50 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



having formed his literary tastes in that tract of study 

 which all the educated have to pass through, he has had 

 to pick them up for himself in nooks and by corners 

 where scarce any one ever picked them up before. 

 Among educated men the starting note, if I may so ex- 

 press myself, is nearly the same all the world over, and 

 what wonder if the after-tones should harmonize, but 

 alas for his share in the concert who has to strike upon 

 a key of his own ! 



* All my young friends here, and I have a great 

 many, are highly delighted with your volume of Ballads, 

 and some of the elderly, who have hardly taken up a 

 piece of light reading for the last thirty years, have 

 eagerly renewed by means of it their acquaintance with 

 the favourites of their youth. I have an aunt turned of 

 seventy, who, with the assistance of spectacles, has 

 perused it from beginning to end. It is by far the best 

 collection I have yet seen, and the notes add infinitely 

 to its value/ 



To this there came, in due course, the following 

 reply. 



' Anne Street, Edinburgh, March 31, 1835. 



*I have just received your letter of the 19th inst., 

 with the accompanying volume, of which I have already 

 read a considerable portion. It is fortunate it arrived 

 to-day, as 1 was about to write for another purpose than 

 the acknowledgment of your letter ; and it is better to 

 kill two birds with one stone than a single one only. 

 My object was to mention that I have read your history 

 of Cromarty all to the last two chapters, being, perhaps, 

 the fourth or fifth work of which I have read so much 

 these half dozen years. For a copy which has been 

 sent to me, apparently by your order, I beg to thank 

 you, but I had previously bought one, and was by that 



