Memory carries me back to a period when my parents, with five little ones around them, tenanted an obscure garret in the outskirts of one of the principal towns of Scotland. By some of those vicissitudes common to all, my father was, at this time, out of employment; hardships were endured, pinching want sometimes visited their fireside. Of these things I have heard, but have no recollection of them, as I could not then be much more than four years old. Yet a shadowy vision sometimes rises before me of a broad paved street, along which I was running on before our father in joyful haste, that I might be the first to apprise mother that the meeting was dismissed; but as to whether the place of assembly we had just left was an upper chamber where a handful of disciples met together, or a large and fashionable edifice, memory supplies nothing. A dim dreary scene, too, sometimes passes before me of some back yard or lane where I was standing with my hand in my father’s, gazing with childish delight, and, at the same time, with a feeling of awe and admiration, upon the starry heavens. I know not what, at that moment, led my eye to the bright scene over head; nor yet what fixed these two incidents of my childhood so indelibly upon my memory, for they are associated, in my mind, with nothing particular of which I ever heard any one speak; but they are almost the only recollections I have of the short time spent in this place. I think that before this time I must have been pretty far advanced in reading, as I have no remembrance of ever learning, or having any difficulty with common books. Our father, at the time alluded to, was exerting himself to find a settled situation as a gardener, and, in the mean time, taking whatever work he could get in the small gardens in the neighbourhood. He was soon noticed as an active and tasteful gardener, and received into the employment of a gentleman whose property lay in that part of Scotland known by the name of Strathmore, or “the great valley.” The dwelling we now entered was very pleasantly situated near a river called the South Esk, which flows through that part of the country. Between it and the highway was a large field, with a belt of trees on the side next the house; on the other side lay the garden; while beneath the garden, stretching to the river, was what we used to call the haugh, a flat little meadow.