>After a residence at Oxford of seven years, he returned to
Kirkaldy, and lived two years with his mother; engaged in study,
but without any fixed plan for his future life. He had been
originally destined for the Church of England, and with that view
had been sent to Oxford; but not finding the ecclesiastical
profession suitable to his taste, he chose to consult, in this
instance, his own inclination, in preference to the wishes of his
friends; and abandoning at once all the schemes which their
prudence had formed for him, he resolved to return to his own
country, and to limit his ambition to the uncertain prospect of
obtaining, in time, some one of those moderate preferments, to
which literary attainments lead in Scotland.<
He was- at one point- C of E. |