I beheld a female form, with mob-cap, bib, and apron, sleeves tucked up
to the elbow, a dredging-box in the one hand, and in the other a
sauce-ladle. I concluded, of course, that it was my friend's cook-maid
walking in her sleep; and as I knew he had a value for Sally, who could
toss a pancake with any girl in the country, I got up to conduct her
safely to the door. But as I approached her, she said,--'Hold, sir! I am
not what you take me for;'--words which seemed so apposite to the
circumstances that I should not have much minded them, had it not been
for the peculiarly hollow sound in which they were uttered. 'Know,
then,' she said, in the same unearthly accents, 'that I am the spirit of
Betty Barnes.'--'Who hanged herself for love of the stage-coachman,'
thought I; 'this is a very proper spot of work!'--'Of that unhappy
Elizabeth or Betty Barnes, long cook-maid to Mr. Warburton, the painful
collector, but ah! the too careless custodier, of the largest collection
of ancient plays ever known--of most of which the titles only are left
to gladden the Prolegomena of the Variorum Shakespeare. Yes, stranger,
it was these ill-fated hands that consigned to grease and conflagration
the scores of small quartos, which, did they now exist, would drive the
whole Roxburghe Club out of their senses--it was these unhappy pickers
and stealers that singed fat fowls and wiped dirty trenchers with the
lost works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Jonson, Webster--what
shall I say?--even of Shakespeare himself!'--SIR W. SCOTT. _Introductory
Epistle to The Fortunes of Nigel._