t 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 periwig-maker.'

[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 and modern anecdotes; and Bradwardine
disposed to regard Edward as PUER (or rather JUVENIS) BONAE SPEI ET
MAGNAE INDOLIS, a youth devoid of that petulant volatility, which is
impatient of, or vilipends, the conversation and advice of his
seni