EARLY LIFE. i; 



all times that they were directed by my great kinsman 

 the Principal, after the first impulses they had received 

 from my grandmother, his eldest and favourite sister, 

 and who had lived with him, having the care of his 

 family, for many years before the marriage of either. 

 As a matter of course, he was consulted by my father 

 in all that regarded the education of his children. 

 And he used to visit us at Brougham, where I well 

 remember accompanying him upon his walks in the 

 woods, where he would occasionally repeat aloud 

 Greek or Latin verses. We had to deplore his irre- 

 parable loss in 1793 ; but I recollect going to his villa 

 in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, where he resided 

 several months before his death, to tell him of an im- 

 portant debate in the General Assembly, in which his 

 son, afterwards Lord Robertson, the judge, had greatly 

 distinguished himself. My youngest brother, although 

 born some years after the Principal's death, was named 

 after him, and the surname, as well as the Christian, 

 ought certainly to have been given; but a little Cumber- 

 land family pride prevented this, as we supposed. He 

 always recommended translation, as tending to form 

 the style by giving an accurate knowledge of the force 

 of expression, and obliging us to mark and estimate the 

 shades of difference between words in phrases in the 

 two languages, and to find, by selecting the terms, or 

 turning the idiom, the expression required for a given 

 meaning; whereas when composing originally, the idea 

 may be varied, in order to suit the diction that most 

 easily presents itself, of which the influence produced 

 VOL. I. B 



