ch when he was informed, "I am no stranger,"
said he, "to the fame of that gentleman, who has made a considerable
noise in the world, on account of that great cause he undertook in
defence of an unhappy orphan; and, since he is a person of such an
amiable disposition, I am heartily sorry to find that his endeavours
have not met with that successful issue which their good fortune in the
beginning seemed to promise. Indeed, the circumstance of his espousing
that cause was so uncommon and romantic and the depravity of the
human heart so universal, that some people, unacquainted with his real
character, imagined his views were altogether selfish; and some were not
wanting, who affirmed he was a mere adventurer. Nevertheless, I must do
him the justice to own, I have heard some of the most virulent of those
who were concerned on the other side of the question, bear testimony
in his favour, observing, that he was deceived into the expense of the
whole, by the plausible story which at first engaged his compassion.
Your description of his character confirms me in the same opinion,
though I am quite ignorant of the affair; the particulars of which I
should be glad to learn, as well as the genuine account of his own life,
many circumstances of which are by his enemies, I believe, egregiously
misrepresented."

"Sir," answered the priest, "that is a piece of satisfaction which I am
glad to find myself capable of giving you. I have had the pleasure of
being acquainted with Mr. M-- from his youth, and everything which I
shall relate concerning him, you may depend upon as a fact which hath
fallen under my own cognizance, or been vouched upon the credit of
undoubted evidence.

"Mr. M--'s father was a minister of the established church of Scotland,
descended from a very ancient clan, and his mother nearly related to a
noble family in the northern part of that kingdom. While the son was
boarded at a public school, where he made good progress in the Latin
tongue, his father died, and he was left an orphan to the care of an
uncle, who, finding him determined against any servile employment, kept
him at school, that he might prepare himself for the university, with a
view of being qualified for his father's profession.

"Here his imagination was so heated by the warlike achievements he found
recorded in the Latin authors, such as Caesar, Curtius, and Buchanan,
that he was seized with an irresistible thirst of military glory, and
desire of