52 FAMOUS SCOTS 



* A virtuous woman is 55. to her husband,' and he might 

 also have mentioned the case of the statue to George n. 

 in Stephen's Green, Dublin, erected doubtless under 

 municipal supervision, and which yet in the course of 

 a brief Latin inscription of thirteen lines can show more 

 than one mistake to the individual line. He had the 

 curious, yet perhaps after all not unpractical, idea that 

 his scheme for employment might be materially im- 

 proved by his sending a copy of verses to the paper, in 

 the belief that the public would infer that the writer of 

 correct verse could be a reliable workman. But nothing 

 came of this. In justice to the editor it may be allowed 

 that the versification, if easy, was nothing remark- 

 able, and felicity of epithets may be no guarantee for 

 perfection of epitaphs. The reflection, however, came 

 to him that there was no advantage to be won in thus, 

 as he says, scheming himself into employment. It was 

 not congenial, and walking * half an inch taller ' along 

 the streets on the strength of this resolution, he was 

 actually offered the Queen's shilling, or the King's to 

 be chronologically correct, by a smart recruiting ser- 

 geant of a Highland regiment who from the powerful 

 physique of the man had naturally inferred the posses- 

 sion of a choice recruit. 



He determined, accordingly, to face the worst and 

 publish. He made a hasty selection of his verses 

 through the last six years and approached the office of 

 the Inverness Courier. This was a highly fortunate 

 opening, for that paper was, then and up to 1878, 



