Schoolmaster," but he died before it was completed. By 1799 he had removed to London, where he engaged in various kinds of literary work and, at the request of the English Government, edited a newspaper in the French language for circulation among the Royalists in France. He was also employed by several London newspapers as Parliamentary reporter, but no sooner did he earn a little money than he squandered it in dissipation, and he frequently betrayed the confidence of his patrons. The inevitable result was that he was continually rendering himself more and more incapable of grappling with his debts and difficulties. It ended by his being thrown into prison for debt, and it was from Newgate Prison Infirmary he wrote his famous letter to the Literary Fund, which is quoted by Isaac Disraeli in his Calamities and Quarrels of Authors. Disraeli concludes by saying that "the fate of Heron is the fate of hundreds of authors by profession in the present day -of men of some literary talent who can never extricate themselves from a degrading state of poverty." Genius can scarcely be claimed for Robert Heron, but few of his contemporaries in any branch of literature possessed his learning and talent, and perhaps none were more the victims of their own weakness and folly. Deprived of his liberty, cut off from the gay world he loved so well, and broken in health and spirit, Heron died in Newgate in April, 1807, in the forty-second year of his age.

When we consider his early struggles, his distinction as a student, and his literary industry, we cannot withhold our sympathy. A year or two after he disappears from our ken as a student we again encounter him, still wearing the badge of respectability. He is presented to us in the memorable debate on Foreign Missions in the General Assembly at Edinburgh. All eyes are turned upon the tall, handsome young layman, in the prime of early manhood, dressed in the pink of fashion, who ventured to advocate Foreign Missions amongst those "most potent, grave and reverend seigneurs" of the Church in a well-spoken speech. He was on the unpopular side, but his speech on the occasion

was distinguished by its freedom from his later affectation; nor was there any appearance of the timid soul who creeps into public view with a blushing countenance and a beating heart. The speech had a distinct literary flavour, and there is a singular absence of the stock phrases of the professional theologian and the kirk elder, which were regarded at that time as the hall-mark of religious sincerity.

Up to a certain point Heron's career was a praiseworthy ascent from a low estate, but as time went on it became a painful descent, from which he was destined never to rise again. Those who know the solitary wilds which surround his birthplace, and can form a due conception of the arcadian simplicity of his youthful days, may perhaps imagine, but can never fully realise, the tragedy which marked the passage of Heron's life from the exceedingly simple to the extremely complex with all the misfortunes which make a man acquainted with strange bed-fellows.

WM. M'ILWRAITH.

Ane wi' a red a dragg't shred,
Was dustin' doon that noble head-

That head of gold;

Ane washed-what is't the scribblers sayAne washed the Poet's "feet of clay'

O, critics cold!

Wad they but mind that he-as they-
Was made frae mould!

THE WHITE-WASHIN' O' ROBBIE BURNS.

Yestreen I sauntered round the Square,
The statues four were standing there-
Ye ken them weel-

Kinloch, Carmichael, and the Queen,
And Rab (wi's big, uplifted een),
In bronze-by Steele !

Wi' parted lips, but cold and dumb,
He sits amid the city's hum,
Aside the street;

Yet oft we notice, as we pass,
The modest daisy in the grass
Spring at his feet.

But yesterday-I stood and gazed
Upon the monument amazed

At what I saw ;

For three loons, arm'd wi' brush and mop,
And soda, scouge, and guid saft soap,

Scrubbit awa!

Ane wi' his tongue hung frae his jaw,
And wi' a dishclout in his paw,

Rubb'd at the scroll,

As aff the sklate he wish'd to clean
A'thing that might be thought obscene
Or ower droll!

Ane wi' a red and raggit shred,

Was dustin' doon that noble head

That head of gold;

Ane washed-what is't the scribblers say ?-
Ane washed the Poet's "feet of clay

O, critics cold!

Wad they but mind that he-as they-
Was made frae mould!

-From Poems: Tales o Our Town, by JOSEPH LEE. Dundee: George Montgomery.