The feelings of “Peter,” as his friends always called Robertson, may be imagined. True, it was the only copy of the _Review_ that contained the couplet: it must have been some time before the disturbed poet found out. Yet “Peter” was a “jokist” of a scarcely less desperate character. At a dinner-party an Oxford don was parading his Greek erudition, to the boredom of the whole company. Robertson gravely replied to some proposition, “I rather think, sir, Dionysius of Halicarnassus is against you there.” “I beg your pardon,” said the don quickly, “Dionysius did not flourish for ninety years after that period.” “Oh,” rejoined Patrick, with an expression of face that must be imagined, “I made a mistake; I meant Thaddeus of Warsaw.” There was no more Greek erudition that night. This fondness for a jest followed those men into every concern of life. One of Wilson’s daughters came to her father in his study and asked, with appropriate blushes, his consent to her engagement to Professor Aytoun. He pinned a sheet of paper to her back, and packed her off to the next room, where her lover was. They were both a little mystified till he read the inscription: “With the author’s compliments.” De Quincey spent the last thirty years of his life mainly in Edinburgh. His grave is in St. Cuthbert’s Churchyard. He seems a strange, exotic figure, for his literary interests, at any rate, were not at all Scots. Once he paid a casual visit to Gloucester Place, where Wilson lived. It was a stormy night, and he stayed on—for about a year. His hours and dietary were peculiar, but he was allowed to do exactly as he liked. “Thomas de Sawdust,” as W. E. Henley rather cruelly nicknamed him, excited the astonishment of the Scots cook by the magnificent way in which he ordered a simple meal. “Weel, I never heard the like o’ that in a’ my days; the bodie has an awfu’ sicht o’ words. If it had been my ain maister that was wanting his denner he would ha’ ordered a hale tablefu’ in little mair than a waff o’ his han’, and here’s a’ this claver aboot a bit mutton no bigger than a preen. Mr. De Quinshay would mak’ a gran’ preacher, though I’m thinking a hantle o’ the folk wouldna ken what he was driving at.” During most of the day De Quincey lay in a stupor; the early hours of the next morning were his time for talk. The Edinburgh of that time was still a town of strong individualities, brilliant wits, and clever talkers, but when that weird voice began, the listeners, though they were the very flower of the intellect of the place, were content to hold their peace: all tradition lies, or this strange figure was here the first of them all.