Excerpt from Tales of My Landlord, Vol. 1 of 3: The Bride of Lammermoor A 2time turned into ridicule by the pencil of the soil. This led to discredit and loss of practice, until the old tailor, yielding todestiny, and to the entreaties of his son, permitted him to attempt his fortune in 'a line for which he was better qualified. There was about this time, in the village of Lang dirdum, a peripatetic brother of the brush, who ex ercised his vocation sub Jove fflgido, the object of admiration to all the boys of the village, but espe cially to Dick Tinto. The age had not yet adopted, amongst other unworthy retrenchments that illibe ral measure of economy, which supplying by writ: tcn characters the lack of symbolical representation, closes one open and easily accessible 'avenueof ia struction and emolument against the students of the arts. It was not yet permitted to write upon the plastered door-way of an ale-house, or the suspend ed sign of an inn, 6 The Old Magpie, ' or The - Se racen's Head, ' substituting that cold description for the lively elligies of the plumed chatterer, or the turban'd frown of the terrific soldan. That early and more simple age considered alike the accessi ties of all ranks, and depicted the symbols of good cheer so as to be obvious to all capacities; well judging, that a man, who could not read a syllable, might nevertheless love a pot of good ale as well as his better educated neighbours, or even as the par son himself. Acting upon this liberal principle, publicans as yet hung forth the painted emblems of their calling, and sign-painters, if they seldom feast ed, did not at least absolutely starve. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.