ure celebrity.
When it was understood I was to leave the family, Master Walter
told me that he had a small present to give me, to be kept as a
memorandum of his friendship, and that it was of little value:
'But you know, Mr. Mitchell,' said he, 'that presents are not to
be estimated according to their intrinsic value, but according to
the intention of the donor.' This was his Adam's Grammar, which
had seen hard service in its day, and had many animals and
inscriptions on its margins. This, to my regret, is no longer to
be found in my collection of books, nor do I know what has become
of it.

"Since leaving the family, although no stranger to the widely
spreading {p.097} fame of Sir Walter, I have had few
opportunities of personal intercourse with him. When minister in
the second charge of the Established Church at Montrose, he paid
me a visit, and spent a night with me--few visits have been more
gratifying. He was then on his return from Aberdeen, where he, as
an advocate, had attended the Court of Justiciary in its northern
circuit. Nor was his attendance in this court his sole object:
another, and perhaps the principal, was, as he stated to me, to
collect in his excursion ancient ballads and traditional stories
about fairies, witches, and ghosts. Such intelligence proved to
me as an electrical shock; and as I then sincerely regretted, so
do I still, that Sir Walter's precious time was so much devoted
to the _dulce_, rather than the _utile_ of composition, and that
his great talent should have been wasted on such subjects. At the
same time I feel happy to qualify this censure, as I am generally
given to understand that his Novels are of a more pure and
unexceptionable nature than characterizes writings of a similar
description; while at the same time his pen has been occupied in
the production of works of a better and nobler order. Impressed
with the conviction that he would one day arrive at honor and
influence in his native country, I endeavored to improve the
occasion of his visit to secure his patronage in behalf of the
strict and evangelical party in the Church of Scotland, in
exerting himself to induce patrons to grant to the Christian
people liberty to elect their own pastors in cases of vacancy.
His answer struck me much: it was