Thomas Brown (1778-1820), writer on philosophy, was son of the minister of Kirkmabreck in Galloway, and was trained a physician. He appeared as an author before his twentieth year, his first work being a review of Dr Darwin's Zoonomia. On the establishment of the Edinburgh Review he became one of the contributors on philosophical subjects; and when Leslie's fitness for the Mathematical chair in the university was disputed by the orthodox because he had approved of Hume's theory of causation, Brown, who still practised medicine, warmly espoused Leslie's cause, and vindicated his opinions in an Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect. By modifying Hume's doctrine in one or two points he sought to show that it does not necessarily lead to scepticism in theology. In 1810 the philosophical physician was appointed colleague and successor to Dugald Stewart in the chair of Moral Philosophy, and he discharged the duties amidst universal respect til his death. Part of his leisure was devoted to the cultiva his life), and discovered the effect of laughing-gas. The account he gave of this in his Researches, Chemical and Philosophical (1799), led to his appointment as lecturer to the Royal Institution, where he delivered his first lecture in 1801; and his eloquence and the novelty of his experiments soon attracted brilliant audiences. In 1803 he began those researches in agriculture in connection with which were delivered his epoch-making lectures, published as Elements of Agricultural Chemistry (1813). His fame chiefly rests on the views originated in his Bakerian lecture On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity (1806), followed up by the grand discovery that the alkalies and earths are compound substances formed by oxygen united with metallic bases. He first decomposed potash in 1807; when he saw the globules of the new metal, potassium, his delight was ecstatic. He next decomposed soda, baryta, strontia, lime, and magnesia; discovered the new metals sodium, barium, strontium, calcium, and magnesium; and proved the earths proper to consist of metals united to oxygen. In 1812 Davy was knighted, and married a lady of wealth; in 1813 he resigned the Chemical chair of the Royal Institution. To investigate his new theory of volcanic action he visited the Continent with Faraday, and was received with the greatest distinction by the French savans, though England and France were at war. In 1815 he investigated fire-damp and invented the safety-lamp. He was created a baronet in 1818, and had succeeded Sir Joseph Banks as President of the Royal Society, when in 1820-23 his researches on electro-magnetism were communicated to the society. After an apoplectic attack in 1826, he twice wintered in Italy, and he died at Geneva on his way homeward. Among his writings were Elements of Chemical Philosophy (1812); a disquisition On the Safetylamp (1818); Salmonia, or Days of Fly-fish tion of a taste for poetry, and he published The Paradise of Coquettes (1814), The Wanderer of Norway (1815), and The Bower of Spring (1816). Though not without fine thoughts and images, his verse wanted force and passion, and is now utterly forgotten. In philosophy, his exposition was relieved by passages of old-fashioned eloquence; he quoted largely from the poets, especially Akenside, and was too flowery in his illustrations. His Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind were long popular as a textbook, but were never original nor profound, and are now antiquated. He departed from Reid and Stewart and the Scottish school in the direction of the English associationism, under the influence of French sensationalism. Mackintosh held that he had rendered an important service to mental science by his 'secondary laws of suggestion or association-circumstances which modifying (1828), an entertaining and popular volume the action of the general law, and must be distinctly considered in order to explain its connection with the phenomena.' Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) was a great original investigator in chemistry and physics, a brilliant lecturer, and an author who expounded scientific verities in a wonderfully popular style. He was born at Penzance, where his father was a wood-carver. Both at school there and at Truro he developed a taste for story-telling, poetry, and angling, and for experimental science; and in virtue of several rather pleasing poems was regarded as a poetical genius. Apprenticed to a Penzance surgeon in 1795, he made chemical experiments and entered on an encyclopædic course of study, and in 1797 seriously took up chemistry. At Clifton, where in 1798 he became assistant to Dr Beddoes in his Pneumatic Institute, he met Coleridge and Southey, experimented on the respiration of gases (more than once nearly losing modelled on Izaak Walton, but of considerable scientific interest-for Davy was not merely an enthusiastic angler but a patient student of the natural history problems suggested