Page:Romance & Reality 1.pdf/151

Rh "That is the author of a most chivalric history of Mary Queen of Scots. The enthusiasm of a young man about beauty and misfortune is as good in taste as it is in feeling. He is a Scotchman, certainly not

for I verily believe that he looks upon the rest of the world as 'a set of niggers,'—an inferior race, on this side the Tweed. We English are much more liberal in that respect; we have always been ready to offer homage,

I remember his saying to an English author, 'It is to Edinburgh you must look for your literary fame.' The best answer would have been the Highland proverb,

It is singular how long national hostility lasts, and how many shapes it will take! That a prejudice still exists between the Scotch and the English, is no credit to either. Were I to allot each their shares of illiberality, I should say, there are six of the one and half-a-dozen of the