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hundred great wagons, and an immense train of horses and camels; and the troops might prepare for a long absence, since more than six months were employed in the tranquil journey of a caravan from Samarcand to Pekin. Neither age nor the severity of the winter could retard the impatience of Timour; he mounted on horseback, passed the Sihoon on the ice, marched seventy-six parasangs (three hundred miles) from his capital, and pitched his last camp in the neighbourhood of Otrar, where he was expected by the angel of death. Fatigue, and the indiscreet use of iced water, accelerated the progress of his fever; and the conqueror of Asia expired in the seventieth year of his age, thirty-five years after he had ascended the throne of Zagatai. His designs were lost; his armies were disbanded; China was saved; and fourteen years after his decease, the most powerful of his children sent an embassy of friendship and commerce to the court of Pekin.

The fame of Timour has pervaded the east and west; his posterity is still invested with the imperial title; and the admiration of his subjects, who revered him almost as a deity, may be justified in some degree by the praise or confession of his bitterest enemies. Although he was lame of a hand and foot, his form and stature were not unworthy of his rank; and his vigorous health, so essential to himself and to the world, was corroborated by temperance and exercise. In his familiar discourse, he was grave and modest, and if he was ignorant of the Arabic language, he spoke with fluency and elegance the Persian and Turkish idioms. It was his delight to converse with the learned on topics of history and science; and the amusement of his leisure hours was the game of chess, which he improved or corrupted with new refinements. In his religion he was a zealous, though not perhaps an orthodox, Mussulman; but his sound understanding may tempt us to believe that a superstitious reverence for omens and prophecies, for saints and astrologers, was only affected as an instrument of policy. In the government of a vast empire he stood alone and absolute, without a rebel to oppose his power, a favourite to seduce his affections, or a minister to mislead his judgment. It was his firmest maxim, that, whatever might be the consequence, the word of the prince should never be disputed or recalled; but his foes have maliciously observed, that the commands of anger and destruction were more strictly executed than those of beneficence and favour. His sons and grandsons, of whom Timour left six-and-thirty at his decease, were his first and most submissive subjects; and whenever they deviated from their duty, they were corrected, according to the laws of Zingis, with the bastonade, and afterwards restored to honour and command. Perhaps his heart was not devoid of the social virtues; perhaps he was not incapable of loving his friends and pardoning his enemies; but the rules of morality are founded on the public interest; and it may be sufficient to applaud the wisdom of a monarch for the liberality by which he is not impoverished, and for the justice by which he is strengthened and enriched. To maintain the harmony of authority and obedience, to chastise the proud, to protect the weak, to reward the deserving, to banish vice and idleness from his dominions, to secure the traveller and merchant, to restrain the depredations of the soldier, to cherish the labours of the husbandman, to encourage industry and learning, and, by an equal and moderate assessment, to increase the revenue without increasing the taxes, are indeed the duties of a prince; but, in the discharge of these duties, he finds an ample and immediate recompense. Timour might boast that, at his accession to the throne, Asia was the prey of anarchy and rapine, whilst under his prosperous monarchy a child, fearless and unhurt, might carry a purse of gold from the east to the west. Such was his confidence of merit, that from this refor

