The complete works of Robert Burns (self-interpreting) . th November, 1786, and tookup his residence with John Richmond, a Mauchline acquaint-ance, who occupied a room in Baxters Close, Lawnmarket, forwhich he paid three shillings a week. Burns for some timeafter his arrival seems to have had no special object; he wan-dered about the city, looking down from the Castle on PrincesStreet; haunting Holyrood Palace and Chapel ; standing withcloudy eyelid and hands meditatively knit beside the graveof Fergusson ; and from the Canongate glancing up with intereston the quaint tenement in which Allan R
The complete works of Robert Burns (self-interpreting) . th November, 1786, and tookup his residence with John Richmond, a Mauchline acquaint-ance, who occupied a room in Baxters Close, Lawnmarket, forwhich he paid three shillings a week. Burns for some timeafter his arrival seems to have had no special object; he wan-dered about the city, looking down from the Castle on PrincesStreet; haunting Holyrood Palace and Chapel ; standing withcloudy eyelid and hands meditatively knit beside the graveof Fergusson ; and from the Canongate glancing up with intereston the quaint tenement in which Allan Ramsay kept his shop,wrote his poems, and curled the wigs of a departed generationof Scotsmen. At the time of Burnss arrival, the Old Towntowered up from Holyrood to the Castle, picturesque, smoke-wreathed ; and when the darkness came, its climbing tiers THE LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 229 of lights and cressets were reflected in the yet existingNor Loch ; and the grey uniform streets and squares of theNew Town—from which the visitor to-day can look down on. EDINBURGH. low wooded lands, the Forth, and Fife beyond—were only incourse of erection. The literary society of the time was bril-liant but exotic, like the French lily or the English rose. Fora generation or more the Scottish philosophers, historians, andpoets had brought their epigram from France as they broughttheir claret, and their humor from England as they broughttheir parliamentary intelligence. Blair of the Grave was aScottish Dr. Young; Home of Douglas a Scottish Otwa};Mackenzie a Scottish Addison ; and Dr. Blair—so far as hiscriticism was concerned—a sort of Scottish Dr. Johnson. TheScotch brain was genuine enough ; the faculty was native, butit poured itself into foreign moulds. The literary grandeeswore decorations—honestly earned—but no one could discoveramongst them the Order of the Thistle. These men, too, haddone their work, and the burly, black-eyed, humorous, pas-sionate ploughman came up amongst the
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