one too fluctuating to be relied upon.

While the King of the Gipsies was thus laudably occupied, his
royal consort, Flora, contrived, it is said, to steal the hood
from the judge's gown; for which offence, combined with her
presumptive guilt as a gipsy, she was banished to New England,
whence she never returned.

Now, I cannot grant that the idea of Meg Merrilies was, in the
first concoction of the character, derived from Flora Marshal,
seeing I have already said she was identified with Jean Gordon,
and as I have not the Laird of Bargally's apology for charging the
same fact on two several individuals. Yet I am quite content that
Meg should be considered as a representative of her sect and class
in general, Flora as well as others.

The other instances in which my Gallovidian readers have obliged
me by assigning to

Airy nothing
A local habitation and a name,

shall also be sanctioned so far as the Author may be entitled to
do so. I think the facetious Joe Miller records a case pretty much
in point; where the keeper of a museum, while showing, as he said,
the very sword with which Balaam was about to kill his ass, was
interrupted by one of the visitors, who reminded him that Balaam
was not possessed of a sword, but only wished for one. 'True,
sir,' replied the ready-witted cicerone; 'but this is the very
sword he wished for.' The Author, in application of this story,