REMINISCENCES OF FORMER DAYS.

I MUST now proceed with my reminiscences at random, as from the time the last journal was finished and published I ceased keeping any notes. From 1809 until 1814 I resided in Edinburgh, having no home or place of retirement in my native district of Ettrick Forest, a want which I felt grievously in summer. But in the course of the last-mentioned year I received a letter from the late Duke Charles of Buccleugh, by the hands of his chamberlain, presenting me with the small farm of Altrive Lake, in the wilds of Yarrow. The boon was quite unsolicited and unexpected, and never was a more welcome one conferred on an unfortunate wight, as it gave me once more a habitation among my native moors and streams, where each face was that of a friend, and each house was a home, as well as a residence for life to my aged father.

The letter was couched in the kindest terms, and informed me that I had long had a secret and sincere friend whom I knew not of, in his late Duchess, who had in her lifetime solicited such a residence for me. In the letter he said, "The rent shall be nominal ;" but it has not even been nominal, for such a thing as rent has never once been mentioned. Subsequently to that period I was a frequent guest at his Grace's table; and, as he placed me always next him, on his right hand, I enjoyed a good share of his conversation,

It

and I must say of my benefactor, that I have never met with any man whom I deemed his equal. There is no doubt that he was beloved and esteemed, not only by his family and friends, but by all who could appreciate merit; yet strange to say, Duke Charles was not popular among his tenantry. This was solely owing to the change of times, over which no nobleman can have any control, and which it is equally impossible for him to redress; for a more considerate, benevolent, and judicious gentleman I never saw. is natural to suppose that I loved him, and felt grateful towards him; but exclusive of all feelings of that nature, if I am any judge of mankind, Duke Charles had every qualification both of heart and mind, which ought to endear a nobleman to high and low, rich and poor. From the time of his beloved partner's death his spirits began to droop; and, though for the sake of his family he made many efforts to keep them up, the energy that formerly had supported them was broken, and the gnawings of a disconsolate heart brought him to an untimely grave. Blessed be the memory of my two noble and only benefactors! they were lovely in their lives, and in their deaths they were but shortly divided.

I then began and built a handsome cottage on my new farm, and forthwith made it my head-quarters. But not content with this, having married in 1820 Miss Margaret Phillips, youngest daughter of Mr Phillips, late of Longbridge-moor, in Annandale, and finding that I had then in the hands of Mr Murray, Mr Blackwood, Messrs. Oliver and Boyd, and Messrs.

Longman and Co., debts due, or that would soon be due, to the amount of a thousand pounds, I determined once more to farm on a larger scale, and expressed my wish to the Right Honourable Lord Montague, head trustee on his nephew's domains. His lordship readily offered me the farm of Mount-Benger, which adjoined my own. At first I determined not to accept of it, as it had ruined two well qualified farmers in the preceding six years; but was persuaded at last by some neighbours, in opposition to my own judgment, to accept of it, on the plea that the farmers on the Buccleugh estate were never suffered to be great losers, and that at all events, if I could not make the rent, I could write for it. So accordingly I took a lease of the farm for nine years.

I called in my debts, which were all readily paid, and amounted to within a few pounds of one thousand; but at that period the sum was quite inadequate, the prices of ewes bordering on thirty shillings per head. The farm required stocking to the amount of one thousand sheep, twenty cows, five horses, farming utensils of all sorts, crop, manure, and moreover, draining, fencing, and building, so that I soon found I had not half enough of money; and though I realized by writing, in the course of the next two years, seven hundred and fifty pounds, beside smaller sums paid in cash, yet I got into difficulties at the very first, out of which I could never redeem myself till the end of the lease, at which time live stock of all kinds having declined one half in value, the speculation left me once more without a sixpence in the world—and

at the age of sixty it is fully late enough to begin it.

anew.

It will be consolatory however to my friends to be assured that none of these reverses ever preyed in the smallest degree on my spirits. As long as I did all for the best, and was conscious that no man could ever accuse me of dishonesty, I laughed at the futility of my own calculations, and let my earnings go as they came, amid contentment and happiness, determined to make more money as soon as possible, although it should go the same way.

I

One may think, on reading over this Memoir, that I must have worn out a life of misery and wretchedness; but the case has been quite the reverse. never knew either man or woman who has been so uniformly happy as I have been; which has been partly owing to a good constitution, and partly from the conviction that a heavenly gift, conferring the powers of immortal song, was inherent in my soul. Indeed so uniformly smooth and happy has my married life been, that on a retrospect I cannot distinguish one part from another, save by some remarkably good days of fishing, shooting, and curling on the ice. Those who desire to peruse my youthful love adventures will find some of the best of them in those of " George Cochrane."

Now, as I think the best way of writing these bygone reminiscences is to finish the subject one is on, before beginning another, I must revert to several circumstances of importance to nobody but myself. In 1822, perceiving that I was likely to run short of

money, I began and finished in the course of a few months, "The Three Perils of Man, viz. War, Women, and Witchcraft!" Lord preserve us! what a medley I made of it! for I never in my life rewrote a page of prose; and being impatient to get hold of some of Messrs. Longman and Co.'s money or their bills, which were the same, I dashed on, and mixed up with what might have been made one of the best historical tales our country ever produced, such a mass of diablerie as retarded the main story, and rendered the whole perfectly ludicrous. But the worst thing of all effected by this novel, or at least by the novel part of an authentic tale, was its influencing the ingenious Allan Cunningham to follow up the idea, and improve the subject; whereas, he made matters rather worse. I received one hundred and fifty pounds for the edition of one thousand copies as soon as it was put to press. The house never manifested the least suspicion of me, more than if I had been one of their own firm.

The next year I produced "The Three Perils of Women,” also in three volumes, and received the same price likewise, in bills, as soon as it was put to press. There is a good deal of pathos and absurdity in both the tales of this latter work; but I was all this while writing as if in desperation, and see matters now in a different light.

The next year, 1824, I published "The Confessions of a Fanatic;" but it being a story replete with horrors, after I had written it I durst not venture to put my name to it: so it was published anonymously, and of course did not sell very well-so at least I beh