former pupil of Dugald Stewart, and happened to be at that time his guest. Burns has left the following humorous record of his own feelings at that meeting:-- This wot ye all whom it concerns, I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns, October twenty-third, A ne'er to be forgotten day, Sae far I sprachled up the brae [clambered], I dinner'd wi' a Lord. * * * * * But wi' a Lord! stand out my shin, A Lord,--a Peer, an Earl's Son! Up higher yet my bonnet! And sic a Lord! lang Scotch ells twa, Our Peerage he o'erlooks them a', As I look o'er a sonnet. But oh for Hogarth's magic power! To show Sir Bardie's willyart glower [bewildered], And how he stared and stammered, When goavan, as if led in branks, [moving stupidly], And stumpin' on his ploughman shanks, He in the parlour hammered. I sidling sheltered in a nook, An' at his Lordship steal't a look Like some portentous omen; Except good sense and social glee, An' (what surprised me) modesty, I marked nought uncommon. I watched the symptoms o' the great, The gentle pride, the lordly state, The arrogant assuming; The fient a pride, nae pride had he, Nor sauce, nor state, that I could see, Mair than an honest ploughman. From this record of that evening given by Burns, it is interesting (p. 036) to turn to the impression made on Professor Stewart by this their first interview. He says,-- "His manners were then, as they continued ever afterwards, simple, manly, and independent; strongly expressive of conscious genius and worth, but without anything that indicated forwardness, arrogance, or vanity. He took his share in conversation, but not more than belonged to him; and listened with apparent attention and deference on subjects where his want of education deprived him of the means of information. If there had been a little more of gentleness and accommodation in his temper, he would, I think, have been still more interesting; but he had been accustomed to give law in the circle of his ordinary acquaintance, and his dread of anything approaching to meanness or servility rendered his manner somewhat decided and hard. Nothing perhaps was more remarkable among his various attainments than the fluency, and precision, and originality of his language, when he spoke in company; more particularly as he aimed at purity in his turn of expression, and avoided, more successfully than most Scotchmen, the peculiarities of Scottish phraseology."