dical, consisting of "Border Tales,"
which, as he possessed the story-telling ability, met with considerable
success. He did not live, however, to complete the first yearly volume;
the forty-ninth weekly number intimated his death; but as the
publication had been a not unprofitable one, the publisher resolved on
carrying it on; and it was stated in a brief notice, which embodied a
few particulars of Mr. Wilson's biography, that, his materials being
unexhausted, "tales yet untold lay in reserve, to keep alive his
memory." And in the name of Wilson the publication was kept up for, I
believe, five years. It reckoned among its contributors the two
Bethunes, John and Alexander, and the late Professor Gillespie of St.
Andrews, with several other writers, none of whom seem to have been
indebted to any original matter collected by its first editor; and I,
who, at the publisher's request, wrote for it, during the first year of
my marriage, tales enough to fill an ordinary volume, had certainly to
provide all my materials for myself. The whole brought me about
twenty-five pounds--a considerable addition to the previous hundred and
odds of the household, but, for the work done, as inadequate a
remuneration as ever poor writer got in the days of Grub Street. My
tales, however, though an English critic did me the honour of selecting
one of them as the best in the monthly part in which it appeared, were
not of the highest order: it took a great deal of writing to earn the
three guineas, which were the stipulated wages for filling a weekly
number; and though poor Wilson may have been a fine enough fellow in his
way, one had no great encouragement to do one's very best, in order to
"keep alive his memory." In all such matters, according to Sir Walter
Scott and the old proverb, "every herring should hang by its own head."

I can show, however, that at least one of my contributions _did_ gain
Wilson some little credit. In the perilous attempt to bring out, in the
dramatic form, the characters of two of our national poets--Burns and
Fergusson--I wrote for the "Tales" a series of "Recollections," drawn
ostensibly from the memory of one who had been personally acquainted
with them both, but in reality based on my own conceptions of the men,
as exhibited in their lives and writings. And in an elaborate life of
Fergusson, lately published, I find a borrowed extract from my
contribution, and an approving reference to the whole, coupled with a