by the pastime. The interlocutors are Halieus, an accomplished angler; Ornither, a country gentleman interested in sports generally; Poietes, an enthusiast for nature; and Physicus, a naturalist- all mainly imaginary characters, though the substance of actual conversations is sometimes given, and notes from Davy's journal were systematically worked in. In his Consolations in Travel (written at Rome in his last winter there, and posthumously published in 1830), we have a series of speculations on moral and ethical questions, with descriptions of Italian scenery, mainly in conversations between Ambrosio, an enlightened Roman Catholic; Onuphrio, an English patrician verging on scepticism; and a third interlocutor, Philalethes, who may generally be taken as representing Davy himself, though sometimes his views are put in the mouth of 'The Unknown.' Eubathes, who occasionally appears, was Dr Wollaston. Davy, though a member of no communion but 'the Church of Christ' in the widest sense, was keenly interested in the defence of spiritual religion and the belief in immortality and God against materialism or the more radical forms of scepticism. Salmon and Sea Trout. This is really a long Poietes. I begin to be tired. day's journey; and these last ten miles through bogs, with no other view than that of mountains half hid in mists, and brown waters that can hardly be called lakes; and with no other trees than a few stunted birches, that look so little alive that they might be supposed immediately descended from the bog-wood, everywhere scattered beneath our feet. This is the most barren part of one of the most desolate countries I have ever passed through in Europe; and though the inn at Strathgarve is tolerable, that of Auchnasheen is certainly the worst I have ever seen, and I hope the worst I shall ever We ought to have good amusement at Pool Ewe, to compensate us for this uncomfortable day's journey. Halieus. I trust we shall have sport, as far as salmon and sea trout can furnish sport. But the difficulties of our journey are almost over. See, Loch Maree is stretched at our feet, and a good boat with four oars will carry us in four or five hours to our fishing ground: and that time will not be misspent, for this lake is not devoid of beautiful and even grand scenery. see. Poiet. The scenery begins to improve; and that cloudbreasted mountain on the left is of the best character of Scotch mountains: these woods, likewise, are respectable for this northern country. I think I see islands also in the distance: and the quantity of cloud always gives effect to this kind of view; and perhaps, without such assistance to the imagination, there would be nothing even approaching to the sublime in these countries; but cloud and mist, by creating obscurity and offering a substitute for greatness and distance, give something of an Alpine and majestic character to this region. Ornither. As we are now fixed in our places in the boat, you will surely put out a rod or two with a set of flies, or try the tail of the par for a large trout or salmon our fishing will not hinder our progress. Hal. In most other lakes I should do so; here I have often tried the experiment, but never with success. This lake is extremely deep, and there are very few fish which haunt it generally except char; and salmon seldom rest but in particular parts along the shore, which we shall not touch. Our voyage will be a picturesque rather than an angling one. I see we shall have little occasion for the oars, for a strong breeze is rising, and blowing directly down the lake; we shall be in it in a minute. Hoist the sails! On we go!we shall make our voyage in half the number of hours I had calculated upon; and I hope to catch a salmon in time for dinner. Poiet. The scenery improves as we advance nearer the lower parts of the lake. The mountains become higher, and that small island or peninsula presents a bold craggy outline; and the birch wood below it, and the pines above, make a scene somewhat Alpine in character. But what is that large bird soaring above the pointed rock, towards the end of the lake? Surely it is an eagle! Hal. You are right, it is an eagle, and of a rare and peculiar species-the grey or silver eagle, a noble bird! From the size of the animal, it must be the female; and her aery is in that high rock. I dare say the male is not far off. Physicus. I think I see another bird of a smaller size, perched on the rock below, which is similar in form. Hal. You do it is the consort of that beautiful and powerful bird; and I have no doubt their young ones are not far off. : Poiet. Look at the bird! She dashes into the water falling like a rock, and raising a column of spray; she has fallen from a great height. And now she rises again into the air; what an extraordinary sight! Hal. She is pursuing her prey, and is one of our fraternity, a catcher of fish. She has missed her quarry this time, and has moved further down towards the river, and falls again from a great