.241} connections--it certainly
could have excited no surprise had his literary studies been found
suffering total intermission during this busy period. That such was
not the case, however, his correspondence and note-books afford ample
evidence.

He had no turn, at this time of his life, for early rising; so that
the regular attendance at the morning drills was of itself a strong
evidence of his military zeal; but he must have, in spite of them, and
of all other circumstances, persisted in what was the usual custom of
all his earlier life, namely, the devotion of the best hours of the
night to solitary study. In general, both as a young man, and in more
advanced age, his constitution required a good allowance of sleep, and
he, on principle, indulged in it, saying, "He was but half a man if he
had not full seven hours of utter unconsciousness;" but his whole mind
and temperament were, at this period, in a state of most fervent
exaltation, and spirit triumphed over matter. His translation of
Steinberg's Otho of Wittelsbach is marked "1796-7;" from which, I
conclude, it was finished in the latter year. The volume containing
that of Meier's Wolfred of Dromberg, a drama of Chivalry, is dated
1797; and, I think, the reader will presently see cause to suspect,
that though not alluded to in his imperfect note-book, these tasks
must have been accomplished in the very season of the daily drills.

The letters addressed to him in March, April, and June, by Kerr of
Abbotrule, George Chalmers, and his uncle at Rosebank, indicate his
unabated interest in the collection of coins and ballads; and I shall
now make a few extracts from his private note-book, some of which will
at all events amuse the survivors of the Edinburgh Light Horse;--

"_March 15, 1797._--Read Stanfield's trial, and the conviction
appears very doubtful indeed. Surely no one could seriously
believe, in 1688, that the body of the murdered {p.242} bleeds
at the touch of the murderer, and I see little else that directly
touches Philip Stanfield. He was a very bad character, however;
and tradition says, that having insulted Welsh, the wild
preacher, one day in his early life, the saint called from the
pulpit that God had revealed to him that this blasphemous youth
would die in the sight of as many as were then assembled. It was
believed at the time that Lady Stanfield had a hand in the
assassination, or was at le