one no impression of him--the lustre is there, Doctor, but it is not lighted up. Byron's countenance is _a thing to dream of_. A certain fair lady, whose name has been too often {p.239} mentioned in connection with his, told a friend of mine, that when she first saw Byron, it was in a crowded room, and she did not know who it was, but her eyes were instantly nailed, and she said to herself, _that pale face is my fate_. And, poor soul, if a godlike face and godlike powers could have made any excuse for devilry, to be sure she had one." In the course of this talk, an old friend and schoolfellow of Scott's[107] asked him across the table if he had any faith in the antique busts of Homer. "No, truly," he answered, smiling, "for if there had been either limners or stuccoyers worth their salt in those days, the owner of such a headpiece would never have had to trail the poke. They would have alimented the honest man decently among them for a lay-figure." [Footnote 106: "What beauties does Flora disclose, How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed," etc.--_Crawford._] [Footnote 107: The late Sir Patrick Murray of Ochtertyre, Bart.--one of the Scotch Barons of Exchequer.] A few days after this, I received a communication from the Messrs. Ballantyne, to the effect that Mr. Scott's various avocations had prevented him from fulfilling his agreement with them as to the historical department of the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1816, and that it would be acceptable to him as well as them, if I could undertake to supply it in the course of the autumn. This proposal was agreed to on my part, and I had consequently occasion to meet him pretty often during that summer session. He told me, that if the war had gone on, he should have liked to do the historical summary as before; but that the prospect of having no events to record but radical riots, and the passing or rejecting of corn bills and poor bills, sickened him; that his health was no longer what it had been; and that though he did not mean to give over writing altogether--(here he smiled significantly, and glanced his eye towards a pile of MS. on the desk by him)--he thought himself now entitled to write nothing but what would rather be an amusement than a fatigue to him--"_Juniores ad labores_."