ccount of the death of
Partridge, or the Tale of a Tub. If, however, he could wonder at the
latitudinarian laxity of my taste, there was at least one special
department in which I could marvel quite as much at the incomprehensible
breadth of his. Nature had given me, in despite of the phrenologists,
who find music indicated by two large protuberances on the corners of my
forehead, a deplorably defective ear. My uncle Sandy, who was profoundly
skilled in psalmody, had done his best to make a singer of me; but he
was at length content to stop short, after a world of effort, when he
had, as he thought, brought me to distinguish St. George's from any
other psalm-tune. On the introduction, however, of a second tune into
the parish church that repeated the line at the end of the stanza, even
this poor fragment of ability deserted me; and to this day--though I
rather like the strains of the bagpipe in general, and have no objection
to drums in particular--doubts do occasionally come across me whether
there be in reality any such thing as tune. My friend William Ross was,
on the contrary, a born musician. When a little boy, he had constructed
for himself a fife and clarionet of young shoots of elder, on which he
succeeded in discoursing sweet music; and addressing himself at another
and later period to both the principles and practice of the science, he
became one of the best flute-players in the district. Notwithstanding my
dulness of ear, I do cherish a pleasing recollection of the sweet sounds
that used to issue from his little room in the outhouse, every milder
evening as I approached, and of the soothed and tranquil state in which
I ever found him on these occasions as I entered. I could not understand
his music, but I saw that, mentally at least, though, I fear, not
physically--for the respiratory organs were weak--it did him great good.

There was, however, one special province in which our tastes thoroughly
harmonized. We were both of us, if not alike favoured, at least equally
devoted, lovers of the wild and beautiful in nature; and many a
moonlight walk did we take together this winter among the woods and
rocks of the hill. It was once said of Thomson, by one who was himself
not at all morbidly poetic in his feelings, that "he could not have
viewed two candles burning but with a poetical eye." It might at least
be said of my friend, that he never saw a piece of fine or striking
scenery without being deeply moved by it.