d knowledge of Mr. De
Quincey lie in the past, and oftentimes he spoke of matters now become
trite to one of a later culture. But to all that fell from his lips,
his eloquence, subtle and forcible as the wind, full and gently
falling as the evening dew, lent a peculiar charm. He is an admirable
narrator; not rapid, but gliding along like a rivulet through a green
meadow, giving and taking a thousand little beauties not absolutely
required to give his story due relief, but each, in itself, a separate
boon.
I admired, too, his urbanity; so opposite to the rapid, slang,
Vivian-Greyish style, current in the literary conversation of the
day. "Sixty years since," men had time to do things better and more
gracefully.
CHALMERS.
With Dr. Chalmers we passed a couple of hours. He is old now, but
still full of vigor and fire. We had an opportunity of hearing a
fine burst of indignant eloquence from him. "I shall blush to my very
bones," said he, "if the _Chaarrch_" (sound these two _rrs_ with
as much burr as possible, and you will get an idea of his mode of
pronouncing that unweariable word,) "if the Chaarrch yield to the
storm." He alluded to the outcry now raised by the Abolitionists
against the Free Church, whose motto is, "Send back the money;" i.e.,
the money taken from the American slaveholders. Dr. C. felt, that
if they did not yield from conviction, they must not to assault.
His manner in speaking of this gave me a hint of the nature of his
eloquence. He seldom preaches now.
* * * * *
A Scottish gentleman told me the following story:--Burns, still only
in the dawn of his celebrity, was invited to dine with one of the
neighboring so-called gentry, unhappily quite void of true gentle
blood. On arriving, he found his plate set in the servants' room.
After dinner, he was invited into a room where guests were assembled,
and, a chair being placed for him at the lower end of the board, a
glass of wine was offered, and he was requested to sing one of his
songs for the entertainment, of the company. He drank off the wine,
and thundered forth in reply his grand song "For a' that and a' that,"
and having finished his prophecy and prayer, nature's nobleman left
his churlish entertainers to hide their heads in the home they had
disgraced.
A NIGHT ON BEN LOMOND.
At Inversnaid, we took a boat to go down Loch Lomond, to the little
inn of Rowardennan, from which the ascent is
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