. In no family were these suppers more agreeable or
cheerful than in that of Sir Henry Moncreiff Wellwood, minister of the
West Kirk. There were always a few of the friends of Sir Henry and Lady
Moncreiff present, and we were invited occasionally. There was a
substantial hot supper of roasted fowls, game, or lamb, and afterwards a
lively, animated conversation on a variety of subjects, without a shade
of austerity, though Sir Henry was esteemed an orthodox preacher.

There was an idiot in Edinburgh, the son of a respectable family, who
had a remarkable memory. He never failed to go to the Kirk on Sunday,
and on returning home could repeat the sermon word for word, saying,
Here the minister coughed, Here he stopped to blow his nose. During the
tour we made in the Highlands we met with another idiot who knew the
Bible so perfectly that if you asked him where such a verse was to be
found, he could tell without hesitation, and repeat the chapter. The
common people in Scotland at that time had a kind of serious compassion
for these harmless idiots, because "the hand of God was upon them."

The wise as well as the foolish are sometimes endowed with a powerful
memory. Dr. Gregory, an eminent Edinburgh physician, one of the
cleverest and most agreeable men I ever met with, was a remarkable
instance of this. He wrote and spoke Latin fluently, and Somerville,
who was a good Latinist, met with a Latin quotation in some book he was
reading, but not knowing from whence it was taken, asked his friend Dr.
Gregory. "It is forty years since I read that author," said Dr. Gregory,
"but I think you will find the passage in the middle of such a page."
Somerville went for the book, and at the place mentioned there it was.

* * * * *

I had the grief to lose my dear father at this time. He had served
sixty-seven years in the British Navy, and must have been twice on the
North American station, for he was present at the taking of Quebec by
General Wolfe, in 1759, and afterwards during the War of Independence.
After the battle of Camperdown he was made a Colonel of Marines, and
died, in 1813, Vice-Admiral of the Red.

* * * * *

Geology, which has now been so far advanced as a science, was still in
its infancy. Professor Playfair and Mr. Hutton had written on the
subject; and in my gay young days, when Lady Helen Hall was occasionally
my chaperone, I had heard that Sir James Hall had taken up t