JAMES ST JOHN; a History of Christianity from the Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire, by the REV. H. H. MILMAN; a History of India (the Hindoo and Mohammedan periods), by the HON. MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE; a History of Modern Greece, by JAMES EMERSON; a History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, by W. H. PRESCOT (a very interesting and valuable work), and a History of the Conquest of Mexico, by the same author; a History of the Christian Church, by DR E. BURTON. The various works written to simplify history, and adapt its details to young and uninstructed readers, far exceed enumeration. BIOGRAPHERS. The French have cultivated biography with more diligence than the English; but much has been done of late years to remedy this defect in our national literature. Individual specimens of great value we have long possessed. The lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, and Herbert, by Izaak Walton, are entitled to the highest praise for the fulness of their domestic details, no less than for the fine simplicity and originality of their style. The lives of the poets by Johnson, and the occasional memoirs by Goldsmith, Mallet, and other authors, are either too general or too critical to satisfy the reader as representations of the daily life, habits, and opinions of those whom we venerate or admire. Mason's life of Gray was a vast improvement on former biographies, as the interesting and characteristic correspondence of the poet and his literary diary and journals, bring him personally before us pursuing the silent course of his studies, or mingling occasionally as a retired scholar in the busy world around him. The success of Mason's bold and wise experiment prompted another and more complete work-the life of Dr Johnson by Boswell. JAMES BOSWELL (1740-1795) was by birth and education a gentleman of rank and station-the son of a Scottish judge, and heir to an ancient family and estate. He had studied for the James Boswell. bar, but being strongly impressed with admiration of the writings and character of Dr Johnson, he attached himself to the rugged moralist, soothed and flattered his irritability, submitted to his literary despotism and caprice; and, sc lulously cultivating his acquaintance and society whenever his engagements permitted, he took faithful and copious notes of his conversation. In 1773 he accompanied Johnson to the Hebrides, and after the death of the latter, he published, in 1785, his journal of the tour, being a record of each day's occurrences, and of the more striking parts of Johnson's conversation. The work was eminently successful; and in 1791 Boswell gave to the world his full-length portrait of his friend, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., in two volumes quarto. A second edition was published in 1794, and the author was engaged in preparing a third when he died. A great number of editions has since been printed, the latest of which was edited by Mr J. W. Croker. Anecdotes and recollections of Johnson were also published by Mrs Piozzi, Sir John Hawkins, Malone, Miss Reynolds, &c. Baswell had awakened public curiosity, and shown how much wit, wisdom, and sagacity, joined to real worth and benevolence, were concealed under the personal oddities and ungainly exterior of Johnson. Never was there so complete a portraiture of any single individual. The whole time spent by Boswell in the society of his illustrious friend did not amount to more than nine months, yet so diligent was he in writing and inquiring-so thoroughly did he devote himself to his subject, that, notwithstanding his limited opportunities, and his mediocre abilities, he was able to produce what all mankind have agreed in considering the best biography in existence. Though vain, shallow, and conceited, Boswell had taste enough to discern the racy vigour and richness of Johnson's conversation, and he was observant enough to trace the peculiarities of his character and temperament. He forced himself into society, and neglected his family and his profession, to meet his friend; and he was content to be ridiculed and slighted, so that he could thereby add one page to his journal, or one scrap of writing to his collection. He sometimes sat up three nights in a week to fulfil his task, and hence there is a freshness and truth in his notes and impressions which attest their fidelity. His work introduces us to a great variety of living characters, who speak, walk, and think, as it were, in our presence; and besides furnishing us with useful, affecting, and ennobling lessons of morality, live over again the past for the delight and entertainment of countless generations of readers. With a pardonable and engaging egotism, which forms an interesting feature in his character, the historian Gibbon had made several sketches of