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was sacked by a mob; and he was ultimately obliged to betake himself to America. He died at Northumberland in Pennsylvania. -He is said to have been a man of mild, urbane manners, and to have won the personal favour of very bigoted antagonists when he met them face to face. Brougham rather misrepresents him in describing him as a fierce and angry polemic." He often writes severe things, but he writes with perfect command of temper. He cannot be charged with unprovoked abuse: his asperities are called forth by what he considers arrogance, conceit, or misrepresentation on the part of others. Those," he says, "who are disposed to be civil to me shall meet with civility from me in return; and as to those who are otherwise disposed, I shall behave to them as I may happen to be affected at the time." For his own part, whether right or wrong, he is exceedingly fair and can lid. His style is idiomatic, compact, incisive, and vigorous. He is eminently easy to follow he usually describes the progress of his thoughts, explains by what circumstances he was led to take such and such a view, and thus introduces us from the known to the unknown by an easy gradation.

James Beattie (1735-1803), one of Dr Reid's Aberdonian coterie, whose reputation rests chiefly on his poetry, first came before the public in 1770 as an antagonist to Hume. He was a man of intensely personal, not to say spiteful feelings, intemperately sensitive; and his 'Essay on Truth' is written with anything but philosophic calm. On the title-page he describes his work as "written in opposition to sophistry and scepticism," and throughout ascribes to his opponent the basest motives, and to his opponent's writings the most degrading influences; claims for himself and his side the exclusive possession of love for truth, learning, mankind, and honourable fairness; and declares repeatedly that none of Mr Hume's admirers understand him in short, he offensively assumes a superiority to Hume in morals, and a superiority to Hume's followers in intellect. His style has considerable power of the rotund declamatory order; copious, high-sounding, and elegant; occasionally in its appeals to established feeling throwing out rhetorical interrogations, followed by brief, abrupt answers. His Essay was very popular with the English clergy, and exasperated the easy-minded Hume more perhaps than any of the numerous replies to his obnoxious opinions. Beattie wrote also in prose several miscellaneous essays-On Poetry and Music' (1762); 'On Laughter' (1764); On Classical Learning' (1769); and 'Dissertations Moral and Critical' (1783).

Another of the Aberdonian coterie, perhaps the most powerful mind of the number, and of a very different temper from Beattie, was George Campbell (1719-1796), already mentioned as an antagonist to Hume's 'Essay on Miracles.' Originally destined for

the law, he changed his mind and entered the Church, was appointed minister of Banchory-Ternan, was subsequently translated to one of the city charges in Aberdeen, and in 1759 became Principal of Marischal College. His first work was the 'Dissertation on Miracles,' 1762. After several less-known performances, he published in 1776 his 'Philosophy of Rhetoric,' which is often spoken of as the most original work on that subject that had appeared since Aristotle. His 'New Translation of the Gospels' was published in 1778.-Campbell was a man of sturdy, sagacious intellect, and tolerant temper. In controversy he was candid and generous, imputing no unworthy motives, and making no offensive claims to superior powers of discernment. His style is perspicuous and terse; he writes as one possessing a clear comprehensive grasp of his subject, and an abundant choice of language.

Along with Campbell may be mentioned Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696-1782), and Hugh Blair (1718-1799); both, like him, best known in general literature by their works on English Composition. Home was an Edinburgh lawyer of great social wit and literary tastes, who employed his leisure after his elevation to the bench in composing various works, metaphysical, social, and critical-Principles of Morality and Natural Religion' (1751); 'Art of Thinking (1761); Elements of Criticism' (1762); Sketches of the History of Man' (1773); The Gentleman Farmer' (1777); 'Loose Hints on Education' (1781). His diction is tolerably copious, and his turns of expression often have something of the crisp ingenuity of Hume's, but his sentences are not very skilfully put together; his style wants flow. Curiously enough, his analysis of the mechanical artifices of sentence-making is one of the most substantial parts of his 'Elements'; it supplied both Campbell and Blair with all that they have to say on sentence-mechanisin, and contains some ingenuities that they did not see fit to adopt. — Blair was a highly popular minister in Edinburgh, who, in 1759, following the example of Adam Smith, and also under the patronage of the benevolent Mæcenas, Lord Kames, began to read a course of lectures on Belles Lettres. A Chair of Rhetoric being endowed in 1762, Blair was appointed the first Professor. He published his course of lectures in 1783. He was the most popular sermon-writer of his day. His sermons, the first volume of which was published in 1777, were received with delighted applause in England; were commended by Johnson; and were translated into almost every language of Europe. His reputation is now considerably faded works for which their admirers fondly predicted classical immortality, are now universally neglected. He was a flowing, elegant writer, with no great pretensions to depth or originality his Rhetoric' is a very vapid performance compared with Campbell's "Campbell's," says Whately, "is incomparably supe

rior, not only in depth of thought and ingenious original research, but also in practical utility to the student."