mation he derived an excuse for his victories, and a title to universal dominion. The four following observations will serve to appreciate his claim to the public gratitude; and perhaps we shall conclude that the Mogul emperor was rather the scourge than the benefactor of mankind. 1. If some partial disorders, some local oppressions, were healed by the sword of Timour, the remedy was far more pernicious than the disease. By_their rapine, cruelty, and discord, the petty tyrants of Persia might afflict their subjects; but whole nations were crushed under the footsteps of the reformer. The ground which had been occupied by flourishing cities was often marked by his abominable trophies— by columns or pyramids of human heads. Astracan, Carizme, Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus, Boursa, Smyrna, and a thousand others, were sacked, or burned, or utterly destroyed in his presence, and by his troops; and perhaps his conscience would have been startled if a priest or philosopher had dared to number the millions of victims whom he had sacrificed to the establishment of peace and order. 2. His most destructive wars were rather inroads than conquests. He invaded Turkestan, Kipzak, Russia, Hindostan, Syria, Anatolia, Armenia, and Georgia, without a hope or a desire of preserving those distant provinces. From thence he departed laden with spoil; but he left behind him neither troops to awe the contumacious, nor magistrates to protect the obedient natives. When he had broken the fabric of their ancient government, he abandoned them to the evils which his invasion had aggravated or caused; nor were these evils compensated by any present or possible benefits. 3. The kingdoms of Transoxiana and Persia were the proper field which he laboured to cultivate and adorn, as the perpetual inheritance of his family. But his peaceful labours were often interrupted, and sometimes blasted, by the absence of the conqueror. While he triumphed on the Volga or the Ganges, his servants, and even his sons, forgot their master and their duty. The public and private injuries were poorly redressed by the tardy rigour of inquiry and punishment; and we must be content to praise the institutions of Timour as the specious idea of a perfect monarchy. 4. Whatsoever might be the blessings of his administration, they evaporated with his life, To reign, rather than to govern, was the ambition of his children and grandchildren, the enemies of each other and of the people. A fragment of the empire was upheld with some glory by Sharokh, his youngest son; but after his decease, the scene was again involved in darkness and blood; and before the end of a century, Transoxiana and Persia were trampled by the Uzbecks from the north, and the Turkmans of the black and white sheep. The race of Timour would have been extinct, if a hero, his descendant in the fifth degree, had not fled before the Uzbek arms to the conquest of Hindostan. His successors-the great Moguls-extended their sway from the mountains of Cashmir to Cape Comorin, and from Candahar to the Gulf of Bengal. Since the reign of Aurangzebe, their empire has been dissolved; their treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber; and the richest of their kingdoms is now possessed by a company of Christian merchants, of a remote island in the northern ocean.

[Invention and Use of Gunpowder.]

The only hope of salvation for the Greek empire and the adjacent kingdoms, would have been some more powerful weapon, some discovery in the art of war, that should give them a decisive superiority over their Turkish foes. Such a weapon was in their hands; such a discovery had been made in the critical moment of their fate. The chemists of China or Europe had found, by casual or elaborate experiments, that a mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, produces,

with a spark of fire, a tremendous explosion. It was and though you cannot discern the full extent of his soon observed, that if the expansive force were com- merit, you will easily believe that Deyverdun is the pressed in a strong tube, a ball of stone or iron might man. Perhaps two persons so perfectly fitted to live be expelled with irresistible and destructive velocity. together were never formed by nature and education. The precise era of the invention and application of We have both read and seen a great variety of objects; gunpowder is involved in doubtful traditions and the lights and shades of our different characters are equivocal language; yet we may clearly discern that it happily blended; and a friendship of thirty years has was known before the middle of the fourteenth century; taught us to enjoy our mutual advantages, and to and that before the end of the same, the use of artillery support our unavoidable imperfections. In love and in battles and sieges, by sea and land, was familiar marriage, some harsh sounds will sometimes interrupt to the states of Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and the harmony, and in the course of time, like our neighEngland. The priority of nations is of small account; bours, we must expect some disagreeable moments; but none could derive any exclusive benefit from their confidence and freedom are the two pillars of our union, previous or superior knowledge; and in the common and I am much mistaken if the building be not solid improvement, they stood on the same level of relative and comfortable. * In this season, I rise-not at power and military science. Nor was it possible to four in the morning, but a little before eight; at nine circumscribe the secret within the pale of the church; I am called from my study to breakfast, which I always it was disclosed to the Turks by the treachery of perform alone, in the English style; and, with the aid apostates and the selfish policy of rivals; and the of Caplin,* I perceive no difference between Lausanne sultans had sense to adopt, and wealth to reward, the and Bentinck Street. Our mornings are usually passed talents of a Christian engineer. The Genoese, who in separate studies; we never approach each other's transported Amurath into Europe, must be accused as door without a previous message, or thrice knocking, his preceptors; and it was probably by their hands that and my apartment is already sacred and formidable to his cannon was cast and directed at the siege of Con- strangers. I dress at half-past one, and at two-an stantinople. The first attempt was indeed unsuccessful; early hour, to which I am not perfectly reconciled-we but in the general warfare of the age, the advantage sit down to dinner. We have hired a female cook, well was on their side who were most commonly the assail-skilled in her profession, and accustomed to the taste ants; for a while the proportion of the attack and of every nation; as, for instance, we had excellent defence was suspended; and this thundering artillery mince-pies yesterday. After dinner and the departure was pointed against the walls and towers which had of our company-one, two, or three friends-we read been erected only to resist the less potent engines of together some amusing book, or play at chess, or retire antiquity. By the Venetians, the use of gunpowder to our rooms, or make visits, or go to the coffee-house. was communicated without reproach to the sultans of Between six and seven the assemblies begin, and I am Egypt and Persia, their allies against the Ottoman oppressed only with their number and variety. Whist, power; the secret was soon propagated to the extremities at shillings or half-crowns, is the game I generally play, of Asia; and the advantage of the European was con- and I play three rubbers with pleasure. Between nine fined to his easy victories over the savages of the new and ten we withdraw to our bread and cheese, and world. If we contrast the rapid progress of this mis-friendly converse, which sends us to bed at eleven; but chievous discovery with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind.

