wondrous charm. _I have scarce written ten sentences since I was
introduced to him_, _but his influence might be somewhere detected by
a close observer_.'

"It is very detectable in many passages of nature-description and of
reflection. I write, my Lord, merely that, in case opportunity should
arise, you might notice this fact. I am sure R. L. Stevenson would
have liked it recognised.--I remain, my Lord, always yours faithfully,
etc.,

ALEXANDER H. JAPP."

{Manuscript letter by R.L.S.: p262.jpg}

In reply to this Lord Rosebery sent me only the most formal
acknowledgment, not in the least encouraging me in any way to further aid
him in the matter with regard to suggestions of any kind; so that I was
helpless to press on his lordship the need for some corrections on other
points which I would most willingly have tendered to him had he shown
himself inclined or ready to receive them.

I might also have referred Lord Rosebery to the article in _The British
Weekly_ (_1887_), "Books that have Influenced Me," where, after having
spoken of Shakespeare, the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_, Bunyan, Montaigne,
Goethe, Martial, Marcus Aurelius's _Meditations_, and Wordsworth, he
proceeds:

"I suppose, when I am done, I shall find that I have forgotten much
that is influential, as I see already I have forgotten Thoreau."

I need but to add to what has been said already that, had Lord Rosebery
written and told me the result of his references and encouraged me to
such an exercise, I should by-and-by have been very pleased to point out
to him that he blundered, proving himself no master in Burns' literature,
precisely as Mr Henley blundered about Burns' ancestry, when he gives
confirmation to the idea that Burns came of a race of peasants on both
sides, and was himself nothing but a peasant.

When the opportunity came to correct such blunders, corrections which I
had even implored him to make, Lord Rosebery (who by several London
papers had been spoken of as "knowing more than all the experts about all
his themes"), that is, when his volume was being prepared for press, did
not act on my good advice given him "_free_, _gratis_, _for nothing_";
no; he contented himself with simply slicing out columns from the
_Times_, or allowing another man to do so for him, and reprinting them
_literatim et verbatim_, all imperfect and misleading, as they stood.
_Scripta manet_ alas! only too truly exemplified to hi