The monastery; The abbot.

80 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
not only one of the most generally well-informed,- but one of the best and
kindest of human beings.
There he stood, surrounded by the little band I have mentioned of Northern literati, men not less tenacious, generally speaking, of their own fame
and their own opinions, than the national regiments are supposed to be
jealous of the high character which they have won upon service. Methinks
I yet see and hear what I shall never see or hear again. In his eighty-fifth
year, the alert, kind, benevolent old man, had his attention alive to every
one's question, his information at every one's command.
His talents and fancy overflowed on every subject. One gentleman was
a deep philologist —he talked with him on the origin of the alphabet as if
he had been coeval with Cadmus; another a celebrated critic,- you would
have said the old man had studied political economy and belles-lettres all
his life,-of science it is unnecessary to speak, it was his own distinguished
walk. And yet, Captain Clutterbuck, when he spoke with your countryman
Jedediah Cleishbotham, you would have sworn he had been coeval with
Claver'se and Burley, with the persecutors and persecuted, and could number every shot the dragoons had fired at the fugitive Covenanters. In fact,
we discovered that no novel of the least celebrity escaped his perusal, and
that the gifted man of science was as much addicted to the productions of
your native country, (the land of Utopia aforesaid,) in other words, as
shameless and obstinate a peruser of novels, as if he had been a very milliner's apprentice of eighteen. I know little apology for troubling you with
these things, excepting the desire to commemorate a delightful evening, and
a wish to encourage you to shake off that modest diffidence which makes
you afraid of being supposed connected with the fairy-land of delusive
fiction. I will requite your tag of verse, from Horace himself, with a paraphrase for your own use, my dear Captain, and for that of your country
club, excepting in reverence the clergyman and schoolmaster: —
Ne sit ancille tibi amor ptdori, 4c.
Take thou no scorn
Of fiction born,
Fair fiction's muse to woo;
Old Homer's theme
Was hut a dream,
Himself a fiction too.
Having told you your country, I must next, my dear Captain Clutterbuck, make fiee to mention your own immediate descent. You are not
to suppose your land of prodigies so little known to us as the careful
concealment of your origin would seem to imply. But you have it in
common with many of your country, studiously and anxiously to hide any
connexion with it. There is this difference, indeed, betwixt your countrymen and those of our more material world, that many of the most
estimable of them, such as an. old Highland gentleman called Ossian, a
monk of Bristol called Rowley, and others, are inclined to pass themselves
off as denizens of the land of reality, whereas most of our fellow-citizens
who deny their country are such as that country would be very willing to
disclaim. The especial circumstances you mention relating to your life and
services, impose not upon us. We know the versatility of the unsubstantial
species to which you belong permits them to assume all manner of disguises;
we have seen them apparelled in the caftan of a Persian, and the silken
robe of a Chinese,* and are prepared to susp6ct'their real character under
every disguise. But how can we be ignorant of your country and manners,
or deceived by the evasion of its inhabitants, when the voyages of discovery
which have been made to it rival in number those recorded by Purchas or
by Hackluyt?t Aid to show the skill and perseverance of your navigators
and travellers, we have only to name Sindbad, Aboulfouaris, and Robinson
Crusoe. These were the men for discoveries. Could we have sent Cantain
e See the Persian Letters, and the Citizen of the World. t See Les Voyages Imaginaires.