Attentive still to sorrow's wail,
Or modest merit's silent claim;
And never may their sources fail!
And never envy blot their name!"

One wonders what the gentlemen said to this in the old town and the
new--whether it did not confuse them still further, as well intended
perhaps, but not after all like the "Epistle to Davie," though they had
all advised him to amend that rustic style. A very confusing business
altogether--difficult for the kind advisers as well as for the poet, and
with no outlet that any one could see.

[Illustration: DUGALD STEWART'S MONUMENT]

We have, however, a more agreeable picture of the visitor on another
occasion when he walked out into the country with Dugald Stewart in a
spring morning to the hills of Braid and talked that gentle
philosopher's heart away, not now about Edina's palaces and towers. "He
told me ... that the sight of so many smoking cottages gave a pleasure
to his mind which none could understand who had not witnessed like
himself the happiness and worth which they contained." It is more
pleasant to think of the poet's dark eyes lighting up as he said this
than to watch him proud and self-possessed in the drawing-rooms holding
his own, taking such good care that nobody should divine how his heart
was beating and his nerves athrill.

But after all there is no such account given of this wonderful visitor
to Edinburgh as that we have from the after-recollections of a certain
"lameter" boy who was once present in a house where Burns was a guest.
The Scott boys from George Square had been admitted to the party which
they were too young to join in an ordinary way, in order that they might
see this wonder of the world, the ploughman-poet who was not afraid, but
behaved as well as any of the gentlemen. And it befell by the happiest
chance that Burns inquired who was the author of certain verses
inscribed upon a print which he had been looking at. No one knew but
young Walter, who we may be sure had not lost a look or a word of the
stranger, and who had read everything in his invalid childhood. The boy
was not bold enough to answer the question loud out, but he whispered it
to some older friend, who told the poet, no doubt with an indication of
the blushing and eager lad from whom it came, which procured him a word
and a look never forgotten. But there passed at the same time a thought
through young Walter's mind, the swift reflection of that never-failing
criticism