definite comic plot and mixed up with all
sorts of other business. Might not Falstaff himself be taken into
comparison too? Scott's humorous characters are nowhere and never
characters in a comedy--and Falstaff, the greatest comic character in
Shakespeare, is not great in comedy.

Some of the rich idiomatic Scottish dialogue in the novels might be
possibly disparaged (like Ben Jonson) as 'mere humours and observation.'
Novelists of lower rank than Scott--Galt in _The Ayrshire Legatees_ and
_Annals of the Parish_ and _The Entail_--have nearly rivalled Scott in
reporting conversation. But the Bailie at any rate has his part to play
in the story of _Rob Roy_--and so has Andrew Fairservice. Scott never
did anything more ingenious than his contrast of those two
characters--so much alike in language, and to some extent in cast of
mind, with the same conceit and self-confidence, the same garrulous
Westland security in their own judgment, both attentive to their own
interests, yet clearly and absolutely distinct in spirit, the Bailie a
match in courage for Rob Roy himself.

Give me leave, before I end, to read one example of Scott's language:
from the scene in _Guy Mannering_ where Dandie Dinmont explains his case
to Mr. Pleydell the advocate. It is true to life: memory and imagination
here indistinguishable:--

Dinmont, who had pushed after Mannering into the room, began
with a scrape of his foot and a scratch of his head in unison.
'I am Dandie Dinmont, sir, of the Charlies-hope--the
Liddesdale lad--ye'll mind me? It was for me you won yon
grand plea.'

'What plea, you loggerhead?' said the lawyer; 'd'ye think I
can remember all the fools that come to plague me?'

'Lord, sir, it was the grand plea about the grazing o' the
Langtae-head,' said the farmer.

'Well, curse thee, never mind;--give me the memorial, and come
to me on Monday at ten,' replied the learned counsel.

'But, sir, I haena got ony distinct memorial.'

'No memorial, man?' said Pleydell.

'Na, sir, nae memorial,' answered Dandie; 'for your honour
said before, Mr. Pleydell, ye'll mind, that ye liked best to
hear us hill-folk tell our ane tale by word o' mouth.'

'Beshrew my tongue that said so!' answered the counsellor; 'it
will cost my ears a dinning.--Well, say in two words what
you've got to say--you see the gentleman waits.'

'Ou, sir, if the gent