Young Adam Ferguson was there, and left at the end of the hour with the rest, but finding he had forgotten his stick, went back; in the empty room, he found James perched upon a lofty and shaky ladder, trying, amid much perspiration, and blasphemy, and want of breath, to hit down his enemy, who rose at each stroke--the old battling with the new. Sir Adam's reproduction of this scene, his voice and screams of rapture, I shall never forget.
Let me give another pleasant story of Dr. Black and Sir Adam, which our Principal (Dr. Lee) delights to tell; it is merely its bones. The doctor sent him to the bank for £5--four in notes, and one in silver; then told him that he must be paid for his trouble with a shilling, and next proceeded to give him good advice about the management of money, particularly recommending a careful record of every penny spent, holding the shilling up before him all the time. During this address, Sir Adam was turning over in his mind all the trash he would be able to purchase with the shilling, and his feeling may be imagined when the doctor finally returned it to his own pocket.
It only remains now for me to thank my cousin and life-long friend, John Taylor Brown, the author of the tract on "St. Paul's Thorn in the Flesh." I am sure my readers will thank me not less heartily than I now do him. The theory that the thorn of the great apostle was an affection of the eyes is not new; it will be found in "Hannah More's Life," and in "Conybeare and Howson;" but his argument and his whole treatment, I have reason to believe, from my father and other competent judges, is thoroughly original; it is an exquisite monograph, and to me most instructive and striking. Every one will ask why such a man has not written more--a question my fastidious friend will find is easier asked than answered.
This Preface was written, and I had a proof ready for his pencil, when I was summoned to the death of him to whom I owe my life. He had been dying for months, but he and I hoped to have got and to have given into his hands a copy of these _Horæ_, the correction of which had often whiled away his long hours of languor and pain. God thought otherwise. I shall miss his great knowledge, his loving and keen eye--his _ne quid nimis_--his sympathy--himself. Let me be thankful that it was given to me _assidere valetudini, fovere deficientem, satiari vultu, complexu_.