these sober hours are too often interrupted by private or numerous suppers, which I have not the courage to resist, though I practise a laudable abstinence at the best furnished tables. You wish me happy; acknowledge that such a life is more conducive to happiness

[Letter of Gibbon to Mrs Porten-Account of his Mode than five nights in the week passed in the House of

of Life at Lausanne.]

December 27, 1783.

Commons, or five mornings spent at the Custom-house.

[Remarks on Reading.]

[These remarks form the preface to a series of memoranda begun by Gibbon in 1761, under the title of Abstract of my Readings.]

The unfortunate are loud and loquacious in their complaints, but real happiness is content with its own silent enjoyment; and if that happiness is of a quiet uniform kind, we suffer days and weeks to elapse without communicating our sensations to a distant 'Reading is to the mind,' said the Duke of Vivonne friend. By you, therefore, whose temper and under-to Louis XIV., 'what your partridges are to my chops.' standing have extracted from human life, on every It is, in fact, the nourishment of the mind; for by occasion, the best and most comfortable ingredients, reading we know our Creator, his works, ourselves my silence will always be interpreted as an evidence of chiefly, and our fellow-creatures. But this nourishment content, and you would only be alarmed-the danger is easily converted into poison. Salmasius had read as is not at hand-by the too frequent repetition of my much as Grotius, perhaps more; but their different letters. Perhaps I should have continued to slumber, modes of reading made the one an enlightened philosI don't know how long, had I not been awakened by the opher, and the other, to speak plainly, a pedant, puffed anxiety which you express in your last letter. up with a useless erudition.

*

*

From this base subject I descend to one which more seriously and strongly engages your thoughts-the consideration of my health and happiness. And you will give me credit when I assure you, with sincerity, that I have not repented a single moment of the step which I have taken, and that I only regret the not having executed the same design two, or five, or even ten years ago. By this time I might have returned independent and rich to my native country; I should have escaped many disagreeable events that have happened in the meanwhile, and I should have avoided the parliamentary life, which experience has proved to be neither suitable to my temper nor conducive to my fortune. In speaking of the happiness which I enjoy, you will agree with me in giving the preference to a sincere and sensible friend;

Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which all our studies may point. Through neglect of this rule, gross ignorance often disgraces great readers; who, by skipping hastily and irregularly from one subject to another, render themselves incapable of combining their ideas. So many detached parcels of knowledge cannot form a whole. This inconstancy weakens the energies of the mind, creates in it a dislike to application, and even robs it of the advantages of natural good sense.

Yet let us avoid the contrary extreme, and respect method, without rendering ourselves its slaves. While we propose an end in our reading, let not this end be

* His English valet de chambre.

too remote; and when once we have attained it, let our attention be directed to a different subject. Inconstancy weakens the understanding; a long and exclusive application to a single object hardens and contracts it. Our ideas no longer change easily into a different channel, and the course of reading to which we have too long accustomed ourselves is the only one that we can pursue with pleasure.

We ought, besides, to be careful not to make the order of our thoughts subservient to that of our subjects; this would be to sacrifice the principal to the accessory. The use of our reading is to aid us in thinking. The perusal of a particular work gives birth, perhaps, to ideas unconnected with the subject of which it treats. I wish to pursue these ideas; they withdraw me from my proposed plan of reading, and throw me into a new track, and from thence, perhaps, into a second and a third. At length I begin to perceive whither my researches tend. Their result, perhaps, may be profitable; it is worth while to try; whereas, had I followed the high road, I should not have been able, at the end of my long journey, to retrace the progress of my thoughts.

This plan of reading is not applicable to our early studies, since the severest method is scarcely sufficient to make us conceive objects altogether new. Neither can it be adopted by those who read in order to write, and who ought to dwell on their subject till they have sounded its depths. These reflections, however, I do not absolutely warrant. On the supposition that they are just, they may be so, perhaps, for myself only. The constitution of minds differs like that of bodies; the same regimen will not suit all. Each individual ought to study his own.