his own life and studies. From these materials, and embodying verbatim the most valuable portions, LORD SHEFFIELD compiled a memoir, which was published, with the miscellaneous works of Gibbon, in 1795. A number of the historian's letters were also included in this collection; but the most important and interesting part of the work is his journal and diary, giving an account of his literary occupations. The calm unshrinking perseverance and untiring energy of Gibbon form a noble example to all literary students; and where he writes of his own personal history and opinions, his lofty philosophical style never forsakes him. Thus he opens his slight memoir in the following strain : 'A lively desire of knowing and of recording our ancestors so generally prevails, that it must depend on the influence of some common principle in the minds of men. We seem to have lived in the persons of our forefathers: it is the labour and reward of vanity to extend the term of this ideal longevity. Our imagination is always active to enlarge the narrow circle in which nature has confined us. Fifty or a hundred years may be allotted to an individual, but we step forwards beyond death with such hopes as religion and philosophy will suggest; and we fill up the silent vacancy that precedes our birth, by associating ourselves to the authors of our existence. Our calmer judgment will rather tend to moderate than to suppress the pride of an ancient and worthy race. The satirist may laugh, the philosopher may preach, but reason herself will respect the prejudices and habits which have been consecrated by the experience of mankind.' Gibbon states, that before entering upon the perusal of a book, he wrote down or considered what he knew of the subject, and afterwards examined how much the author had added to his stock of knowledge. A severe test for some authors! From habits like this sprung the Decline and Fall. In 1800 DR JAMES CURRIE (1756-1805) published his edition of the works of Burns for the benefit of the poet's family, and enriched it with an excellent memoir, that has served for the groundwork of many subsequent lives of Burns. The candour and ability displayed by Currie have scarcely been sufficiently appreciated. Such a task was new to him, and was beset with difficulties. He believed that Burns's misfortunes arose chiefly from his errorshe lived at a time when this impression was strongly prevalent-yet he touched on the subject of the poet's frailties with delicacy and tenderness. He estimated his genius highly as a great poet, without reference to his personal position, and thus in some measure anticipated the more unequivocal award of posterity. His remarks on Scottish poetry, and on the condition of the Scottish peasantry, appear now somewhat prolix and affected; but at the time they were written, they tended to interest and inform the English reader, and to forward the author's benevolent object in extending the sale of the poet's works. Memoirs of Burns have since been written by Mr Lockhart, Mr Allan Cunningham, and various other authors, who have added additional facts to those related by Currie, and new critical disquisitions on the character and genius of Burns. It cannot be said, however, that any of the number have composed a more able, luminous, or eloquent biography than that of the original editor. After the death of Cowper in 1800, every poetical reader was anxious to learn the personal history and misfortunes of a poet who had afforded such exquisite glimpses of his own life and habits, and the amiable traits of whose character shone so conspicuously in his verse. His letters and manuscripts were placed at the disposal of Hayley, whose talents as a poet were then greatly overrated, but who had personally known Cowper. Accordingly, in 1803, Hayley published memoirs of the poet and his correspondence in four volumes. The work was a valuable contribution to English biography. The inimitable letters of Cowper were themselves a treasure beyond price; and Hayley's prose, though often poor enough, was better than his poetry. What the hermit of Eartham' left undone has since been supplied by Southey, who in 1835 gave the world an edition of Cowper in fifteen volumes, about three of which are filled with a life and notes. The lives of both Hayley and Southey are written in the style of Mason's memoir, letters being freely interspersed throughout the narrative. Of a similar description, but not to be compared with these in point of interest or execution, is the life of Dr Beattie, by Sir William Forbes, published in 1806, in two volumes. In the same year LORD HOLLAND published an Account of the Life and Writings of Lope Felix de Vega, the celebrated Spanish dramatist. De Vega was one of the most fertile writers upon record: his miscellaneous works fill twenty-two quarto volumes, and his dramas twenty-five