amateur in the affairs of the table, did distinguished honour to
both. I am uncertain, however, if even the good cheer gave him
more satisfaction than the presence of Dominie Sampson, from whom,
in his own juridical style of wit, he contrived to extract great
amusement both for himself and one or two friends whom the Colonel
regaled on the same occasion. The grave and laconic simplicity of
Sampson's answers to the insidious questions of the barrister
placed the bonhomie of his character in a more luminous point of
view than Mannering had yet seen it. Upon the same occasion he
drew forth a strange quantity of miscellaneous and abstruse,
though, generally speaking, useless learning. The lawyer
afterwards compared his mind to the magazine of a pawnbroker,
stowed with goods of every description, but so cumbrously piled
together, and in such total disorganisation, that the owner can
never lay his hands upon any one article at the moment he has
occasion for it.

As for the advocate himself, he afforded at least as much exercise
to Sampson as he extracted amusement from him. When the man of law
began to get into his altitudes, and his wit, naturally shrewd and
dry, became more lively and poignant, the Dominie looked upon him
with that sort of surprise with which we can conceive a tame bear
might regard his future associate, the monkey, on their being
first introduced to each other. It was Mr. Pleydell's delight to
state in grave and serious argument some position which he knew
the Dominie would be inclined to dispute. He then beheld with
exquisite pleasure the internal labour with which the honest man
arranged his ideas for reply, and tasked his inert and sluggish
powers to bring up all the heavy artillery of his learning for
demolishing the schismatic or heretical opinion which had been