"My intention had been to qualify myself for the University, and, perhaps in regard to Latin and Greek acquirements, I might have proceeded thither earlier than I ventured to do; but having now made myself master of my more immediate tasks, I took more liberty. A gentleman, who, on coming home after having made his fortune abroad, took up his residence at Biggar. I had, in these days, an aversion to coming into contact with rich strangers, and although he lived with a family which I was accustomed to visit, I bore aloof from being introduced to him. But he came to me one day on the hill of Bizzie-berry, and frankly told me that he wished to be acquainted with me, and therefore had taken the liberty of introducing himself. I found excuse for not dining with him on that day, but not so the next, nor for many days afterwards. He was intellectual—and his intelligence was only surpassed by his generosity. He gave me to understand that his horse was as much at my service as his own; and one learned, by and by, to keep all wishes and wants as much out of view as possible, in case that they should be attended to when you yourself had forgotten them. When he began to rally me about my limited knowledge of the world, I knew that some excursion was in contemplation. We, on one occasion, rode down the Clyde, finding out, so far as we might, all things, both natural and artificial, worthy of being seen; and when at Greenock, he was anxious that we should have gone into the Highlands, but I resisted; for although not so much as a shade of the expenses was allowed to fall on me, I felt only the more ashamed of the extent of them.
"I had become acquainted with a number of people whom I delighted to visit occasionally; one family in particular, who lived amid the beauty of 'the wild glen sae green.' The song now widely known by this name I wrote for a member of this delightful family, who at that time herded one of the hirsels of his father's flocks on 'the heathy hill.' With the greater number of persons in the district possessing literary tastes I became more or less intimate. The schoolmasters I found friendly and obliging; one of these, in particular (now holding a higher office in the same locality), I often visited. His high poetic taste convinced me more and more of the value of mental culture, and tended to subdue me from those more rugged modes of expression in which I took a pride in conveying my conceptions. With this interesting friend I sometimes took excursions into rural regions more or less remote, and once we journeyed to the south, when I had the pleasure of introducing him to the Ettrick Shepherd. But of my acquaintances, I valued few more than my modest and poetic friend, the late James Brown of Symington.[2] Though humble in station, he was high in virtuous worth. His mind, imbued with and regulated by sound religious and moral principle, was as ingenious and powerful as his heart was 'leal, warm, and kind.'
"Entering the University of Edinburgh, I took for the first session the Greek and Latin classes. Attending them regularly, I performed the incumbent exercises much after the manner that others did—only, as I have always understood it to be a rare thing with the late Mr Dunbar, the Greek Professor, to give much praise to anything in the shape of poetry, I may mention that marked merit was ascribed to me in his class for a poetical translation of one of the odes of Anacreon. I had laid the translation on his desk, in an anonymous state, one day before the assembling of the class. He read it and praised it, expressing at the same time his anxiety to know who was the translator; but the translator having intended not to acknowledge it, kept quiet. He returned to it, and praising it anew, expressed still more earnestly his desire to know the author; and so I made myself known, as all great unknowns I think, with the exception of Junius, are sooner or later destined to do.
"Of the philosophical classes, those that I liked best were the Logic and Moral Philosophy—particularly the latter. I have often thought that it is desirable, could it be possibly found practicable, to have all the teachers of the higher departments of education not merely of high scholastic acquirements, but of acknowledged genius. Youth reveres genius, and delights to be influenced by it; heart and spirit are kept awake and refreshed by it, and everything connected with its forthgivings is rendered doubly memorable. It fixes, in a certain sense, the limit of expectation, and the prevailing sentiment is—we are under the tuition of the highest among those on earth who teach; if we do not profit here, we may not hope to do so elsewhere. These remarks I make with a particular reference to the late Professor Wilson, under the influence of whose genius and generous warmth of heart many have felt as I was wont to feel. If it brings hope and gladness to love and esteem the living, it also yields a satisfaction, though mingled with regret, to venerate the dead; and now that he is no more, I cannot forbear recording how he treated a man from the mountains who possessed no previous claim upon his attention. I had no introduction to him, but he said that he had heard of me, and would accept of no fee for his class when I joined it; at least he would not do so, he said, till I should be able to inform him whether or not I had been pleased with his lectures. But it proved all the same in this respect at the close as it was at the commencement of the session. He invited me frequently to his house as a friend, when other friends were to meet him there, besides requesting me to come and see him and his family whenever I could make it convenient. He said that his servant John was very perverse, and would be sure to drive me by like all others, if he possibly could; so he gave me a watchword, which he thought John, perverse as he was, would not venture to resist. I thus became possessed of a privilege of which I did not fail to avail myself frequently—a privilege which might well have been gratifying to such as were much less enthusiastic with regard to literary men and things than I was. To share in the conversation of those possessed of high literary taste and talent, and, above all, of poetic genius, is the highest enjoyment afforded by society; and if it be thus gratifying, it is almost unnecessary to add that it is also advantageous in no ordinary degree, if, indeed, properly appreciated and improved. Any one who ever met the late Professor in the midst of his own happy family, constituted as it was when I had this pleasure, was not likely soon to forget a scene wherein so much genius, kindness, loveliness, and worth were blended. If the world does not think with a deep and undying regret of what once adorned it, and it has now lost, through the intervention of those shadows which no morning but the eternal one can remove, I am one, at least, who in this respect cannot follow its example.
