and rapturous applause.)

Sir WALTER SCOTT certainly did not think that, in coming here to-
day, he would have the task of acknowledging, before three
hundred gentlemen, a secret which, considering that it was
communicated to more than twenty people, had been remarkably well
kept. He was now before the bar of his country, and might be
understood to be on trial before Lord Meadowbank as an offender;
yet he was sure that every impartial jury would bring in a
verdict of Not Proven. He did not now think it necessary to
enter into the reasons of his long silence. Perhaps caprice
might have a consider able share in it. He had now to say,
however, that the merits of these works, if they had any, and
their faults, were entirely imputable to himself. (Long and loud
cheering.) He was afraid to think on what he had done. "Look
on't again I dare not." He had thus far unbosomed himself and he
knew that it would be reported to the public. He meant, then,
seriously to state, that when he said he was the author, he was
the total and undivided author. With the exception of
quotations, there was not a single word that was not derived from
himself, or suggested in the course of his reading. The wand was
now broken, and the book buried. You will allow me further to
say, with Prospero, it is your breath that has filled my sails,
and to crave one single toast in the capacity of the author of
these novels; and he would dedicate a bumper to the health of one
who has represented some of those characters, of which he had
endeavoured to give the skeleton, with a degree of liveliness
which rendered him grateful. He would propose "The Health of
his friend Bailie Nicol Jarvie"--(loud applause)--and he was sure
that when the author of Waverley and Rob Roy drinks to Nicol