MEMOIR. 1 5 



talents, as you know ; he wrote a good hand, and worked with great 

 rapidity, but his heart was elsewhere, and three or four years 

 sufficed to prove the attempt an utter failure. During his period- 

 ical holidays he joined some friends in expeditions to the moors 

 of the north of Scotland, where he found himself in his proper 

 element, and whence he could not, or would not, tear himself to 

 resume a duty which was odious to him, and his connection with 

 the Treasury, which had begun in (I think) 1829, ceased about the 

 latter part of 1833, or early in 1834. 



Mr Eicketts says St John went little into general society ; 

 " the formalities of London life were irksome to him, and when, 

 after he had left London some time, I visited him in his Koss-shire 

 home, he seemed a far happier man than while writhing under 

 the restraint of London conventionalities and official routine." 



Some of that early aversion for mixed society which Mr 

 llicketts describes in St John may, I think, be attributed to an 

 impediment in his speech, which, like all such nervous affections, 

 was most felt in his intercourse with strangers. It almost dis- 

 appeared when he was among familiar friends, and with them his 

 conversation was easy and flowing. 



Mr Jeans, after speaking of St John's life as a Treasury clerk, 

 says : " I next hear of him settled at Rosehall in Sutherland. The 

 place was lent him by his cousin, the late Lord. Bolingbroke, and 

 here he lived a perfectly secluded wild life, having good scope for 

 improving his experiences in natural history, and a wide range 

 for indulging his tastes for shooting and fishing." 



It was on an expedition from llosehall that St John met Miss 

 Anne Gibson, to whom he was married in November 1834. Miss 

 Gibson had some fortune, a commodity in which her husband was 

 sadly unprovided, and as the lady, with a true wife's devotion, 

 accommodated herself to her husband's tastes and manner of life, 

 he was enabled henceforward to live the life of a sportsman and 

 naturalist in the Highlands, which was only modified when the 

 necessity of educating a young family induced them to draw near 

 schools. The St Johns lived at various places rented with these 

 views, chosen for their picturesque beauties, or capabilities of sport 



