You are fond (said my aunt) of sketches of the society which has
passed away. I wish I could describe to you Sir Philip Forester,
the "chartered libertine" of Scottish good company, about the end
of the last century. I never saw him indeed; but my mother's
traditions were full of his wit, gallantry, and dissipation.
This gay knight flourished about the end of the seventeenth and
beginning of the eighteenth century. He was the Sir Charles Easy
and the Lovelace of his day and country--renowned for the number
of duels he had fought, and the successful intrigues which he had
carried on. The supremacy which he had attained in the
fashionable world was absolute; and when we combine it with one
or two anecdotes, for which, "if laws were made for every
degree," he ought certainly to have been hanged, the popularity
of such a person really serves to show, either that the present
times are much more decent, if not more virtuous, than they
formerly were, or that high-breeding then was of more difficult
attainment than that which is now so called, and consequently
entitled the successful professor to a proportional degree of
plenary indulgences and privileges. No beau of this day could
have borne out so ugly a story as that of Pretty Peggy
Grindstone, the miller's daughter at Sillermills--it had well-
nigh made work for the Lord Advocate. But it hurt Sir Philip
Forester no more than the hail hurts the hearthstone. He was as
well received in society as ever, and dined with the Duke of A---
the day the poor girl was buried. She died of heartbreak. But
that has nothing to do with my story.

Now, you must listen to a single word upon kith, kin, and ally; I
promise you I will not be prolix. But it is necessary to the