324 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1800. 



" For though on dreadful whirls we hung, 

 High on t!ie broken wave.'' — 



I met with these pieces in Mason's 

 English Collection, one of my 

 school-books. The two first books 

 I ever read in private, and which 

 gave me more pleasure than any 

 two books I ever read since, were 

 The Life of Hannibal, and The 

 History of Sir William Wallace. — 

 Hannibal gave my young ideas 

 such a turn, that I used to strut in 

 raptures up and down after the 

 recruiting drum and bagpipe, and 

 wish myself tall enough to be a 

 soldier ; while the story of Wallace 

 poured a Scottish prejudice into 

 my veins, which will boil along 

 there, till the flood-gates of life 

 shut in eternal rest. 



Polemical divinity about this 

 time was putting the country half- 

 mad, and I, ambitious of shining 

 in conversation-parties on Sundays 

 between sermons, at funerals, &c. 

 used a few years afterwards to 

 puzzle Calvinism with so much 

 heat and indiscretion, that I raised 

 a hue and cry of heresy against me, 

 which has not ceased to this hour. 

 My vicinity to Ayr was of some 

 advantage to me. My social dispo- 

 sition, when not checked by some 

 mortification, or spited pride, was 

 like our catechism definition of 

 infinitude, without boundsor limits. 

 I formed several connections with 

 other younkers who possessed supe- 

 rior advantages : the youngling 

 actors who were busy in the rehearsal 

 of parts in which they were shortly 

 to appear on the stage of life, when, 

 alas ! I was destined to drudge 

 behind the scenes. It is not com- 

 monly at this green age that our 

 young gentry have a just sense of 

 the immense distance between 

 them and their ragged playfellows. 



It takes a few dashes into the 

 world to give the young great man 

 that proper, decent, unnoticing dis- 

 regard for the poor, insignificant, 

 stupid devils, the mechanics and 

 peasantry around him, who were, 

 pei-haps, born in the same village. — 

 My young superiors never insulted 

 the clouterly appearance of my 

 plough-boy carcase, the two ex- 

 tremes of which were often exposed 

 to all the inclemencies of all the 

 seasons. They would give me stray 

 volumes of books ; among them, 

 even then, I could pick up some 

 observations; and one, whose heart 

 I am sure, not even the Munny 

 Begum scenes have tainted, helped 

 me to a little French. Parting with 

 these my young friends and bene- 

 factors, as they occasionally went 

 oflpfor the East or West Indies, was 

 often to me a sore affliction ; but I 

 was soon called to more serious 

 evils. My father's generous master 

 died ; the farm proved a ruinous 

 bargain ; and to clinch the misfor- 

 tune, we fell into the hands of a 

 factor who sat for the picture I 

 have drawn of one in my Tale of 

 Two Dogs. My father was ad- 

 vanced in life when he married : 

 I was the eldest of seven children ; 

 and he, worn out by early hard- 

 ships, was unfit for labour. My 

 father's spirit was soon irritated, 

 but not easily broken. There was 

 a freedom in his lease for two years 

 more ; and to weather these two 

 years, we retrenched our expenses. 

 We lived very poorly : I was a 

 dexterous ploughman for my age ; 

 and the next eldest to me was a 

 brother (Gilbert), who could di-ive 

 the plough very well, and help me 

 to thrash the corn. A novel writer 

 might, perhaps, have viewed these 

 scenes with some satisfaction, but so 



