ons were burnished with gold.

His neckcloth well puffed.
Which six handkerchiefs stuffed,
And in colour with snow might have vied,
Was put on with great care,
As a bait for the fair,
And the ends in a love-knot were tied," &c. &c.

I greatly enjoyed my visits to this genial-hearted and accomplished
lady. No chilling condescensions on her part measured out to me my
distance: Miss Dunbar took at once the common ground of literary tastes
and pursuits; and if I did not feel my inferiority there, she took care
that I should feel it nowhere else. There was but one point on which we
differed. While hospitably extending to me every facility for visiting
the objects of scientific interest in her neighbourhood--such as those
sand-wastes of Culbin in which an ancient barony finds burial, and the
geologic sections presented by the banks of the Findhorn--she was yet
desirous to fix me down to literature as my proper walk; and I, on the
other hand, was equally desirous of escaping into science.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] I am reminded by the editor of the _Courier_, in a very kind
critique on the present volume, of a passage in the history of my little
work which had escaped my memory. "It had come," he states, "to the
knowledge of Sir Walter Scott, who endeavoured to procure a copy after
the limited impression was exhausted."

[14] The following are the opening stanzas of the piece--quite as
obnoxious to criticism, I fear, as those selected by Walsh:--

"Have ye not seen, on winter's eve,
When snow-rack dimm'd the welkin's face.
Borne wave-like, by the fitful breeze.
The snow-wreath shifting place?
Silent and slow as drifting wreath.
Ere day, the clans from Preston Hill
Moved downward to the vale beneath:--
Dark was the scene and still!
In stormy autumn day, when sad
The boding peasant frets forlorn,
Have ye not seen the mountain stream
Bear down the standing corn?
At dawn, when Preston bog was cross'd,
Like mountain stream that bursts its banks.
Charged wild those Celtic hearts of fire.
On Cope's devoted ranks.
Have ye not seen, from lonesome waste,
The smoke-tower rising tall and slow,
O'erlooking, like a stately tree,
The russet plain below?
And have ye mark'd that pillar'd wreath,
When sudden struck by northern blast,
Amid the low