, rather contradictory character.
By one writer I was told that I was a dull, correct fellow, who had
written a book in which there was nothing amusing and nothing absurd.
Another, however, cheered my forlorn spirits by assuring me that I was a
"man of genius, whose poems, with much that was faulty, contained also
much that was interesting." A third was sure I had "no chance whatever
of being known beyond the limits of my native place," and that my "book
exhibited none, or next to none, of those indications which sanction the
expectation of better things to come;" while a fourth, of a more
sanguine vein, found in my work the evidence of "gifts of Nature, which
the stimulus of encouragement, and the tempering lights of experience,
might hereafter develop, and direct to the achievement of something
truly wonderful." There were two names in particular that my little
volume used to suggest to the newspaper reviewers. The Tam o'Shanter and
Souter Johnnie of the ingenious Thorn were in course of being exhibited
at the time; and it was known that Thorn had wrought as a journeyman
mason: and there was a rather slim poet called Sillery, the author of
several forgotten volumes of verse, one of which had issued from the
press contemporaneously with mine, who, as he had a little money, and
was said to treat his literary friends very luxuriously, was praised
beyond measure by the newspaper critics, especially by those of the
Scottish capital. And Thom as a mason, and Sillery as a poet, were
placed repeatedly before me. One critic, who was sure I would never come
to anything, magnanimously remarked, however, that as he bore me no ill
will, he would be glad to find himself mistaken; nay, that it would give
him "unfeigned pleasure to learn I had attained to the well-merited fame
of even Mr. Thom himself." And another, after deprecating the undue
severity so often shown by the bred writer to the working man, and
asserting that the "journeyman mason" was in this instance,
notwithstanding his treatment, a man of fair parts, ended by remarking,
that it was of course not even every man of merit who could expect to
attain to the "high poetic eminence and celebrity of a Charles Doyne
Sillery."

All this, however, was criticism at a distance, and disturbed me but
little when engaged in toiling in the churchyard, or in enjoying my
quiet evening walks. But it became more formidable when, on one
occasion, it came to beard me in my den.

The pla