To read with attention, exactly to define the expressions of our author, never to admit a conclusion without comprehending its reason, often to pause, reflect, and interrogate ourselves, these are so many advices which it is easy to give, but difficult to follow. The same may be said of that almost evangelical maxim of forgetting friends, country, religion, of giving merit its due praise, and embracing truth wherever it is to be found.

But what ought we to read? Each individual must answer this question for himself, agreeably to the object of his studies. The only general precept that I would venture to give, is that of Pliny, 'to read much, rather than many things;' to make a careful selection of the best works, and to render them familiar to us by attentive and repeated perusals.

GILLIES ROSCOE-LAING-PINKERTON.

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languages. After the completion of his clerkship, Mr Roscoe entered into business in Liverpool, and took an active part in every scheme of improvement, local and national. He wrote a poem on the Wrongs of Africa, to illustrate the evils of slavery, and also a pamphlet on the same subject, which was translated into French by Madame Necker. The stirring times in which he lived called forth several short political dissertations from his pen; but about the year 1789, he applied himself to the great task he had long meditated, a biographical account of Lorenzo de Medici. He procured much new and valuable information, and in 1796 published the result of his labours in two quarto volumes, entitled The Life of Lorenzo de Medici, called the Magnificent. The work was highly successful, and at once elevated Mr Roscoe into the proud situation of one of the most popular authors of the day. A second edition was soon called for, and Messrs Cadell and Davies purchased the copyright for £1200. About the same time he relinquished the practice of an attorney, and studied for the bar, but ultimately settled as a banker in Liverpool. His next literary appearance was as the translator of The Nurse, a poem, from the Italian of Luigi Tansillo. In 1805 was published his second great work, The Life and Pontificate of Leo X., four volumes quarto, which, though carefully prepared, and also enriched with

DR JOHN GILLIES, historiographer to his majesty for Scotland, published The History of Ancient Greece, its Colonies and Conquests, two volumes, quarto, 1786. The monarchical spirit of the new historian was decidedly expressed. The history of Greece,' says Dr Gillies, 'exposes the dangerous turbulence of democracy, and arraigns the despotism of tyrants. By describing the incurable evils inherent in every republican policy, it evinces the inestimable benefits resulting to liberty itself from the lawful dominion of hereditary kings, and the steady operation of well-new information, did not experience the same regulated monarchy.' The history of Dr Gillies was executed with considerable ability and care; a sixth edition of the work (London, 1820, four volumes, 8vo) has been called for, and it may still be consulted with advantage.

WILLIAM ROSCOE (1753-1831), as the author of the Life of Lorenzo de Medici, and the Life and Pontificate of Leo X., may be more properly classed with our historians than biographers. The two works contain an account of the revival of letters, and fill up the blank between Gibbon's Decline and Fall and Robertson's Charles V. Mr Roscoe was a

success as his life of Lorenzo. "The history of the reformation of religion,' it has been justly remarked, involved many questions of subtle disputation, as well as many topics of character and conduct; and, for a writer of great candour and discernment, it was scarcely possible to satisfy either the Papists or the Protestants.' The liberal sentiments and accomplishments of Mr Roscoe recommended him to his townsmen as a fit person to represent them in parliament, and he was accordingly elected in 1806. He spoke in favour of the abolition of the slave-trade, and of the civil disabilities of the

peculiar style of those writers who were popular in his youth, and may be mentioned as a remarkable instance of the disproportion of particular talents to a general vigour of mind.'

