knights of modern chivalry; and Sir Walter--our Sir Walter--never showed
himself more shrewd than in his exclamation to Moore--"Ah, Tam!--it's
lucky, man, we cam' sae soon!" Great as was his influence, equaling that
of the other two great Sir Walters, Manny and Raleigh, in their several
epochs of valour and enterprise, it is likely enough, that, if born a
century later, the MSS. of the Scotch novels would have been chiefly
valuable to light the furnace of some factory!

So much in exposition of the fact, that, so long as the world possessed
only three of what we choose to call quarters, an executioner was an
officer of state; and that, now it possesses five, the female of highest
renown, and greatest power of self-enrichment, is the _danseuse_, or
opera-dancer!

Many intermediary callings have disappeared. The domestic chaplain of a
lordly household is now nearly as superfluous as its archers or falconers;
and the court calendars of former reigns record a variety of places and
perquisites, which, did they still exist, would be unpalatable to modern
courtiers, though compelled to earn their daily cakes, however dirty. Just
as the last golden pippin of the house of Crenie was preserved in wax for
the edification of posterity, a watchman has been deposited, with his
staff and lantern, in the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, or the Museum of the
Zoological, or United Service Club, or some other of your grand national
collections, as a specimen of the extinct Dogberry or Charley of the
eighteenth century; and in process of time, as much and more also will
probably be done to a parish beadle, a theatrical manager, a lord
chamberlain--and other public functionaries whom it might not be
altogether safe to enumerate.

Among them, however, there is really some satisfaction in hinting at the