470 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



ing aspect, for it prevented him, notwithstanding his enjoy- 

 ment of nature, from ever seeing and enjoying the general 

 aspects of a broad landscape, whether of earth or sky, with 

 their special beauties. In fact, it rendered him blind for 

 life to the pleasures of expansive scenery, a sore depriva- 

 tion to a man who loved nature so deeply. This was, no 

 doubt, one reason for his preferring Botany to Astronomy, 

 seeing that long sight is all-in-all for the stars, whereas 

 with plants, he could bring the subjects of his study as 

 close to his eyes as he pleased. 



His tastes were throughout severely simple. He was 

 always content with the very plainest fare, limited to 

 the lowest scale conceivable for bare subsistence. Like 

 Chaucer's model parson, "he cowde in little thing han 

 suffisance; " nay, as Dryden, describing the same good man, 

 says, he " made almost a sin of abstinence." Of meat, he 

 ate little all his days, for it then was much more costly and 

 uncommon than now ; and he never saw it except when 

 visiting his better-to-do friends. At home, the staple food 

 of his life was plain water brose and porridge, sometimes 

 with milk, but often without, taken not seldom three times 

 a day. In the field, it was a piece of bannock or a little 

 oatmeal, and water from the mountain stream, seasoned 

 with nature's own savour in water-cress and appetite, as has 

 been told. Even tea, for the most of his life, he never used, 

 but rather despised as a womanish luxury ; and it was 

 only when the infirmities of age made some stimulant 

 desirable, that he began to relish it. 



Could anything be more natural, unsophisticated, and 

 primitive ? And yet, on such fare hardly more than the 

 widow's " handful of meal in a barrel and a little oil in a 



