Note 35 — Chapter V · THE DOWNFALL OF BALLANTYNE & COMPANY
Reading edition
As Scott, like Swift and Shakespeare, like Thackeray and Fielding, never hesitated at a touch of grim humour even though it might border on grotesque, he himself would probably not have missed the coincidence of—
'Though billmen ply the ghastly blow,'
which suggests itself only too tragi-comically.