"Edinburgh, with its 'palaces and towers,' and its many crowded ways, was at first strangely new to me, being as different, in almost all respects, to what I had been accustomed as it might seem possible for contrariety to make earthly things. Though I had friends in it, and therefore was not solitary, yet its tendency, like that of the noisy and restless sea, was to render me melancholy. Some features which the congregated condition of mankind exhibited penetrated my heart with something like actual dismay. I had seen nothing of the sort, nor yet even so much as a semblance of it, and therefore I had no idea that there existed such a miserable shred of degradation, for example, as a cinder-woman—desolate and dirty as her employment—bowed down—a shadow among shadows—busily prone, beneath the sheety night sky, to find out and fasten upon the crumb, whose pilgrimage certainly had not improved it since falling from the rich man's table. Compassion, though not naturally so, becomes painful when entertained towards those whom we believe labouring under suffering which we fain would but cannot alleviate.
"I had enough of curiosity for wishing to see all those things which others spoke of, and characterised as worthy of being seen; but I contented myself meanwhile with a survey of the city's external attributes. In a week or two, however, my friend A. F. Harrower, formerly mentioned, having come into town from Clydesdale, took pleasure in finding out whatever could interest or gratify me, and of conveying me thither. With very few exceptions, every forenoon he called at my lodgings, leaving a note requesting me to meet him at some specified time and place. I sometimes sent apologies, and at other times went personally to apologise; but neither of these methods answered well. Through his persevering attentions towards me, I met with much agreeable society, and saw much above as well as somewhat below the earth, which I might never otherwise have seen. In illustration of the latter fact, I may state that, having gone to London, he returned with two Englishmen, when he invited me to assist them in exploring the battle-field of Pinkie. We terminated our excursion by descending one of Sir John Hope's coal-pits. These humorous and frank English associates amused themselves by bantering my friend and myself about the chastisement which Scotland received from the sister kingdom at Pinkie. As did the young rustic countryman—or, at least, was admonished to do—so did I. When going away to reside in England, he asked his father if he had any advice to give him. 'Nane, Jock, nane but this,' he said; 'dinna forget to avenge the battle o' Pinkie on them.' Ere I slept I wrote, in support of our native land, the song—'Ours is the land of gallant hearts;' and thus, in my own way, 'avenged the battle of Pinkie.'
"One of two other friends with whom I delighted to associate was R. B., an early school companion, who, having left the mountains earlier than I did, had now been a number of years in Edinburgh. Of excellent head and generous heart, he loved the wild, green, and deep solitudes of nature. The other—G. M'D.—was of powerful and bold intellect, and remarkable for a retentive memory. Each of us, partial to those regions where nature strives to maintain her own undisturbed dominion, on all holidays hied away from the city, to the woodland and mountainous haunts, or the loneliness of the least frequented shores of the sea. The spirit of our philosophy varied much—sometimes profound and solemn, and sometimes humorous; but still we philosophised, wandering on. They were members of a literary society which met once a week, and which I joined. My propensity to study character and note its varieties was here afforded a field opening close upon me; but I was also much profited by performing my part in carrying forward the business of the institution. During all the sessions that I attended the University, but especially as these advanced toward their termination, I entered into society beyond that which might be regarded as professionally literary. I had an idea then, as I still have, that, in every process of improvement, care should be taken that one department of our nature is not cultivated to the neglect of another. There are two departments—the intellectual and the moral;—the one implying all that is rational, the other comprising whatever pertains to feeling and passion, or, more simply, there are the head and the heart; and if the intellect is to be cultivated, the heart is not to be allowed to run into wild waste, nor to sink into systematic apathy. Lore-lighted pages and unremitting abstract studies will make a man learned; but knowledge is not wisdom; and to know much is not so desirable, because it is not so beneficial, either to ourselves or others, as to understand, through the more generous and active sympathies of our nature, how the information which we possess may be best applied to useful purposes. This we shall not well know, if the head be allowed or encouraged to leave the heart behind. If we forget society it will forget us, and, through this estrangement, a sympathetic knowledge of human nature may be lost. Thus, in the haunts of seclusion and solitary thought our acquirements may only prove availing to ourselves as matters of self-gratification. The benevolent affections, which ought not merely to be allowed, but taught to expand, may thus not only be permitted but encouraged to contract, and the exercise of that studious ingenuity, which perhaps leads the world to admire the achievements of learning, thus deceive us into a state of existence little better than cold selfishness itself. Sir Isaac Newton, who soared so high and travelled so far on the wing of abstract thought, gathering light from the stars that he might convey it in intelligible shape to the world, seems to have thought, high as the employment was, that it was not good, either for the heart or mind of man, to be always away from that intercourse with humanity and its affairs which is calculated to awaken and sustain the sympathies of life; and therefore turned to the contemplation of Him who was meek and lowly. And no countenance has been afforded to monks and hermits who retired from the world, though it even was to spend their lives in meditation and prayer; for Heaven had warned man, at an early date, not to withhold the compassionate feelings of the heart, and the helping-hand, from any in whom he recognised the attributes of a common nature, saying to him, 'See that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh.'
