You remember what old Tully says in his oration, pro Archia poeta, concerning one of your confraternity--quis nostrum tam anino agresti ac duro fuit--ut--ut--I forget the Latin--the meaning is, which of us was so rude and barbarous as to remain unmoved at the death of the great Roscius, whose advanced age was so far from preparing us for his death, that we rather hoped one so graceful, so excellent in his art, ought to be exempted from the common lot of mortality?
So the Prince of Orators spoke of the stage and its professor." The words of the old man fell upon Lovel's ears, but without conveying any precise idea to his mind, which was then occupied in thinking by what means the old beggar, who still continued to regard him with a countenance provokingly sly and intelligent, had contrived to thrust himself into any knowledge of his affairs.

He put his hand in his pocket as the readiest mode of intimating his desire of secrecy, and securing the concurrence of the person whom he addressed; and while he bestowed on him an alms, the amount of which rather bore proportion to his fears than to his charity, looked at him with a marked expression, which the mendicant, a physiognomist by profession, seemed perfectly to understand.--"Never mind me, sir--I am no tale-pyet; but there are mair een in the warld than mine," answered he as he pocketed Lovel's bounty, but in a tone to be heard by him alone, and with an expression which amply filled up what was left unspoken.

Then turning to Oldbuck--"I am awa' to the manse, your honour.

Has your honour ony word there, or to Sir Arthur, for I'll come in by Knockwinnock Castle again e'en ?" Oldbuck started as from a dream; and, in a hurried tone, where vexation strove with a wish to conceal it, paying, at the same time, a tribute to Edie's smooth, greasy, unlined hat, he said, "Go down, go down to Monkbarns--let them give you some dinner--Or stay; if you do go to the manse, or to Knockwinnock, ye need say nothing about that foolish story of yours." "Who, I ?" said the mendicant--"Lord bless your honour, naebody sall ken a word about it frae me, mair than if the bit bourock had been there since Noah's flood.

But, Lord, they tell me your honour has gien Johnnie Howie acre for acre of the laigh crofts for this heathery knowe! Now, if he has really imposed the bourock on ye for an ancient wark, it's my real opinion the bargain will never haud gude, if you would just bring down your heart to try it at the law, and say that he beguiled ye." "Provoking scoundrel!" muttered the indignant Antiquary between his teeths--"I'll have the hangman's lash and his back acquainted for this." And then, in a louder tone,--"Never mind, Edie--it is all a mistake." "Troth, I am thinking sae," continued his tormentor, who seemed to have pleasure in rubbing the galled wound, "troth, I aye thought sae; and it's no sae lang since I said to Luckie Gemmers, Never think you, luckie' said I, that his honour Monkbarns would hae done sic a daft-like thing as to gie grund weel worth fifty shillings an acre, for a mailing that would be dear o'a pund Scots.