52 EARLY LIFE. 



the passions, and were not prurient but witty, 

 though indecent ; a defence which no one of correct 

 taste or sound morals can ever regard as more than 

 an assertion that the matter complained of, though 

 bad, might have been worse ! 



I don't recollect the Doctor ever distinctly casting 

 my horoscope, as he did that of some others ; but the 

 following letter from a daughter, who still lives, of 

 one of the professors, mentions an odd guess of my 

 own, like that of Erskine's mother, which he used 

 to cite as an evidence of providential inspiration 

 for he never doubted that Providence acted by 

 secondary causes. 



The account given in the following letter of the 

 reprimand is in one particular inaccurate. It was 

 not for an essay, but for a message sent by the 

 minority on a division in the Speculative Society, 

 composed of Jeffrey, Horner, Kinnaird, and myself, 

 and of which Jeffrey was the bearer to Professor 

 Hume, whose class we were attending. The message 

 was of an offensive, perhaps hostile description, com- 

 plaining of his having said publicly, " Those young 

 men, like their masters the French, are evidently 

 skilled in political arts." Jeffrey, as instructed by 

 us, asked if he had used these expressions ; and said, 

 that if he had we felt bound to declare they con- 

 tained a falsehood. We were all summoned. Jeffrey 

 was out of town, Horner was ill, as well as Kinnaird, 

 and I alone could attend. The reprimand was per- 

 fectly justified by our proceeding, and was most 



