ed," said the venerable compiler, "as, praised be God, we
seldom meet in Scotland with these belly-gods and voluptuaries, whilk
are unnatural enough to devour their patrimony bequeathed to them by
their forbears in chambering and wantonness, so that they come, with the
prodigal son, to the husks and the swine-trough; and as I have the less
to dreid the existence of such unnatural Neroes in mine own family to
devour the substance of their own house like brute beasts out of mere
gluttonie and Epicurishnesse, so I need only warn mine descendants
against over-hastily meddling with the mutations in state and in
religion, which have been near-hand to the bringing this poor house of
Croftangry to perdition, as we have shown more than once. And albeit
I would not that my successors sat still altogether when called on by
their duty to Kirk and King, yet I would have them wait till stronger
and walthier men than themselves were up, so that either they may have
the better chance of getting through the day, or, failing of that,
the conquering party having some fatter quarry to live upon, may, like
gorged hawks, spare the smaller game."

There was something in this conclusion which at first reading piqued
me extremely, and I was so unnatural as to curse the whole concern, as
poor, bald, pitiful trash, in which a silly old man was saying a great
deal about nothing at all. Nay, my first impression was to thrust it
into the fire, the rather that it reminded me, in no very flattering
manner, of the loss of the family property, to which the compiler of the
history was so much attached, in the very manner which he most severely
reprobated. It even seemed to my aggrieved feelings that his unprescient
gaze on futurity, in which he could not anticipate the folly of one of
his descendants, who should throw away the whole inheritance in a few
years of idle expense and folly, was meant as a personal incivility to
myself, though written fifty or sixty years before I was born.

A little reflection made me ashamed or this feeling of impatience,
and as I looked at the even, concise, yet tremulous hand in which the
manuscript was written, I could not help thinking, according to an
opinion I have heard seriously maintained, that something of a man's
character may be conjectured from his handwriting. That neat but
crowded and constrained small-hand argued a man of a good conscience,
well-regulated passions, and, to use his own phrase, an upright walk