Mrs. Murray Keith, a venerable Scotch lady, from whom Sir Walter Scott derived many of the traditionary stories and anecdotes wrought up in his novels, taxed him one day with the authorship, which he, as usual, stoutly denied. "What!" exclaimed the old lady, "d'ye think I dinna ken my ain groats among other folk's kail?" * * * * * QUID PRO QUO. Campbell relates:--"Turner, the painter, is a ready wit. Once at a dinner where several artists, amateurs, and literary men were convened, a poet, by way of being facetious, proposed as a toast the health of the _painters_ and _glaziers_ of Great Britain. The toast was drunk; and Turner, after returning thanks for it, proposed the health of the British _paper-stainers_." * * * * * HOPE'S "ANASTASIUS." Lord Byron, in a conversation with the Countess of Blessington, said that he wept bitterly over many pages of _Anastasius_, and for two reasons: first, that _he_ had not written it; and secondly, that _Hope_ had; for it was necessary to like a man excessively to pardon his writing such a book; as, he said, excelling all recent productions, as much in wit and talent as in true pathos. Lord Byron added, that he would have given his two most approved poems to have been the author of _Anastasius_. * * * * * SMART REPARTEE. Walpole relates, after an execution of _eighteen_ malefactors, a woman was hawking an account of them, but called them _nineteen_. A gentleman said to her, "Why do you say _nineteen_? there were but _eighteen_ hanged." She replied, "Sir, I did not know _you_ had been reprieved." * * * * * COLTON'S "LACON." This remarkable book was written upon covers of letters and scraps of paper of such description as was nearest at hand; the greater part at a house in Princes-street, Soho. Colton's lodging was a penuriously-furnished second-floor, and upon a rough deal table, with a stumpy pen, our author wrote. Though a beneficed clergyman, holding the vicarage of Kew, with Petersham, in Surrey, Colton was a well-known frequenter of the gaming-table; and, suddenly disappearing from his usual haunts in London about the time of the murder of Weare, in 1823, it was strongly suspected he had been assassinated. It was, however, afterwards ascertained that he had absconded to avoid his creditors; and in 1828 a successor was appointed to his living. He then went to reside in America, but subsequently lived in Paris, a professed gamester; and it is said that he thus gained, in two years only, the sum of 25,000_l_. He blew out his brains while on a visit to a friend at Fontainebleau, in 1832; bankrupt in health, spirits, and fortune. * * * * * BUNYAN'S COPY OF "THE BOOK OF MARTYRS."