Autobiographical Notes. 169 



resorted to in a country where the value of knowledge obtains. 

 When this small school had answered its purpose I was trans- 

 ferred to a private seminary, taught by Mr Hugh Nae, in Fleet 

 Street, Gatehouse-of-Fleet, a distance of about three miles, 

 which my brother Andrew and I regarded as an easy concern if 

 not a positive pleasure. Mr Nae, who soon afterwards died, 

 removed to a side-school, or school partly endowed, in the parish 



kof Buittle, and I was then put under the charge of a man who was 

 far superior to his position in life, John Armstrong, schoolmaster 

 of my native parish. This John Armstrong was an eminent 

 linguist and a respectable mathematician, and was remarkable for 

 the extent of his information. He was besides the model of a 

 gentleman both in sentiment and manner, and altogether was 

 beloved and admired by his numerous scholars. Nor were these 

 feelings on their part affected, or affected much, by one unfortu- 

 nate weakness which attached to him — an occasional love of the 

 bottle. He retained his situation as parochial schoolmaster for 

 about forty years previously, I think, to 1829, after which period 

 till his death in 1842 Mr Murray of Broughton allowed him a 

 very competent annuity. I shall never forget Mr Armstrong, 

 whom I admired equally as a teacher and as a man. When I was 

 in the habit of visiting Gatehouse in after years my first call was 

 almost without any exception paid to my worthy friend and pre- 

 ceptor, Mr Armstrong. 



I attended his school regularly for four or five years pre- 

 vious to 1807, when I opened in the neighbourhood of Cally a 

 small school in order to support myself, and to save if possible to 

 get to college. For three years before this date I attended, in 

 addition to his day school, Mr Armstrong's evening classes froti 

 6 to 9 o'clock. My object in going to the evening school was to 

 acquire a knowledge of arithmetic; and, w-hile I was fair in all 

 K the other branches which I learned, I was perhaps the most expert 

 ■ arithmetician in the whole seminary, and this latter species of 

 knowledge has given me great pleasure to the present day. 



I have often wondered in after life to what extent a stout, 

 healthy lad can bear abstinence or hunger with impunity. I left 

 home each morning about 9 o'clock with a supply of milk in a tin 

 flask and of dry bread to do me for the day. But to carry these 

 was a trouble; besides, if so encumbered, T could not trundle my 

 hoop or otherwise enjoy myself. The result was I ate my bread 



