“Faar’s yer speen?” (Where’s your spoon?) said an envious and mocking Aberdeen bailie, to the no small discomfiture of the London knight, as he strutted to and fro, believing that his costume was accurate in every detail. Lockhart hints that possibly Scott invented the story to soothe the King’s wounded feelings. On the 24th of August the Provost and Magistrates of Edinburgh entertained the King in Parliament House to a great banquet. The King gave one toast, “The Chieftains and Clans of Scotland, and prosperity to the Land of Cakes.” He also attended a performance of _Rob Roy_ at the theatre. Carlyle was in Edinburgh at the time, and fled in horror from what he called the “efflorescence of the flunkeyisms,” but everybody else seemed pleased, and voted the thing a great success. No doubt it gave official stamp to what is perhaps still the ordinary English view of Scotland. The odd thing is that Scott himself never grasped the Highland character—at least, where has he drawn one for us? Rob Roy and Helen Macgregor and Fergus M‘Ivor and Flora M‘Ivor are mere creatures of melodrama, but the Bailie and Mattie and Jeanie Deans and Davie Deans and the Antiquary and Edie Ochiltree and Andrew Fairservice and Mause and Cuddie Hedrigg are real beings of flesh and blood. We have met them or their likes on the muir or at the close fit, or on the High Street or in the kirk. Twenty years passed, and a British Sovereign again comes to Scotland. On the 1st of September in 1842 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert arrived at Granton. They duly proceeded towards Edinburgh. The Lord Provost and Bailies ought to have met them at Canonmills to present the keys of the city, but they were “conspicuous by their absence,” and the Royal party had to go to Dalkeith (like George the Fourth, they put up for the time in the Duke of Buccleuch’s huge palace there). The local wits waxed merry; they swore that my Lord Provost and his fellows had over-slept themselves, and a parody of a well-known song rang unpleasantly in civic ears: “Hey, Jamie Forrest, Are ye waukin’ yet, Or are yer byles Snoring yet?” However, the Royal party came specially from Dalkeith on a subsequent day, and received the keys at the Cross, and nobody even whispered “Anticlimax!” CHAPTER SIX MEN OF LETTERS. PART I.