s with the natives and colonists of that country.
Perhaps the youthful generosity of the lad will not seem so great in the
eyes of others as to those whom it was the means of screening from severe
rebuke and punishment. But it seemed, to those concerned, to argue a
nobleness of sentiment far beyond the pitch of most minds; and however
obscurely the lad, who showed such a frame of noble spirit, may have
lived or died, I cannot help being of opinion, that if fortune had placed
him in circumstances calling for gallantry or generosity, the man would
have fulfilled the promises of the boy. Long afterwards, when the story
was told to my father, he censured us severely for not telling the truth
at the time, that he might have attempted to be of use to the young man
in entering on life. But our alarms for the consequences of the drawn
sword, and the wound inflicted with such a weapon, were far too
predominant at the time for such a pitch of generosity.

Perhaps I ought not to have inserted this schoolboy tale; but besides the
strong impression made by the incident at the time, the whole
accompaniments of the story are matters to me of solemn and sad
recollection. Of all the little band who were concerned in those juvenile
sports or brawls, I can scarce recollect a single survivor. Some left the
ranks of mimic war to die in the active service of their country. Many
sought distant lands, to return no more. Others, dispersed in different
paths of life, "my dim eyes now seek for in vain." Of five brothers, all
healthy and promising in a degree far beyond one whose infancy was
visited by personal infirmity, and whose health after this period seemed
long very precarious, I am, nevertheless, the only survivor. The best
loved, and the best deserving to be loved, who had destined this incident
to be the foundation of literary composition, died "before his day," in a
distant and foreign land; and trifles assume an importance not their own,
when connected with those who have been loved and lost.

WAVERLEY;

OR,

'T IS SIXTY YEARS SINCE.

"Under which King, Bezonian? Speak, or die!"
Henry IV., Part II.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION TO WAVERLEY.

"What is the value of a reputation that probably will not last above one
or two generations?" Sir Walter Scott once asked Ballantyne. Two
generations, according to the usual reckoning, have passed; "'T is Sixty
Years since" the "wondrous Potentate" of Wordsworth's sonnet died, yet