rthrew all my schemes, by opening new prospects
to my poetic ambition."

Blacklock, the blind divine upon whom Johnson "looked with reverence,"
had read the newly published poems, and it was his praise of them that
directly prevented Burns from expatriating himself. "His opinion that I
would meet with encouragement in Edinburgh fired me so much that away I
posted for that city, without a single acquaintance, or a single letter
of introduction. The baneful star that had so long shed its blasting
influence in my zenith for once made a revolution to the nadir." In
Edinburgh, which Burns reached in November, 1786, he was introduced by
Blacklock to all the _literati_, and within a fortnight he was writing
to a friend: "I am in a fair way of becoming as eminent as Thomas a
Kempis or John Bunyan; and you may expect to see my birthday inscribed
among the wonderful events in the Poor Robin and Aberdeen Almanacks,
along with the Black Monday and the Battle of Bothwell Bridge."

But he bore his honours in a manner worthy of himself. "The attentions
he received," says Dugald Stewart, "from all ranks and descriptions of
persons were such as would have turned any head but his own. I cannot
say that I could perceive any unfavourable effect which they left on his
mind." Scott, then a lad of fifteen, met him, and wrote a vivid
description of his appearance:

"His person was strong and robust; his manners rustic, not clownish; a
sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its
effect, perhaps, from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His
features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture, but to me it conveys
the idea that they are diminished as if seen in perspective. I think his
countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. I
would have taken the poet, had I not known what he was, for a very
sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch school--_i.e._, none of your
modern agriculturists, who keep labourers for their drudgery, but the
_douce gudeman_ who held his own plough. There was a strong expression
of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, I think,
indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a
dark cast, which glowed (I say literally _glowed_) when he spoke with
feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head,
though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time. His
conversation expressed perfect self-confidenc