66 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [(HAT. 



but two courses : I conceive in the first place I should 

 pass advocate, and then either to prepare for the Bar and 

 race for a sheriffship ; or to set to with a vigour and 

 entireness of application, which to me at present is as a 

 day-dream, to qualify myself for a professor's chair. . . . 

 I should return unnumbered thanks to Heaven on my 

 knees could I engage in so unbroken, so delightful a 

 career, even though the attainment of its end should be 

 distant or uncertain. ... I assure you my mind was in 

 a very fit state to receive your letter ; for I daily became 

 more convinced that" I could not go on with this struggle, 

 and that, if I regarded my comfort in life, I ought not to 

 be swayed by the considerations of prudence, which 1 kin-w 

 would induce most if not all my friends to set their f; 

 against throwing myself upon all the difficulties of a 

 limited income ; and in fact I begin to see that I have 

 hitherto trusted too little to my own judgment, and am 

 tempted to follow the path so distinctly set before me. . . . 

 I may say that the three friends on whom I most firmly 

 rely, and who have done their best to supply the place of 

 my natural protector, are yourself, Mr. Mackenzie, and 

 Sir A. Wood. I do not despair of making them all 

 unanimous, but I am resolved to be greatly guided by 

 the spirited light in which you have taken up the question, 

 corroborated as it is by the conviction I have in the fixed- 

 ness of my resolution, and the little chance I have of 

 repenting a choice which may go with my heart and 

 d (.'liberate judgment, after having lived to repent so 

 deliberately a choice made chiefly upon principles of 

 duty, which really did violence to my inclinations. . . . ' 



A few months later he writes to Mr. Colin Mackenzie, 

 asking him for arguments with which he may controvert 

 Dr. Brewster, who alone of all his friends stood out against 

 his giving up the Bar : 



' . . . . You will enter into my anxiety to change the 

 views of the only friend who has opposed them, who, you 

 will perhaps at first be a little surprised to learn, is Dr. 

 Brewster. Do not for a moment- suppose that 1 want to 



