t, for his salutary
exhortation to her boy. She even went so far as to say that she wished
the erring marquis could always have so wise a counsellor at his side.
This communication was made upon a slip of paper, which the writer sent
to the judge by an usher of the court. Sir William read the note as he
sat on the bench, and having looked towards the fair scribe, he received
from her a glance and a smile that were fruitful of much misery to him.
Within four months the courteous Sir William Scott was tied fast to a
beautiful, shrill, voluble termagant, who exercised marvellous ingenuity
in rendering him wretched and contemptible. Reared in a stately school
of old-world politeness, the unhappy man was a model of decorum and
urbanity. He took reasonable pride in the perfection of his tone and
manner, and the marchioness--whose malice did not lack cleverness--was
never more happy than when she was gravely expostulating with him, in
the presence of numerous auditors, on his lamentable want of style and
gentleman-like bearing. It is said that, like Coke and Holt under
similar circumstances, Sir William preferred the quietude of his
chambers to the society of an unruly wife, and that in the cellar of his
inn he sought compensation for the indignities and sufferings which he
endured at home."

"Sir William Scott," says Mr. Surtees, then "removed from Doctors'
Commons to his wife's house in Grafton Street, and, ever economical in
his domestic expenses, brought with him his own door-plate, and placed
it under the pre-existing plate of Lady Sligo, instead of getting a new
door-plate for them both. Immediately after the marriage, Mr. Jekyll, so
well known in the earliest part of this century for his puns and humour,
happening to observe the position of these plates, condoled with Sir
William on having to 'knock under.' There was too much truth in the joke
for it to be inwardly relished, and Sir William ordered the plates to be
transposed. A few weeks later Jekyll accompanied his friend Scott as far
as the door, when the latter observed, 'You see I don't knock under
now.' 'Not now,' was the answer received by the antiquated bridegroom;
'_now_ you knock up.'"

There is a good story current of Lord Stowell in Newcastle, that, when
advanced in age and rank, he visited the school of his boyhood. An old
woman, whose business was to clean out and keep the key of the
school-room, conducted him. She knew the name and station of the
person