Vlll 



MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 



at home during his earlier years, he was afterwards for 

 some time placed at a seminary in his native county, then 

 of considerable repute in that part of Scotland. Sir 

 Henry (for we shall at once adopt the designation by 

 which he was afterwards best known) was subsequently 

 sent abroad to complete his education at Hamburg, which 

 was then much frequented as a place of education by the 

 children of the higher classes in Scotland. After remain- 

 ing at this celebrated University for some years, where he 

 imbibed the classical taste, and laid the foundation of those 

 scholastic attainments, for which he was afterwards distin- 

 guished, Sir Henry returned to Scotland (his father having 

 died some years before) about the age of seventeen, and 

 soon after procured, in the year 1778, a commission in the 

 13th Light Dragoons, in which regiment he continued to 

 serve for several years. He afterwards exchanged, in 1781, 

 into the 10th Light Dragoons, and became aide-de-camp 

 to General Sir James Steuart of Coltness — a younger 

 branch, as already mentioned, of the family of AUanton. 

 In this capacity Sir Henry accompanied his relative to 

 Ireland, where Sir James had command of a district, in 

 the disturbances of that country at the close of the last 

 century. Whether Sir Henry had only intended, like 

 many other young men both then and at present, to spend 

 a few years in his Majesty's service, with the view per- 

 haps of what may be termed finishing his education, pre- 

 vious to settling down on his paternal estates, or whether 

 a military life was unsuited to the literary tastes and 

 retired habits of which he very early gave indications, we 

 have not been informed. It is certain, however, that soon 

 after his marriage, in 1787, he retired from the army and 

 returned to Scotland, where he spent for the most part, 

 with little interruption, the remaining years of his life, 

 between his own paternal property at Allanton and his 