volumes. He died in 1635, aged seventy-three. His fame has been eclipsed by abler Spanish writers, but De Vega gave a great impulse to the literature of his nation, and is considered the parent of the continental drama. The amiable and accomplished nobleman who recorded the life of this Spanish prodigy has himself paid the debt of nature; he died at Holland house, October 23, 1840, aged sixty-seven. Lord Holland was a generous patron of literature and art. Holland house was but another name for refined hospitality and social freedom, in which men of all shades of opinion participated. As a literary man, the noble lord has left few or no memorials that will survive; but he will long be remembered as a generous-hearted English nobleman, who, with princely munificence and varied accomplishments, ever felt a strong interest in the welfare of the great mass of the people; who was an intrepid advocate of popular rights in the most difficult and trying times; and who, amidst all his courtesy and hospitality, held fast his integrity and consistency to the last. The Life of Nelson, by SOUTHEY, published in two small volumes (since compressed into one) in 1813, rose into instant and universal favour, and may be considered as one of our standard popular biographies. Its merit consists in the clearness and beautiful simplicity of its style, and its lucid arrangement of facts, omitting all that is unimportant or strictly technical. Mr Southey afterwards published a Life of Wesley, the celebrated founder of the Methodists, in which he evinces a minute acquaintance with the religious controversies and publications of that period, joined to the art of the biographer, in giving prominence and effect to his delineations. His sketches of field-preaching and lay preachers present some curious and interesting pictures of human nature under strong excitement. The same author contributed a series of lives of British admirals to the Cabinet Cyclopædia, editer by Dr Lardner. Dr The most valuable historical biography of this period is the Life of John Knox, by DR THOMAS M CRIE (1772-1835), a Scottish minister. M'Crie had a warm sympathy with the sentiments and opinions of his hero; and on every point of his history he possessed the most complete information. He devoted himself to his task as to a great Christian duty, and not only gave a complete account of the principal events of Knox's life, his sentiments, writings, and exertions in the cause of religion and liberty,' but illustrated, with masterly ability, the whole contemporaneous history of Scotland. Men may differ as to the views taken by Dr M'Crie of some of those subjects, but there can be no variety of opinion as to the talents and learning he displayed. Following up his historical and theological retrospect, the same author afterwards published a life of Andrew Melville, but the subject is less interesting than that of his first biography. He wrote also memoirs of Veitch and Brysson (Scottish ministers, and supporters of the Covenant), and histories of the Reformation in Italy and in Spain. Dr M'Crie published, in 1817, a series of papers in the Edinburgh Christian Instructor, containing a vindication of the Covenanters from the distorted view which he believed Sir Walter Scott to have given of them in his tale of Old Mortality. Sir Walter replied anony. mously, by reviewing his own work in the Quarterly Review! There were faults and absurdities on the side both of the Covenanters and the royalists, but the cavalier predilections of the great novelist certainly led him to look with more regard on the latter-heartless and cruel as they were-than on the poor persecuted peasants. The general demand for biographical composition tempted some of our most popular original writers to embark in this delightful department of literature. Southey, as we have seen, was early in the field; and his more distinguished poetical contemporaries, Scott, Moore, and Campbell, also joined. The first, besides his admirable memoirs of Dryden and Swift, prefixed to their works, contributed a series of lives of the English novelists to an edition of their works published by Ballantyne, which he executed with great taste, candour, and discrimination. He afterwards undertook a life of Napoleon Bonaparte, which was at first intended as a counterpart to Southey's Life of Nelson, but ultimately swelled out into nine volumes. The hurried composition of this work, and the habits of the author, accustomed to the dazzling creations of fiction, rather than the sober plodding of historical inquiry and calm investigation, led to many errors and imperfections. It abounds in striking and eloquent passages; the battles of Napoleon are described with great clearness and animation; and the view taken of his character and talents is, on the whole, just and impartial, very different from the manner in which