e amputated tails of the animals, which made a very
dainty dish--that on reaching Edinburgh, my hackney, having from a
dark gallop over a ground where a murder had been committed not long
before, and being put into a cold stable, lost every hair on its hide
like a scalded pig, subjected me to half his price in lieu of
damage--and that the famous and ancient Polmood remained in the
possession of Lord Forbes, as inherited from the charter of King
Robert, who gave the lands for ever, "as high up as heaven, and as low
down as hell," to the individual named in the grant, which was
witnessed "by Meg, my wife, and Marjory, my nourice."'

Despairing of doing any good in Edinburgh, Mr Jerdan, while still only
twenty-three, resorted once more to London, though without any
definite object in view. While pursuing his usual light-hearted
career, he got into debt and difficulties, and experienced the
consequent annoyances with the sense of being an injured man, 'whereas
it was I who had wronged myself.' 'It was now,' he adds, 'that I got
my first lesson of that fatal truth--that debt is the greatest curse
which can beset the course of a human being. It cools his friends and
heats his enemies; it throws obstacles in the way of his every advance
towards independence; it degrades him in his own estimation, and
exposes him to humiliation from others, however beneath him in station
and character; it marks him for injustice and spoil; it weakens his
moral perceptions and benumbs his intellectual faculties; it is a
burden not to be borne consistently with fair hopes of fortune, or
that peace of mind which passeth all understanding, both in a worldly
and eternal sense. But I shall have much to say on the subject in the
future pages of this biography, though I cannot omit the opportunity
afforded by my earliest taste of the bitter fruit which poisons every
pulse of existence, earnestly to exhort my youthful readers to deny
themselves every expense which they cannot harmlessly afford, and
revel on bread and water and a lowly couch, in humility and patience,
rather than incur the obligation of a single sixpence beyond their
actual means.'

At length, about 1806, he gravitated into what was perhaps his natural
position--the press; taking a concern in a daily paper called the
_Aurora_, which was got up by the hotel-keepers of London. This
speculation did not answer. It was destined to verify a late saying:
'If you want anything spoilt or ruined