Sir Walter Scott, in a letter to his brother Thomas,
dated December 1817, says—" I should be happy to attend to your commission about a dominie for your boy, but I think there will be much risk in yuking yourself with one for three or four years. You know what sort of black cattle they are, and how difficult it is to discern their real character, though one may give a guess at their attainments. When they get good provender in their guts, they are apt to turn out very different animals from what they were in their original low condition, and get frisky and troublesome." This is what the painters of the middle ages would term vera effigies— a fruitful resemblance. These are the gentry for whom we are now called upon to provide " addi- tional endowments." Even without the extended pasture, they seem "frisky and troublesome" enough in all conscience. If Scott, as a good Tory, feared to buckle with one for four years, we may he excused for reluctance to have a legion settled upon us for bk.—Glasgow Avis.
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