Page:Scott - Tales of my Landlord - 3rd series, vol. 1 - 1819.djvu/29

Rh with a frown and a pshaw, indicative of indignant contempt, and leading me into another room, shewed me, resting against the wall, the majestic head of Sir William Wallace, grim as when severed from the trunk by the orders of the felon Edward.

The painting was executed on boards of a substantial thickness, and the top decorated with irons, for suspending the honoured effigy upon a sign-post.

"There," he said, "my friend, stands the honour of Scotland, and my shame—yet not so—rather the shame of those, who, instead of encouraging art in its proper sphere, reduce it to these unbecoming and unworthy extremities."

I endeavoured to smooth the ruffled feelings of my misused and indignant friend. I reminded him, that he ought not, like the stag in the fable, to despise the quality which had extricated him from difficulties, in which his talents, as a portrait or landscape painter, had been found unavailing. Above all, I praised the execution, as well