the theme of their conversation, when Constable said
in jest, "Now, John, I'll wad you a plack that neither of
these two lads ever heard of the Pragmatic Sanction."--"Not
heard of the Pragmatic Sanction!" said John Davidson; "I
would like to see that;" and with a voice of thunder he asked
his son the fatal question. As young D. modestly allowed he
knew nothing about it, his father drove him from the table in
a rage, and I absconded during the confusion; nor could
Constable ever bring me back again to his friend
Davidson's.--(1826.)]

From {p.021} Prestonpans I was transported back to my father's house
in George's Square, which continued to be my most established place of
residence, until my marriage in 1797. I felt the change from being a
single indulged brat, to becoming a member of a large family, very
severely; for under the gentle government of my kind grandmother, who
was meekness itself, and of my aunt, who, though of an higher temper,
was exceedingly attached to me, I had acquired a degree of license
which could not be permitted in a large family. I had sense enough,
however, to bend my temper to my new circumstances; but such was the
agony which I internally experienced, that I have guarded against
nothing more in the education of my own family, than against their
acquiring habits of self-willed caprice and domination. I found much
consolation during this period of mortification in the partiality of
my mother. She joined to a light and happy temper of mind a strong
turn to study poetry and works of imagination. She was sincerely
devout, but her religion was, as became her sex, of a cast less
austere than my father's. Still, the discipline of the Presbyterian
Sabbath was severely strict, and I think injudiciously so. Although
Bunyan's Pilgrim, Gessner's Death of Abel, Rowe's Letters, and one or
two other books, which, for that reason, I still have a favor for,
were admitted to relieve the gloom of one dull sermon succeeding to
another--there was far too much tedium annexed to the duties of the
day; and in the end it did none of us any good.

My week-day tasks were more agreeable. My lameness and {p.022} my
solitary habits had made me a tolerable reader, and my hours of
leisure were usually spent in reading aloud to my mother Pope's
translation of Homer, which, excepting a few traditionary ballads, and
the songs in Allan Ramsay's E