the northern metropolis, during the second half of the last century,-Henry Mackenzie, Lords Abercrombie, Craig, Meadowbank, and Robertson, Lord Chief Commissioner Adam, Robert Liston, Andrew Dalzel, John Playfair, Dr. Gregory, Dugald Stewart; and it has been mentioned as "his peculiar happiness, that among those to whom the affections of his youth were given, the course of his mature life was passed, and its final period was closed."

At Woodhouselee, the romantic residence of his father, distant about six miles from Edinburgh, where he spent his vacations, the youth soon began to reap the reward of his boyish assiduity. He familiarized himself with the literature of modern Europe, especially of Italy, France, and England; maturing thus early that taste and judg ment of which he afterwards gave the world so many valuable specimens. He became an excellent draughtsman and musician, learned thoroughly to appreciate whatever is most beautiful in nature, and "in the course of a few years, there were few scenes, either in England or in Scotland, which he had not visited, that were distinguished either by natural beauty, by poetic celebration, by the residence of eminent men, or by the occurrence of memorable transactions." At the age of 23, (in 1770,) he was called to the bar; and six years after, married Anne, eldest daughter, and eventually heiress, of William Fraser, Esq., of Balnain,-"an union" (says his biographer) "which accomplished all the hopes he had formed of domestic happiness, and which, after the long period of thirty-five years, almost unclouded by misfortune, closed in more grateful and profound affection than it at first began."

The period at which Mr. Tytler entered upon his professional career has been characterized as the most remarkable, perhaps, that has occurred in the literary history of Scotland. It was a period of singular awakening. The

intellectual energies of that great people were then first beginning to find scope for their exercise and development. Hume and Robertson, Adam Smith, Mr. Erskine, Lord Hailes, and Lord Kames, had established for themselves a first-rate reputation in many of the gravest departments of letters and Alexander Tytler possessed the necessary abilities and attainments to follow their example. But it was a beautiful feature in his character that he preferred to follow that more excellent way' which should not prove incompatible with the strictest duties, the largest charities of social life. In his very ambition, there was always something domestic. The only honours to which he aspired were those which he could share with those he loved; the eyes in which he desired to read his history,' were not those of a nation,' but those of his family and his friends. He determined accordingly to pursue Law as a science, rather than as a profession; and resolved to establish his claim to the honours of his calling by engaging in a great work on some legal subject. His choice was decided by the suggestion of his friend and patron, Lord Kames, that he should write a supplementary volume to his own 'Dictionary of Decisions,' bringing down that work to the time which, in 1773 or 1774, was called present. To this task Mr. Tytler devoted the next four years of his life. His supplementary volume appeared in folio, in 1778, and received the approbation of the great lawyers of the day. At the end of two years, he had associated himself with Mr. Pringle in the professorship of Universal History and Roman Antiquities in the University of Edinburgh; and he was appointed sole professor in 1786. "From that period, until the year 1800, he devoted himself almost exclusively to the duties of his professorship; and ten years of assiduous study were employed in the composition and improvement of the course of lectures which he read annually before an immense body of

students." Those lectures have only lately been published, (in Murray's Family Library, 1834,) but with their general scope all are familiar from the little work which their author put forth for the assistance of his pupils, under the title of 'Elements of General History,'*-a work which has since found many editors, and has been translated into most of the languages of Europe, and even into Hindoostanee. The lectures themselves, which were exceedingly popular, and attracted general attention, established the fame of their author on a solid basis. Their method was novel; their arrangement, in the best sense of the word, philosophical; the reading and thought, of which they afforded evidence, immense. Sir Walter Scott relates that he was himself one of Mr. Tytler's pupils.

