The professed and privileged Fool was generally characterized by a spice of knavery, and not unfrequently of maliciousness: the unnatural situation in which he was placed, tended to excite such propensities and even to produce them. William had shrewdness enough for the character, but nothing of this appeared in his disposition; ill-usage might perhaps have awakened it, and to a fearful degree, if he had proved as sensible to injury as he was to kindness. But he had never felt an injury. He could not have been treated with more tenderness in Turkey (where a degree of holiness is imputed to persons in his condition) than was uniformly shewn him within the little sphere of his perambulations. It was surprizing how much he had picked up within that little sphere. Whatever event occurred, whatever tale was current, whatever traditions were preserved, whatever superstitions were believed, William knew them all; and all that his insatiable ear took in, his memory hoarded. Half the proverbial sayings in Ray's volume were in his head, and as many more with which Ray was unacquainted. He knew many of the stories which our children are now receiving as novelties in the selections from Grimm's _Kinder- und Haus-Marchen_, and as many of those which are collected in the Danish Folk-Sagn. And if some zealous lover of legendary lore, (like poor John Leyden, or Sir Walter Scott) had fallen in with him, the Shakesperian commentators might perhaps have had the whole story of St. Withold; the Wolf of the World's End might have been identified with Fenris and found to be a relic of the Scalds: and Rauf Collyer and John the Reeve might still have been as well known as Adam Bell, and Clym of the Clough and William of Cloudeslie. William had a great fondness for his nephew. Let not Protestants suppose that Nepotism is an affection confined to the dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church. In its excess indeed it is peculiarly a Papal vice,—which is a degree higher than a Cardinal one; but like many other sins it grows out of the corruption of a good feeling. It may be questioned whether fond uncles are not as numerous as unkind ones, notwithstanding our recollections of King Richard and the Children in the Wood. We may use the epithet nepotious for those who carry this fondness to the extent of doting, and as expressing that degree of fondness it may be applied to William Dove: he was a nepotious uncle. The father regarded young Daniel with a deeper and more thoughtful, but not with a fonder affection, not with such a doting attachment. Dinah herself, though a fond as well as careful mother did not more thoroughly ———delight to hear Her early child mis-speak half-uttered words;[1]