Ossian Collection > Journal of a tour in Scotland in

16 JOURNAL OF A TOUR IN SCOTLAND
houses in Edinburgh are numbered across
the street, the odd numbers on one side, the
even on the other — a convenient arrangement
after one has found it out. Butcher here
means the slaughterer ; he who sells the meat
is called by the ugly name of the flesher.
Called on Mr Gillies, to whom Wordsworth
has addressed a wholesome sonnet ; he is
nephew to the old historian, and had left a
card for me. While I was at his house
Mr Black, the biographer of Tasso, came in ;
he is now settled as a Pastor, six miles from
Air.^ We went together to call on Wilson,
and this gave me an opportunity of seeing the
Leith river in a part of its course where if
man had left it unpolluted, it would have
been a wild and beautiful stream. Gillies
is a man of very interesting appearance, but
too manifestly one of the sensitive plants of
hot house culture. He walked back with
me to the town, and we found Wilson at
Blackwood's, much altered since I saw him
last, having now the stamp of middle age
upon his features. They introduced me to
Mr Lockhart, Wilson's reputed coadjutor in
the Magazine and in Peter's Letters — a man
of great talents, and of right principles in
1 Ayr.