EARLY LIFE. 4? 



one of the Mastertons, at whose school I learnt writ- 

 ing and arithmetic. Nicol's habits were well known 

 to the boys, as were those of the other masters. They 

 had an uncouth rhyme characterising their masters. 

 In this, Luke is the teacher Luke Fraser, under whom 

 I was before rising to the rector's class ; Frango was 

 French, a most respectable and learned man ; and 

 Cruikshanks (a very able and successful teacher, as 

 well as worthy man, under whom Horner and Murray 

 were, until the former went to the rector's class and 

 the latter to Westminster) is represented by Crukem- 

 shango : 



" Sandy Adam loves his book, 

 And so do Luke and Frango ; 

 Willie Nicol loves his bottle, 

 And so does Crukemshango." 



I am pretty confident that the last line is owing to 

 the rhyme and the contrast, and not to the fact. The 

 attacks of the masters and their friends never gave 

 Adam any uneasiness that had not long ceased when 

 I was under him, and he never at any time made the 

 least allusion to them in his class. The treatment of 

 the press he had a good right to despise, when it came 

 from the same disreputable quarter in which the Prin- 

 cipal was assailed. The history of Gilbert Stuart 

 affords a remarkable and an edifying instance, per- 

 haps a singular one, of great talents and considerable 

 powers of work, though irregular, failing to obtain 

 success, or to keep alive the memory of works dis- 

 tinguished by both learning and ability, owing to the 



