< COURTING: 117 



gossip with me. I am busily courting her three maids, 

 who, though they have not a syllable of English amongst 

 them, are very kindly teaching me Gaelic ; and from a 

 young lady, the governess of her children, I have bor- 

 rowed a few books. One of these, though published in 

 Inverness about twelve years ago, I have not had the 

 chance of seeing before. It is a small volume of poems 

 by a Miss Campbell, then a young lady of seventeen. 

 At even that early age she was a poetess, and rich in 

 those sentiments and feelings which we deem so fas- 

 cinating in the amiable and accomplished woman. Even 

 though occasionally the girl peeps out in most of her 

 pieces, I like them none the worse; her puerilities, 

 joined to no equivocal indications of a fine genius, lead- 

 ing one to entertain hopes of her future eminence ; and 

 certainly, if her riper years have but fulfilled the promise 

 which her earlier ones have given, she must be now a very 

 superior person indeed. I feel much interested in her, 

 and wish much to know what has become of her/ . . . . 

 Thus abruptly ends the narrative. Miller's jesting 

 allusion to the three maids whom he was 'courting/ 

 suggests the remark that his insensibility to female 

 attractions in his youth contrasts strongly not only 

 with the impassioned^ admiration of Burns for every 

 beautiful face he ever saw, but with the susceptibility to 

 woman's charms common to vivid and poetical natures. 

 ' Miss A / one of his acquaintances at Gairloch, asked 

 him to write a poem upon love. He set about it with as 

 much composure of mind as if she had asked him to 

 carve an inscription on a gravestone. Here are the four 

 opening stanzas : 



' Though meanly favoured by the Muse, 



Though scant of wit and time, 

 On theme by Celtic maid supplied, 

 I sit me down to rhyme. 



