burdens soothing and relieving the tragic tenor of their stories, like the sighing of wind or the murmuring of water; the clarion-hearted Jacobite songs, with the fragrance of purple heather and white roses breathing through their strains of loyal love and death-defying devotion; and the lovely, pathetic, and bewitchingly humorous songs of Burns, with their enchanting melodies, were all familiar to me, and, during the year that I spent in Edinburgh, were my constant study and delight.

On one occasion I sat by Robert Chambers, and heard him relate some portion of the difficulties and distresses of his own and his brother’s early boyhood (the interesting story has lately become generally known by the publication of their memoirs); and I then found it very difficult to swallow my dinner, and my tears, while listening to him, so deeply was I affected by his simple and touching account of the cruel struggle the two brave lads—­destined to become such admirable and eminent men—­had to make against the hardships of their position.  I remember his describing the terrible longing occasioned by the smell of newly baked bread in a baker’s shop near which they lived, to their poor, half-starved, craving appetites, while they were saving every farthing they could scrape together for books and that intellectual sustenance of which, in after years, they became such bountiful dispensers to all English-reading folk.  Theirs is a very noble story of virtue conquering fortune and dedicating it to the highest purposes.  I used to meet the Messrs. Chambers at Mr. Combe’s house; they were intimate and valued friends of the phrenologist, and I remember when the book entitled “Vestiges of Creation” came out, and excited so great a sensation in the public mind, that Mr. Combe attributed the authorship of it, which was then a secret, to Robert Chambers.

Another Edinburgh friend of ours was Baron Hume, a Scottish law dignitary, a charming old gentleman of the very old school, who always wore powder and a pigtail, knee-breeches, gold-buckles, and black silk stockings; and who sent a thrill of delight through my girlish breast when he addressed me, as he invariably did, by the dignified title of “madam;” though I must sorrowfully add that my triumph on this score was considerably abated when, on the occasion of my second visit to Edinburgh, after I had come out on the stage, I went to see my kind old friend, who was too aged and infirm to go to the theater, and who said to me as I sat on a low stool by his sofa, “Why, madam, they tell me you are become a great tragic actress!  But,” added he, putting his hand under my chin, and raising my face toward him, “how am I to believe that of this laughing face, madam?” No doubt he saw in his memory’s eye the majestic nose of my aunt, and my “visnomy” under the effect of such a contrast must have looked comical enough, by way of a tragic mask.  By the bye, it is on record that while Gainsborough was painting that exquisite portrait of Mrs. Siddons which is now