Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

THE COMPANY IN PRINCES STREET. 101
Street were well adapted for their many and much-
mingled guests. There accordingly many men of note
assembled, and among them certain young heroes,
advocates and others, not yet of much note, to turn
over the books and hear the news and tell each other
all manner of stories: One of them, afterwards to
bear an important part in this history, has given a
very vivid description of the scene in ' Peter's Letters.'
Among the frequenters of this lively company were
two young men who would have been remarkable
anywhere, if only for their appearance and talk, had
nothing more remarkable ever been developed in them,
—one a young man of grand form and mien, with the
thews and sinews of an athlete, and a front like Jove,
to threaten and command. Jove is not often por-
trayed with waving yellow locks and ruddy counte-
nance, yet no smaller semblance would be a fit image
for the northern demigod with those brilliant blue
eyes which are almost more effective in penetrating
keenness than the dark ones with which that quality
is more frequently associated. He was a genial giant,
but not a mild one. Genius and fun and wit were
no less a part of his nature than wrath and vehe-
mence, and a power of swift and sudden slaughter,
corrected in its turn by a large radiance of gaiety
and good humour—sudden in all things, ready to fell
an intruder to the earth or to welcome him as a
brother, swift to slay, yet instant to relent.
The other, who divided with him the honours of
this witty meeting, was John Wilson's opposite in
everything. He was slim and straight and self-con-
tained, a man of elegance and refinement— words
dear to the time—in mind as in person, dark of hair