height. There! You see her rise with a fish in her talons. Poiet. She gives an interest which I hardly expected to have found to this scene. Pray are there many of these animals in this country? Hal. Of this species, I have seen but these two, and I believe the young ones migrate as soon as they can provide for themselves; for this solitary bird requires a large space to move and feed in, and does not allow its offspring to partake its reign, or to live near it. Of other species of the eagle, there are some in different parts of the mountains, particularly of the Osprey; and of the great fishing or brown eagle; and I once saw a very fine and interesting sight in one of the Crags of Ben Weevis, near Strathgarve, as I was going, on the 20th of August, in pursuit of black game. Two parent eagles were teaching their offspring-two young birdsthe manoeuvres of flight. They began by rising from the top of a mountain in the eye of the sun (it was about midday, and bright for this climate). They at first made small circles, and the young birds imitated them; they paused on their wings, waiting till they had made their first flight, and then took a second and larger gyration,—always rising towards the sun, and enlarging their circle of flight so as to make a gradually extending spiral. The young ones still slowly followed, apparently flying better as they mounted; and they continued th's sublime kind of exercise, always rising till they became mere points in the air, and the young ones were lost, and afterwards their parents, to our aching sight. But we have touched the shore, and the lake has terminated: you are now on the river Ewe. Poiet. Are we to fish here? It is a broad clear stream, but I see no fish, and cannot think it a good angling river. Hal. We are nearly a mile above our fishing station, and we must first see our quarters and provide for our lodging before we begin our fishing: we must walk a little way before we find the inn. Poiet. Why, this inn is a second edition of Auchnasheen. Hal. The interior is better than the exterior, thanks to the Laird of Brahan: we shall find one tolerable room and bed; and we must put up our cots and provide our food. What is our store, Mr Purveyor ? Phys. I know we have good bread, tea, and sugar. Then there is the quarter of roebuck we got at Gordon Castle; and Ornither has furnished us with a brace of wild ducks, three leash of snipes, and a brace of golden plovers, by his mountain expedition of yesterday; and for fish we depend on you. Yet our host says there are fresh herrings to be had, and small cod-fish, and salmon and trout in any quantity, and the claret and the Ferintosh are safe. Hal. Why, we shall fare sumptuously. As it is not time yet for shooting grouse, we must divide our spoil for the few days we shall stay here. Yet there are young snipes and plovers on the mountains above, and I have no doubt we might obtain the Laird's permission to kill a roebuck in the woods or a hart in the mountains; but this is always an uncertain event, and I advise you, Ornither, to become a fisherman. Orn. I shall wait till I see the results of your skill. At all events, in this country I can never want amusement, and I dare say there are plenty of seals at the mouth of the river, and killing them is more useful to other fishermen than catching fish. Hal. Let there be a kettle of water with salt ready boiling in an hour, mine host, for the fish we catch or buy; and see that the potatoes are well dressed: the servants will look to the rest of our fare. Now for our rods. (From Salmonia.) The Future State. Ambrosio. Revelation has not disclosed to us the nature of this state, but only fixed its certainty. We are sure from geological facts, as well as from sacred history, that man is a recent animal on the globe, and that this globe has undergone one considerable revolution, since the creation, by water; and we are taught that it is to undergo another, by fire, preparatory to a new and glorified state of existence of man; but this is all we are permitted to know, and as this state is to be entirely different from the present one of misery and probation, any knowledge respecting it would be useless, and indeed almost impossible. Philalethes. My genius has placed the more exalted spiritual natures in cometary worlds, and this last fiery revolution may be produced by the appulse of a comet. Amb. Human fancy may imagine a thousand ways in which it may be produced; but upon such notions it is absurd to dwell. I will not allow your genius the slightest approach to inspiration, and I can admit no verisimility in a reverie which is fixed on a foundation you now allow to be so weak. But see, the twilight is beginning to appear in the orient sky, and there are some dark clouds on the horizon opposite to the crater of Vesuvius, the lower edges of which transmit a bright light, shewing the sun is already risen in the country beneath them. I would say that they may serve as an image of the hopes of immortality