flowed in the cup of a prince. He rarely took any other potation when
quite alone with his family; but at the Sunday board he circulated the
champagne briskly during dinner, and considered a pint of claret each
man's fair share afterwards. I should not omit, however, that his
Bordeaux was uniformly preceded by a small libation of the genuine
_mountain dew_, which he poured with his own hand, _more majorum_, for
each guest--making use for the purpose of such a multifarious
collection of ancient Highland _quaighs_ (little cups of curiously
dovetailed wood, inlaid with silver) as no Lowland sideboard but his
was ever equipped with--but commonly reserving for himself one that
was peculiarly precious in his eyes, as having travelled from
Edinburgh to Derby in the canteen of Prince Charlie. This relic had
been presented to "the wandering Ascanius" by some very careful
follower, for its bottom is of glass, that he who quaffed might keep
his eye the while upon the dirk hand of his companion.

The sound of music (even, I suspect, of any sacred music but
psalm-singing) would be considered indecorous {p.254} in the streets
of Edinburgh on a Sunday night; so, upon the occasions I am speaking
of, the harp was silent, and Otterburne and The Bonnie House of Airlie
must needs be dispensed with. To make amends, after tea in the
drawing-room, Scott usually read some favorite author for the
amusement of his little circle; or Erskine, Ballantyne, or Terry, did
so, at his request. He himself read aloud high poetry with far greater
simplicity, depth, and effect, than any other man I ever heard; and in
Macbeth or Julius Caesar, or the like, I doubt if Kemble could have
been more impressive. Yet the changes of intonation were so gently
managed, that he contrived to set the different interlocutors clearly
before us, without the least approach to theatrical artifice. Not so
the others I have mentioned; they all read cleverly and agreeably, but
with the decided trickery of stage recitation. To them he usually gave
the book when it was a comedy, or, indeed, any other drama than
Shakespeare's or Joanna Baillie's. Dryden's Fables, Johnson's two
Satires, and certain detached scenes of Beaumont and Fletcher,
especially that in The Lover's Progress, where the ghost of the
musical innkeeper makes his appearance, were frequently selected. Of
the poets, his contemporaries, however, there was not one that did not
come in for his part. In Wordsworth, his