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"I thought," he said, "that I was a humble reincarnation of Thomas Ecildoune Thomas the Rhymer and that I was walking in the Rhymer's Glen it isn't far out of this neighbourhood, you know when a Vision in a magic motor-car came sprinting down the steep curve of a rainbow. In front of my feet, the Vision contrived to stop the car, or in another second it would have run over me.

Still, at moments of deep distress or public wrong-doing, we may hear the echo of the Corn-law Rhymer's anthem: Or if we read his first little book of rhymes, that may be had for twopence now, we shall find the pictures of the life that was lived under Protection the sort of life the landlords and their theorists invite us to enact again.

The wild fowl had been cut up into pieces, and, with rice biscuits and other ingredients, had been stewing in the pot in which all their meals were cooked, officers and men sharing alike. As soon, however, as Rhymer's plate was handed to him he exclaimed "Fishy! Horribly fishy!"

I showed him the plantations, going first round the terrace, then to the lake, then came down by the Rhymer's Glen, and took carriage at Huntly Burn, almost the grand tour, only we did not walk from Huntly Burn. The Fergusons dined with us. March 28. Mr Thomson left us about twelve for Minto, parting a pleased guest, I hope, from a pleased landlord.

Our ramble this morning took us again up the Rhymer's Glen, and by Huntley Bank, and Huntley Wood, and the silver waterfall overhung with weeping birches and mountain ashes, those delicate and beautiful trees which grace the green shaws and burnsides of Scotland.

At a dinner given by Sir Leslie Stephen he met successfully the challenge to produce a rhyme for "rhinoceros," and for Tennyson's diversion he delivered himself of an impromptu in which rhymes were found for "Ecclefechan" and "Craigenputtock." But in rhyming ingenuity Browning is inferior to the author of "Hudibras," in a rhymer's elegant effrontery he is inferior to the author of "Don Juan."

One moonlight night, as he rode over Bowden Moor, on the west side of the Eildon Hills, the scene of Thomas the Rhymer's prophecies, and often mentioned in his story, having a brace of horses along with him which he had not been able to dispose of, he met a man of venerable appearance and singularly antique dress, who, to his great surprise, asked the price of his horses, and began to chaffer with him on the subject.

Whatever the coarse liberties taken with the subject of which we are not allowed more than an occasional glimpse and despite the fact that the relation was in verse, which ordinarily makes for the indulgence of the rhymer's fancy the description appears to be fairly accurate, for it corresponds more or less with the particulars given in Sanuto.

Allan through Haxel Cleugh. August 31. Went on with my review; but I have got Sir Henry's original pamphlet, which is very cleverly written. I find I cannot touch on his mode of transplantation at all in this article. It involves many questions, and some of importance, so I will make another article for January. Walked up the Rhymer's Glen with John Richardson. He died in 1847.

I examined Cinderella's little glass slipper, and compared it with one of Diana's sandals, and with Fanny Elssler's shoe, which bore testimony to the muscular character of her illustrious foot. On the same shelf were Thomas the Rhymer's green velvet shoes, and the brazen shoe of Empedocles which was thrown out of Mount AEtna.