a clever piece of handiwork, and Sir Walter felt at first great relief from the use of it: inasmuch that his spirits rose to quite the old pitch, and his letter to me upon the occasion overflows with merry applications of sundry maxims and verses about Fortune. "Fortes Fortuna adjuvat " — 66 - he says- never more sing I!" Lockhart, Chapter lxxix. The first stanza is an old Elizabethan song. The second, Scott's palinode, appears to be his last effort in verse. The incident was in February, 1831.

FORTUNE, my Foe, why dost thou frown

on me?

And will my Fortune never better be?