ative of
Aberdeenshire; but held, latterly, an inferior situation in the office
of the British Linen Company in Edinburgh, where I was born. Ever since
I remember him, he had awakened too fully to the realities of life, and
they pressed too hard on his spirits, to leave him space for the
indulgence of his earlier fancies; but he could dream for his children,
though not for himself; or, as I should perhaps rather say, his children
fell heir to all his more juvenile hopes of fortune, and influence, and
space in the world's eye;--and, for himself, he indulged in hopes of a
later growth and firmer texture, which pointed from the present scene of
things to the future. I have an only brother, my senior by several
years, a lad of much energy, both physical and mental; in brief, one of
those mixtures of reflection and activity which seem best formed for
rising in the world. My father deemed him most fitted for commerce, and
had influence enough to get him introduced into the counting-house of a
respectable Edinburgh merchant. I was always of a graver turn--in part,
perhaps, the effect of less robust health--and me he intended for the
Church. I have been a dreamer, Mr. Lindsay, from my earliest
years--prone to melancholy, and fond of books and of solitude; and the
peculiarities of this temperament the sanguine old man, though no mean
judge of character, had mistaken for a serious and reflective
disposition. You are acquainted with literature, and know something,
from books at least, of the lives of literary men. Judge, then, of his
prospect of usefulness in any profession, who has lived, ever since he
knew himself, among the poets. My hopes, from my earliest years, have
been hopes of celebrity as a writer--not of wealth, or of influence, or
of accomplishing any of the thousand aims which furnish the great bulk
of mankind with motives. You will laugh at me. There is something so
emphatically shadowy and unreal in the object of this ambition, that
even the full attainment of it provokes a smile. For who does not know

'How vain that second life in others' breath,
The estate which wits inherit after death!'

And what can be more fraught with the ludicrous than a union of this
shadowy ambition with _mediocre_ parts and attainments! But I digress.

"It is now rather more than three years since I entered the classes
here. I competed for a bursary, and was fortunate enough to secure one.
Believe me, Mr. Lindsay, I am little