Peter Hamilton, a younger brother of Lord Belhaven. I believe my sister preferred the former, but a union with either would, under circumstances, have been imprudent, and so the love-making was discontinued till the route came and our much valued friends marched away. Above forty years after Hay and I met, accidentally, upon Granton Pier, and after staring at each other for a minute, rushed to a hearty recognition. He had been long in India married to a daughter of General Gowdie, and I had grown from boyhood to an elderly man we renewed a friendship which lasted to his death. My sister, though the belle of the town, never married.

The distant retrospect of my father paints him to my mind's eye, in a few prominent situations: ex. gr. as a fine looking portly gentleman, who from the summit of the abbey which adorns the title page of this volume,* and to the insecurity of which he and his assessor, Willie Hawick, were wont to commit prisoners who often escaped before morning, fired a pistol as the signal for Lunardi's balloon ascent, --the earliest impression left of my infant recollections, being then little beyond three years old; as presiding at the cross on the 4th of June, when around the bull-ring assembled the respectabie inhabitants to drink bumpers to the health of King George III., and toss their glasses back over their heads to be profaned by no other toast, unless luckily caught by the crowd of boys and mechanics; as guiding me to parties for the collection of old poetry; as walking with Robert Burns and calling me from play to

For this charming illustration of the lovely scene in which my childhood and school-life was spent, I am indebted to the liberal kindness of Mr. Adam Black, the distinguished publisher of Edinburgh; who, in thus placing one of Turner's sweetest views at my disposal, has conferred one of those obligations which do honour to the intercourse between booksellers and authors.-W. J.

be told who the admired poet was (I seem to recollect the very spot in the churchyard where the meeting took place, in 1787, when little more than five years of age, and my idea of the bard is most completely realised by the portrait of him in a broad-brimmed hat) *—and, lastly, as assisting in the family leave-taking of my eldest brother, John, in 1795, when he mounted his pony from the classic ground of Ednam,† and cantered off, rejoicing as a young soldier should, to set out on that journey to India, whence he never returned to gladden the hearts of those who wept to see him depart, a noble, manly fellow, whose military career, till he died at the Cape of Good Hope, Colonel of the 5th Bombay Regiment, reflected honour upon his name and the service, in which a severe campaign in Cutch sapped his constitution, and sent him forth an invalid, for that native home which, denied by Providence to many anxious and earnest prayers, he was destined never more to behold.‡

That I was not more familiar with my father's domestic life arose from the circumstance of my having been adopted in childhood by a relative of my mother's, wife of Mr. Walker the Supervisor of Excise for the town and adjacent district, an office of responsibility in those days, yet one to which I paid but little deference. For, in truth, the good man was very indulgent, and allowed his wife to pursue that course of training which is generally known by the appellation of "quite spoiling" the party in charge. And I dwell upon this matter especially, because it exercised much influence over all my future years. Having more pence than my companions, being allowed to loiter and lag behind school hours, and being pampered and petted with or without reason, I naturally grew up petulant and self-willed; and it is only extraordinary that the process did not render me also vicious See Appendix C. See Appendix D.

* See Appendix B.

and selfish. But I inherited my father's easiness of disposition, and it saved me from these greater evils, though not from consequent misfortunes.

As portion of the lesson I have promised to give, I should mention another source of notice and praise which were well calculated to produce the feeling of vain-gloriousness in the infant mind. When still a child so young as to be unacquainted with my letters, I possessed an extraordinary faculty of the boy Biddle kind for figures, and could promptly render an account of arithmetical questions, such as were put to me by the gentlemen who were my father's associates, and receive from them, in return, expressions of admiration and immense rewards, enabling me to scatter blessings round in the shape of gingerbread and sweetmeats. To be treated as a precocious phenomenon is a dangerous shoal, but as my talent left me as strangely as it had arrived, I was not long exposed to it. With the acquisition of the A, B, C, the gift of calculation suddenly departed, and from that hour to this a more unready reckoner than I have been never existed in the world. It has seemed as if all my capacity in this way had been exhausted between my birthday and its fourth anniversary; although I have not been unequal to high and abstract propositions of sufficient interest to enchain the faculties for their solution.

Another trait, and I close this Childish chapter. Owing to a premature cold bath in the Tweed, administered whilst yet unrecovered from small-pox, I was thrown into a condition of health so delicate, that during several years it was the nearest possible issue between death and life. This led to continued indulgences, and I only got through the struggle by the help of a long-eared nurse, whose milk at morn and eve was my chief sustenance. Towards the end

VOL. I.

C

of this sickly period my prolonged holidays were spent delightfully at Old Melrose, the seat of Mr. Liston, nearly related to the ambassador at Constantinople, and uncle to Robert the famous surgeon and John the famous comedian. My dear playmates, his daughters Oby and Diana, came to disastrous fates after his death; and in Edinburgh when a student there, I met with the former under circumstances that shocked and pained me so severely that I cannot bear to think of it even now! Sad and terrible change it was from the innocence and loveliness of Old Melrose, surrounded by scenes so pure and fair, and with all the venerable memories of antiquity to superadd intensity to the sweetest and noblest feelings of the human heart. Here, close at hand, rolled the silver Tweed, and here stood the triple Eildon Hills, the Roman station of Trimontium, Melrose Abbey, immortal in the lay of Scott, and Dryburgh Abbey, so pathetically and poetically sung by Charles Swain, where his mortal remains have their last repose.

For He whose spirit woke the dust of nations unto life

That o'er the waste of barren earth spread flowers and fruitage rife— Whose genius, like the sun, illumed the mighty realms of mind— Had fled for ever from the fame, love, friendship of mankind!

CHAPTER III.

BOYHOOD.

Sweet Teviot! on thy silver tide
The glaring balefires blaze no more;
No longer steel-clad warriors ride

Along thy wild and willowed shore.
Where'er thou wind'st, by dale or hill,
All, all is peaceful, all is still,

As if thy waves since Time was born,
Since first they rolled upon the Tweed
Had only heard the shepherd's reed,
Nor startled at the bugle horn.

LIKE all the other boys of the place, above the poorest orders, I was educated at the parochial (not parish) school; where the fee was ten or fourteen shillings per annum, paid in quarterly half-crowns or three-and-sixpences, and a douceur to the master about Candlemas; who, according to a bad practice, declared the lad who presented him with the largest sum, captain or dux; and a new foot-ball and roistering holiday was sure to follow the openly corrupt election and purchased dignity. Yet when I have in later times, been called upon to form opinions upon the complex and disputed systems proposed to be adopted for national education, I have been thrown back to reflection on the simple and genial practice of my younger days, although a little disfigured by the custom alluded to. The teacher, chosen by a constituency of the clergy and heritors or owners of pro