of youth which pierces unaware through all wrappings and veils
of the soul. "I remember I thought Burns's acquaintance with English
poetry was rather limited; and also that having twenty times the ability
of Allan Ramsay and of Fergusson, he talked of them with too much
humility as his models." The much-read boy was a little shocked, no
doubt disturbed in his secret soul that the poet--so far above any other
poet that was to be seen about the world in those days--should not have
known that verse: though indeed men better read than Burns might have
been excused for their want of acquaintance with a minor poet like
Langhorne; but how true was the indignant observation, half angry, that
with "twenty times the ability" it was Allan Ramsay and the still less
important unfortunate young Fergusson to whom Burns looked up! Did the
boy wonder perhaps, though too loyal to say it--for criticism at his age
is always keen--whether there might be a something not quite real in
that devotion, and ask in the recesses of his mind whether it was
possible for such a man to be so self-deceived?

There were no doubt various affectations about Burns, as when he talks
big in his diary of observing character and finding this pursuit the
greatest entertainment of his life in Edinburgh, with a pretension very
general among half-educated persons: but there is no reason to believe
that he was not quite genuine about his predecessors. A poet is not
necessarily a critic; and Allan Ramsay's fame had been exactly of the
popular kind which would attract a son of the soil, whereas Fergusson
was the object of Burns's especial tenderness, pity, and regard. And it
is touching to recollect that the only sign he left of himself in
Edinburgh, where for the first time he learned what it was to mix in
fine company and to feel the freedom of money in his pocket, from which
he could afford a luxury, was to place a stone over the grave of
Fergusson in the Canongate Churchyard, where he lay unknown. His
application to the Kirk-Session for leave to do this is still kept upon
the books--a curious interruption amid the minutes of church discipline
and economics. One wonders if that homely memorial is kept as it ought
to be. It is a memorial not only of the admiration of one poet for
another, but of Burns's poignant pity--a wellnigh intolerable pang--for
a young soul who preceded himself in the way of poetry and despair, one
whose life, destined to better and brighter t