ROBERT CRAWFORD.

“Mr. Tinsley—my friend Mr. Robert Crawford, of Edinburgh”: those were as nearly as possible the words Christopher Pond used when he introduced the noted distiller to me more than a year ago, and from then till now I have, I hope, had the good opinion of Robert Crawford. Pond sleeps the sleep of the just while Crawford lives. He and old age seem to be no relations yet awhile, and I hope I may say, may the day be far distant before old age does knock at his door. It would have taken a good deal to have ruined either Crawford or Pond; but I well remember the time when it was the delight of one or the other to find that he had been more liberal than the other in a good cause.

But for some years now Edinburgh and home comforts have had more claim and attraction than Bohemian life in London for Robert Crawford. What was London's loss is Edinburgh's gain, for Crawford is a true lover of science, literature, art, the drama, and music; had Robert Burns met such a man, Scotland would never have had to regret the neglect of its poet, whose works are the admiration of the civilised world. Robert Crawford's love of the fine arts generally reminds me of Mr. Gillot, in his time the noted steel pen maker, and Mr. Sheepshanks.