[826.,

Ar. 22

[15

LIFE O° JOBDEN. [omar

sbupid amazement, and then rose up in the bed and exclaimed,
 ‘What the deil hae ye got here, Lizzie?’
‘Whisht, whisht, gudeman!’ said the old dame, out of
whose head the whiskey had driven all thoughts of her husband,
 ‘the gentlemen will be verra pleased to hear ye tell
them a’ about poor Robbie.” Our Paisley friend had again
poured out a glass of whiskey and presented it to our host,
who drank it off, and, bringing his elbow round with a
knowing flourish, he returned the glass upside down, to
show he drank clean. ‘I knew Robbie weel,’ said he,
wiping his mouth with his shirt-sleeve. ‘I was the last
man that drank wi’ him afore he left this country for
Dumfries. Oh, he was a bonnie bairn, but owre muckle
gien to braw company.’ ‘And this is the spot, gentlemen,”
 said the impatient gudewife, catching the narrative
from her husband, ‘where Robbie was borned, and sic a
night that was, as I have heard Nancy Miller, the coachman’s
 mither say ; it blew, and rained, and thundered, just
like as if heaven and earth were dinged thegither, and se
corner of the house was blawn away afore the morning, and
so they removed the mither and the bairn into the next
room the day after.” Now I believe if these two bodies
were put upon their oath to all they told uns, that they would
not be guilty of falsehood or perjury, for I am quite sure
they are both persuaded that their tale is true, and
from no other cause than that they have told it so often.
And yet I would venture to bet all I possess, and what
's more, all I owe, that they never saw Burns in all their
ives. ?

The genial eye for character and the good-humoured
solerance of foibles, which so singularly distinguished Cobden
 in the days when he came to act with men for public
objects, are conspicuous in these early letters. His hospi-1
 To F. Cobden, Feb. 6, 1826.