"My last year's attendance at the College Philosophical Classes was at St Andrews. I had a craving to acquaint myself with a city noted in story, and I could not, under the canopy of my native sky, have planted the step among scenes more closely interwoven with past national transactions, or fraught with more interesting associations. In attending the Natural Philosophy Class, not being proficient in mathematic lore, I derived less advantage than had otherwise been the case with me. Yet I did not sit wholly in the shade, notwithstanding that the light which shone upon me did not come from that which Campbell says yielded 'the lyre of Heaven another string.' A man almost always finds some excuse for deficiency; and I have one involving a philosophy which I think few will be disposed to do otherwise than acquiesce in—namely, that it is a happy arrangement in the creation and history of man, that all minds are not so constituted as to have the same predilections, or to follow the same bent. Considering that I had started at a rather late hour of life to travel in the paths of learning, and having so many things, interesting and important, to attend to by the way, it was perhaps less remarkable that I should be one who 'neither kenn'd nor cared' much about lines that had no breadth, and points which were without either breadth or length, than that I should have felt gratified to find on my arrival some of my simple strains sung in a city famed for its scientific acquirements.
"The ruins which intermingle with the scenery and happy homes of St Andrews, like gray hairs among those of another hue, rendered venerable the general aspect of the place. But I did not feel only the city interesting, but the whole of Fifeshire. By excursions made on the monthly holidays then as well as subsequently, when in after-years I returned to visit friends in the royal realm, I acquainted myself with a goodly number of those haunts and scenes which history and tradition have rendered attractive. A land, however, or any department of it, whatever may be its other advantages, is most to be valued in respect of the intelligence or worth of its inhabitants. And if so, then I am proud to aver that in Fife I came to possess many intelligent and excellent friends. Many of these have gone to another land—'the land o' the leal,' leaving the places which now know them no more, the more regretfully endeared to recollection. Of those friends who survive, I cannot forbear an especial mention of one, who is now a professor in the college in which he was then only a student. A man cannot be truly great unless he also be good, and I do not alone value him on the colder and statelier eminence of high intellectual powers and scientific acquirements, but also, if not much rather, for his generous worth and his benevolent feeling. My friend is one in whom these qualities are combined, and as I sincerely think, I will likewise freely say, that those will assuredly find a time, sooner or later, greatly to rejoice, whose fate has been so favourable as to place them under the range and influence of his tuition.
"I studied at St Andrews College under the late Dr Jackson, who was an eminent philosopher and friendly man; also under Mr Duncan, of the Mathematical Chair, whom I regarded as a personification of unworldly simplicity, clothed in high and pure thought; and I regularly attended, though not enrolled as a regular student, the Moral Philosophy Class of Dr Chalmers. Returning to Edinburgh and its university, I became acquainted, through my friend and countryman, Robert Hogg, with R. A. Smith, who was desirous that I should assist him with the works in which he was engaged, particularly 'The Irish Minstrel,' and 'Select Melodies.' Smith was a man of modest worth and superior intelligence; peculiarly delicate in his taste and feeling in everything pertaining to lyric poetry as well as music; his criticisms were strict, and, as some thought, unnecessarily minute. Diffident and retiring, he was not got acquainted with at once, but when he gave his confidence, he was found a pleasant companion and warm-hearted friend. If, as he had sought my acquaintance, I might have expected more frankness on our meeting, I soon became convinced that his shyer cast arose alone from excess of modesty, combined with a remarkable sensitiveness of feeling. Proudly honourable, he seemed more susceptible of the influences of all sorts that affect life than any man I ever knew; and, indeed, a little acquaintance with him was only required to shew that his harp was strung too delicately for standing long the tear and wear of this world. He had done much for Scottish melody, both by fixing the old airs in as pure a state as possible, and by adding to the vast number of these national treasures some exquisite airs of his own. For a number of the airs in the works just mentioned, but particularly in the 'Select Melodies,' he had experienced difficulty in procuring suitable words, owing chiefly to the crampness of the measures—a serious drawback which appears to pervade, more or less, the sweetest melodies of other nations as well as those of our own. A number of these I supplied as well as I could.