"_Service is no inheritance._"--Will you or any of your readers have the
goodness to inform me {587} what is the origin of the adage occurring twice
in the _Waverley Novels_, thus:
"Service, I wot, is no inheritance now-a-days; some are wiser than
other some," &c. (See _Peveril of the Peak_, chap. xiv.)
and
"Ay, St. Ronan's, that is a' very true,--but service is nae
inheritance, and as for friendship it begins at hame."--_St. Ronan's
Well_, chap. x.
I have seen a stone in an old building in the north of Scotland, with the
following inscription, cut in letters of an ancient form: "Be gude in
office, or (or perhaps 'for,' part of the stone being here broken off)
servitude is no inheritance to none." And I am curious to know the origin
of this proverb, so similar to that put by Sir Walter Scott in the mouths
of two of his homely characters; the one English and the other Scotch. An
answer will very much oblige