36 EARLY LIFE. 



She was indeed, as her brother always said, a very- 

 remarkable person, and this was apparent from his 

 regard for her opinion and advice, as well as from the 

 discussions on various subjects which I have heard 

 between them. I well remember her great admira- 

 tion of Lord Chatham, and that she did not quite 

 agree with him in his estimate of the son, who stood 

 a good deal higher in his opinion than in hers, not 

 because of his being at all a Pittite, but probably 

 from his friendship with the Dundases (the two Pre- 

 sidents), father and son." 5 ' He was, as he told Wal- 

 pole many years before Chatham's death, a moderate 

 Whig, a Whig of 1688; to which Walpole says he 

 made an answer, that no one ever believed he ven- 

 tured, with such a person. His sister was avowedly 

 a Whig in the mere party sense of the term. But as 

 an orator, Chatham was the model she used to place 

 before my eyes ; and her dreams were, when she 

 heard of my attempts, that her preaching had not 

 been in vain. It was a subject on which she often 

 came with her daughter (my mother), of whom she 

 had a very high and most just opinion, as had the 

 Principal. But I greatly doubt if she herself, had 

 she survived to 1830, would have exercised the self- 

 control and self-denial which the daughter showed, 

 in opposing, by her remonstrances and earnest advice, 

 my being Chancellor. 



* 1. Robert Dundas of Arniston, born 1685, Lord President of the 

 Court of Session 1748, died 1753; 2. Robert, his son, bora 1713, Lord 

 President 1760, died 1767. Brunton and Haig's History of the Sena- 

 tors of the College of Justice, 507, 523, 



