THE MEETING OF BURNS AND SCOTT. CHANCING to be in Edinburgh one day in the beginning of June, and having an hour to spare in the forenoon, we turned aside from the heat and bustle of Princes Street and entered the quiet, cool, classic shade of the Royal Scottish Academy. It was the closing week of the Exhibition of pictures, and as the hour was early the Galleries echoed to no footfall save our own. Our motive being chiefly to pass the time, we wandered about in butterfly fashion, pausing here and there as something of interest arrested the attention. It was only when we had paced the entire length of the Galleries, and had come down half-way on the opposite side, that a picture met our eye which could be said to really move us, and looking back upon that visit it is almost the only one of the collection which has left any clear and vivid impression upon the memory. This may be partly due to the length of time spent before it, but that was an involuntary tribute paid to the power of the painting, and the interest of its subject to appeal to our sympathies: and, as we believe, there are many with kindred tastes to our own, perhaps a description of the painting may be enjoyed by such. The painting is by Mr. Charles Martin Hardie, A. R. S. A., a well-known and widely-admired Scottish artist, and it seeks to portray the first and only meeting that ever took place between Burns and Scott. The subject is thus worthy of any painter. The meeting between Wellington and Blucher, Napoleon III. and Bismarck, Stanley and Livingstone, Johnson and Goldsmith, Knox and Queen Mary have had their artistic chroniclers; and why should not this, which flatters the just pride which all Scotsmen feel in two of the grandest sons the dear old mother country has produced? It is a picture before which we stood for half an hour with a sense of the keenest enjoyment, for in conception and execution it is, in our estimation, a masterly work of art, while the incident it depicts is rich in sentiment and national feeling. The picture is founded on an incident related by Scott himself in a letter to Lockhart, and which finds a place as a footnote only in Lockhart's "Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart." When the incident took place Burns was in the full plenitude of his splendid powers. He was the literary "lion" of Edinburgh society. Everybody of consequence was seeking an introduction to him, and among such, but hopeless of gratifying his juvenile curiosity, was the boy Walter Scott, then only fifteen years of age. In the footnote referred to Scott writes: "Mr. Thomas Grierson at that time was a clerk of my father's. He knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but had no opportunity to keep his word, otherwise I might have seen more of this distinguished man. As it was, I saw him one day at the late venerable Professor Fergusson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary reputation, among whom I remember the celebrated Mr. Dugald Stewart. Of course, we youngsters sat silent, looked and listened. The only thing I remember which was remarkable in Burns's manner, was the effect produced upon him by a print of Bunbury's, representing a soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery at one side; on the other, his widow, with a child in her arms.* These lines were written beneath :— "Cold on Canadian hills or Minden's Plains, Burns seemed much affected by the print, or rather the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the lines were, and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a halfforgotten poem of Langhorne's, called by the unpromising title of The Justice of the Peace.' I whispered my information to a friend present, who mentioned it to Burns, who rewarded me with a look and a word, which though of mere civility, I then received, and still recollect, with very great pleasure. . . . His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence without the slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most learned of their time and country he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness. . . . I do not remember any The print which thus excited the attention of Burns was given by Sir Adam Fergusson, son of the Professor, to William Chambers, who afterwards gave it to his brother Robert, in whose house it hung for many years. It is now in the Museum at Peebles. part of his conversation distinctly enough to be quoted, nor did I ever see him again, except in the street, where he did not recognize me, as I could not expect he should." This, then, is the scene which the artist has sought to convey to canvas, and which he brings up before the eye by the magic of his art with a touch that transports the mind to the time and place where it was first enacted. The picture represents the drawing-room in Professor Adam Fergusson's "Sciennes House," a house which still stands, but which has been divided up into workingmen's dwellings. The large square apartment is meanly furnished according to modern ideas, and contrasts strongly with the overfurnished bric-a-brac drawing-rooms of the present day. In no part of the painting is this more strikingly set forth than in the pictures which hang upon the walls. These are chiefly cheap prints in slim, narrow slips of frames, that a workingman would now disdain to fix up in his parlor. The room is curtained off from a small inner apartment by faded red curtains. In this smaller room a lady and gentleman are seen in conversation, while daylight streams in through the small panes of a heavily-curtained window upon a statuette placed in the recess. Inside the drawing-room, and close to the curtain on the right, two ladies are being served with afternoon tea by a servant. On the opposite side, on the extreme left, and drawn close up to the fire in an easy chair, sits Professor Fergusson, the master of the house, as one may see at a glance by the brass poker in his hand. He is a slim, whitehaired, intellectual-looking man, with white waistcoat, knee-breeches, black silk stockings, and buckled slippers. He has been arrested in the act of poking the fire, and is listening attentively to what the boy Scott is saying. The brass coal-scuttle, fire-irons and fender, with the large greystriped cat sleeping on the rug, as near to the fire as it can possibly get, completes the picture of cosy comfort. Near the centre of the picture, and right in front of the opening in the curtain, sits a group of famous men. These are Professor Dugald Stewart, the celebrated philosopher; Dr. Black, Professor of Chemistry, and founder of the pneumatic system of chemistry; Adam Smith, author of "The Wealth of Nations;" the Rev. John Home, author of the tragedy of "Douglas ; " and Dr. Hutton, the eminent geologist and philosopher. There is a vacant chair right in front of the group, from which Burns has evidently risen, as a copy of the wellknown Kilmarnock edition of his poems is on the floor beside it, while several papers that suggest manuscript poems are lying upon the seat of the chair. It is evident that Burns has been reading some of his poems to Dugald Stewart, and has risen from his chair to examine a picture on the wall which has attracted his attention, while the Professor, with his hands on his knees, turns his head to hear the colloquy going on behind his back between Burns and Scott. Dr. Black, with arms folded across his chest, regards the scene with calm, keen interest. Adam Smith's attention has been caught, with a pinch of snuff between his fingers, and he sits with bent head, yet ears on the alert, listening with an expression of quaint curiosity on his heavy, homely face. The mild face of Home is also turned toward the two with a smile upon it, while Dr. Hutton, with his finger tips meeting, looks through his eyebrows toward Scott with friendly encouragement. The grouping of these figures has been managed with consummate skill. Each is a carefully painted portrait, each sits in an easy and natural position; there is nothing constrained or conventional in their pose; yet great and learned as they are, and interesting as a group of the most famous Edinburgh luminaries of their time, they do not for one moment distract the attention from the real focus of interest. There is no doubting what that focus is. The wellknown figure of Burns, and the no less well-known figure of Scott, albeit but a boy, at once rivet the attention, and claim the sympathetic interest of the spectator. We have here Burns as Nasmyth has represented him, and as every lover of the poet likes to think upon him; but he is here, for the first time, painted in profile, with a cue of his own hair tied behind, and falling over his manly shoulders. Depicted thus, his fine proportions and noble figure are seen to full advantage. The dark flowing hair, with its curling love locks; the rich brown eyes, swimming in tears; the mobile, sensitive mouth, are all there. He is well dressed in blue tailed coat, yellow striped waistcoat, white buckskin trousers, and top boots, being the only one present with these. His hands are carelessly thrown behind his back, and a red cotton handkerchief hangs loosely in his fingers. There is something in the pose of the figure |