River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1882-10-12
SCOTT AND BURNS.
The House in Which the Poets Had
Their Only Meeting 20 be De-
strOyed ~

The House in Which the Poets Had
Their Only Meeting 20 be De-
strOyed ~
A local link between Robert Burns
and Sir Walter Scott is about to disap-
pear. The two great Scottish poets
met only once Their meeting was in
the house Of Principal Ferguson, the
historian of the Roman republic, and
a leading spirit of the literati of Edin-
burgh in his day. The house was
large and handsome mansion at the
south end of the SCHEMES, with coach
house and well stocked fruit and flower
garden attached. The dining and
drawing room floor were approached
by double outside staircase of broad
steps, guarded by massive balus-
trade Until lately the house remain
ed the finest in the neighborhood. But
few years ago the garden ground was
fenced for building purposes, and last
year the house itself, with its three
flats, was subdivided into werkmen's
houses. The west gable with the
drawing. room window still remain; but
now this gable is 10 be closed in by
tenement rising beside it, and in a short
met may be forgot. In the meantime
it will interest our Edinburgh readers
and others to be reminded of Sir
Walters account of his "elder brother
Of the muses." Writing to Lockhart,
he says Gas for Burns, l may truly
say, "Virgllium vioi tantum." WAS
a lad Of Is in 1856 z, when he first
came to Edinburgh, but had sense and
feeling enough 10 be much interested
in his poetry, and would have given
the world to know him but had very
little acquaintance With any literary
people, and still less with the gentry of
the west country, the two sets whom
he much frequented. Mr.. Thomas
Grierson was at that time a clerk of
my fathers. He knew Burns, and
promised to ask him to his lodgings to
dinner, but had no opportunity to keep
his word, otherwise | might have seen
more of this distinguished man. As
it was, saw him one day at the late
venerable Prof. Ferguson's, where
there were several gentlemen of liter
airy reputation, among whom remem-
Der the celebrated Mr.. Dugald Stewart.
Of course, we youngsters sat silent,
looked and listened. The only thing
| remember which was memorable
in Burns manner was the effect pro-
duced upon him by a print of Bun
bury's representing a soldier lying
dead on the snow, his dog sitting in
misery on one side, on the other his
widow, with a child in her arms.
These lines were Written beneath
"Cold on Canadian hills or Mnderns plain,
Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain
Bent DER her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad pTessage of his future years,
The child of misery baptised in tears"
Burns seemed much affected by the
print, or rather the ideas which it sug-
gested to his mind. He actually shed
tears. He asked from whom the lines
we're, and it CHANGED that nobody but
myself remembered that they occur III
a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's,
called by the unpromising title of
The Justice of Peace | whispered
my Information to friend present,
who mentioned it to Burns, who re-
warded me with look and word,
which, though of mere civility, then
received, and still recollect with very
great pleasuer. Edinburgh Daily re-
Uie1O.