his knowledge into the service of his guests. Upon such occasions of importance, the Captain would, and still does, march away, with great pomposity, at the head of his company, like a peripatetic philosopher declaiming to a troop of disciples, and by the way _lays off_, as he terms it, all he has ever been able to discover respecting the valuable remains of St. Mary’s,—and sometimes more than all! How, then, will his eloquence expand over crypts and chancels, naves and arches! With what an important sound will the point of his walking cane ring against the tomb of Michael Scott! And, above all, how will the surrounding cockneys stare in admiration, when, in the course of his lecture, he chances to emit some such grandly unintelligible word as _architrave_ or _transept_. Captain O.’s intelligence chiefly lies among the vulgar traditionary opinions which are entertained regarding the ruins by the country people; and he knows comparatively little of the lore with which written records and authentic treatises instruct the general antiquary. Mr. Bower is a person of better authority than the Captain, and has even published descriptions of the Abbey; but, notwithstanding, the Captain is not without his party in the town, and it is generally remarked that his anecdotes, if not so true, are at least as entertaining. A sort of jealousy sometimes is observable between these rival Ciceroni, a remarkable anecdote of which is recorded. Upon the opening of some ancient grave within the ruins, a noseless bust of St. Peter happened to be found, which it pleased Captain O. to take under his immediate protection. Bower had found some other remarkable idol in another part of the Abbey, to which he endeavoured to collect as many votaries of curiosity as possible; but the rival statue, which the Captain had already christened by the _taking_ name of Michael Scott, drew off a sweeping sect from the more legitimate shrine. Bower then endeavoured to prove that this was no statue of the wizard at all, but merely one of the common herd of saints, who had formerly figured in the niches of the building. Of this he at last succeeded in convincing all concerned, to the discomfiture of his rival. But, nevertheless, the Captain would not give up his point. He continued pertinacious in maintaining the authenticity of his noseless _protégé_, in spite of all detractions, in spite of all heresies; till at last finding the whole world against him, he gave up his argument, and turned off the whole as a joke, with the facetious observation, that “It was just as good a Michael Scott as could have been found among the whole ruins, if they would only have held with it!”