235 



CHAPTER IX. 



SEEKS WORK IN INVERNESS UNSUCCESSFULLY RESOLVES TO 



PRINT HIS POEMS MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MR 



CARRUTHERS IS ASKED TO ENLIST CORRECTS PROOF- 

 SHEETS OF HIS POETRY, AND DECIDES THAT IT IS POOR 



RETAINS INFLEXIBLY HIS FIRST OPINION OF ITS MERITS, 



AND RESOLVES TO CULTIVATE PROSE DEATHS OF UNCLE 



JAMES AND OF WILLIAM ROSS DEDICATION OF HIS POEMS 



TO SWANSON. 



THE plan of seeking work in Inverness, which he 

 carried into effect in the course of the summer, had 

 important consequences, but they proved to be by no 

 means of the kind he anticipated. Thinking, with 

 somewhat less, it must be admitted, than his usual 

 shrewdness, that by demonstrating his power to write 

 grammatically in the poetical corner of a newspaper, he 

 might obtain employment as an engraver of epitaphs, 

 he wrote an Ode to the river Ness, and offered it for 

 insertion in the Inverness Courier, No one trusts a 

 versifying mechanic in his own art ; and the inhabitants 

 of the capital of the Highlands, dowered with quite 

 sufficient conceit, would have been more likely to resent 

 the implication that they could not compose inscriptions 

 for themselves, than to employ a stone-cutter who pro- 

 posed, however melodiously, to compose inscriptions for 

 them. But we need not speculate on the effect which 

 the appearance of the Ode to the Ness in the columns of 



