Scotorum,' and Sir David Lindsay's
'Works', and Barbour's 'Brace', and Blind Harry's 'Wallace', and 'The
Gentle Shepherd', and 'The Cherry and The Slae.'

But though he thus far sacrificed his time to the Muses, he would, if the
truth must be spoken, have been much better pleased had the pious or
sapient apothegms, as well as the historical narratives, which these
various works contained, been presented to him in the form of simple
prose. And he sometimes could not refrain from expressing contempt of the
'vain and unprofitable art of poem-making', in which, he said,'the only
one who had excelled in his time was Allan Ramsay, the periwigmaker.'

[Footnote: The Baron ought to have remembered that the joyous Allan
literally drew his blood from the house of the noble earl whom he terms--

Dalhousie of an old descent
My stoup, my pride, my ornament.]

But although Edward and he differed TOTO COELO, as the Baron would have
said, upon this subject, yet they met upon history as on a neutral
ground, in which each claimed an interest. The Baron, indeed, only
cumbered his memory with matters of fact, the cold, dry, hard outlines
which history delineates. Edward, on the contrary, loved to fill up and
round the sketch with the colouring of a warm and vivid imagination,
which gives light and life to the actors and speakers in the drama of
past ages. Yet with tastes so opposite, they contributed greatly to each
other's amusement. Mr. Bradwardine's minute narratives and powerful
memory supplied to Waverley fresh subjects of the kind upon which his
fancy loved to labour, and opened to him a new mine of incident and of
character. And he repaid the pleasure thus communicated by an earnest
attention, valuable to all story-tellers, more especially to the Baron,
who felt his habits of self-respect flattered by it; and sometimes also
by reciprocal communications, which interested Mr. Bradwardine, as
confirming or illustrating his own favourite anecdotes. Besides, Mr.
Bradwardine loved to talk of the scenes of his youth, which had been
spent in camps and foreign lands, and had many interesting particulars to
tell of the generals under whom he had served and the actions he had
witnessed.

Both parties returned to Tully-Veolan in great good-humour with each
other; Waverley desirous of studying more attentively what he considered
as a singular and interesting character, gifted with a memory containing
a curious register of ancient a