He

Adam Smith (1723-1790) is an important figure in the history. of Ethics, and, as the author of the first systematic treatise on Political Economy, is entitled to the honour of being called the founder of that science. He was born at Kirkcaldy in Fifeshire, a posthumous child. At the age of fourteen he entered Glasgow College, and after a curriculum of three years, proceeded thence with a Snell Exhibition to Oxford. He was expected to take orders in the English Church, but he preferred returning to Scotland and taking his chance of getting a professorship in one of the Universities. Settling in Edinburgh in 1748, he began to read lectures on Rhetoric under the patronage of Lord Kames; and Soon after, in 1751, was elected Professor of Logic in the University of Glasgow. In 1752 he obtained the more coveted Chair of Moral Philosophy, a post made illustrious by Carmichael and Hutcheson. His Theory of Moral Sentiments' was published in 1759. In 1763 he was induced to resign his professorship and undertake the education of the young Duke of Buccleuch. travelled with his pupil for two or three years, and on his return withdrew to his native town of Kirkcaldy, and applied himself for ten years, with little interruption, to solitary study, the fruits of which at length appeared, in 1776, in his great work 'The Wealth of Nations.' During the last twelve years of his life he held the office of Commissioner of Customs. Before his death he burnt all his unpublished manuscripts with the exception of a few comparatively unimportant essays. In person he was a grave preoccupiedlooking man, of a stout middle size, with large features and large grey eyes, absent-minded in company, often incontinently talking to himself, and keeping up his rather poor constitution by strict regularity and temperance. He was warm and affectionate in disposition, exceedingly unreserved, with simple frankness expressing the thoughts of the moment, and with ready candour retracting his opinion if he found that he had spoken without just grounds. His intellectual proceedings were calm, patient, and regular he mastered a subject slowly and circumspectly, and carried his principles with steady tenacity through multitudes of details that would have checked many men of greater mental vigour unendowed with the same invincible persistence. He was noted for his strength of memory, and had a wide acquaintance with English, French, and Italian literature, his tastes inclining him to the so-cal ed classical school of Corneille, Racine, Pope, and Gray. The principal feature of his ethical work is his tracing the operation of sympathy as the prime constituent of moral sentiments. "The purely scientific inquiry is overlaid by practical and hortatory dissertations, and by eloquent delineations of character

and of beau-ideals of virtuous conduct. His style being thus pitched to the popular key, he never pushes home a metaphysical analysis; so that even his favourite theme, Sympathy, is not philosophically sifted to the bottom." The most striking doctrine in his Wealth of Nations' was his advocating the abolition of commercial restrictions-the doctrine of "Free Trade." Concerning the sometimes disputed originality of this work, his editor, Mr M'Culloch, remarks: "Some of the most important doctrines embodied in the Wealth of Nations' had been distinctly announced; and traces, more or less faint, of the remainder, may be found in various works published previously to its appearance. But this has little or nothing to do with the peculiar merits of Smith, and in no respect invalidates his claim to be considered as the real founder of the science of political economy. Some of the disjecta membra had, indeed, been discovered, with indications of the others. But their importance, whether in a practical or scientific point of view, and their dependence, were all but wholly unknown. They formed an undigested mass, without order or any sort of rational connection, what was sound and true being frequently (as in the theory of the economists) closely linked to what was false and contradictory. Smith was the enchanter who educed order out of this chaos. And in such complicated and difficult subjects, a higher degree of merit belongs to the party who first establishes the truth of a new doctrine, and traces its consequences and limitations, than to him who may previously have stumbled upon it by accident, or who had dismissed it as if it were valueless."-Smith's style is perspicuous and melodious, and both the language and the imagery are chosen with admirable taste. Perhaps its chief value to the student arises from its copiousness, which sometimes amounts to diffuseness. He is particularly rich in subjective language. It is a good exercise for the ethical or the economical expositor to run over his pages and note his various modes of expressing the same facts or principles. The construction of his sentences is loose, and wanting in vigour.

HISTORY.

During this period two historians sustained and advanced the higher ideal of historical composition furnished by David Hume. Robertson published his 'History of Scotland' in the last year of the reign of George II. (1759), and Gibbon his 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' in the first year of the last quarter of the century (1776). Robertson's History was the greatest success that had been achieved by any historical work up to that time; and Gibbon's was still more successful than Robertson's.

William Robertson (1721-1793), the son of an Edinburgh

minister, received the usual Scotch school and college education, entered the Established Church, and at the early age of twentytwo was ordained to the charge of the small parish of Gladsmuir in East Lothian. The lightness of his clerical duties left him ample time for study as well as for extra-parochial activity: he read and wrote with methodical industry, attended the meetings of a distinguished literary society in Edinburgh, and made such a figure in the debates of the General Assembly of the Church, that he soon was recognised as the leader of the "Moderates." In 1759 appeared his 'History of Scotland,' the first edition of which was sold within a month; and in the same year he was translated to the charge of Old Greyfriars' in Edinburgh. In 1762 he was appointed Principal of the University. In 1769 he completed. what is generally regarded as his masterpiece, the History of Charles V.'; in 1777 his 'History of America,' which grew naturally out of the History of Charles.' His only other published work, the Disquisition on Ancient India,' appeared in 1791, about two years before his death.-Robust in personal build, a broad, square-shouldered man, rather over the middle height, with a large head and large features, Robertson was no less robust in intellect. He seems to have been well fitted for active life: he displayed great sagacity and firmness as a leader in the General Assembly; and the common saying about him is that he would have been better employed in acting history than in writing it. He took great pains both with the composition of his History and with the collection of the facts. He particularly prided himself, and with justice, upon his accuracy. After all the labour that he spent upon his style, and all the praises that have been lavished upon its purity and correctness, it is not of much value to the student of composition. It is undoubtedly pure and correct: it contains no Scotch idioms and no grammatical inaccuracies; but neither does it contain many peculiarly English idioms; and it possesses little original charm of expression. Some of the admirers of Robertson allege as a peculiar merit of his style that it can be readily turned into Latin; and this is another way of saying that it is not distinctively idiomatic. Indeed nothing else was to be expected he had no opportunities of hearing English as it was spoken, and learned it almost as a foreign language from books. The wonder is that he succeeded in freeing himself so completely from peculiar Scotch idioms. The chief merit of his narrative, apart from its superior accuracy, is perspicuous arrangement: this was so much dwelt upon by contemporary critics that we must suppose it to have been a very sensible improvement on preceding Histories. Among other things that have been mentioned as coefficient causes of his extraordinary success, besides the correctness and perspicuity of his style, and the accuracy of his research,