When about five years
of age, I was sent to a parish school in Roxburghshire, and
procrastination went with me. Being possessed of a tolerable memory, I
was not more deficient than my schoolfellows; but the task which they
had studied the previous evening was by me seldom looked at till the
following morning, and my seat was the last to be occupied of any other
on the form. My lessons were committed to memory by a few hurried
glances, and repeated with a faltering rapidity, which not unfrequently
puzzled the ear of the teacher to follow me. But what was thus hastily
learned, was as suddenly forgotten. They were mere surface impressions,
each obliterated by the succeeding. And though I had run over a
tolerable general education, I left school but little wiser than when I
entered it.
"My parents--peace to their memory!"--here the old fellow looked most
feelingly, and a tear of filial recollection glistened in his eyes: it
added a dignity to the recital of his weakness, and I almost reverenced
him--"My parents," continued he, "had no ambition to see me rise higher
in society than an honest tradesman; and at thirteen I was bound
apprentice to a shoemaker. Yes, sir, I was--I am a shoemaker; and but
for my curse--my malady--had been an ornament to my profession. I have
measured the foot of a princess, sir; I have made slippers to his
Majesty!" Here his tongue acquired new vigour from the idea of his own
importance.
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