\\Xll AN ACCOUNT OF THE 



interest she could for me among her acquaintance 

 there. I thankfully accepted of her kind offer; 

 and instead of giving me one year, she gave me 

 two. I carried with me a letter of recommenda- 

 tion from Lord Pitsligo (a near neighbour 

 of 'Squire Baird's) to Mr. John Alexander, 

 a painter in Edinburgh ; who allowed me to pass 

 an hour every day at his house, for a month, to 

 copy from his drawings ; and said he would teach 

 me to paint in oil-colours, if I would serve him 

 seven years, and my friends would maintain me 

 all that time : but this was too much for me to de- 

 sire them to do ; nor did I choose to serve so long. 

 I was then recommended to other painters, but 

 they would no nothing without money. So I was 

 quite at a loss what- to do. 



In a few days after this, I received a letter of 

 recommendation from my good friend 'Squire 

 Baird to the Reverend Dr. Robert Keith at Edin- 

 burgh, to whom I gave an account of my bad suc- 

 cess among the painters there. He told me, that 

 if I would copy from nature, I might do without 

 their assistance ; as all the rules for draw ing signi- 

 fied but very little when one came to draw from 

 the life, and, by what he had seen of my drawings 

 brought from the North, he judged I might suc- 

 ceed very well in drawing pictures from the life, 

 in Indian ink, on vellum. He then sat to me for 

 his own picture, and sent me with it and a letter 

 of recommendation to the Right Honourable 

 Lady Jane Douglas, who lived with her mother. 