derived from revelation; for we are sure from the light reflected in those clouds that the lands below us are in the brightest sunshine, but we are entirely ignorant of the surface and the scenery; so, by revelation, the light of an imperishable and glorious world is disclosed to us; but it is in eternity, and its objects cannot be seen by mortal eye or imaged by mortal imagination. Phil. I am not so well read in the Scriptures as I hope I shall be at no very distant time; but I believe the pleasures of heaven are mentioned more distinctly than you allow in the sacred writings. I think I remember that the saints are said to be crowned with palms and amaranths, and that they are described as perpetually hymning and praising God. Amb. This is evidently only metaphorical; music is the sensual pleasure which approaches nearest to an intellectual one, and probably may represent the delight resulting from the perception of the harmony of things and of truth seen in God. The palm as an evergreen tree, and the amaranth a perdurable flower, are emblems of immortality. If I am allowed to give a metaphorical allusion to the future state of the blessed, I should image it by the orange-grove in that sheltered glen, on which the sun is now beginning to shine, and of which the trees are at the same time loaded with sweet golden fruit and balmy silver flowers. Such objects may well portray a state in which hope and fruition become one eternal feeling. (From the Consolations.) There was an edition of Davy's collected works (9 vols.) in 1839-40; and his brother, Dr John Davy, prepared his Memoirs (2 vols.). See also his Fragmentary Remains (1858), and the Lives by Dr Paris (1831) and Dr T. E. Thorpe (1895). Dr Thomas M'Crie (1772-1835), Scottish historian, biographer, and divine, was born at Duns in Berwickshire, studied at Edinburgh, and was ordained in 1795 pastor of a Secession congregation there belonging to the section known as 'Anti-burgher,' from their refusal to sanction the burgess's oath of allegiance to an uncovenanted king. He also acted as professor of divinity. His works exhibit vast and minute research, and conscientious though they are, are almost inevitably biassed in favour of the high Presbyterian polity and its defenders and heroes. His best-known books are a scholarly Life of Knox (1812), which for the first time gave a substantially historical and not obviously partisan view of a great actor on the national stage; an equally original Life of Andrew Melville (1819); and histories of the 'progress and suppression of the Reformation in Italy and in Spain (1827-29). In 1817 he published in three successive numbers of the Christian Instructor a trenchant review of The Tales of My Landlord, whose authorship was not yet revealed, as regards their treatment of the Covenanters and their per secutors. His aim was to prove that the author showed gross partiality to the persecution of the Presbyterians by ignoring or glossing over the severities and cruelties they perpetrated, and by making the oppressors, especially Claverhouse, seem admirable, contrary to historical truth; while he unfairly exaggerated the peculiarities of certain extreme Covenanters, and, in defiance of fact, represented the Covenanters generally as mere ignorant, foolish, and violent fanatics. On these matters M'Crie was a much more accurate historian than Scott, and easily convicted him of many misapprehensions and misstatements in general and detail. By his own side he was held as having had a magnificent triumph over 'the Great Unknown.' Scott had at first pooh-poohed M'Crie's strictures, and resolved not even to read them; but, as Lockhart said, he found the impression they were producing so strong that he soon changed his purpose and devoted a very large part of his article for the Quarterly Review to an elaborate defence of his own picture of the Covenanters 'that is, Scott as Scott defended in the Quarterly, in a review of his own unacknowledged works, his own historical representations there set forth. The following extracts are from the earlier part of M'Crie's famous review of The Tales: The same regard to the truth of history must be observed when fictitious personages are introduced, provided the reader is taught or induced to form a judgment from them of the parties to which they are represented as belonging. If it is permitted to make embellishments on the scene, with the view of giving greater interest to the piece, the utmost care ought to be taken that they do not violate the integrity of character; and they must be impartially distributed, and equally extended to all parties, and to the virtues and vices of each. This is a delicate task, but the undertaker imposes it upon himself, with all its responsibilities. Besides fidelity, impartiality, and judgment, it requires an extensive, and minute, and accurate acquaintance with the history of the period selected, including the history of opinions and habits, as well as of events. And we do