e clear
and luminous explanations of the author, rendered my imitative
amusement peculiarly easy. Other moments of these weary weeks were
spent in looking at the Meadow Walks, by assistance of a combination
of mirrors so arranged that, while lying in bed, I could see the
troops march out to exercise, or any other incident which occurred on
that promenade.

After one or two relapses, my constitution recovered the injury it had
sustained, though for several months afterwards I was restricted to a
severe vegetable diet. And I must say, in passing, that though I
gained health under this necessary restriction, yet it was far from
being agreeable to me, and I was affected whilst under its influence
with a nervousness which I never felt before or since. A disposition
to start upon slight alarms--a want of decision in feeling and acting,
which has not usually been my failing--an acute sensibility to
trifling inconveniences--and an unnecessary apprehension of contingent
misfortunes, rise to my memory as connected with my vegetable diet,
although they may very possibly have been entirely the result of the
disorder and not of the cure. Be this as it may, with this illness I
bade farewell both to disease and medicine; for since that time, till
the hour I am now writing, I have enjoyed a state of the most robust
health, having only had to complain of occasional headaches or
stomachic affections when I have been long without taking exercise,
{p.041} or have lived too convivially--the latter having been
occasionally, though, not habitually, the error of my youth, as the
former has been of my advanced life.

My frame gradually became hardened with my constitution, and being
both tall and muscular, I was rather disfigured than disabled by my
lameness. This personal disadvantage did not prevent me from taking
much exercise on horseback, and making long journeys on foot, in the
course of which I often walked from twenty to thirty miles a day. A
distinct instance occurs to me. I remember walking with poor James
Ramsay, my fellow-apprentice, now no more, and two other friends, to
breakfast at Prestonpans. We spent the forenoon in visiting the ruins
at Seton, and the field of battle at Preston--dined at Prestonpans on
_tiled haddocks_ very sumptuously--drank half a bottle of port each,
and returned in the evening. This could not be less than thirty miles,
nor do I remember being at all fatigued upon the occasion.

These excursions on foo