I have likewise warm friends among the literati;
Professors [Dugald] Stewart, Blair, and Mr. Mackenzie--the Man of
Feeling."
Through Glencairn he met Creech the book-seller, with whom he
arranged for his second edition, and through the patrons he mentions
and the Edinburgh freemasons, among whom he was soon at home, a large
subscription list was soon made up. In the _Edinburgh Magazine_ for
October, November, and December, James Sibbald had published favorable
notices of the Kilmarnock edition, with numerous extracts, and when
Henry Mackenzie gave it high praise in his _Lounger_ for December
ninth, and the _London Monthly Review_ followed suit in the same
month, it was felt that the poet's reputation was established.
Of Burns's bearing in the fashionable and cultivated society into
which he so suddenly found himself plunged we have many contemporary
accounts. They are practically unanimous in praise of the taste and
tact with which he acquitted himself. While neither shy nor
aggressive, he impressed every one with his brilliance in
conversation, his shrewdness in observation, and criticism, and his
poise and common sense in his personal relations. One of the best
descriptions of him was given by Sir Walter Scott to Lockhart. Scott
as a boy of sixteen met Burns at the house of Doctor Adam Ferguson,
and thus reports:
"His person was strong and robust; his manners rustic, not
clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which
received part of its effect perhaps from one's knowledge of his
extraordinary talents.
Pages:
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52