g this celebrated spot. The manning the Cowgate Port,
especially in snowball time, was also a choice amusement, as it offered
an inaccessible station for the boys who used these missiles to the
annoyance of the passengers. The gateway is now demolished; and probably
most of its garrison lie as low as the fortress. To recollect that
the author himself, however naturally disqualified, was one of those
juvenile dreadnoughts, is a sad reflection to one who cannot now step
over a brook without assistance.]

You taught me to keep my fingers off the weak, and to clench my fist
against the strong--to carry no tales out of school--to stand forth like
a true man--obey the stern order of a PANDE MANUM, and endure my pawmies
without wincing, like one that is determined not to be the better for
them. In a word, before I knew thee, I knew nothing.

At college it was the same. When I was incorrigibly idle, your example
and encouragement roused me to mental exertion, and showed me the way
to intellectual enjoyment. You made me an historian, a metaphysician
(INVITA MINERVA)--nay, by Heaven! you had almost made an advocate of me,
as well as of yourself. Yes, rather than part with you, Alan, I attended
a weary season at the Scotch Law Class; a wearier at the Civil; and with
what excellent advantage, my notebook, filled with caricatures of the
professors and my fellow students, is it not yet extant to testify?

Thus far have I held on with thee untired;

and, to say truth, purely and solely that I might travel the same road
with thee. But it will not do, Alan. By my faith, man, I could as soon
think of being one of those ingenious traders who cheat little Master
Jackies on the outside of the partition with tops, balls, bats, and
battledores, as a member of the long-robed fraternity within, who impose
on grown country gentlemen with bouncing brocards of law. [The Hall of
the Parliament House of Edinburgh was, in former days, divided into two
unequal portions by a partition, the inner side of which was consecrated
to the use of the Courts of Justice and the gentlemen of the law; while
the outer division was occupied by the stalls of stationers, toymen, and
the like, as in a modern bazaar. From the old play of THE PLAIN DEALER,
it seems such was formerly the case with Westminster Hall. Minos has now
purified his courts in both cities from all traffic but his own.]
Now, don't you read this to your worthy father, Alan--he loves me well
en