326 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1800. 



graphical Grammars; and the ideas 

 I had formed of modern manners, 

 of literature, and criticism, I got 

 irom the Spectator. These, with 

 Pope's Works, some plays of Shak- 

 speare, Tull and Dickson on Agri- 

 culture, The Pantheon, Locke's 

 Essayon theHuman Understanding, 

 Stackhouse's Histoiy of the Bible, 

 Justice's British Gardener's Direc- 

 tory, Bayle's Lectures, Allan Ram- 

 say's Works, Taylor's Scripture 

 Doctrine of Original Sin, A Select 

 Collection of English Songs, and 

 Harvey's Meditations, had formed 

 the whole of my reading. The 

 collection of songs was my vade 

 mecum. I pored over them driving 

 my cart, or walking to labour, song 

 by song, verse by verse; carefully 

 noting the true tender, or sublime, 

 from affectation and fustian. I am 

 convinced I owe to this practice 

 much of my critic craft, such as 

 it is. 



In myseventeenthyear,togivemy 

 manners a brush, I went to a coun- 

 try dancing-school. My father had 

 an unaccountable antipathy against 

 those meetings, and my going was, 

 what to this moment I repent, in 

 opposition to his wishes. My father 

 as I said before, was subject to 

 strong passions ; from that instance 

 of disobedience in me, he took a 

 sort of dislike to me, which, I be- 

 lieve, was one cause of the dissipa- 

 tion which marked my succeeding 

 years. I say, dissipation, compara- 

 tively with the strictness and sobri- 

 ety, and regularity of presbyterian 

 country life; for though the wil- 

 o' wisp meteors of thoughtless whim 

 were also the sole lights of my path, 

 yet early ingrained piety and vii-tue 

 kept me for several years afterwards 

 within the line of innocence. The 

 ;;i"cat mislurtuue of my life was to 



want an aim. I had felt early some 

 stirrings of ambition, but they were 

 the blind gropings of Homer's Cy^ 

 clop round the walls of his cave. 

 I saw my father's situation entailed 

 on me perpetual labour. The only 

 two openings by which I could enter 

 the temple of fortune, was the gate 

 of niggardly economy, or the path 

 of little chicaning bargain-making. 

 The first is so contracted an aper- 

 ture, I never could squeeze myself I 

 into it; the last I always hated — " 

 there was contamination in the very 

 entrance ! Thus abandoned of aim 

 or view in life, with a strong appe- 

 tite for sociability, as well from na- 

 tive hilarity, as from a pride of ob- 

 servation and remark ; a constituti- 

 onal melancholy or hypochondraism 

 that made me ily solitude; add to 

 these incentives to social life my re- 

 putation for bookish knowledge, a 

 certain wild logical talent, and a 

 strength of thought, something like 

 the rudiments of good sense, audit 

 will not seem surprising that I was 

 generally a welcome guest where I 

 visited, or any great wonder that 

 always where two or three met to- 

 gether, there was I among them. — 

 But far bej'^ond all other impulsesof 

 my heart v,^ a.?, un penchant a I' adora- 

 ble moiclie dii genre humain. My 

 heart was completely tinder, and 

 was eternally lighted up by some 

 goddess or other; and, as in every 

 other warfare in this world, my for- 

 tune was various; sometimes I was 

 received with favour, and sometimes 

 I was mortified by a repulse. At the 

 plough, scythe, or reap-hook, I 

 feared no competitor, and thus I 

 set absolute want at defiance; and 

 as I never cared farther for my la- 

 bours than while I was in actual ex- 

 ercise, I spent the evenings in the 

 way after my own heart. A couu- 



