Note Back to Main Text — Chapter III

He speaks of himself as occasionally "glancing like a meteor from the bottom to the top of the form." His schoolfellow, Mr. Claud Russell, remembers that he once made a great leap in consequence of the stupidity of some laggard on what is called the dult's (dolt's) bench, who being asked, on boggling at cum, "what part of speech is with?" answered, "a substantive." The Rector, after a moment's pause, thought it worth while to ask his dux—"Is with ever a substantive?" but all were silent until the query reached Scott, then near the bottom of the class, who instantly responded by quoting a verse of the book of Judges:—"And Samson said unto Delilah, If they bind me with seven green withs that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and as another man."[52] Another upward movement, accomplished in a less laudable manner, but still one strikingly illustrative of his ingenious resources, I am enabled to preserve through the kindness of a brother poet and esteemed friend, to whom Sir Walter himself communicated it in the melancholy twilight of his bright day.