mercy that sent them to my help, I soon came to myself again, and now that I am landed safe and sound, I am walking about, ye see, like a gentleman, till I get some new craft to try the trade again.'--Sir Walter, who was leaning on my arm during this narrative, had not taken any share in the dialogue, and kept gazing to seaward, with his usual heavy, absorbed expression, and only joined in wishing the seaman better success in his next trip as we parted. However, the detail had by no means escaped his notice, but dropping into the fertile soil of his mind, speedily yielded fruit, quite characteristic of his habits. We happened that evening to dine in company together; I was not near Sir Walter at table, but in the course of the evening my attention was called to listen to a narrative with which he was entertaining those around him, and he seemed as usual to have excited the eager interest of his hearers. The commencement of the story I had not heard, but soon perceived that a shipwreck was the theme, which he described with all the vivid touches of his fancy, marshalling the incidents and striking features of the situation with a degree of dexterity that seemed to bring all the horrors of a polar storm home to every one's mind, and although it occurred to me that our rencontre in the morning with the shipwrecked Whaler might have recalled a similar story to his recollection, it was not until he came to mention _the tea-table of ice_ that I recognised the identity of my friend's tale, which had luxuriated to such an extent in the fertile soil of the poet's imagination, as to have left the original germ in comparative insignificance. He cast a glance towards me at the close, and observed, with a significant nod, 'You see, you did not hear one-half of that honest seaman's story this morning.' It was such slender hints, which in the common intercourse of life must have hourly dropped on the soil of his retentive memory, that fed the exuberance of Sir Walter's invention, and supplied the seemingly inexhaustible stream of fancy, from which he drew forth at pleasure the ground-work of romance."--_Reminiscences_. [287] Painted for Lord Montagu in 1822.--See _Life_, vol. vii. p. 13. Raeburn apparently executed two "half lengths" of Scott almost identical at this time, giving Lord Montagu his choice. The picture chosen remained at Ditton, near Windsor, until 1845, when at Lord Montagu's death it became the property of his son-in-law, the Earl of Home, and it is now (1889) at the Hirsel, Coldstream. The engraving referred to was made from the replica, which remained in the artist's possession, by Mr. Walker, and published in 1826. Sir Henry Raeburn died in July 1823, and I do not know what became of the original, which may be identified by an official chain round the neck, not introduced in the Montagu picture. [288] Song of _The Hunting of the Hare_.--J.G.L.