Scott had alluded to Napoleon in his 'Vision of Don Roderick.' The great diffuseness of the style, however, and the want of philosophical analysis, render the life of Napoleon more a brilliant chronicle of scenes and events than a historical memoir worthy the genius of its author. The lives of Burke and Goldsmith, in two volumes each, by MR JAMES PRIOR, are examples of patient diligence and research, prompted by national feelings and admiration. Goldsmith had been dead half a century before the inquiries of his countryman and biographer began, yet he has collected a vast number of new facts, and placed the amiable and amusing poet in full length and in full dress (quoting even his tailors' bills) before the public. Amongst other additions to our standard biography may be mentioned the Life of Lord Clive, by SIR JOHN MALCOLM; and the Life of Lord Clarendon, by MR T. H. LISTER. The Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, by MR PATRICK FRASER TYTLER (published in one volume in the Edinburgh Cabinet Library), is also MR MOORE has published a Life of Richard Brins- valuable for its able defence of that adventurous and ley Sheridan, 1825; Notices of the Life of Lord interesting personage, and for its careful digest of Byron, 1830; and Memoirs of Lord Edward Fitz-state papers and contemporaneous events. Free gerald, 1831. The first of these works is the most access to all public documents and libraries is now valuable; the second the most interesting. The easily obtained, and there is no lack of desire on the 'Life of Byron,' by its intimate connexion with part of authors to prosecute, or of the public to rerecent events and living persons, was a duty of very ward these researches. A Life of Lord William Rus delicate and difficult performance. This was farther sell, by LORD JOHN RUSSELL, is enriched with inforincreased by the freedom and licentiousness of the mation from the family papers at Woburn Abbey ; poet's opinions and conduct, and by the versatility and from a similarly authentic private source, LORD or mobility of his mind, which changed with every NUGENT has written Memoirs of Hampden. The Life, passing impulse and impression. 'As well,' says Mr Journals, and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, by the Moore, from the precipitance with which he gave REV. J. SMITH, records the successful career of the way to every impulse, as from the passion he had for secretary to the Admiralty in the reigns of Charles recording his own impressions, all those heteroge- II. and James II., and comprises a Diary kept by neous thoughts, fantasies, and desires that, in other Pepys for about ten years, which is one of the most men's minds, "come like shadows, so depart," were curiously minute and gossiping journals in the lan by him fixed and embodied as they presented them-guage. selves, and at once taking a shape cognizable by public opinion, either in his actions or his words, in the hasty letter of the moment, or the poem for all time, laid open such a range of vulnerable points before his judges, as no one individual ever before, of himself, presented.' Byron left ample materials for his biographer. His absence from England, and his desire to keep the minds of the English public for ever occupied about him -if not with his merits, with his faults; if not in applauding, in blaming him,' led him to maintain a regular correspondence with Mr Moore and his publisher Mr Murray. He also kept a journal, and recorded memoranda of his opinions, his reading, &c. something in the style of Burns. His letters are rich and varied, but too often display an affectation of wit and smartness, and a still worse ambition of appearing more profligate than he was in reality. Byron had written memoirs of his own life, which he presented to Mr Moore, and which were placed by the latter at the disposal of Mrs Leigh, the noble poet's sister and executor, but which they, from a sense of what they thought due to his memory, consigned to the flames. The loss of the 11 manuscript is not to be regretted, for much of it could never have been published, and all that was valuable was repeated in the journals and memo. randum-books. Mr Moore's Notices' are written with taste and modesty, and in very pure and unaffected English. As an editor he preserved too much of what was worthless and unimportant; as a biographer he was too indulgent to the faults of his hero; yet who could have wished a friend to dwell | on the errors of Byron? MR CAMPBELL, besides the biographies in his Specimens of the Poets, has published a Life of Mrs Siddons, the distinguished actress, and a Life of Petrarch. The latter is homely and earnest, though on a romantic and fanciful subject. There is a reality about Campbell's biographies quite distinct from what might be expected to emanate from the imaginative poet. 6 While the most careful