"They are just in that stage," I remarked, "in which it needs all the vigour of an able man to bring his mind into anything like cultivation. There must be many more facilities of improvement ere the mediocritist can develop himself. He is in the egg still in America, and must sleep there till the next age.--But when last heard you of your brother?" "Why," he replied, "when all the world heard of him--with the last number of _Ruddiman's Magazine_. Where can you have been bottled up from literature of late? Why, man, Robert stands first among our Scotch poets." "Ah! 'tis long since I have anticipated something like that for him," I said; "but, for the last two years, I have seen only two books, Shakspeare and 'The Spectator.' Pray, do show me some of the magazines." The magazines were produced; and I heard, for the first time, in a foreign land and from the recitation of the poet's brother, some of the most national and most highly-finished of his productions. My eyes filled and my heart wandered to Scotland and her cottage homes, as, shutting the book, he repeated to me, in a voice faltering with emotion, stanza after stanza of the "Farmer's Ingle." "Do you not see it?--do you not see it all?" exclaimed my companion; "the wide smoky room, with the bright turf fire, the blackened rafters shining above, the straw-wrought settle below, the farmer and the farmer's wife, and auld grannie and the bairns. Never was there truer painting; and, oh, how it works on a Scotch heart! But hear this other piece." He read "Sandy and Willie." "Far, far ahead of Ramsay," I exclaimed. "More imagination, more spirit, more intellect, and as much truth and nature. Robert has gained his end already. Hurra for poor old Scotland!--these pieces must live for ever. But do repeat to me the 'Farmer's Ingle' once more." We read, one by one, all the poems in the magazine, dwelling on each stanza, and expatiating on every recollection of home which the images awakened. My companion was, like his brother, a kind, open-hearted man, of superior intellect; much less prone to despondency, however, and of a more equal temperament. Ere we parted, which was not until next morning, he had communicated to me all his plans for the future, and all his fondly cherished hopes of returning to Scotland with wealth enough to be of use to his friends. He seemed to be one of those universal geniuses who do a thousand things well, but want steadiness enough to turn any of them to good account. He showed me a treatise on the use of the sword, which he had just prepared for the press; and a series of letters on the stamp act, which had appeared, from time to time, in one of the Boston newspapers, and in which he had taken part with the Americans.