16 EARLY LIFE. 



soon recovered it, and in a few weeks was sent, as I 

 have already said, to Stalker's day-school. 



It is a great mistake, into which Lord Cockburn 

 and others have fallen, the fancying that I at all distin- 

 guished myself at the High School a mistake caused 

 by persons reflecting backward from one period to 

 another. The only instance I have the least recollection 

 of, was when the Principal of the University (Robert- 

 son) visited the school at one of the examinations 

 yearly held before the vacation: he said to Mr Fraser 

 that I ought to have been at the head of his class. But 

 the answer was, "No ; Reddie is in his right place :" 

 and so he was. My great kinsman was deceived, not 

 by his partiality, but by my having a better voice and 

 delivery : the manner prevailed over the matter as I 

 dare to say it has often done since, on greater occasions 

 and with a far less critical audience. Reddie was 

 afterwards in a very high station at the Scotch bar 

 one of the most learned and sound lawyers of his day. 

 Tie distinguished himself especially in the great ques- 

 tions connected with maritime rights and international 

 law, and enjoyed the friendship and patronage of 

 Hope, afterwards Lord President; nor did anything 

 prevent him from rising to the top of the profession, 

 and to the head of the bench, but his modest, retiring, 

 and unambitious nature, which led him to accept an 

 oilice at Glasgow of great importance and of judicial 

 functions, though ] nimble compared with what, by the 

 consent of all, he was so well entitled to. 



It was an inestimable advantage to my studies at 



