Is it fit, think ye,
that Baby Charles should let his thoughts be publicly seen?
No, no, princes' thoughts are _arcana imperii: qui nescit
dissimulare, nescit regnare_. Every liege subject is bound
to speak the whole truth to the king, but there is nae
reciprocity of obligation--and for Steenie having been
whiles a dike-louper at a time, is it for you, who are his
goldsmith, and to whom, I doubt, he awes an uncomatable sum,
to cast that up to him?"
Assuredly there is no undue favouring of Stuarts in such a picture as
that.
Scott's humour is, I think, of very different qualities in relation to
different subjects. Certainly he was at times capable of considerable
heaviness of hand,--of the Scotch "wut" which has been so irreverently
treated by English critics. His rather elaborate jocular
introductions, under the name of Jedediah Cleishbotham, are clearly
laborious at times. And even his own letters to his daughter-in-law,
which Mr. Lockhart seems to regard as models of tender playfulness and
pleasantry, seem to me decidedly elephantine.
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