had not existed when, several months later, the error was pointed out in the _Quarterly Journal of Science_, I should have felt sure that I had written the words wrongly at the outset. For blunders such as this are common enough. But that I should deliberately have taken a correctly worded sentence and altered it into utter absurdity I could not, but for the evidence, have believed to be possible. The case plainly shows that not only may two things be done at once when the mind, nevertheless, is thinking only of one, but that something may be done which suggests deliberate reflection when in reality the mind is elsewhere or not occupied at all. For in this case both the processes on which I was engaged were manifestly carried on without thought, one being purely mechanical and the other, though requiring thought if properly attended to, being so imperfectly effected as to show that no thought was given to it. To return to Sir Walter Scott. It is known but too well that during the later years of his life there came with bodily prostration a great but not constant failure of his mental powers. Some of the phenomena presented during this part of his career are strikingly illustrative of abnormal mental action occurring even at times when the mental power is on the whole much weakened. _The Bride of Lammermoor_, though not one of the best of Scott's novels, is certainly far above such works as _Count Robert of Paris_, _The Betrothed_, and _Castle Dangerous_. Its popularity may perhaps be attributed chiefly to the deep interest of the 'ower true tale' on which it is founded: but some of the characters are painted with exceeding skill. Lucy herself is almost a nonentity, and Edgar is little more than a gloomy, unpleasant man, made interesting only by the troubles which fall on him. But Caleb Balderstone and Ailsie Gourlay stand out from the canvas as if alive; they are as lifelike and natural, yet as thoroughly individualised as Edie Ochiltree and Meg Merrilies. The novel neither suggested when it first appeared, nor has been regarded even after the facts became known, as suggesting that Scott, when he wrote it, was in bad health. Yet it was produced under pressure of severe illness, and when Scott was at least in this sense unconscious, that nothing of what he said and did in connection with the work was remembered when he recovered. 'The book,' says James Ballantyne, 'was not only written, but published, before Mr. Scott was able to rise from his bed; and he assured me that when it was first put into his hands in a complete shape, _he did not recollect one single incident, character, or conversation it contained_! He did not desire me to understand, nor did I understand, that his illness had erased from his memory the original incidents of the story, with which he had been acquainted from his boyhood. These remained rooted where they had ever been; or, to speak more explicitly, he remembered the general facts of the existence of