Catholics, which excited against him a powerful and violent opposition. Inclined himself to quiet and retirement, and disgusted with the conduct of his opponents, he withdrew from parliament at the next dissolution, and resolutely declined offering himself JOHN PINKERTON (1758-1825) distinguished himas a candidate. He still, however, took a warm self by the fierce controversial tone of his historical interest in passing events, and published several writings, and by the violence of his prejudices, yet pamphlets on the topics of the day. He pro- was a learned and industrious collector of forgotten jected a history of art and literature, a task well fragments of ancient history and of national antisuited to his talents and attainments, but did not quities. He was a native of Edinburgh, and bred proceed with the work. Pecuniary embarrassments to the law. The latter, however, he soon forsook also came to cloud his latter days. The banking for literary pursuits. He commenced by writing establishment of which he was a partner was forced imperfect verses, which, in his peculiar antique in 1816 to suspend payment, and Mr Roscoe had to orthography, he styled 'Rimes,' from which he sell his library, pictures, and other works of art. diverged to collecting Select Scottish Ballads, 1783, His love of literature continued undiminished. He and inditing an Essay on Medals, 1784. Under the gave valuable assistance in the establishment of the name of Heron, he published some Letters on Royal Institution of Liverpool, and on its opening, | Literature, and was recommended by Gibbon to the delivered an inaugural address on the origin and booksellers as a fit person to translate the monkish vicissitudes of literature, science, and art, and their historians. He afterwards (1786) published Ancient influence on the present state of society. In 1827 Scottish Poems, being the writings of Sir Richard he received the great gold medal of the Royal Maitland and others, extracted from a manuscript Society of Literature for his merits as a historian. in the Pepys Library at Cambridge. His first He had previously edited an edition of Pope, in ten historical work was A Dissertation on the Origin and volumes. Progress of the Scythians, or Goths, in which he laid down that theory which he maintained through life, that the Celts of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, are savages, and have been savages since the world began! His next important work was an Inquiry into the History of Scotland Preceding the Reign of Malcolm III., or 1056, in which he debates at great length, and, as Sir Walter Scott remarks, with much display of learning, on the history of the Goths, and the conquests which he states them to have obtained over the Celts in their progress through all Europe. In 1796, he published a History of Scotland during the Reign of the Stuarts, the most laborious and valuable of his works. He also compiled a Modern Geography, edited a Collection of Voyages and Travels, was some time editor of the Critical Review, wrote a Treatise on Rocks, and was engaged on various other literary tasks. Pinkerton died in want and obscurity in Paris.

MALCOLM LAING, a zealous Scottish historian, was born in the year 1762 at Strynzia, his paternal estate, in Orkney. He was educated for the Scottish bar, and passed advocate in 1785. He appeared as an author in 1793, having completed Dr Henry's History of Great Britain after that author's death. The sturdy Whig opinions of Laing formed a contrast to the tame moderatism of Henry; but his at tainments and research were far superior to those of his predecessor. In 1800 he published The History of Scotland from the Union of the Crowns on the Accession of King James VI. to the Throne of England, to the Union of the Kingdoms in the Reign of Queen Anne; with two Dissertations, Historical and Critical, on the Gowrie Conspiracy, and on the supposed Authenticity of Ossian's Poems. This is an able work, marked by strong prejudices and predilections, but valuable to the historical student for its acute reasoning and analysis. Laing attacked the translator of Ossian with unmerciful and almost ludicrous severity; in revenge for which, the Highland admirers of the Celtic muse attributed his sentiments to the prejudice natural to an Orkney man, caused by the severe checks given by the ancient Caledonians to their predatory Scandinavian predecessors! Laing replied by another publication-The Poems of Ossian, &c., containing the Poetical Works of James Macpherson, Esq., in Prose and Rhyme, with Notes and Illustrations. In 1804, he published another edition of his History of Scotland, to which he prefixed a Preliminary Dissertation on the Participation of Mary Queen of Scots in the Murder of Darnley. The latter is a very ingenious historical argument, the ablest of Mr Laing's productions, uniting the practised skill and acumen of the Scottish lawyer with the knowledge of the antiquary and historian. The latter portion of Mr Laing's life was spent on his paternal estate in Orkney, where he entered upon a course of local and agricultural improvement with the same ardour that he devoted to his literary pursuits. He died in the year 1818. 'Mr Laing's merit,' says a writer in the Edinburgh Review, as a critical inquirer into history, an enlightened collector of materials, and a sagacious judge of evidence, has never been surpassed. In spite of his ardent love of liberty, no man has yet presumed to charge him with the slightest sacrifice of historical integrity to his zeal. That he never perfectly attained the art of full, clear, and easy narrative, was owing to the

METAPHYSICAL WRITERS.

The novelty and boldness of Hume's speculations, and the great talent and ingenuity with which they were propounded and illustrated, continued a taste for metaphysical studies, especially in Scotland.

DR REID.

DR REID's Inquiry into the Human Mind, published in 1764, was an attack on the ideal theory, and on the sceptical conclusions which Hume deduced from it. The author had the candour to submit it to Hume before publication; and the latter, with his usual complacency and good-nature, acknowledged the merit of the treatise. In 1785 Reid published his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, and in 1788 those on the Active Powers. The merit of Reid as a correct reasoner and original thinker on moral science, free from the jargon of the schools, and basing his speculations on inductive reasoning, has been generally admitted. The ideal theory which he combated, taught that nothing is perceived but what is in the mind which perceives it; that we really do not perceive things that are external, but only certain images and pictures of them imprinted upon the mind, which are called impressions and ideas.' This doctrine Reid had himself believed, till, finding it led to important consequences, he

