BAGE  AND  OTHERS  171

the  famous,  "  They  say.  What  say  they  ?  Let  them
say."  Bage  had  imbibed  from  his  French  teachers,
among  other  forms  of  "  free-thinking,"  an  inclination
towards  grivoiserie,  which  sometimes  neglects  not  merely
the  limits  of  strict  propriety,  but  those  of  fairly  easy-
going good  taste ;  and  his  most  ambitious  books,
Hermsprong :  or  Man  as  He  is  Not  and  Man  as
He  is,  which  Scott  did  not  give  in  the  "  Ballantyne
Novels,"  are  sometimes  rendered  tiresome  by  his
purpose.  Nor  need  anybody  spend  much  time,
trouble,  or  money  in  questing  for  the  very  rare  and  not
very  beautiful  Fair  Syrian.  But  the  other  three,  which
Scott  did  give,  Mount  Henneth,  Barham  Downs,  and
James  Wallace^  are  books  well  worth  reading,  and  full
of  a  salt  which,  if  not  always  Attic,  seldom  lacks  some
kind  of  savour.  If  Bage  had  lived  fifty  or  sixty  years
later  he  might  have  been  a  very  considerable  novelist.
