he had seen all the best of his age and country, and that, except Byron, not one of them would answer an artist's notion of the character. And what was the impression that Scott made upon competent observers among his literary contemporaries? Joanna Baillie was asked the question, and answered that at first she was a little disappointed-" for I was fresh from the Lay, and had pictured to myself an ideal elegance and refinement of feature." Nevertheless she said to herself, that, had she been in a crowd, and at a loss what to do, she should have fixed upon that face among a thousand, as the sure index of the benevolence and the shrewdness that would and could help her in her strait. Lockhart records the opinion of "not a few persons of undoubted ability and accomplishment," that the genius of the great novelist and poet rarely, if ever, revealed itself in his talk. It was in reference rather, perhaps, to Abbotsford belongings, than to the personnel of its proprietor, that Miss Edgeworth exclaimed, on one of the happiest days in Scott's life, and with a look and accent which those who saw and heard it never forgot, as he welcomed her at his archway, "Everything about you is exactly what one ought to have had wit enough to dream!"

Before quitting Sir Walter's always pleasant presence, let us take passing note of his Diary record of the death of William Knox, reputed a poet of promise, if not approved one by performance-hymns and spiritual songs being the main offspring of his muse. Our present interest in him consists simply

in the fact, that in his own line of society he was said to exhibit "infinite humour;" whereas all his works "are grave and pensive-a style, perhaps, like Master Stephen's melancholy, affected for the nonce."

On the other hand, there are authors of infinite jest, seemingly of drollery all compact, who, in private life, look and are as grave and pensive as the above hymn-writer was not. Thomas Hood may fairly represent the class, as so signally one who

-shows, as he removes the mask

A face that's anything but gay.

In one of Hood's letters from Coblentz we read: "The artist who is coming out to take my portrait will have a nice elderly grizzled head to exhibit. What! that pale, thin, long face the Comic! Zounds! I must gammon him, and get some friend to sit for me." "He must flatter me, or they will take the whole thing for a practical joke," Hood writes to another friend, some eight months later. Shortly before his death he punningly writes to the author of "Essays from the Times," "My bust is modelled and cast. It is said to be a correct likeness: two parts Methodist, to one of Humourist, and quite recognisable in spite of the Hood all over the face." The artists and contributors to the London Charivari are, personally, one may pretty safely affirm, just about as much like Punch, as Hood was like the image formed of him by nineteen-twentieths of those who took in, and in this one point were taken in by,

the Comic. Nor, by general testimony, was it in looks alone, but in mien and manners, however unobtrusive and even reserved, that he left upon you the impression of an essentially and constitutionally sad-hearted man.

ABOUT BARDOLPH'S BOND AND DUMBLE

TON'S DEMUR.

A Cue from Shakspeare.

EXCEEDING wroth was Sir John Falstaff when Master Dumbleton, "a rascally yea-forsooth knave" of a draper, demurred to supplying the fat knight with satin for his short cloak, and slops. He knew Sir John of old; and was loth to part with the goods until he should see the colour of Sir John's money. Now ready money was not at all in Falstaff's line of business; not improbably it was from him that Ancient Pistol borrowed, stole, or conveyed the heroic maxim, that base is the slave who pays. What Falstaff was ready to give, in return for the desiderated length of satin, was his bond. He accordingly instructed his page, on sending him to Dumbleton's shop, to offer his bond for the goods. What more could or would that cormorant of a shopkeeper require? However, to provide against any such insulting contingency, the page was further instructed to back Sir John Falstaff's bond by another-that of Bardolph. This would be making assurance doubly sure; and

the page would succeed in securing the satin, of

course.

But the best-laid plans of men, as of mice, go oft awry; and the page had to come back from the shop ré infecta. Whereupon the following dialogue occurred between him and his master:

Falstaff. What said Master Dumbleton about the satin for my short cloak and slops?

Page. He said, Sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his bond and yours; he liked not the security.

The imprecations on the dogged draper to which this decision of his moved the disappointed knight, can well be spared. A rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand," or keep him in a state of expectancy, " and then to stand upon security!" Sir John is out of all patience with the tradesmen class and their ways—a set of "smoothpates that do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough with them," or behindhand, "in honest taking up, then they must stand upon-security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. I looked he should have sent me two-and-twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security." No wonder the phrase stinks in the nostrils of Dumbleton's would-be debtor. Nevertheless, we, who know Falstaff, and who know Bardolph, cannot but agree that Master Dumbleton was in the right, when instead of making up a parcel forthwith of two-and