xxxiv 
ACCOUNT OF THE 
narrowly escaped, and perhaps even to new and still greater 
ones ; he calmly replied, that a few inglorious winters of 
country practice at Peebles was a risk as great, and would 
tend as efFectttally to shorten life, as the journey which he 
was about to undertake. 
It might have been expected, that a person who had 
been so much accustomed to literary and scientific society, 
and who had lately been in some degree admitted into the 
fashionable circles of the metropolis, in which he had be- 
come an object of much interest and attention, would have 
felt great repugnance to the solitude and obscurity of a 
small market town. But this does not appear to have 
been the case. General society, for which indeed he was 
not particularly suited, was not much to his taste ; and 
during every period of his life, he always looked forward 
to a state of complete retirement and seclusion in the coun- 
try, as the object and end of all his labours. He had great 
enjoyment however in his own domestic circle, and in the 
society of select friends ; and his residence at Peebles was, 
in this respect, highly fortunate for him, since it was the 
occasion of his becoming acquainted with two distinguished 
residents in that neighbourhood ; Colonel John Murray of 
Kringaltie, a very respectable old officer, then retired from 
the service, and Dr. Adam Ferguson ; with both of whom 
he became intimate, and passecl much of his time. The 
latter of these, then residing at Hallyards in Tweedsdale, 
is the well-known author of ihQ Essay on Civil Society ^ 
and History of the Roman Republic, and was formerly 
Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh ; where, dur- 
ing many years, he was one of that distinguished literary 
