me to one of his minor Border
stories. The real Black Dwarf (David Ritchie he was called among men)
was fond of poetry, but hated Burns. He was polite to the fair, but
classed mankind at large with his favourite aversions: ghosts, fairies,
and robbers. There was this of human about the Black Dwarf, that "he
hated folk that are aye gaun to dee, and never do't." The village
beauties were wont to come to him for a Judgment of Paris on their
charms, and he presented each with a flower, which was of a fixed value
in his standard of things beautiful. One kind of rose, the prize of the
most fair, he only gave thrice. Paris could not have done his dooms more
courteously, and, if he had but made judicious use of rose, lily, and
lotus, as prizes, he might have pleased all the three Goddesses; Troy
still might be standing, and the lofty house of King Priam.

Among Dr. Brown's papers on children, that called "Pet Marjorie" holds
the highest place. Perhaps certain passages are "wrote too
sentimentally," as Marjorie Fleming herself remarked about the practice
of many authors. But it was difficult to be perfectly composed when
speaking of this wonderful fairy-like little girl, whose affection was as
warm as her humour and genius were precocious. "Infant phenomena" are
seldom agreeable, but Marjorie was so humorous, so quick-tempered, so
kind, that we cease to regard her as an intellectual "phenomenon." Her
memory remains sweet and blossoming in its dust, like that of little
Penelope Boothby, the child in the mob cap whom Sir Joshua painted, and
who died very soon after she was thus made Immortal.

It is superfluous to quote from the essay on Marjorie Fleming; every one
knows about her and her studies: "Isabella is teaching me to make simme
colings, nots of interrigations, peorids, commoes, &c." Here is a
Shakespearian criticism, of which few will deny the correctness:
"'Macbeth' is a pretty composition, but awful one." Again, "I never read
sermons of any kind, but I read novelettes and my Bible." "'Tom Jones'
and Gray's 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard' are both excellent, and much
spoke of by both sex, particularly by the men." Her Calvinistic belief
in "_unquestionable_ fire and brimston" is unhesitating, but the young
theologian appears to have substituted "unquestionable" for
"unquenchable." There is something humorous in the alteration, as if
Marjorie refused to be put off with an "excellent family substitute" for
f