not hesitate to say that this is a species of intelligence which is not likely to be possessed by the person who holds in sovereign contempt the opinions which were then deemed of the utmost moment, and turns with disgust from the very exterior manners of the men whose inmost habits he affects to disclose. Nor will the multifarious reading of the dabbler in everything, from the highest affairs of church and state down to the economy of the kitchen and the management of the stable, keep him from blundering here at every step. ・・ The guides of public opinion cannot be too jealous in guarding against the encroachments of the writers of fiction upon the province of true history, nor too faithful in pointing out every transgression, however small it may appear, of the sacred fences by which it is protected. Such writers have it in their power to do much mischief, from the engaging form in which they convey their sentiments to a numerous and, in general, unsuspecting class of readers. When the scene is laid in a remote and fabulous period, or when the merits and conduct of the men who are made to figure in it do not affect the great cause of truth and of public good, the writer may be allowed to exercise his ingenuity, and to amuse his readers, without our narrowly inquiring whether his representations are historically correct or not. But when he speaks of those men who were engaged in the great struggle for national and individual rights, civil and religious, which took place in this country previous to the Revolution, and of all the cruelties of the oppressors, and all the sufferings of the oppressed, he is not to be tolerated in giving a false and distorted view of men and measures, whether this proceed from ignorance or from prejudice. Nor should his misrepresentations be allowed to pass without severe reprehension when their native tendency is to shade the atrocities of persecution, to diminish the horror with which the conduct of a tyrannical and unprincipled government has been so long and so justly regarded, and to traduce and vilify the characters of those men who, while they were made to feel all the weight of s severity, continued to resist, until they succeeded in mancipating themselves, and securing their posterity from the galling yoke. On this supposition, it is not sufficient to atone for such faults that the work in which they are found displays great talents; that it contains scenes which are described with exquisite propriety and truth; that the leading facts in the history condemned the severities of the government; that he is of those times are brought forward; that the author has often in a mirthful and facetious mood; and that some allowances must be made for a desire to amuse his readers, and to impart greater interest to a story which, after all, is for the most part fictitious. ... One charge which he frequently brings against the strict Presbyterians is that of a morose and gloomy bigotry, displayed by their censuring of all innocent recreations. This he endeavours to impress on the imagination of his reader in the very first scene, by representing them as refusing, from such scruples, to attend the weaponschaws appointed by government. "The rigour of the strict Calvinists,' says he, increased in proportion to the wishes of the government that it should be relaxed. A supercilious condemnation of all manly pastimes and harmless recreations distinguished those who professed a more than ordinary share of sanctity.'. . . The fact is, that from the Reformation down to the period in which the scene of this tale is laid, such exercises and pastimes were quite common throughout Scotland; children were carefully trained to them when at school; professors in universities attended and joined in them, as well as their students; and the Presbyterian ministers, having practised them at school and at college, instead of condemning them as unlawful, did not scruple to countenance them with their presence. There were some of these precise preachers for whom, we suspect, our author (with all his intimate knowledge of such sports) might not have been quite a match in shooting at the popinjay; and in playing with them at the rapier or small-sword, or in wrestling a fall, we are afraid he might have come off as badly as Sergeant Bothwell did from the brawny arms of John Balfour of Burley... The second instance which goes to prove that the author's statements respecting the religious sentiments and customs of that period are not to be depended upon relates to the use of the Book of Common Prayer. The young at arms,' says he, 'were unable to avoid listening to the prayers read in the churches on these occasions, and thus, in the opinion of their repining parents, meddling with the accursed thing which is an abomination in the sight of the Lord.' Now, though the author had not stood in awe of that dreadful name," which all Christians are taught to venerate, nor been afraid of the threatening, 