o outward appearance, inwardly he was scrutinizing
himself and others with a morbid sensitiveness. In the heyday of his
Edinburgh popularity, he writes to Mrs. Dunlop, one of his most
trusted friends, what he repeats to other correspondents, that he had
long been at pains to take a true measure of himself and to form a
just estimate of his powers: that this self-estimate was not raised by
his present success, nor would it be depressed by future neglect; that
though the tide of popularity was now at full flood, he foresaw that
the ebb would soon set in, and that he was prepared for it. In the
same letters he speaks of his having too much pride for servility, as
though there was no third and more excellent way; of "the stubborn
pride of his own bosom," on which he seems mainly to have relied.
Indeed throughout his life there is much talk of what Mr. Carlyle well
calls the altogether barren and unfruitful principle of pride; much
prating about "a certain fancied rock of independence,"--a rock which
he found but a poor shelter when the worst ills of life overtook him.
This feeling reached its height when soon after leaving Edinburgh, (p. 055)
we find him writing to a comrade in the bitterness of his heart that
the stateliness of Edinburgh patricians and the meanness of Mauchline
plebeians had so disgusted him with his kind, that he had bought a
pocket copy of Milton to study the character of Satan, as the great
exemplar of "intrepid, unyielding independence."

If during his stay in Edinburgh, his "irascible humour" never went so
far as this, "the contumely of condescension" must have entered pretty
deeply into the soul of the proud peasant when he made the following
memorable entry in his diary, on the 9th April, 1787. After some
remarks on the difficulty of true friendship, and the hazard of losing
men's respect by being too confidential with friends, he goes on: "For
these reasons, I am determined to make these pages my confidant. I
will sketch every character that any way strikes me, to the best of my
power, with unshrinking justice. I will insert anecdotes and take down
remarks, in the old law phrase, without feud or favour.... I think a
lock and key a security at least equal to the bosom of any friend
whatever. My own private story likewise, my love adventures, my rambles;
the frowns and smiles of fortune on my bardship my poems and fragments,
that must never see the light, shall be occasionally inserted. In
short, nev