t
maintained my literary character among my companions, with whom I soon
met with great indulgence and regard. The persons with whom I chiefly
lived at this period of my youth were William Clerk, already
mentioned; James Edmonstoune, of Newton; George Abercromby; Adam
Ferguson, son of the celebrated Professor Ferguson, and who combined
the lightest and most airy temper with the best and kindest
disposition; John Irving, already mentioned; the Honorable Thomas
Douglas, now Earl of Selkirk; David Boyle,[34]--and two or three
others, who sometimes plunged deeply into politics and metaphysics,
and not unfrequently "doffed the world aside, and bid it pass."

[Footnote 34: Now Lord Justice-Clerk.--(1826.)]

Looking back on these times, I cannot applaud in all respects the way
in which our days were spent. There was too much idleness, and
sometimes too much conviviality: but our hearts were warm, our minds
honorably bent on knowledge and literary distinction; and if I,
certainly the least informed of the party, may be permitted to bear
witness, we were not without the fair and creditable means of
attaining the distinction to which we aspired. In this society I was
naturally led to correct my former useless course of reading;
for--feeling myself greatly inferior to my companions in metaphysical
philosophy and other branches of regular study--I labored, not without
some success, to acquire at least such a portion of knowledge as might
enable me to maintain my rank in conversation. In this I succeeded
pretty well; but unfortunately then, as often since through my life, I
incurred the deserved ridicule of my friends from the superficial
nature of my acquisitions, which being, in the mercantile phrase, _got
up_ for society, very often proved flimsy in the texture; and thus the
gifts of an uncommonly {p.047} retentive memory and acute powers of
perception were sometimes detrimental to their possessor by
encouraging him to a presumptuous reliance upon them.

Amidst these studies, and in this society, the time of my
apprenticeship elapsed; and in 1790, or thereabouts, it became
necessary that I should seriously consider to which department of the
law I was to attach myself. My father behaved with the most parental
kindness. He offered, if I preferred his own profession, immediately
to take me into partnership with him, which, though his business was
much diminished, still afforded me an immediate prospect of a handsome
in