Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/269

Rh what might be the best way to put me forward. Mr Baird thought it would be no difficult matter to make a collection for me among the neighbouring gentlemen, to put me to a painter at Edinburgh ; but he found, upon trial, that nothing worth the while could be done among them: and as to himself, he could not do much that way, because he had b.ut a small estate, and a very numerous family.

Lady Dipple then told me that she was to go to Edinburgh next spring, and that if I would go thither, she would give me a year's bed and board at her house, gratis; and make all the interest she could for me among her acquaintance there. I thankfully accepted of her kind offer; and instead of giving me one year, she gave me two. I carried with me a letter of recommendation from the lord Pitsligo, a near neighbour of 'squire Baird's, to Mr John Alexander, a painter in Edinburgh, who allowed me to pass an hour every day at his house, for a month, to copy from his drawings; and said he would teach me to paint in oil-colours if I would serve him seven years, and my friends would maintain me all that time; but this was too much for me to desire them to do, nor did I choose to serve so long. I was then recommended to other painters, but they would do nothing without money; so I was quite at a loss what to do.

In a few days after this, I received a letter of recommendation from my good friend 'squire Baird, to the Rev. Dr Robert Keith at Edinburgh, to whom I gave an account of my bad success among the painters there. He told me, that if I would copy from nature, I might do without their assistance, as all the rules for drawing signified but very little when one came to draw from the life; and by what he had seen of my drawings brought from the north, he judged I might succeed very well in drawing pictures from the life, in Indian ink, on vellum. He then sat to me for his own picture, and sent me with it, and a let- ter of recommendation, to the right honourable the lady Jane Douglas, who lived with her mother, the marchioness of Douglas, at Merchiston-house, near Edinburgh. Both the marchioness and lady Jane behaved to me in the most friendly manner, on Dr Keith's account, and sat for their pictures, telling me at the same time, that I was in the very room in which lord Napier invented and computed the logarithms; and that if I thought it would inspire me, I should always have the same room whenever I came to Merchiston. I stayed there several days, and drew several pictures of lady Jane, of whom it was hard to say, whether the greatness of her beauty, or the goodness of her temper and disposition, was the most predominant. She sent these p'ictures to ladies of her acquaintance, in order to recommend me to them ; by which means I soon had as much business as I could possibly manage, so as not only to put a good deal of money in my own pocket, but also to spare what was sufficient to help to supply my father and mother in their old age. Thus a business was providentially put into my hands, which I followed for six and twenty years.

Lady Dipple, being a woman of the strictest piety, kept a watchful eye over me at first, and made me give her an exact account at night of what families I had been in throughout the day, and of the money I had received. She took the money each night, desiring I would keep an account of what I had put into her hands; telling me, that I should duly have out of it what I wanted for clothes, and to send to my father. But in less than half a year, she told me that she would thenceforth trust me with being my own banker; for she had made a good deal of private inquiry how I had behaved when I was out of her sight through the day, and was satisfied with my conduct.

During my two years' stay at Edinburgh, I somehow took a violent inclination to study anatomy, surgery, and physic, all from reading of books, and conversing with gentlemen on these subjects, which for that time put all thoughts of