LITERARY AJSTD DOMESTIC LIFE. 417 



meeting you under circumstances so original as the celebration of 

 one of the truest poets who ever lived, and of beholding his genius 

 by the light of yours, and then I might perhaps have hoped to in- 

 duce our great living poet to accompany me. But I am tantalizing 

 myself by fancying impossibilities, and can only hope that "Words- 

 worth may grace your festival, and that all happiness may attend 

 it, and you and yours. 



" Believe me to remain, my dear sir, most truly and respectfully 

 yours, T. N. Talfourd." 



The last from the Professor to Aird is characteristic of that gen- 

 tle courtesy which the chivalry of his nature ever showed to woman. 

 Such traits of kindliness may seem almost too trifling to draw at- 

 tention to, but they are unfortunately not so common in the routine 

 of intercourse with our fellow-creatures as could be wished : — 



" Edinburgh, Saturday Evening, 

 August 11th, 1844. 



" My dear Mr. Aird : — I looked about for you in all directions, 

 but could not see you on the field or in the Pavilion. I wished 

 most to have had you on the platform, as the procession passed by 

 before the Adelphi. It was very affecting. 



" I told the -Committee a week or two before the Festival, to invite 

 Mrs. Thomson (Jessie Lewars), and no doubt they did so. But I 

 could get no information about her being there from anybody, so 

 did not allude to her in what I said, lest she might not be present. 



" I spoke to a lady in the Aulds' cottage, thinking she was Mrs. 

 Begg, but she told me she was not ; giving me her name, which I 

 did not catch. Perhaps she was Mrs. Thomson ? I wish you would 

 inquire, and, if so, tell her that I did not hear the name ; for, if it 

 was she, I must have seemed wanting in kindness of manner. I saw 

 it stated in a newspaper that she was seated in the Pavilion with 

 Mrs. Begg. I wished I had known that — if it was so ; but nobody 

 on the morning of the Festival seemed to know any thing, and Mr. 

 Auld in his cottage naturally enough was so carried, that he moved 

 about in all directions with ears inaccessible to human speech. 



" A confounded bagpipe and a horrid drum drove a quarter of an 

 hour's words out of my mind, or rather necessitated a close, leaving 

 out a good deal to balance what I did say. 



