, the profits of office were sometimes enormous. When
Audley, the famous annuity-monger of the sixteenth century, was asked
the value of an office which he had purchased in the Court of Wards,
he replied:--"Some thousands to any one who wishes to get to heaven
immediately; twice as much to him who does not mind being in purgatory;
and nobody knows what to him who is not afraid of the devil."

Sir Walter Scott was a man who was honest to the core of his nature and
his strenuous and determined efforts to pay his debts, or rather the
debts of the firm with which he had become involved, has always appeared
to us one of the grandest things in biography. When his publisher and
printer broke down, ruin seemed to stare him in the face. There was
no want of sympathy for him in his great misfortune, and friends came
forward who offered to raise money enough to enable him to arrange with
his creditors. "No! "said he, proudly; "this right hand shall work it
all off!" "If we lose everything else," he wrote to a friend, "we will
at least keep our honour unblemished." [1517] While his health was already
becoming undermined by overwork, he went on "writing like a tiger," as
he himself expressed it, until no longer able to wield a pen; and
though he paid the penalty of his supreme efforts with his life, he
nevertheless saved his honour and his self-respect.

Everybody knows bow Scott threw off 'Woodstock,' the 'Life of
Napoleon' [15which he thought would be his death [1518]], articles for the
'Quarterly,' 'Chronicles of the Canongate,' 'Prose Miscel