As a Scot he has every reason to be impatient of stupidity on the
subject of Burns: yet he takes real pains to set me right. Alas! his
explanations leave me more than ever at sea, more desperate than ever
of understanding _what exactly it is_ in Burns that kindles this
peculiar enthusiasm in Scotsmen and drives them to express it in
feasting and oratory.

After casting about for some time, I suggested that Burns--though in
so many respects immeasurably inferior to Scott--frequently wrote with
a depth of feeling which Scott could not command. On second thoughts,
this was wrongly put. Scott may have _possessed_ the feeling, together
with notions of his own, on the propriety of displaying it in his
public writings. Indeed, after reading some of his letters again, I am
sure he did possess it. Hear, for instance, how he speaks of Dalkeith
Palace, in one of his letters to Lady Louisa Stuart:--

"I am delighted my dear little half god-daughter is turning out
beautiful. I was at her christening, poor soul, and took the
oaths as representing I forget whom. That was in the time when
Dalkeith was Dalkeith; how changed alas! I was forced there the
other day by some people who wanted to see the house, and I felt
as if it would have done me a great deal of good to have set my
manhood aside, to get into a corner and cry like a schoolboy.
Every bit of furniture, now looking old and paltry, had some
story and recollections about it, and the deserted gallery, which
I have seen so happily filled, seemed waste and desolate like
Moore's

'Banquet hall deserted,
Whose flowers are dead,