e
remunerative employment than as a stone-mason. But though I might
acquaint myself in a large town, when occupied in this way, with the
world of books, I questioned whether I could enjoy equal opportunities
of acquainting myself with the occult and the new in natural science, as
when plying my labours in the provinces as a mechanic. And so I
determined that, instead of casting myself on an exhausting literary
occupation, in which I would have to draw incessantly on the stock of
fact and reflection which I had already accumulated, I should continue
for at least several years more to purchase independence by my labours
as a mason, and employ my leisure hours in adding to my fund, gleaned
from original observation, and in walks not previously trodden.

The venerable Principal set me upon a piece of literary taskwork, which,
save for his advice, I would never have thought of producing, and of
which these autobiographic chapters are the late but legitimate
offspring. "Literary men," he said, "are sometimes spoken of as
consisting of two classes--the educated and the uneducated; but they
must all alike have an education before they can become literary men;
and the less ordinary the mode in which the education has been acquired,
the more interesting always is the story of it. I wish you to write for
me an account of yours." I accordingly wrote an autobiographic sketch
for the Principal, which brought up my story till my return, in 1825,
from the south country to my home in the north, and which, though
greatly overladen with reflection and remark, has preserved for me both
the thoughts and incidents of an early time more freshly than if they
had been suffered to exist till now as mere recollections in the memory.
I next set myself to record, in a somewhat elaborate form, the
traditions of my native place and the surrounding district; and, taking
the work very leisurely, not as labour, but as amusement--for my
labours, as at an earlier period, continued to be those of the
stone-cutter--a bulky volume grew up under my hands. I had laid down for
myself two rules. There is no more fatal error into which a working man
of a literary turn can fall, than the mistake of deeming himself too
good for his humble employments; and yet it is a mistake as common as it
is fatal. I had already seen several poor wretched mechanics, who,
believing themselves to be poets, and regarding the manual occupation by
which they could alone live in indepe