te measures, and taking burthen on himself for
the Bank of Scotland proceeding with such lenity as might enable me to
have some time and opportunity to clear these affairs out. I repose
trust in Mr. M. entirely. His father, old Colonel Monypenny, was my
early friend, kind and hospitable to me when I was a mere boy. He had
much of old Withers about him, as expressed in Pope's epitaph--

"O youth in arms approved!
O soft humanity in age beloved."[173]

His son David, and a younger brother, Frank, a soldier who perished by
drowning on a boating party from Gibraltar, were my school-fellows; and
with the survivor, now Lord Pitmilly,[174] I have always kept up a
friendly intercourse. Of this gentleman, on whom my fortunes are to
depend, I know little. He was Colin Mackenzie's partner in business
while my friend pursued it, and he speaks highly of him: that's a great
deal. He is secretary to the Pitt Club, and we have had all our lives
the habit _idem sentire de republica_: that's much too. Lastly, he is a
man of perfect honour and reputation; and I have nothing to ask which
such a man would not either grant or convince me was unreasonable. I
have, to be sure, some of my constitutional and hereditary obstinacy;
but it is in me a dormant quality. Convince my understanding, and I am
perfectly docile; stir my passions by coldness or affronts, and the
devil would not drive me from my purpose. Let me record, I have striven
against this besetting sin. When I was a boy, and on foot expeditions,
as we had many, no creature could be so indifferent which way our course
was directed, and I acquiesced in what any one proposed; but if I was
once driven to make a choice, and felt piqued in honour to maintain my
proposition, I have broken off from the whole party, rather than yield
to any one. Time has sobered this pertinacity of mind; but it still
exists, and I must be on my guard against it.

It is the same with me in politics. In general I care very little about
the matter, and from year's end to year's end have scarce a thought
connected with them, except to laugh at the fools who think to make
themselves great men out of little, by swaggering in the rear of a
party. But either actually important events, or such as seemed so by
their close neighbourhood to me, have always hurried me off my feet, and
made me, as I have sometimes afterwards regretted, more forward and more
violent than those who had a regular jog-trot way of busy