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asked himself the question: What evidence have I place-book, into which he transcribed all anecdotes
for this doctrine, that all the objects of my know- of man, in his various nations and degrees of civil-
ledge are ideas in my own mind?' He set about an isation which occurred in the course of his reading,
inquiry, but could find no evidence for the principle, or appeared in the fugitive publications of the day.
he says, excepting the authority of philosophers. When advanced to near eighty years of age, he
Dugald Stewart says of Reid, that it is by the logi- threw these together in a work entitled Sketches of
cal rigour of his method of investigating metaphy- the History of Man (two vols. 4to, 1773), which
sical subjects-imperfectly understood even by the shews his usual ingenuity and acuteness, and pre-
disciples of Locke-still more than by the import-sents many curious disquisitions on society, but is
ance of his particular conclusions, that he stands so materially reduced in value by the absence of a
conspicuously distinguished among those who have
hitherto prosecuted analytically the study of man.
In the dedication of his Inquiry, Reid incidentally
makes a definition which strikes us as very happy:
'The productions of imagination,' he says, 'require
a genius which soars above the common rank; but
the treasures of knowledge are commonly buried
deep, and may be reached by those drudges who
can dig with labour and patience, though they have
not wings to fly.' Dr Reid was a native of Strachan,
in Kincardineshire, where he was born on the 26th
of April 1710. He was bred to the church, and
obtained the living of New Machar, Aberdeenshire.
In 1752 he was appointed professor of moral phil-
osophy in King's College, Aberdeen, which he
quitted in 1763 for the chair of moral philosophy
in Glasgow. He died on the 7th of October 1796.

LORD KAMES.

HENRY HOME (1696-1782), a Scottish lawyer and judge, in which latter capacity he took, according to a custom of his country, the designation of Lord Kames, was a conspicuous member of the literary and philosophical society assembled in Edinburgh during the latter part of the eighteenth century. During the earlier part of his life, he devoted the whole powers of an acute and reflective mind, and with an industry calling for the greatest praise, to his profession, and compilations and treatises connected with it. But the natural bent of his faculties towards philosophical disquisition-the glory if not the vice of his age and country-at length took the mastery, and, after reaching the bench in 1752, he gave his leisure almost exclusively to metaphysical and ethical subjects. His first work of this kind, Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion, combats those theories of human nature which deduce all actions from some single principle, and attempts to establish several principles of action. He here maintained philosophical necessity, but in a connection with the duties of morality and religion, which he hoped might save him from the obloquy bestowed on other defenders of that doctrine; an expectation in which he was partially disappointed, as he narrowly escaped a citation before the General Assembly of his native church, on account of this book.

The Introduction to the Art of Thinking, published in 1761, was a small and subordinate work, consisting mainly of a series of detached maxims and general observations on human conduct, illustrated by anecdotes drawn from the stores of history and biography. In the ensuing year appeared a larger work, perhaps the best of all his compositions-The Elements of Criticism, three volumes, a bold and original performance, which, discarding all arbitrary rules of literary criticism derived from authority, seeks for a proper set of rules in the fundamental principles of human nature itself. Dugald Stewart admits this to be the first systematic attempt to investigate the metaphysical principles of the fine arts.

Lord Kames had, for many years, kept a common

House of Lord Kames, Canongate, Edinburgh.

proper authentication to many of the statements
presented in it as illustrations. A volume, entitled
Loose Hints on Education, published in 1781, and in
which he anticipates some of the doctrines on that
subject which have since been popular, completes
the list of his philosophical works.

Lord Kames was also distinguished as an amateur
agriculturist and improver of land, and some opera-
tions, devised by him for clearing away a superin-
cumbent moss from his estate by means of water
raised from a neighbouring river, help to mark the
originality and boldness of his conceptions. This
taste led to his producing, in 1777, a volume entitled
The Gentleman Farmer, which he has himself suffi-
ciently described as 'an attempt to improve agri-
culture by subjecting it to the test of rational
principles.'

Lord Kames was a man of commanding aspect and figure, but easy and familiar manners. He was the life and soul of every private company, and it was remarked of him that no subject seemed too great or too frivolous to derive lustre from his remarks upon it. The taste and thought of his philosophical works have now placed them out of fashion, but they contain many views and reflections from which modern inquirers might derive advantage.

[Pleasures of the Eye and the Ear.]

That nothing external is perceived till first it make an impression upon the organ of sense, is an observation

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