Miss M’Leod was a very beautiful girl, both winning and attractive, if Raeburn’s portrait of her is true to life, and she made both a good wife and good mother. Among Raeburn’s other portraits, and interesting to us because they were the friends of the Gregories, are such men as Dugald Stewart, Principal Robertson, Blair, Home, Ferguson, Mackenzie, Francis Horner, and Jeffrey. How much is it Raeburn, one wonders, who makes these men and women so charming, for it is their looks and what we know of their lives, far more than their writings, that attract us. Principal Robertson, with all his sweetness and dignity, has only written histories which are now superseded. Jeffrey railed at Wordsworth. Blair’s sermons are but a lingering tradition. The eloquence of Dugald Stewart, which brought Melbourne, Lord John Russell, and Palmerston to Edinburgh University, is now forgotten. It is not by their books that we know these men, it is because we love them when we see their portraits; it is because Cockburn lets us know them in their homes—it is because John Brown, who lived early enough to be in touch with those who remembered them, has written about them lovingly and tenderly. They were delightful men, but more delightful in their lives than in their books. The witty criticisms of the _Edinburgh Review_ have passed away; they were for their day—but the remembrance of Jeffrey’s pleasant after-intercourse with Wordsworth, the kindliness with which Gregory welcomed all the young Edinburgh reviewers into his house at a time when no other Tories except the ‘man of feeling’ and Archibald Alison would receive them, and the occasional permission which Principal Robertson gave little Henry Cockburn to feast off his cherry tree—these are memories which will appeal to the kindly hearts of all time. Then it is amusing to read Dr Gregory’s critical letter to Burns, who must have required all his admiration for the great doctor to bear patiently the numerous suggestions which he showered upon him. * * * * * ‘EDINBURGH, _2nd June 1789_.