36 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



strangely that the friend and contemporary of the amiable 

 though ill-fated poet of Kinross, who died nearly sixty 

 years ago, should be the warm friend of your own 

 H M ? I need not tell you how very interesting I 

 found his anecdotes. He gave me notes of his conversa- 

 tions with Burns, and of his correspondence with Scott. 

 One of his remarks regarding the former in connection 

 with somebody else, I am too vain to suppress. " Burns," 

 said he, " excelled all men I ever knew in force of genius ; 

 he leaped to his conclusions with a vigour altogether 

 wonderful, but I do not agree with those who regard his 

 mind as equally powerful in all its faculties. Any task 

 that required prolonged and steady exertion was no task 

 for him ; and I have remarked that his good sense never 

 reached the dignity of philosophy. The writer who 

 chose so humble a theme as the ' Herring Fishery of 

 the Moray Frith/ has, I dare say, never thought of enter- 

 ing the lists with Burns ; nor, perhaps, could he produce 

 such poems as ' Tarn o' Shanter ' and the ' Cotter's 

 Saturday Night ; ' but, in tracing causes and deducing 

 effects, Burns might just as vainly have entered the lists 

 with him."' 



