John Galt was born in Irvine, in the county of Ayrshire, Scotland, on 2 May 1779. His father, also named John, was master of a West Indian trading vessel; Galt described him as remarkably handsome, easygoing, and trustworthy but of only modest ability. His father had no particular influence on the boy, but his mother, Jean Tilloch Galt, was a major influence. He described his mother as "a very singular person, possessing a masculine strength of character, with great natural humor, and a keen relish of the ridiculous in others." Some of these qualities were characteristic of Galt himself, as were her tendencies to use striking metaphors and her virtuoso command of Scottish dialect. The boy had heard about the charismatic Buchanites--described as heretics in Annals of the Parish (1821)--and when they were expelled from town loudly shouting psalms, as do the Covenanters in Galt's Ringan Gilhaize (1823), young Galt was...