xxil LIFE OF 



of white thread stockings, rather the worse for wear, and not im- 

 proved in purity of colour. Knowing that he was looked up to as 

 a pattern for neatness, and unwilling to be disappointed, he chalked 

 the upper parts of his stockings, and finished the deception by paint- 

 ing upon the lower part a pair of black gaiters. He spent the evening 

 to his satisfaction, and returned to his home undiscovered. 



A continuance of this unsettled life threw him into ill health, and 

 a state of great mental despondency. Of the depressing effects of 

 the latter he was fully aware. In a letter to Mr Crichton, he says, 

 " Among the many and dismal ingredients that embitter the cup of 

 life, none affect the feelings or distress the spirit so deeply as de- 

 spondence." In another, written nearly a year after, he appears to 

 have been really ill,* and still more diseased in mind ; yet amidst 

 the distresses which he thought were crowding round him, and the 

 sorrows which came, 



" Not single spies, 

 But in battalions ! " 



he never loses sight of the consolations he expected to receive from 

 his religion, and endeavoured, as he elsewhere expresses himself, 



" To lift his thoughts from things below, 

 And lead them to divine. " t 



The extracts from this letter will show that the principles of 

 Divine Kevelation had been well and early implanted in his mind, 

 and his future writings bear witness that they were never uprooted. 

 " Driven by poverty and disease to the solitudes of retirement,f at 

 the same period when the flush of youth, the thirst of fame, and 

 the expected applause of the world, welcomed me to the field," — 

 "I feel my body decay daily, my spirits and strength continually 

 decrease, and something within tells me that dissolution — dread- 

 ful dissolution, is not far distant. No heart can conceive the ter- 

 rors of those who tremble under the apprehension of death. This 

 increases their love of life, and every new advance of the King of 



* His complaint was an inflammatory cold, which threatened to fix upon 

 his lungs. 

 + Hymn VI. Poems, p. 110. 

 I He was now at Auchinbathie Tower. 



