 He recalls the recital by himself, when a boy, of the famous opening of the second act.Cheever then compares old Norval, who only sought to increase his flock and selfishly kept Douglas at home to do it, with those modern merchants who try to keep down anti-slavery agitation because it is bad for business (Cheever was well known in his time, and was listed by Edgar Allan Poe as one of the "Literati of New York City" in his famous 1846 series of articles of that name).Hugh MacDiarmid, the twentieth century pioneer of the Scottish Renaissance, included the following lines in "A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle" (1922)