piece of information entirely new to me. "These Recollections," says the
biographer, "are truly interesting and touching, _and were the result of
various communications made to Mr. Wilson_, whose pains-taking
researches I have had frequent occasion to verify in the course of my
own." Alas, no! Poor Wilson was more than a twelvemonth in his grave ere
the idea of producing these "Recollections" first struck the writer--a
person to whom no communications on the subject were ever made by any
one, and who, unassisted save by one of the biographies of the
poet--that in Chambers' "Lives of Illustrious Scotsmen,"--wrote full two
hundred miles from the scene of his sad and brief career. The same
individual who, in Mr. Wilson's behalf, is so complimentary to my
"pains-taking research," is, I find, very severe on one of Fergusson's
previous biographers--the scholarly Dr. Irving, author of the Life of
Buchanan, and the Lives of the older Scottish Poets--a gentleman who,
whatever his estimate of the poor poet may have been, would have spared
no labour in elucidating the various incidents which composed his
history. The man of research is roughly treated, and a compliment
awarded to the diligence of the man of none. But it is always thus with
Fame.

"Some she disgraced, and some with honours crown'd;
Unlike successes equal merits found:
So her blind sister, fickle Fortune, reigns.
And, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains."

In the memoir of John Bethune by his brother Alexander, the reader is
told that he was much depressed and disappointed, about a twelvemonth or
so previous to his decease, by the rejection of several of his stories
in succession, which were returned to him, "with an editor's sentence of
death passed upon them." I know not whether it was by the editor of the
"Tales of the Borders" that sentence in the case was passed; but I know
he sentenced some of mine, which were, I daresay, not very good, though
well-nigh equal, I thought, to most of his own Instead, however, of
yielding to depression, like poor Bethune, I simply resolved to write
for him no more; and straightway made an offer of my services to Mr.
Robert Chambers, by whom they were accepted; and during the two
following years I occasionally contributed to his _Journal_, on greatly
more liberal terms than those on which I had laboured for the other
periodical, and with my name attached to my several articles. I must be
permitted to ava