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CHAP. II.]

LITERARY DISCERNMENT.

39

his society was sought after. Many was the poor and obscure genius that looked up to him for support, and encouragement. His liberality was great: and it was not money alone he gave; his praise and his encouragement cheered many a failing heart."-A singular proof of Lord Woodhouselee's discernment is supplied by the letter which he addressed to Lord Byron, on the appearance of his 'Hours of Idleness,' and which may be seen in the pages of Moore. The Scotch Reviewers,' as all are aware, were very severe upon the youthful poet; but Lord Woodhouselee confidently predicted that a blaze of glory was to follow, from the first faint pale streak which ushered in the dawn.

"I have mentioned Leyden, and his sonnet to the burn at Woodhouselee. It was Walter Scott who was principally the means of making his talents known in society; but to my father he was also indebted for many acts of kindness. He seems now to have passed away from memory like a falling star; and few may remember his brightness, or be aware of his obscure origin, or of the difficulties which gave way before his undaunted courage. He was the son of a shepherd in a wild valley in Roxburghshire, and almost selfeducated. Being himself a Border man, and an enthusiastic lover of its legends, he was well calculated to give Walter Scott assistance in his publication of the Border Minstrelsy; and his rise in society might be dated from that time. He was first discovered as a daily frequenter of a small bookseller's shop, kept by Archibald Constable, so well known afterwards as an eminent publisher. Here would Leyden pass hour after hour, often perched upon a ladder in mid air, with some great folio in his hand, forgetting the scanty meal of bread and water that awaited him on his return to his miserable lodging. But to all this he was indifferent, for access to books seemed the bound of his wishes; and before he had attained his nineteenth year, he

had astonished all the Professors in Edinburgh by his profound knowledge of Greek and Latin, and the mass of general information he had acquired.

"Having turned his views to India, he some time after got the promise of some literary appointment in the East India Company's service: but this having failed, he was informed that the patronage for that year had been exhausted, with the exception of a surgeon's assistant's commission; and that if he accepted this, he must be ready to pass his medical trials in six months. Three years were generally necessary for those trials; but, nothing daunted, he instantly applied himself to an entirely new line of study, and at the end of the six months took his degree with honour. Having just published his beautiful poem, 'The Scenes of Infancy,' he sailed for India.* We heard of him as the most wonderful of Orientalists, and he seemed destined to run a brilliant career; but he was suddenly cut off by fever, I believe caught by exposure to the sun, and died at an early age."

Further instalments of Miss Tytler's MS. shall be offered as the progress of my story will allow.

* His poverty was such,' writes Lady Holland, 'that he was quite unable to accomplish his outfit. Sir Walter Scott and my father, and a few others, were chiefly instrumental in effecting it, the latter contributing £40 out of his very small means.'-Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith, vol. i. p. 53. There is an interesting account of Leyden, in Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. i. p. 322, &c.

CHAP. III.]

PATRICK FRASER TYTLER.

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CHAPTER III.
(1800-1809.)

Lord Woodhouselee in illness-His literary undertakings-P. F. Tytler is sent to school-Chobham in 1808-The Rev. Charles Jerram-Tytler's progress at school-A debating society-King George III. in the Chapel at WindsorTytler returns to Woodhouselee.

Certainly, if ever a father

SUCH was the home of my friend's happy boyhood, and such the associations amid which all the earlier years of his life were spent. Many an after-glance at the same delightful period is afforded by his subsequent correspondence, which shall not be anticipated. was idolized by a band of amiable and intelligent children, that man was Lord Woodhouselee. He was the sun and centre round which they moved. To his indulgent eye they looked for approbation, and they coveted no other reward than his smile, or his caress. They admired and revered him as entirely as they loved him.

On the 15th of October 1795, he made the following memorandum in the common-place book already quoted. "I have this day* completed my 48th year. The best part of my life is gone. When I look back on what is past, I am humbly grateful to Almighty GOD for the singular blessings I have enjoyed. All, indeed, that can render life of value, has been mine: health, and peace of mind, easy and even affluent circumstances, domestic happiness in the best of wives, a promising race of children, kind and affectionate relations, sincere and cordial friends, a good name, and (I trust in GoD) a good conscience. What therefore on earth have I more to desire? Nothing: but, if Almighty GoD so * New Style. In the family Bible, his birth is recorded on Sunday, 4th Oct. 1747.'

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please, and if it be not presumption in me to pray, a continuation of those blessings! Should it be otherwise, let me not repine. I bow to His commands who knows what is best for His creatures. His will be done."

There was something prophetic in the melancholy foreboding which this passage expresses. Three weeks after this was written, (5th of November,) on walking in from Woodhouselee to his house in Prince's Street, symptoms of fever showed themselves, and a severe illness ensued. 'Under the anxious care of his friend and physician Dr. Gregory, he recovered from the fever: but in one of the paroxysms of the disease, he had the misfortune to rupture some of the blood-vessels of the bladder,-an accident which threatened to degenerate into one of the most painful diseases to which the human frame is subject.' His activity of mind did not however forsake him. "Five months have now run since I was first taken ill," he writes. "Meantime, I beguile my bodily sufferings by the occupations of my mind. I have studied more, and with more profit and improvement, in these last five months, than I usually have done in twice that time." At the close of the year 1796, he gratefully records that his chief occupation during the most painful twelvemonth of his life had been the preparing for the press the continuation of the Dictionary of Decisions, from 1770 to 1794.

His biographer refers to the same period Lord Woodhouselee's edition of Derham's once celebrated treatise, entitled Physico-Theology, which he did not publish till 1799, but with which he began to amuse himself during the period of languor which follows severe disease; and of which he speaks in the following interesting manner in his notebook:-"Of all my literary labours, that which affords me the most pleasure on reflection, is the edition I published of Derham's Physico-Theology. The account of the life and

CHAP. III.]

IN ILLNESS.

43

writings of Dr. Derham, with the short dissertation on final causes, the translation of the notes of the author, with the additional notes containing an account of those more modern discoveries in the sciences and arts which tend further to the illustration of the subjects of the work,—are all the original matter of that edition to which I have any claim; besides finishing the drawings for the plates which I delineated: so that the vanity of authorship has a very small share indeed in that pleasure I have mentioned. But, when engaged in that work, I had a constant sense that I was well employed, in contributing, as far as lay in my power, to those great and noble ends which this most worthy man proposed in his labours,—the enforcing on the minds of mankind the conviction of an Eternal, Almighty, All-wise, and Allbeneficent Author of Nature; the demonstration, in short, of that Truth on which depends our greatest present happiness and our future hopes.

"Since the publication of this edition, an excellent work has appeared on the same subject, Dr. Paley's Natural Theology; of which the chief merits are a clear and methodical arrangement of his subject, a logical closeness of reasoning, and an application of his argument to every sceptical inference which has been drawn from partial irregularity, and partial evil existing in the creation. From this admirable book, many valuable additions may be made to the notes on Derham, if a new edition should be wanted in my lifetime; and I intend accordingly to make those additions, Deo volente."

A political pamphlet,* which appeared at Dublin in 1799, from the same prolific pen, and of which 3000 copies were sold on the day of publication, is the only other literary performance which preceded Lord Woodhouselee's elevation

* It was entitled, 'Ireland profiting by example; or the question considered, whether Scotland has gained or lost by the Union.'

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