an enormous ham, which predominated over all the other dishes.

Sir W. Scott addressed me: "We are giving you a Scotch breakfast, doctor; you know the proverb; Scotch breakfast, French dinner, English supper."

"Yes," I replied, "the breakfasts of Scotland formerly obtained the eulogium of a pope's legate."

I smiled in pronouncing these words; for two reasons; in the first place, I referred to a quotation of Waverley; it was a shaft launched at the author in the presence of the author himself; I subsequently called to mind, that the first translator of Waverley had translated Pope's Legate, by the words commentator on Pope.*

MR. CRABBE." I rather think that Johnson, otherwise very parsimonious of his praise to Scotland, always approved the Scotch breakfasts."

LADY SCOTT.-" Dr. Johnson did not come to

Scotland in a friendly manner. His details were not intended to dissipate the prejudices of his countrymen on the subject of Scotland. He was a morose author."

SIR WALTER." His prejudices arose from his

cr

* This translator was not M. Defauconpret; a circumstance which I am bound to remark, in order to do justice to the author of " London in 1819," whose translations are doubtless made with rapidity; but whom it would be unfair to confound with those of some scholars, who, while repeating that they are mediocres, avail themselves of his name to pass off their blunders to his account; it was not he, for example, who finding in Kenilworth the words "Winter's Tale," the name of one of Shakspeare's plays, translated it Conte de M. Winter, -Mr. Winter's Tale!

disordered habit of body. Johnson must have had good qualities, for, notwithstanding his rudeness, he had many friends."

LADY SCOTT.-"He was a very overweening person."

SIR W. SCOTT." His great superiority in literature had given him despotic habits; he believed himself to be above the ordinary rules of society. He was very impatient of contradiction. His Journey to the Hebrides made a stir, as all his works did. Whatever may have been his prejudices against Scotland, we must confess that many of his reproaches have not been lost upon us: and more than one change effected since, demonstrate that they were almost always well founded. The Scotch are much displeased with Johnson, for having shewn no enthusiasm for the picturesque localities of their country; but that was the fault of his physical organization; he had no eye for the natural beauties of a country; nothing seemed good to him out of London; he was in dread of solitude. The Scotch pretend that he was ungrateful for their hospitality; but that is a debt which ought not to oblige a literary traveller to write nothing but panegyrics. Johnson, moreover, did repay it, by always receiving with friendship and kindness, such of his Scotch hosts as were brought by any business to London."*

*In a short notice on Johnson which has since appeared, Sir W.Scott expresses himself nearly in the same terms, on the subject of the Journey to the Hebrides. I perceive with pleasure, from that circumstance, that my memory has not been unfaithful to me.

Here I forget what incident occurred to divert my attention from what Sir Walter added. I believe it was Miss Scott who spoke to me; and being obliged to hear and reply to her, I lost the thread of an anecdote which the author of Ivanhoe very gracefully related. I only caught the particular, that Robin Hood, (the Locksley of Ivanhoe) performed in it the chief character. It was, I believe, an old woman who refused to open her doors to him, and a dialogue ensued between them, which Sir W. Scott repeated with appropriate changes of intonation. At length, one of the two interlocutors obtained what they wanted, by a lucky expression or some original sally. In transcribing this page of my notes, darkened as it is with fragments of unconnected phrases, I again experience a fit of impatience, which I had some difficulty to restrain while I listened to the poet's daughter. She will excuse me for frankly confessing it. Fortunately, I lost nothing of the continuation of the dialogue.

LADY SCOTT.-"The hazarded judgments of a traveller, may mislead public opinion for a long time; the thing once written, is an authority, till some other writer arises to refute the preceding; but sometimes a quarter of a century may pass between one book and the other."

MR. CRABBE. Travellers and their narratives, now-a-days, succeed each other very rapidly; the French themselves become travellers. (Then addressing himself to me:) What reputation does M. Simon's Journal bear in France ?"

"It is considered rich in facts, rich in bon mots,

as well as in tart sarcasms, levelled against France on the subject of England. It is sometimes felt that the author might have been a more patriotic Frenchman; but he is always a man of wit."

LADY SCOTT." You have just now named Mr. Charles Nodier as your friend."

"I pique myself on being allowed to call him so." SIR W. SCOTT." Pray thank him for all the kind things he says about me in his Promenade de Dieppe."

LADY SCOTT." He has said that his journey was abortive, because he had not seen Sir Walter."

"I have heard him warmly express the same regret."

LADY SCOTT." I rather fear that M. Nodier must have travelled a little too rapidly."

"Not finding Sir W. Scott at Edinburgh, he lost no time in seeing the places which Sir Walter has described."

SIR WALTER." And M. Nodier has depicted them himself like a poet."

"He had the scenes themselves and your poems to inspire him. His descriptions must have given satisfaction in Scotland."

LADY SCOTT." But M. Nodier has also some little scandal to reproach himself with."

"It does not occur to my recollection."

LADY SCOTT." For a Frenchman, your friend has not been very gallant towards the Scotch ladies."

"If that be the case, I am sure he will be sin

cerely afflicted, for he admires the ladies of all countries, and more especially those of Scotland." LADY SCOTT." But where did he see the Scotch ladies go barefooted ?"

Mr. CRABBE. " Has he really said so?"

"I expressed the same doubt by the same question."

LADY SCOTT.-" Oh! yes! in his letter about Glasgow.* The Parisian ladies must have finely

* Beneath is the passage; for my friend must not be judged without the heads of Lady Scott's indictment being stated.

"-Les femmes du peuple, presque toutes les femmes de la classe intermédiaire et un assez grand nombre des femmes de la classe élevée marchent à pieds nus; quelques unes ont adopté les souliers seulement. Les dames à la mode, qui ont emprunté les vêtemens des Parisiennes, ont aussi emprunté leur chaussure, ou plutôt la nôtre; car elles sont chaussées en hommes; mais cette partie de leur accoutrement est celle qui les incommode le plus, et dont elles se défont le plus volontiers quand elles sont libres. A peine une brillante Ecossaise a épuisé l'admiration des fashionables de Glascow, elle cherche la solitude; et la première pensée qui l'occupe dans un sentier écarté, dans un jardin solitaire, dans l'ombre mystérieuse de son appartement, ce n'est pas comme chez nous le souvenir du dernier homme qui l'a regardée en soupirant, ou de la dernière femme qui a éclipsé sa toilette, c'est l'impatient besoin d'ôter ses souliers et ses bas, et de courir pieds nus sur ses tapis, sur la pelouse de ses pièces de verdure, ou sur le sable roulant des chemins. L'aspect de ces pieds nus n'a presque jamais rien de repoussant, même dans le peuple. Jamais rien de pénible pour la sensibilité quand on les voit se déployer sur les dalles polies des larges trottoirs de Glascow. Les pieds chaussés ont beaucoup plus de désavantage. La forme plate et amples des souliers à boucles ou à cordons qui les enveloppent ne dissimule pas du tout leur grosseur, qui est très conforme sans doute aux proportions naturelles, surtout chez un peuple où rien n'a gêné, pendant une longue suite de siècles, la liberté des développemens, mais qui est choquante pour nos yeux accoutumés à l'exiguité forcée du pied des Françaises, qui sont, sous ce rapport, une espèce d'intermédiaire entre les Ecossaises et les Chinoises. Le pied des montagnards, destiné à s'appuyer sur des espaces étroits, glissans, escarpés, devait être nécessairement large et fort. Les pieds dont la petitesse est hors de toute VOL. II. A A