Thank God, the adversity which destroyed the means of continuing my dissipation, restored me to the affections of my surviving parent.
My course of life could not last.

I ran too fast to run long; and when I would have checked my career, I was perhaps too near the brink of the precipice.

Some mishaps I prepared by my own folly, others came upon me unawares.

I put my estate out to nurse to a fat man of business, who smothered the babe he should have brought back to me in health and strength, and, in dispute with this honest gentleman, I found, like a skilful general, that my position would be most judiciously assumed by taking it up near the Abbey of Holyrood.

[See Note 1 .-- Holyrood.] It was then I first became acquainted with the quarter, which my little work will, I hope, render immortal, and grew familiar with those magnificent wilds, through which the Kings of Scotland once chased the dark-brown deer, but which were chiefly recommended to me in those days, by their being inaccessible to those metaphysical persons, whom the law of the neighbouring country terms John Doe and Richard Roe.