I have known a learned man write a
thousand pages with one quill." [Footnote: A biblical commentary by
Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five
and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled
more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has
this quatrain at the end of the volume--
"With one good pen I wrote this book,
Made of a grey goose quill;
A pen it was when it I took,
And a pen I leave it still."]
"Ah! sir," said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though
instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and
acquiescence, "how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the
world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship!"
"My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise.
Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and
worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal
hand. I will wait by you till it is done."
The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from
his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction.
The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him,
on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted
his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand.
It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which
Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present
day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times
of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains.
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