76 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



but in both cases I have lost what, from the great age of 

 the parties, no after opportunity can afford me. I dined 

 one day with Mr Black, and met at his table with his 

 brother-in-law, Mr Tait, the Radical bookseller. He 

 seems to be an outspoken somewhat reckless man, with 

 a good deal of rough power about him, and by no means 

 devoid of sense, but he is more disposed to pick up his 

 arguments from the surface of a subject than to take the 

 trouble of going deeper. I had little conversation with 

 him, for my spirits were rather low at the time, and 

 there were a great many topics on which I knew there 

 was small chance of our being at one. I had seen before 

 leaving Cromarty a volume published by Mr Tait on the 

 Game Laws, by my old antagonist, and as it seemed a 

 miserable production both in point of style and argu- 

 ment, I was curious to know how such a work must fare 

 in the hands of an active bookseller. " Ah, poor - ," 

 said he, in reply to my query regarding it, " he succeeds 

 just like every other man who writes in spite of sense 

 and nature ; and yet though invariably unlucky he still 

 persists. In men of a literary cast," he continued, " the 

 will and the power of production are often sadly dis- 

 joined. I sometimes meet with persons who, I am cer- 

 tain, could write admirably, but who cannot be prevailed 

 on to take up the pen, while a numerous tribe of others, 



destitute, like , not only of ideas, but even of words, 



cannot be persuaded to resign it." Some of the few 

 hours I passed in Edinburgh were spent very agreeably 

 in the back parlour of Mr Black, a most agreeable 

 lounge, where in the course of a single forenoon one may 

 meet with half the literary men of the place. I saw in 

 it in the space of two short hours Mr James Wilson, 

 Professor Pillans, Professor Napier, Dr Jamieson, the 

 author of the Scotch Dictionary, and Dr Irving, the 