In 1790,† he read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh a series of papers on Translation, which he published shortly afterwards under the modest title of an ‘Essay on the Principles of Translation.' This performance attracted great and deserved notice, passed through five editions, and was long regarded as a standard work. In the same year, Mr. Tytler was appointed Judge Advocate of Scotland,-an office which he discharged with singular conscientiousness and credit; and Lord Melville, to whose friendship he owed his advancement, further raised him to the bench of the Court of Session, where he took his seat in the beginning of 1802, with the title of Lord Woodhouselee. He was now free from his academical engagements. The death (in 1792) of his venerable father had placed him in affluent *This work, as it at first appeared in 1772, was far briefer, and bore a different title-"Outlines of a Course of Lectures."

A Short Account of the Life and Writings of Dr. John Gregory; some papers in the "Mirror" and "Lounger," which were found to have been written on the blank leaves of his sketch-book; an Account of the Origin and History of the Royal Society; a Memoir of Robert Dundas, Lord President of the Court of Session; and a paper on the Vitrified Forts of the Highlands, comprise the sum of Mr. Tytler's minor works from 1778 to 1789.

circumstances; and his wife had already succeeded to her paternal estate of Balnain in Invernesshire. For about ten

years his great delight had been to embellish his grounds, to extend his plantations, and to improve the dwellings of his cottagers, "an occupation in which he found himself every day rewarded by seeing the face of nature and of man brightening around him." He enlarged his house in order" to render it more adequate to the purposes of hospitality; and in the course of a short period," writes Mr. Alison, "he succeeded in creating a scene of rural and domestic happiness which has seldom been equalled in this country, and which, to the warm-hearted simplicity of Scottish manners, added somewhat of the more refined air of classical elegance. It was here, from this period, that all his hours of enjoyment were passed, that all his works were composed,-and that, in the bosom of his family, and amid the scenery and amusements of the country, he found the happiness that was most congenial to his character and disposition."

Mention has been already made of Lord Woodhouselee's wife, (the excellent mother of the subject of the ensuing pages); but I have not yet noticed the births of his eight children, four sons and four daughters, one of whom, a daughter, died in infancy. Of these, only two, alas! now survive,―James Tytler, Esq., of Woodhouselee; and Jane, the widow of the late admirable James Baillie Fraser, Esq., of Moniack, in Invernesshire. Miss Ann Fraser Tytler, the celebrated authoress, has left the scene while. these pages have been in progress. PATRICK FRASER, (or, as he was invariably called by his family and friends, Peter,) was the youngest of all; having been born at No. 108 (then numbered 65), Prince's Street, Edinburgh, on the 30th August, 1791. He was named after his uncle, Col. Patrick Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee's only brother, who was alive

until the year 1849. So hopelessly ill was he at some period of his infancy, (the exact year is unknown to me,) that his father actually selected a spot for his grave.

And now I have reached that part of my narrative in which I foresaw from the first that, without assistance, my story must inevitably break down. As often as the present Memoir was discussed with any of the family, I felt that all its earliest pages must of necessity present a blank. My friendship with Mr. Tytler did not begin till the year 1836. He was then five-and-forty. How was I to bridge over the chasm between his infancy and his early manhood? It was clear, since I had never made a single memorandum on the subject, that some one who knew him intimately in his youth must render help. I explained my difficulty to an elder sister who loved him tenderly, and whom he himself loved with a most entire affection, - Miss Ann Fraser Tytler, whose name has been already mentioned: but I speedily discovered that the subject opened up too many channels of aching remembrance; and, in short, was one which she could not even contemplate writing about without positive pain. Before making this discovery, after explaining my own utter inability to handle the earlier portion of her brother's life, I had once ventured the entreaty that she would commit to paper a few memoranda; from which notes she might tell me orally what I desired to know. The tears which this request elicited were very distressing. Even biography may be purchased at too dear a price. The assurance that she was in feeble health, and could scarcely see to write, I knew how to encounter with a suitable suggestion: the declaration that she was growing very stupid, I had heard before-from herself; and knew how to meet in a way which should compel her to laugh, and reprimand me in exceedingly pure Scotch: but tears were quite unanswerable. That conversation, I instantly assured her,