[82] The prudent as well as judicious poet who wrote these lines provided a variant to suit those who, basing their position on "Ramillies _cock_," maintain that it was a hat, not a wig, that was named after Villeroy's defeat. For "grave--big" read "where Gallic hopes fell flat," and for "wig" "hat" _simpliciter_, and the thing is done. But Thackeray has "Ramillies _wig_" and Scott implies it. [83] Nodier, who had been in Scotland and, as has been said, was a philologist of the better class, is scrupulously exact in spelling proper names as a rule. Perhaps Loch Fyne is not exactly "Le Lac Beau" (I have not the Gaelic). But from Pentland to Solway (literally) he makes no blunder, and he actually knows all about "Argyle's Bowling Green." [84] If phonetics had never done anything worse than this they would not be as loathsome to literature as they sometimes are. [85] On the other hand, compared with its slightly elder contemporary, _Le Solitaire_ (_v. sup._), it is a masterpiece. [86] Two little passages towards the end are very precious. A certain bridegroom (I abridge a little) is "perfectly healthy, perfectly self-possessed, a great talker, a successful man of business, with some knowledge of physics, chemistry, jurisprudence, politics, statistics, and phrenology; enjoying all the requirements of a deputy; and for the rest, a liberal, an anti-romantic, a philanthropist, a very good fellow--and absolutely intolerable." This person later changes the humble home of tragedy into a "school of mutual instruction, where the children learn to hate and envy each other and to read and write, which was all they needed to become detestable creatures." These words "please the soul well." [87] The description is worth comparing with that of Gautier's _Chateau de la Misere_--the difference between all but complete ruin and mere, though extreme, disrepair being admirably, and by the later master in all probability designedly, worked out. [88] _Et fugit ad salices et se cupit ante videri._ [89] Note, too, a hint at a never filled in romance of the captain's own. [90] I must ask for special emphasis on "beauty." Nothing can be _finer_ or _fitter_ than the style of Steenie's ghostly experiences. And the famous Claverhouse passage _is_ beautiful. [91] As Rossetti saw it in "Sibylla Palmifera": "Under the arch of Life, where Love and Death, _Terror_ and Mystery guard her shrine, I saw Beauty enthroned."