Page:Life memoirs & pedigree of Thomas Hamilton Dickson.pdf/3



T subject of these memoirs was born in the village of Eddleston, and county of Peebles, on the 9th of March, in the year 1803, of respectable parents, whose temper and disposition seemed to have been soured by the vicissitudes of a life chequered by disappointment. Their pretensions were great, and if the contents of their purse had been as large, their son would have been one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom: descended from a family not the least amongst the Scottish aristocracy, alike fitted for the senate, the bar, the pulpit, or the field. They had been warriors prior to the days of Wallace, and had been endowed by nature with a gigantic frame, some of them having been known to be above seven feet, with strength proportionate to their heights, and seldom below six. At the celebrated battle of Chevy Chase, so decisive in its termination, it is said that one of my ancestors fell, and yielded life only when overpowered by numbers, and when he was lying on the ground mortally wounded, in the last throes of departing nature, he slew one of his antagonists who happened to come within his reach. At the celebrated