investigation is directed towards our classic authors-Shakspeare, Milton, Spenser, Chaucer, &c. forming each the subject of numerous memoirs-scarcely a person of the least note has been suffered to depart without the honours of biography. The present century has amply atoned for any want of curiosity on the part of former generations, and there is some danger that this taste or passion may be carried too far. Memoirs of persons of quality-of wits, dramatists, artists, and actors, appear every season. Authors have be come as familiar to us as our personal associates. Shy retired men like Charles Lamb, and dreamy re cluses like Coleridge, have been portrayed in all their strength and weakness. We have lives of Shelley, of Keats, Hazlitt, Hannah More, Mrs Hemans, Mrs Maclean (L. E. L.), of James Smith (one of the authors of The Rejected Addresses'), of Monk Lewis, Hayley, and many authors of less distinction. In this influx of biographies worthless materials are often elevated for a day, and the gratification of a prurient curiosity or idle love of gossip is more aimed at than literary excellence or sound instruction. The error, however, is one on the right • side. 'Better,' says the traditional maxim of Eng- these blemishes. The fearless confidence with which lish law, that nine guilty men should escape than all that he knew and believed is laid before the that one innocent man should suffer'-and better, public, and Scott presented to the world exactly say we, that nine useless lives should be written as he was in life-in his schemes of worldly ambition than that one valuable one should be neglected. as in his vast literary undertakings-is greatly to be The chaff is easily winnowed from the wheat; and admired, and will in time gather its meed of praise. even in the memoirs of comparatively insignificant The book, in the main, exhibits a sound and healthy persons, some precious truth, some lesson of dear- spirit, calculated to exercise a great influence on conbought experience, may be found treasured up for temporary literature. As an example and guide in a life beyond life.' In what may be termed profes- real life, in doing and in suffering, it is equally valusional biography, facts and principles not known to able. 'The more the details of Scott's personal histhe general reader are often conveyed. In lives like tory are revealed and studied, the more powerfully those of Sir Samuel Romilly, Mr Wilberforce, Mr will that be found to inculcate the same great lessons Francis Horner, and Jeremy Bentham, new light is with his works. Where else shall we be better taught thrown on the characters of public men, and on the how prosperity may be extended by beneficence, and motives and sources of public events. Statesmen, adversity confronted by exertion? Where can we lawyers, and philosophers both act and are acted see the "follies of the wise" more strikingly rebuked, upon by the age in which they live, and, to be and a character more beautifully purified and exalted useful, their biography should be copious. In the than in the passage through affliction to death? His life of Sir Humphry Davy by his brother, and of character seems to belong to some elder and stronger James Watt by M. Arago, we have many interest-period than ours; and, indeed, I cannot help likening ing facts connected with the progress of scientific it to the architectural fabrics of other ages which discovery and improvement; and in the lives of he most delighted in, where there is such a congreCurran, Grattan, and Sir James Mackintosh (each gation of imagery and tracery, such endless indulin two volumes), by their sons, the public history of gence of whim and fancy, the sublime blending here the country is illustrated. Sir John Barrow's lives with the beautiful, and there contrasted with the of Howe and Anson are excellent specimens of naval grotesque-half perhaps seen in the clear daylight, biography; and we have also lengthy memoirs and half by rays tinged with the blazoned forms of of Lord St Vincent, Lord Collingwood, Sir Thomas the past-that one may be apt to get bewildered Munro, Sir John Moore, Sir David Baird, Lord among the variety of particular impressions, and not Exmouth, Lord Keppel, &c. On the subject of bio- feel either the unity of the grand design, or the graphy in general, we quote with pleasure an obser- height and solidness of the structure, until the door vation of Mr Carlyle :has been closed on the labyrinth of aisles and shrines, and you survey it from a distance, but still within its shadow.' 