ng, eloquently (_ibid._). After
the service, one of Jeremy Taylor's sermons (vi. 188). After the sermon,
if the weather was fine, walk with his family, dogs included and guests,
to _cold_ picnic (iii. 109), followed by short extempore biblical
novelettes; for he had his Bible, the Old Testament especially, by
heart, it having been his mother's last gift to him (vi. 174). These
lessons to his children in Bible history were always given, whether
there was picnic or not. For the rest of the afternoon he took his
pleasure in the woods with Tom Purdie, who also always appeared at his
master's elbow on Sunday after dinner was over, and drank long life to
the laird and his lady and all the good company, in a quaigh of whiskey
or a tumbler of wine, according to his fancy (vi. 195). Whatever might
happen on the other evenings of the week, Scott always dined at home on
Sunday; and with old friends: never, unless inevitably, receiving any
person with whom he stood on ceremony (v. 335). He came into the room
rubbing his hands like a boy arriving at home for the holidays, his
Peppers and Mustards gambolling about him, 'and even the stately Maida
grinning and wagging his tail with sympathy.' For the usquebaugh of the
less honoured week-days, at the Sunday board he circulated the champagne
briskly during dinner, and considered a pint of claret each man's fair
share afterwards (v. 339). In the evening, music being to the Scottish
worldly mind indecorous, he read aloud some favourite author, for the
amusement or edification of his little circle. Shakespeare it might be,
or Dryden,--Johnson, or Joanna Baillie,--Crabbe, or Wordsworth. But in
those days 'Byron was pouring out his spirit fresh and full, and if a
new piece from _his_ hand had appeared, it was _sure to be read by Scott
the Sunday evening afterwards_; and that with such delighted emphasis as
showed how completely the elder bard had kept up his enthusiasm for
poetry at pitch of youth, and all his admiration of genius, free, pure,
and unstained by the least drop of literary jealousy' (v. 341).

With such necessary and easily imaginable varieties as chanced in having
Dandy Dinmont or Captain Brown for guests at Abbotsford, or Colonel
Mannering, Counsellor Pleydell, and Dr. Robertson in Castle Street, such
was Scott's habitual Sabbath: a day, we perceive, of eating the fat,
(_dinner_, presumably not cold, being a work of necessity and
mercy--thou also, even thou, Saint Thomas of Tr