hat, had Dr. M'Crie been a Scotch covenanter of the
times of Charles II, the insurgents at Bothwell would have had what they
sadly wanted--a general. The shrewd sense of his discourses had great
charms for me; and, though not a flashy, nor, in the ordinary sense of
the term, even an eloquent preacher, there were none of the other
Edinburgh clergy his contemporaries to whom I found I could listen with
greater profit or satisfaction. A simple incident which occurred during
my first morning attendance at his chapel, strongly impressed me with a
sense of his sagacity. There was a great deal of coughing in the place,
the effect of a recent change of weather; and the Doctor, whose voice
was not a strong one, and who seemed somewhat annoyed by the ruthless
interruptions, stopping suddenly short in the middle of his argument,
made a dead pause. When people are taken greatly by surprise, they cease
to cough--a circumstance on which he had evidently calculated. Every
eye was now turned towards him, and for a full minute so dead was the
silence, that one might have heard a pin drop. "I see, my friends," said
the Doctor, resuming speech, with a suppressed smile--"I see you can be
all quiet enough when I am quiet." There was not a little genuine
strategy in the rebuke; and as cough lies a good deal more under the
influence of the will than most coughers suppose, such was its effect,
that during the rest of the day there was not a tithe of the previous
coughing.

The one-roomed cottage which I shared with its three other inmates, did
not present all the possible conveniences for study; but it had a little
table in a corner, at which I contrived to write a good deal; and my
book-shelf already exhibited from twenty to thirty volumes, picked up on
Saturday evenings at the book-stalls of the city, and which were all
accessions to my little library. I, besides, got a few volumes to read
from my friend William Ross, and a few more through my work-fellow Cha;
and so my rate of acquirement in book-knowledge, if not equal to that of
some former years, at least considerably exceeded what it had been in
the previous season, which I had spent in the Highlands, and during
which I had perused only three volumes--one of the three a slim volume
of slim poems, by a lady, and the other, that rather curious than
edifying work, "Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed." The cheap literature
had not yet been called into existence; and, without in the least
unde