EARLY LIFE. 13 



but really only the second of these two, having been 

 kept at home by illness almost the whole of the first 

 year.* During some months of that year, before I fell 

 ill, I had a private tutor, Mr, afterwards Dr, Mitchell, 

 an excellent scholar, who afterwards went to India as 

 a medical man, and died in the service of the Eajah 

 of Travancore, whose chief physician he became. I 

 had, however, the great benefit, before my illness, of 

 attending Dr Adam's class, and hearing daily his com- 

 ments upon the classics which we read, interspersed 

 with his general remarks upon political subjects and 

 allusions to the great events then engrossing the 

 attention of the world, for the French Eevolution 

 had broken out three months before his course began. 

 He was a zealous friend of liberty, and in those 

 times and in that place was termed a democrat. 

 Yet with all the violence of party and the influence of 

 the predominant powers the Dundases no excep- 

 tion was taken to his dwelling on those topics in 

 illustration of, and in connection with, the books he 

 taught. Of course, three or four years later, when 

 party violence was at its height, but when the crimes 

 of the French mob had alienated many admirers of 

 the Revolution, he carefully abstained from such sub- 

 jects, though he still continued of that class which 

 clung to the Eevolution more or less, in spite of its 

 crimes. His great learning, his able and useful works, 



* An account of Luke Fraser will be found in Steven's * History of 

 the High School of Edinburgh,' p. 92. Dr Alexander Adam, the rector, 

 of whom so much interesting matter follows, is sufficiently eminent to 

 be commemorated in the usual works of biographical reference. 



