sure to recover, become a mere matter of course. I join with my honest
friend Crabbe, and have an unlucky propensity to hope, when hope is lost,
and to rely upon the cork-jacket, which carries the heroes of romance
safe through all the billows of affliction." He then declaimed the
following passage, rather with too much than too little emphasis:--


Much have I feared, but am no more afraid,
When some chaste beauty by some wretch betrayed,
Is drawn away with such distracted speed,
That she anticipates a dreadful deed.
Not so do I--Let solid walls impound
The captive fair, and dig a moat around;
Let there be brazen locks and bars of steel,
And keepers cruel, such as never feel;
With not a single note the purse supply,
And when she begs, let men and maids deny;
Be windows there from which she dare not fall,
And help so distant, 'tis in vain to call;
Still means of freedom will some Power devise,
And from the baffled ruffian snatch his prize.

"The end of uncertainty," he concluded, "is the death of interest; and
hence it happens that no one now reads novels."

"Hear him, ye gods!" returned his companion. "I assure you, Mr.
Pattieson, you will hardly visit this learned gentleman, but you are
likely to find the new novel most in repute lying on his table,--snugly
intrenched, however, beneath Stair's Institutes, or an open volume of
Morrison's Decisions."