'The Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain,' we would have thought that he would have at least been careful to save himself from ridicule by ascertaining the truth of the fact which he assumes as the foundation of his irreverent jest. How, then, does the fact stand? Prayers were not read in the parish churches of Scotland at that time, any more than they were in the meeting-houses of the indulged, or in the conventicles of the stricter Presbyterians. The author has taken it for granted that the Prayer-Book was introduced into Scotland along with Episcopal government at the Restoration. We are astonished that any one who professed to be acquainted with the history of that period, and especially one who undertakes to describe its religious manners, should take up this erroneous notion. The English Book of Common Prayer was never introduced into Scotland, and, previous to 1637, was used only in the Chapel Royal, and perhaps occasionally in one or two other places, to please the king. The history of the short-lived Scottish PrayerBook is well known. At the Restoration neither the one nor the other was imposed, but the public worship was left to be conducted as it had been practised in the Presbyterian Church. Charles II. was not so fond of prayers, whether read or extempore, as to interest himself in that matter; his maxim was, that Presbyterianism was not fit for a gentleman; his dissipated and irreligious courtiers were of the same opinion; and therefore Episcopacy was established. As for the aspiring churchmen who farthered and pressed the change, they were satisfied with seating themselves in their rich bishoprics. Accordingly, the author will not find the Presbyterians 'repining' at this imposition; and had he examined their writings, as he ought to have done, he would have found them repeatedly admitting that they had no such grievance. . . For the sake of giving effect to a particular scene, the author does not hesitate to violate historic truth and probability, and even to contradict his own statements or admissions. Instances of this occur in some of his best descriptions, and they show that though he has the imagination and feeling of a poet, he is deficient in the judgment and discriminating taste of a historian. M'Crie's works fill four volumes (1855-57); and there is a Life by his son (1840). Thomas Campbell was born in Glasgow on the 27th July 1777. The youngest of eleven, he came of a good Highland family, the Campbells of Kirnan in Argyllshire, who traced their origin to the first lord of Lochawe. The property, however, had passed from the old race, and the poet's father carried on business in Glasgow as a trader with Virginia. The American Revolution brought disaster, and in his latter days Alexander Campbell subsisted on a small income derived from a merchant's society, aided by his industrious wife, who took in young collegians as boarders. Thomas passed in 1791 from the grammar-school to the University of Glasgow, and was particularly distinguished for his translations from the Greek; a translation of part of the Clouds of Aristophanes being specially commended. He had already gained a prize for an English poem, an Essay on the Origin of Evil, modelled on Pope. Other poetical pieces, written between his fourteenth and sixteenth year, show his delicate taste and care of diction. He became tutor to a family in Mull, and about this time met with his Caroline of the West,' the daughter of a minister of Inveraray. In 1794 he begged five shillings from his mother, and walked to Edinburgh to attend the trials of Muir and Gerald for sedition-for he was already a stout Reformer and admirer of the French Revolution. The winter of 1795 saw him again at college work in Glasgow, and supporting himself by private tuition. Next year he was again tutor in the Highlands, this time in Appin; thereafter he repaired to Edin burgh, hesitated between the Church and the law, but soon abandoning all hopes of either, employed himself in private teaching and work for the booksellers. Poetry was not neglected, and in April 1799 appeared his Pleasures of Hope. The copyright was sold for £60; but for some years the publishers gave the poet £50 on every new edition of two thousand copies, and allowed him, in 1803, to publish a quarto subscription-copy, from which he realised about £1000. It was in a 'dusky lodging' in Alison Square, Edinburgh, that the Pleasures of Hope was composed; much of it was thought out in walks round Arthur's Seat, and the opening lines were suggested by the Firth of Forth as seen from the Calton Hill. The poem went through four editions in a twelvemonth, having THOMAS CAMPBELL. From the Portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence in the National Portrait Gallery. captivated all readers by its varied melody, polished diction, generous sentiment, and touching episodes; and in picturing the horrors of war and the partition of Poland the poet warmed to noble rage: Oh, bloodiest picture in the book of Time! |