or THE 



LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 



Written by Himself, and continued by the Editor. 



AS this is probably the last book I shall ever 

 publish, I beg leave to prefix to it a short account 

 of myself, and of the manner I first began, and 

 have since prosecuted my studies. For, as my 

 setting out in life from a very low station, and in 

 a remote part of the Island, has occasioned some 

 false, and indeed very improbable particulars, to be 

 related of me, I therefore think it the better way 

 instead of contradicting them one by one, to give 

 a faithful and circumstantial detail of my whole 

 proceedings, from ray first obscure beginning to 

 the present time ; wherein, if I should insert some 

 particulars of little moment, I hope the good- 

 natured reader will kindly excuse me. 



I was born in the year 1710, a few miles from 

 Keith, a little village in Bamffshire, in the North 

 of Scotland ; and can with pleasure say, that my 

 parents, though poor, were religious and honest : 



h 



