24 MEMOIR OF 



Ralph the pedlar" 



" bore a curious pack, 



With trinkets fill'd, and had a ready knack 

 At coining rhyme. 



He persevered for some time in this itinerant 

 life, while the novelty and beauties of the country, 

 or its antiquities, called forth his admiration and 

 interest. One of his passions was to visit all the 

 churchyards which came in his way, and he col- 

 lected ahove three hundred epitaphs, some of which 

 were very curious, hut, with his other desultory 

 writings, have been lost. We learn from several of 

 his poems written about this time, during the hours 

 not occupied in his fatiguing journeys, that he 

 began to feel the life of a pedlar was not all sun- 

 shine and comfort, and many petty annoyances 

 besides cold and hunger assailed him. In a letter 

 to Mr. Alexander Clark, he designates himself a 



" lonely pedlar, 



Beneath a load of silk and sorrows bent ;" 



and in another letter, compares his former more 

 comfortable bed with his ensconcement in a barn : 



" The dark damp walls the roof, scarce covered o'er 

 The wind wild whistling through the cold barn door." 



Weary and disgusted with such scenes, he re- 

 turned to Paisley ; and having lost confidence in his 

 journeys as a travelling-merchant, entertained the 

 fond hope of securing both fame and fortune from 

 the publication of his poems, which had now accu- 

 mulated to a considerable stock. Anxious that 



