[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.1
SIR,—
"To all the sensual world proclaim . . One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name."—Motto al head cf Chapter xxxiv. of " Old Mortality." • -
"Methinks thou shouldest know that the fame which hangs its chaplet on the tomb of a brave hero or heroine is worth all the petty engagements in which ordinary persons spend the current of their time. One hour of life crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of . those mean observances of paltry decorum in which men steal through existence like sluggish waters through a marsh Without honour or observation." —Chapter =v. " Count Robert of Paris." - What it would be interesting to know is—when Scott wrote the above passage in Count Robert of 'Paris, was the verse still running in his mind so that of set intent he turned it into prose—arid what noble prose7-or was it, to quote Mr. Minchin, that it " lurked in the hidden chaMbers of memory to issue hi a transfigured &inn " ?—I am, Sir, &c., H. P. HART. The Vicarage, Ixworth, Bury St. Edmunds.
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