Grampian Club > Leaves from my autography

26 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
metropolis. Provided with letters from Mr Dempster
and his relatives, Principal Playftiir of St Andrews
and Professor Playfair of Edinbm^gh, he in the autumn
of 1802 sailed for London. There he placed himself
under the guidance of Mr William Playfair, brother of
Professor Playfair, well known as an inventor and
miscellaneous writer. By this gentleman he was
strongly dissuaded from abandoning his prospects in
Scotland and throwing himself into the mare magnum
of London life. He had intended to act as a Parlia-
mentary reporter. In this capacity he enjoyed the
jirivilege of listening to the orations of Pitt and Fox,
and he delighted to describe their appearance and
manner long afterwards. " He could," wrote an ac-
complished journalist, "raise up before his hearers
the whole figure of Charles Fox, with his blue coat
and yellow waistcoat, opening his manly and simple
addresses with a downcast look and an unanimated
heavy air, and gradually getting more and more
carried away by the strength of his feelings, till his
voice was elevated beyond the pitch to which a
calm attention to gracefulness would have confined
it, but never elevated so as to lose its power of im-
pressing and ruling the hearts of the senate."
My father remained in London only a few months.
In the circumstances, he acted wisely, for those he
knew, were unsuccessful literary struggiers, who could
not help him ; and he possessed such a limited capa-
city for business that he could not have pushed his