Page:The Monastery, Volume 1 - Scott (1820).djvu/35

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INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE.
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set to learn new tricks, how many venerable parrots he hath taught to sing a new song, how many grey heads he has addled by vain attempts to exchange their own old Mumpsimus for his new Sumpsimus. But let it pass—Humana perpessi sumus—All changes round us, past, present, and to come; that which was history yesterday becomes fable to-day, and the truth of to-day is hatched into a lie by to-morrow.

Finding myself like to be overpowered in the Monastery, which I had hitherto regarded as my citadel, I began, like a skilful general, to evacuate that place of defence, and fight my way through the adjacent country. I had recourse to my acquaintance with the families and antiquities of the neighbourhood, ground on which I thought I might skirmish at large without its being possible for the stranger to meet me with advantage. But I was mistaken.

The man in the iron-grey suit shared a much more minute knowledge of these par-

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