VISIT TO EUROPE: RESIDENCE IN EDINBURGH. 181 



ings, and when returning his call I found him living with 

 a widowed mother. His intellectual and metaphysical 

 works are well known in this country. He gave me a small 

 Latin treatise of his own composition ; I think it was en 

 titled "De somniu." His appearance was that of an amia 

 ble man, of modest and conciliating manners. His person 

 was genteel, his countenance mild and pleasing ; and his 

 age might have been thirty-two or thirty-three. 



I have mentioned a literary breakfast at the house of a 

 celebrated gentleman, Dr. Anderson, the well-known edi 

 tor of the British Poets. I met there an agreeable circle of 

 gentlemen, and the conversation was more or less literary. 

 American literature, of course, comes in for a share of at 

 tention on such occasions. Dr. Anderson conceded to us 

 much talent and keenness, especially in debate, what the 

 English call cleverness, with a fair amount of information, 

 but he said we had not yet attained to taste. Our literary 

 productions being "often tumid and bombastical," (but 

 hardly more so than a sermon which I heard, on the occa 

 sion of the National Thanksgiving, by Dr. Baird, President 

 of the University of Edinburgh). If such remarks are 

 annoying, I could not but admit, tacitly, that they were 

 but too well founded. I parried Dr. Anderson's censure, 

 however, by adding, that there was much talent and taste 

 in my country, the results of which did not reach Europe. 

 Dr. Anderson was a gentleman, I should suppose, then 

 turned of fifty. His person and presence were both com 

 manding and affable, but his costume was negligent, his 

 apparel old and worn, and was hardly worthy of himself or 

 his guests ; but I was led to believe that his circumstances 

 were far from affluence, a fact not uncommon in Edin 

 burgh. 



That eccentric nobleman, the Earl of Buchan, was one 

 of the guests at Dr. Anderson's. He appeared to be sixty 

 or sixty-five, years old. I was no sooner announced to him 

 as an American, than he jingled me out as a subject of 



