VISIT TO EUROPE: RESIDENCE IN EDINBURGH. 181 



ings, and when returning his call I found him living with 

 a widowed mother. His intellectual and metaphysical 

 works are well known in this country. He gave me a small 

 Latin treatise of his own composition ; I think it was en- 

 titled " De sornniis" His appearance was that of an amia- 

 ble man, of modest and conciliating manners. His person 

 was genteel, his countenance mild and pleasing ; and his 

 age might have been thirty-two or thirty-three. 



I have mentioned a literary breakfast at the house of a 

 celebrated gentleman, Dr. Anderson, the well-known edi- 

 tor of the British Poets. I met there an agreeable circle of 

 gentlemen, and the conversation was more or less literary. 

 American literature, of course, comes in for a share of at- 

 tention on such occasions. Dr. Anderson conceded to us 

 much talent and keenness, especially in debate, what the 

 English call cleverness, with a fair amount of information, 

 but he said we had not yet attained to taste. Our literary 

 productions being "often tumid and bombastical," (but 

 hardly more so than a sermon which I heard, on the occa- 

 sion of the National Thanksgiving, by Dr. Baird, President 

 of the University of Edinburgh). If such remarks are 

 annoying, I could not but admit, tacitly, that they were 

 but too well founded. I parried Dr. Anderson's censure, 

 however, by adding, that there was much talent and taste 

 in my country, the results of which did not reach Europe. 

 Dr. Anderson was a gentleman, I should suppose, then 

 turned of fifty. His person and presence were both com- 

 manding and affable, but his costume was negligent, his 

 apparel old and worn, and was hardly worthy of himself or 

 his guests ; but I was led to believe that his circumstances 

 were far from affluence, a fact not uncommon in Edin- 

 burgh. 



That eccentric nobleman, the Earl of Buchan, was one 

 the guests at Dr. Anderson's. He appeared to be sixty 

 sixty-five years old. I was no sooner announced to him 

 an American, than he singled me out as a subject of 



