He

the winter preceding the publication of the second edition, he was fêted and caressed. was patronised by the Duchess of Gordon. Lord Glencairn was his friend, so also was Henry Erskine. He was frequently at Lord Monboddo's, where he admired the daughter's beauty more than the father's philosophy; he breakfasted with Dr. Blair; he walked in the mornings to the Braid Hills with Professor Dugald Stewart; and he frequently escaped from these lofty circles to the Masonic Lodge, or to the supper-tables of convivial lawyers, where he felt no restraint, where he could be wounded by no patronage, and where he flashed and corruscated, and became the soul of the revel. Fashionable and lettered saloons were astonished by Burns's talk; but the interior of taverns—and in Edinburgh tavern life was all but universal at the time-saw the brighter and more constant blaze. This sudden change of fortune-so different from his old life in the Irvine flax heckling-shop, or working the sour Mossgiel lands, or the post of a book-keeper in Jamaica, which he looked forward to, and so narrowly escaped-was not without its giddy and exciting pleasures, and for pleasure of every

d

kind Burns had the keenest relish.

Now and again, too, in the earlier days of his Edinburgh life, when success wore its newest gloss, and applause had a novel sweetness, a spirt of exhilaration escaped him, not the less real that it was veiled in a little scornful exaggeration. In writing to Mr. Hamilton, he says: "For my own affairs, I am in a fair way of becoming as eminent as Thomas à Kempis, or John Bunyan; and you may expect henceforth to see my birthday inserted among the wonderful events in the Poor Robin and Aberdeen Almanacks, along with Black Monday and the battle of Bothwell Bridge." In any case, if he did feel flattered by the attention paid him by society, he had time to cool and strike a balance in his friend Richmond's garret in the Lawnmarket—where he slept, Mr. Lockhart informs us, during the whole of that glittering and exciting winter.

Hitherto, the world had seen but little of Burns personally. It had heard his voice as of one singing behind the scenes, and been moved to admiration; and when he presented himself in the full blaze of the footlights, he became the cynosure of every eye, and the point on which converged every critical opera

glass. Edinburgh and Burns confronted each other. Edinburgh "took stock" of Burns, Burns "took stock" of Edinburgh, and it is interesting to note the mutual impressions. From all that can be gathered from Dr. Blair, Professors Dugald Stewart, Walker, and others, Burns acquitted himself in his new circumstances admirably. He never lost head, he never let a word of exultation escape him, his deportment was everywhere respectful yet self-possessed; he talked well and freely-for he knew he was expected to talk--but he did not engross conversation. His "deferential" address won his way to female favour: and the only two breaches of decorum which are recorded of him in society, may be palliated by his probable ignorance of his host's feelings and vanities on the first occasion, and on the second, by the peculiar provocation he received. Asked in Dr. Blair's house, and in Dr. Blair's presence, from which of the city preachers he had derived the greatest gratification, it would have been fulsome had Burns said, turning to the Doctor, "I consider you, Sir, the greatest pulpit orator I have ever heard." The question was a most improper one in the circumstances, and if the company

were thrown into a state of foolish embarrassment, and the host's feelings wounded by Burns giving the palm to his colleague-then the company were simply toadies of the sincerer sort, and the host less skilled in the world's ways than Burns, and possessed of less natural good-breeding. In the second instance when, in a sentence more remarkable for force than grace, he extinguished a clergyman who abused Gray's Elegy, but who could not quote a line of it correctly, he merely gave way to a swift and not ungenerous instinct-for which he was, no doubt, sorry the next moment. He cannot be defended altogether, although even here one can hardly help rendering him a sneaking approval. Bad language at a breakfast-table, and addressed to a clergyman, is improper-but, on the other hand, no clergyman has a right to be a bore at a breakfast-table. Indeed, your critical and blundering bore, whether clergyman or no -all the more sedulously, perhaps, if he be a clergyman-should keep out of the way of a Burns. Evil is certain to befall him if he do not. It is pretty evident, however, from the records left, that Dr. Blair, Dugald Stewart, and others, did not really know Burns, did not, in fact,

take much pains to know him.

They never

met him on frank, cordial, and brotherly terms. They looked on him curiously, as one looks on a strange insect, through a microscope. From their learned heights they regarded him as on the plain beneath. They were ever ready with advice, and counselled him to stand armed at points where no danger could possibly appear. Of all the good things in the world, advice is practically the least useful. If a man is fool enough to need advice, the chances are that he will be fool enough to resent it when given, or neglect it when the critical moment arrives. The Edinburgh literati did not quite well know what to make of Burns. He was a new thing under the sun, and they could not fall back on precedent. They patronised him kindly, heartily, for the most part-but still it was patronage. And it has come about that, in the lapse of seventy years, the relations of the parties have been quite reversed as in dissolving views the image of Burns has come out in bolder relief and brighter colours, while his patrons have lost outline, have dwindled, and become shadowy. Dr. Blair and Lord Monboddo will be remembered mainly