ited Edinburgh, for the first time, in the latter part of the
autumn of 1773, about two months after I had sailed from Boston. It was
on a fine calm morning--one of those clear sunshiny mornings of October,
when the gossamer goes sailing about in long cottony threads, so light
and fleecy that they seem the skeleton remains of extinct cloudlets; and
when the distant hills, with their covering of grey frost rime, seem,
through the clear cold atmosphere, as if chiselled in marble. The sun
was rising over the town through a deep blood-coloured haze--the smoke
of a thousand fires; and the huge fantastic piles of masonry that
stretched along the ridge, looked dim and spectral through the cloud,
like the ghosts of an army of giants. I felt half a foot taller as I
strode on towards the town. It was Edinburgh I was approaching--the
scene of so many proud associations to a lover of Scotland; and I was
going to meet as an early friend one of the first of Scottish poets. I
entered the town. There was a book stall in a corner of the street; and
I turned aside for half a minute to glance my eye over the books.

"Ferguson's Poems!" I exclaimed, taking up a little volume. "I was not
aware they had appeared in a separate form. How do you sell this?"

"Just like a' the ither booksellers," said the man who kept the
stall--"that's nane o' the buiks that come doun in a hurry--just for the
marked selling price." I threw down the money.

"Could you tell me anything of the writer?" I said. "I have a letter for
him from America."

"Oh, that'll be frae his brither Henry, I'll wad; a clever cheild too,
but ower fond o' the drap drink, maybe, like Rob himsel'. Baith o' them
fine humane chields, though, without a grain o' pride. Rob takes a stan'
wi' me sometimes o' half an hour at a time, an' we clatter ower the
buiks; an', if I'm no mista'en, yon's him just yonder--the thin, pale
slip o' a lad wi' the broad brow. Ay, an' he's just comin' this way."

"Anything new to-day, Thomas?" said the young man, coming up to the
stall. "I want a cheap second-hand copy of Ramsay's 'Evergreen;' and,
like a good man as you are, you must just try and find it for me."

Though considerably altered--for he was taller and thinner than when at
college, and his complexion had assumed a deep sallow hue--I recognised
him at once, and presented him with the letter.

"Ah! from brother Henry," said he, breaking it open, and glancing his
eye over the contents. "What--_