he
house of Stuart in song, and in life are loyal subjects of their Queen.

We are told, and we can well believe that for the first few days of his
stay he wandered about, looking down from Arthur's Seat, gazing at the
Castle, or contemplating the windows of the booksellers' shops. We know
that he made a special pilgrimage to the grave of Fergusson, and that in
a letter, dated February 6, 1787, he applied to the honourable bailies
of Canongate, Edinburgh, for permission 'to lay a simple stone over his
revered ashes'; which petition was duly considered and graciously
granted. The stone was afterwards erected, with the simple inscription,
'Here lies Robert Fergusson, Poet. Born September 5th, 1751; died 16th
October, 1774.

No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay,
"No storied urn nor animated bust";
This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way
To pour her sorrow o'er her poet's dust.'

On the reverse side is recorded the fact that the stone was erected by
Robert Burns, and that the ground was to remain for ever sacred to the
memory of Robert Fergusson.

It is related, too, that he visited Ramsay's house, and that he bared
his head when he entered. Burns over and over again, both in prose and
verse, turned to these two names with a kind of fetich worship, that it
is difficult to understand. He must have known that, as a poet, he was
immeasurably superior to both. It may have been that their writings
first opened his eyes to the possibilities of the Scots tongue in
lyrical and descriptive poetry; and there was something also which
appealed to him in the wretched life of Fergusson.

'O thou, my elder brother in misfortune,
By far my elder brother in the Muses.'

His elder brother indeed by some six years! But there is more of
reverence than sound judgment in his estimate of either Ramsay or
Fergusson.

Burns, however, had come to Edinburgh with a fixed purpose in view, and
it would not do to waste his time mooning about the streets. On December
7 we find him writing to Gavin Hamilton, half seriously, half jokingly:
'I am in a fair way of becoming as eminent as Thomas a Kempis or John
Bunyan, and you may expect henceforth to see my birthday inserted among
the wonderful events in the Poor Robins' and Aberdeen Almanacs along
with the Black Monday and the Battle of Bothwell Bridge. My Lord
Glencairn and the Dean of Faculty, Mr. H. Erskine, have taken me under
their wing, and by all probabi