Of my Birth and Education


I was born in the northern part of this united kingdom, in the
house of my grand. father, a gentleman of considerable fortune and
influence, who had on many occasions signalised himself in behalf
of his country; and was remarkable for his abilities in the law,
which he exercised with great success in the station of a judge,
particularly against beggars, for whom he had a singular aversion.

My father (his youngest son) falling in love with a poor relation,
who lived with the old gentleman in quality of a housekeeper,
espoused her privately; and I was the first fruit of that marriage.
During her pregnancy, a dream discomposed my mother so much that her
husband, tired with her importunity, at last consulted a highland
seer, whose favourable interpretation he would have secured
beforehand by a bribe, but found him incorruptible. She dreamed
she was delivered of a tennis-ball, which the devil (who, to her
great surprise, acted the part of a midwife) struck so forcibly
with a racket that it disappeared in an instant; and she was for
some time inconsolable for the lost of her offspring; when, all on
a sudden, she beheld it return with equal violence, and enter the
earth, beneath her feet, whence immediately sprang up a goodly
tree covered with blossoms, the scent of which operated so strongly
on her nerves that she awoke. The attentive sage, after some
deliberation, assured my parents, that their firstborn would be a
great traveller; that he would undergo many dangers and difficulties,
and at last return to his native land, where he would flourish in
happiness and reputation. How truly this was foretold will appear