'If an individual is really of consequence enough to have his life and character recorded for public remembrance, we have always been of opinion that the public ought to be made acquainted with all the inward springs and relations of his character. How did the world and man's life, from his particular position, represent themselves to his mind? How did co-existing circumstances modify him from without-how did he modify these from within? With what endeavours and what efficacy rule over them? with what resistance and what suffering sink under them? In one word, what and how produced was the effect of society on him? what and how produced was his effect on society? He who should answer these questions in regard to any individual, would, as we believe, furnish a model of perfection in biography. Few individuals, indeed, can deserve such a study; and many lives will be written, and, for the gratification of innocent curiosity, ought to be written, and read, and forgotten, which are not in this sense biographies.' Fulfilling this high destiny, and answering its severe conditions, Boswell's life of Johnson is undoubtedly the most valuable biography we possess. Moore's Byron, the life of Crabbe by his son, Lockhart's Burns, and the life of Bentham by Dr Bowring, are also cast in the same mould; but the work which approaches nearest to it is Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott, an elaborate biography, published in 1838, in seven large volumes. The near relationship of the author to his subject might have blinded his judgment, yet the life is written in a fair and manly spirit, without either suppressions or misstatements that could alter its essential features. Into the controversial points of the memoir we shall not enter: the author has certainly paid too little deference and regard to the feelings of several individuals; and in the whole of his conclusions with regard to the Messrs Ballantyne, and indeed on the whole question as to the parties chiefly blameable for Scott's ruin, we believe him to have been wrong; yet far more than enough remains to enable us to overlook We have enumerated the most original biographical works of this period, but a complete list of all the memoirs, historical and literary, that have appeared, would fill pages. Two general biographical dictionaries have also been published, one in ten volumes quarto, published between the years 1799 and 1815 by Dr Aikin; and another in thirty-two volumes octavo, re-edited, with great additions, between 1812 and 1816 by Mr Alexander Chalmers. An excellent epitome was published in 1828, in two large volumes, by John Gorton. In Lardner's Cyclopædia, Murray's Family Library, and the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, are some valuable short biographies by authors of established reputation. The Lives of the Scottish Poets have been published by Mr David Irving, and a Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen by Mr Robert Chambers, in four volumes octavo. A more extended and complete general biographical dictionary than any which has yet appeared is at present in the course of publication, under the auspices of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. METAPHYSICAL WRITERS. We have no profound original metaphysician in this period, but some rich and elegant commentators. PROFESSOR DUGALD STEWART expounded and Dr Reid: and by his essays and treatises, no less illustrated the views of his distinguished teacher than by his lectures, gave additional grace and popularity to the system. Mr Stewart was the son of Dr Matthew Stewart, professor of mathematics in the university of Edinburgh, and was born in the college buildings, November 22, 1753. At the early age of nineteen he undertook to teach his father's mathematical classes, and in two years was appointed A more congenial openhis assistant and successor. *Lockhart's Life, vol. vii. p. 417. It is this desire of the happiness of those whom we love, which gives to the emotion of love itself its principal delight, by affording to us constant means of gratification. He who truly wishes the happiness of any one, cannot be long without discovering some ing occurred for him in 1780, when Dr Adam Fergusson retired from the moral philosophy chair. Stewart was appointed his successor, and continued to discharge the duties of the office till 1810, when Dr Thomas Brown was conjoined with him as colleague. The latter years of his life were spent in literary retirement at Kinneil House, on the banks of the Firth of Forth, about twenty miles from Edinburgh. His political friends, when in office in 1806, created for him the sinecure office of Gazette writer for Scotland, with a salary of £600 per annum. Mr Stewart died in Edinburgh on the 11th of June 1828. No lecturer was ever more popular than Dugald Stewart-his taste, dignity, and eloquence rendered him both fascinating and impressive. His writings are marked by the same characteristics, and can be read with pleasure even by those who have no great partiality for the metaphysical studies in which he excelled. They consist of Philosophy of the Human Mind, one volume of which was published in 1792, a second in 1813, and