"Claret two-and-thirty years old! It almost gives us the gripes to think of it." Indeed, Sir Walter, as Lochhart assures us, was so far from being a judge of claret that he could not tell when it was "corked." One or two points equally important amused the reviewer, who, like most of his class, detected the hand of Scott.

There was hardly a possibility, as Mr.Morritt told Sir Walter, "that the poems in "Waverley" could fail to suggest their author.

No man who ever heard you tell a story over a table but must recognize you at once." To his praise of "Waverley" Mr.Morritt hardly added any adverse criticism, beyond doubting the merit of the early chapters, and denouncing the word "sombre" as one which had lately "kept bad company among the slipshod English of the sentimental school." Scott, in defence, informed Mr.
Morritt that he had "left the story to flag in the first volume on purpose.

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