The only social error Captain Topham seems to have made was when a lady invited him to an oyster supper in a cellar. He “agreed immediately,” but complains pathetically to his correspondent, “You will not think it very odd that I should expect, from the place where the appointment was made, to have had a _partie tête-à-tête_. I thought I was bound in honour to keep it a secret, and waited with great impatience till the hour arrived. When the clock struck the hour fixed on, away I went, and inquired if the lady were there. ‘Oh yes,’ cried the woman, ‘she has been here an hour or more.’ I had just time to curse my want of punctuality when the door opened, and I had the pleasure of being ushered in, not to one lady as I had expected, but to a large and brilliant company of both sexes, most of whom I had the honour of being acquainted with.” But even Captain Topham’s amiable temper has its limits. Of two things he speaks evil,--of his predecessor, Dr. Johnson, and of a haggis. In November 1786 Burns paid his first and famous visit to Edinburgh. He came, dejected, unknown, his mind hovering on the thoughts of intended exile; and in a moment, as it were, Edinburgh recognised him, and flashed on all her lights to welcome him and do his genius honour. There followed the most brilliant and triumphant period of all his short life. He was fêted and lionised by all ranks of society; the magnates and the celebrities, the literary and the learned, the high-born and the low-born, the fashionable and the gay, beautiful women and great men, vied with each other in entertaining this wonderful poet with the rustic garb and the dark eyes. Burns was the honoured and petted guest of every man and woman of note in Edinburgh--of Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, of Sir John Whiteford, of the Ferriers at 15 George Street, of the eccentric Lord Monboddo and his “angel” daughter at 13 St. John Street, and of a hundred more. He rollicked in Dowie’s tavern in Libberton’s Wynd, or, among the “Crochallan Fencibles,” listened to Dawney Douglas quavering the minor pathos of his Gaelic song, “Cro Chalien.” He stood bareheaded beside the unmarked grave of Fergusson in the Canongate Churchyard, and knelt and kissed the spot, and sent to ask if the “Ayrshire ploughman” might erect a stone to the memory of the poet to whom he owed so much. He read aloud his “Cottar’s Saturday Night” before the young Duchess of Gordon and the lovely Miss Burnet, and bewildered them with his fascination and his genius. He published his Edinburgh edition of his poems, and dedicated them to the Caledonian Hunt; and the names of all his admirers and hosts are still there--a long list of good, well-known Scottish names.