a fair
sprinkling of rank and beauty, which had not yet abandoned the
Scottish for the English capital. The leader at that time in gay
society was the well-known Duchess of Gordon,--a character so
remarkable in her day that some rumour of her still lives in Scottish
memory. The impression made upon her by Burns and his conversation
shall afterwards be noticed.

Though Burns for the first day or two after his arrival wandered about
companionless, he was not left long unfriended. Mr. Dalrymple, of
Orangefield, an Ayrshire country gentleman, a warm-hearted man, and a
zealous Freemason, who had become acquainted with Burns during the
previous summer, now introduced the Ayrshire bard to his relative, the
Earl of Glencairn. This nobleman, who had heard of Burns from his
Ayrshire factor, welcomed him in a very friendly spirit, introduced
him to his connexion, Henry Erskine, and also recommended him to the
good offices of Creech, at that time the first publisher in Edinburgh.
Of Lord Glencairn, Chambers says that "his personal beauty formed the
index to one of the fairest characters." As long as he lived he did
his utmost to befriend Burns, and on his death, a few years after this
time, the poet, who seldom praised the great unless he respected and
loved them, composed one of his most pathetic elegies.

It was not, however, to his few Ayrshire connexions only, Mr. Dalrymple,
Dugald Stewart, and others, that Burns was indebted for his introduction
to Edinburgh society. His own fame was now enough to secure it. (p. 047)
A criticism of his poems, which appeared within a fortnight after
his arrival in Edinburgh, in the _Lounger_, on the 9th of December,
did much to increase his reputation. The author of that criticism was
The Man of Feeling, and to him belongs the credit of having been the
first to claim that Burns should be recognized as a great original
poet, not relatively only, in consideration of the difficulties he had
to struggle with, but absolutely on the ground of the intrinsic
excellence of his work. He pointed to his power of delineating manners,
of painting the passions, and of describing scenery, as all bearing
the stamp of true genius; he called on his countrymen to recognize
that a great national poet had arisen amongst them, and to appreciate
the gift that in him had been bestowed upon their generation. Alluding
to his narrow escape from exile, he exhorted them to retain and to
cherish this inestimable gift of