a third in 1827; also Philoso-mode of contributing to it. Reason itself, with all its light, is not so rapid in discoveries of this sort as simple affection, which sees means of happiness, and of important happiness, where reason scarcely could think that any happiness was to be found, and has already by many kind offices produced the happiness of hours before reason could have suspected that means so slight could have given even a moment's pleasure. It is this, indeed, which contributes in no inconsiderable degree to the perpetuity of affection. Love, the mere feeling of tender admiration, would in many cases have soon lost its power over the fickle heart, and in many other cases would have had its power greatly lessened, if the desire of giving happiness, and the innumerable little courtesies and cares to which this desire gives birth, had not thus in a great measure diffused over a single passion the variety of many emotions. The love itself seems new at every moment, because there is every moment some new wish of love that admits of being gratified; or rather it is at once, by the most delightful of all combina tions, new, in the tender wishes and cares with which it occupies us, and familiar to us, and endeared the more by the remembrance of hours and years of wellknown happiness. · phical Essays, 1810; a Dissertation on the Progress of All the on the Philosophy of the Human Mind are highly [Desire of the Happiness of Others.] [From Dr Brown's Lectures.] ļ The desire of the happiness of others, though a desire always attendant on love, does not, however, necessarily suppose the previous existence of some one of those emotions which may strictly be termed love. This feeling is so far from arising necessarily from regard for the sufferer, that it is impossible for us not to feel it when the suffering is extreme, and before our very eyes, though we may at the same DR THOMAS BROWN (1778-1820), the successor of Stewart in the moral philosophy chair of Edinburgh, was son of the Rev. Samuel Brown, minister of Kirkmabreck, in Galloway. His taste for metaphysics was excited by the perusal of Professor Stewart's first volume, a copy of which had been lent to him by Dr Currie of Liverpool. 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 philosophical contributors; and when a controversy arose in regard to Mr Leslie, who had, in his essay on heat, stated his approbation of Hume's theory of causation, Brown warmly espoused the cause of the philosopher, and vindicated his opi-time have the utmost abhorrence of him who is nions in an Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and agonizing in our sight, and whose very look, even Effect. At this time our author practised as a physi- in its agony, still seems to speak only that atrocian, but without any predilection for his profes- cious spirit which could again gladly perpetrate the sion. His appointment to the chair of moral philo- very horrors for which public indignation as much as sophy seems to have fulfilled his destiny, and he public justice had doomed it to its dreadful fate. It continued to discharge its duties amidst universal is sufficient that extreme anguish is before us; we approbation and respect till his death. Part of his wish it relief before we have paused to love, or withleisure was devoted to the cultivation of a talent, or out reflecting on our causes of hatred; the wish is rather taste for poetry, which he early entertained; the direct and instant emotion of our soul in these and he published The Paradise of Coquettes, 1814; The circumstances an emotion which, in such peculiar Wanderer of Norway, 1815; and The Bower of Spring, circumstances, it is impossible for hatred to suppress, 1816. Though correct and elegant, with occasion- and which love may strengthen indeed, but is not ally fine thoughts and images, the poetry of Dr necessary for producing. It is the same with our Brown wants force and passion, and is now utterly general desire of happiness to others. We desire, in forgotten. As a philosopher he was acute and a particular degree, the happiness of those whom we searching, and a master of the power of analysis. love, because we cannot think of them without tenHis style wants the rich redundancy of that of der admiration. But though we had known them Dugald Stewart, but is also enlivened with many for the first time simply as human beings, we should eloquent passages, in which there is often a large still have desired their happiness; that is to say, if infusion of the tenderest feeling. He quoted largely no opposite interests had arisen, we should have from the poets, especially Akenside; and was some- wished them to be happy rather than to have any distimes too flowery in his illustrations. His Lectures tress; yet there is nothing in this case which cor |
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