It is. Fergusson's memorable words are—"If from this we are disposed to collect any inference adverse to the pursuits of glory, it may be asked whither do the paths of ignominy lead? If to the grave also, then our choice of a life remains to be made on the grounds of its intrinsic value, without regard to an end which is common to every station of life we can lead, whether illustrious or obscure."
SEWARD.
Very fine. Who says it? Fergusson—who was he?
NORTH.
The best of you Englishers are intolerably ignorant about Scotland. Do you know the Reverend John Mitford?
SEWARD.
I do—and have for him the greatest respect.
NORTH.
So have I. He is one of our best Editors—as Pickering is one of our best Publishers of the Poets. But I am somewhat doubtful of the truthfulness of his remarks on the opening of the Elegy, in the Appendix to his excellent Life of Gray. "The Curfew 'toll' is not the appropriate word—it was not a slow bell tolling for the dead."
SEWARD.