ial states of society greatly stunt their growth; and in our
literature--as represented by the Bobadils, Young Wildings, Caleb
Balderstons, and Baron Munchausens--they hold a prominent place. The
class is to be found of very general development among the vagabond
tribes. I have listened to wonderful personal narratives that had not a
word of truth in them, "from gipsies brown in summer glades that bask,"
as I took my seat beside their fire, in a wild rock-cave in the
neighbourhood of Rosemarkie, or at a later period in the cave of Marcus;
and in getting into conversation with individuals of the more thoroughly
lapsed classes of our large towns, I have found that a faculty of
extemporary fabrication was almost the only one which I could calculate
on finding among them in a state of vigorous activity. That in some
cases the propensity should be found co-existing with superior calibre
and acquirement, and with even a sense of honour by no means very
obtuse, must be regarded as one of the strange anomalies which so often
surprise and perplex the student of human character. As a misdirected
toe-nail, injured by pressure, sometimes turns round, and, re-entering
the flesh, vexes it into a sore, it would seem as if that noble
inventive faculty to which we owe the parable and the epic poem, were
liable, when constrained by self-love, to similar misdirections; and
certainly, when turned inwards upon its possessor, the moral character
festers or grows callous around it.

There was no one in the barrack with whom I cared much to converse, or
who, in turn, cared much to converse with me; and so I learned, on the
occasions when the company got dull, and broke up into groups, to retire
to the hay-loft where I slept, and pass there whole hours seated on my
chest. The loft was a vast apartment, some fifty or sixty feet in
length, with its naked rafters raised little more than a man's height
over the floor; but in the starlit nights, when the openings in the wall
assumed the character of square patches of darkness-visible stamped upon
utter darkness, it looked quite as well as any other unlighted place
that could not be seen; and in nights brightened by the moon, the pale
beams, which found access at openings and crevices, rendered its wide
area quite picturesque enough for ghosts to walk in. But I never saw
any; and the only sounds I heard were those made by the horses in the
stable below, champing and snorting over their food. They were