well as the _Twa Dogs_. Even a
common Englishman may have a glimpse, as it were from Pisgah, of its
extraordinary merits.

"_English, The_:--a dull people, incapable of comprehending the Scottish
tongue. Their history is so intimately connected with that of Scotland,
that we must refer our readers to that heading. Their literature is
principally the work of venal Scots."--Stevenson's _Handy Cyclopaedia_.
Glescow: Blaikie & Bannock.

Remember me in suitable fashion to Mrs. Gosse, the offspring, and the
cat.--And believe me ever yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

_Rembrandt_ refers to an article in the Edinburgh Review. "Bummkopf"
was Stevenson's name for the typical pedant, German or other, who
cannot clear his edifice of its scaffolding, nor set forth the
results of research without intruding on the reader all its
processes, evidences, and supports. _Burns_ is the aforesaid Cornhill
essay: not the rejected Encyclopaedia article.

_17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh [July 28, 1879]._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am just in the middle of your _Rembrandt_. The taste
for Bummkopf and his works is agreeably dissembled so far as I have
gone; and the reins have never for an instant been thrown upon the neck
of that wooden Pegasus; he only perks up a learned snout from a footnote
in the cellarage of a paragraph; just, in short, where he ought to be,
to inspire confidence in a wicked and adulterous generation. But, mind
you, Bummkopf is not human; he is Dagon the fish god, and down he will
come, sprawling on his belly or his behind, with his hands broken from
his helpless carcase, and his head rolling oft into a corner. Up will
rise on the other side, sane, pleasurable, human knowledge: a thing of
beauty and a joy, etc.

I'm three parts through _Burns_; long, dry, unsympathetic, but sound
and, I think, in its dry way, interesting. Next I shall finish the
story, and then perhaps Thoreau. Meredith has been staying with Morley,
has been cracking me up, he writes, to that literary Robespierre; and he
(the L. R.) is about, it is believed, to write to me on a literary
scheme. Is it Keats, hope you? My heart leaps at the thought.--Yours
ever,

R. L. S.

TO EDMUND GOSSE

With reference to the "term of reproach," it must be explained that
Mr. Gosse, who now signs with only one initial, used in these days to
sign with two, E. W. G. The nickname Weg was fastened on him