 misfortunes, will, I hope, engage the
ingenuous more warmly in his behalf; and though I foresee, that some people will
be offended at the mean scenes in which he is involved, I persuade myself the
judicious will not only perceive the necessity of describing those situations to
which he must of course be confined, in his low estate; but also find
entertainment in viewing those parts of life, where the humours and passions are
undisguised by affectation, ceremony, or education; and the whimsical
peculiarities of disposition appear as nature has implanted them. - But I
believe I need not trouble myself in vindicating a practice authorized by the
best writers in this way, some of whom I have already named.
    Every intelligent reader will, at first sight, perceive I have not deviated
from nature, in the facts, which are all true in the main, although the
circumstances are altered and disguised to avoid personal satire.
    It now remains, to give my reasons for making the chief personage of this
work a North-Briton; which are chiefly these: I could at a small expence bestow
on him such education as I thought the dignity of his birth and character
required, which could not possibly be obtained in England, by such slender means
as the nature of my plan would afford. In the next place, I could represent
simplicity of manners in a remote part of the kingdom, with more propriety, than
in any place near the capital; and lastly, the disposition of the Scots,
addicted to travelling, justifies my conduct in deriving an adventurer from that
country.
    That the delicate reader may not be offended at the unmeaning oaths which
proceed from the mouths of some persons in these memoirs, I beg leave to
premise, that I imagined nothing could more effectually expose the absurdity of
such miserable expletives, than a natural and verbal representation of the
discourse with which they are commonly interlarded.
 

                                    Apologue

A Young painter indulging a vein of pleasantry, sketched a kind of
conversation-piece, representing a bear, an owl, a monkey, and an ass; and to
render it more striking, humorous and moral, distinguished every figure by some
emblem of human life.
    Bruin was exhibited in the garb and attitude of an old, toothless, drunken
soldier; the owl perched upon the handle of a coffee-pot, with spectacle on
nose, seemed to contemplate a news paper; and the ass, ornamented with a huge
tye-wig, (which, however, could not conceal his long ears) sat for his picture
to the monkey, who appeared with the implements of painting. This whimsical
groupe
