ervice and practical exertion, he was a most
zealous and devoted subject of George III.

In other respects, Sir Arthur Wardour lived like most country gentlemen
in Scotland, hunted and fished--gave and received dinners--attended races
and county meetings--was a deputy-lieutenant and trustee upon turnpike
acts. But, in his more advanced years, as he became too lazy or unwieldy
for field-sports, he supplied them by now and then reading Scottish
history; and, having gradually acquired a taste for antiquities, though
neither very deep nor very correct, he became a crony of his neighbour,
Mr. Oldbuck of Monkbarns, and a joint-labourer with him in his
antiquarian pursuits.

There were, however, points of difference between these two humourists,
which sometimes occasioned discord. The faith of Sir Arthur, as an
antiquary, was boundless, and Mr. Oldbuck (notwithstanding the affair
of the Praetorium at the Kaim of Kinprunes) was much more scrupulous in
receiving legends as current and authentic coin. Sir Arthur would have
deemed himself guilty of the crime of leze-majesty had he doubted the
existence of any single individual of that formidable head-roll of one
hundred and four kings of Scotland, received by Boethius, and rendered
classical by Buchanan, in virtue of whom James VI. claimed to rule his
ancient kingdom, and whose portraits still frown grimly upon the walls
of the gallery of Holyrood. Now Oldbuck, a shrewd and suspicious man,
and no respecter of divine hereditary right, was apt to cavil at this
sacred list, and to affirm, that the procession of the posterity
of Fergus through the pages of Scottish history, was as vain and
unsubstantial as the gleamy pageant of the descendants of Banquo through
the cavern of Hecate.

Another tender topic was the good fame of Queen Mary, of which the
knight was a most chivalrous assertor, while the esquire impugned it,
in spite both of her beauty and misfortunes. When, unhappily, their
conversation turned on yet later times, motives of discord occurred in
almost every page of history. Oldbuck was, upon principle, a staunch
Presbyterian, a ruling elder of the kirk, and a friend to revolution
principles and Protestant succession, while Sir Arthur was the very
reverse of all this. They agreed, it is true, in dutiful love and
allegiance to the sovereign who now fills* the throne; but this was
their only point of union.

* The reader will understand that this refers to the reign of our