s showed that he had an
evident genius for poetry, and that o' a very high order; but his
parents were poor, and I didna see what poetry was to put in his
pocket. I therefore by no means encouraged him to follow out what I
conceived to be a profitless, though a pleasing, propensity; but, on
the contrary, when I had an opportunity o' speakin' to him by himsel,
I used to say to him--

"Alexander, ye have a happy turn for versification, and there is both
boldness and originality about your ideas--though no doubt they would
require a great deal of pruning before they could appear in a
respectable shape before the world. But you must not indulge in
verse-writing. When you do it, let it only be for an exercise, or for
amusement, when you have nothing better to do. It may make rhyme
jingle in your ears, but it will never make sterling coin jink in your
pockets. Even the immortal Homer had to sing his own verses about the
streets; and ye have heard the epigram--

'Seven cities now contend for _Homer dead_,
Through which the _living Homer_ begg'd his bread.'

Boethius, like Savage in our own days, died in a prison; Terence was a
slave, and Plautus did the work of a horse. Cervantes perished for
lack of food, on the same day that our great Shakspere died; but
Shakspere had worldly wisdom as well as heavenly genius. Camoens died
in an almshouse. The magical Spenser was a supplicant at court for
years, for a paltry pension, till hope deferred made his heart sick,
and he vented his disappointment in these words--

'I was promised, on a time,
To have reason for my rhyme:
From that time unto this season,
I received not rhyme nor reason.'

Butler asked for bread, and they gave him a stone. Dryden lived
between the hand and the mouth. Poor Otway perished through penury;
and Chatterton, the inspired boy, terminated his wretchedness with a
pennyworth of poison. But there is a more striking example than these,
Sandy. It was but the other day that our immortal countryman, Robbie
Burns--the glory o' our age--sank, at our very door, neglected and in
poverty, wi' a broken heart, into the grave. Sandy,' added I, 'never
think o' being a poet. If ye attempt it, ye will embark upon an ocean
where, for every one that reaches their desired haven, ninety-and-nine
become a wreck.'

On such occasions, Sandy used to listen most attentively, and crack to
me very auld-farrantly. Well, sir, it was just after ye went to lear