VI PREFACE. 



as would add another worthy name to the long roll of 

 honourable examples of " the pursuit of knowledge under 

 difficulties ; " all combined with circumstances of uncommon 

 interest and picturesqueness, arising from varied experi- 

 ences, rare capacity for the highest friendship, peculiar 

 modes of study, Spartan eccentricity of life, and deepest 

 joy under most unlikely conditions. It was strongly felt 

 that th:whole formed a .-noteworthy chapter in "the simple 

 annals of ' the 'pboiv' of. plain living, high thinking, and 

 earn'est ;wp irking,.' that \ would be capable of exercising a 

 strong influence for good, Intellectual and moral ; and of 

 recalling us, amidst our growing elaborateness and luxury, 

 to the essential simplicities of happy life, and the blissful- 

 ness of higher pursuits, so apt to be crushed out in the too 

 .absorbing struggle for bread, pelf and position. 



Hence the present book. 



The work would have been incomplete if it had not 

 contained sketches of his numerous friends, several of whom, 

 as will be seen, were of uncommon clay ; and also notices 

 of the times in which he lived, in the early part of the 

 century, in a northern, old-world region with social and 

 other characteristics as peculiar as its native Doric. 



The author's best acknowledgments and thanks are 

 hereby gratefully tendered to the many friends of John 

 Duncan and himself that have freely and kindly supplied 

 materials for this history. 



INVERNESS, 

 November, 1882. 



