Sir James, the eldest son of Sir Alexander Macdonald, just mentioned, by Lady Margaret Montgomery, was born in 1741. From his infancy, he discovered a portion of genius and abilities, scarcely ever evinced before at the same early period of life. Like Marcellus, he was only produced, however, for a moment to the eye of admiration; and like Crichton, unhappily but few authentic traces are left of his progress and improvement. * After receiving the rudiments of education at home, he exhibited an earnest desire to repair to England, for the purpose of completing his studies. The father of Sir James having died in 1746, his mother, Lady Margaret Macdonald, at length complied with his most earnest solicitations, and he was accordingly sent to Eton. So rapid had been his progress, and so precocious was his genius, that Dr. Barnard, in a very short time, actually placed him at the head of his class. + His conduct too, proved so exemplary, "He was," says Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, "one of the most extraordinary young men I ever knew. He studied very hard, was a scholar and a mathematician; and yet at twenty I have heard him talk with a knowledge of the world, which one would not have expected to hear, but from the experience of age. “He had great and noble schemes for the civilization and improvement of his own country; and appeared upon the whole to be one of those superior spirits which seemed formed to show how far the powers of humanity can extend." See Pennington's Life of Mrs. Carter, vol. ii. p. 168. "I recollect one striking instance of the acuteness and spirit of Dr. Barnard. When the late Sir James Macdonald arrived at Eton, he had no connexions to recommend him; and he could not make a verse, that is, he wanted a point indispensible with us, to a certain rank in our system. But this wonderful boy, having satisfied the master that he was an admirable scholar and possessed of genius, was at once placed at the head of a remove, or form; and Barnard said, Boys, I am going to put over your heads a boy who cannot write a verse, and I do not care whether he ever will be a poet or no; but I will trust him in your hands; for I know my boys, and how generous they are to merit!' "Here by the way, to vindicate the singularity, it was not only in general sanctioned by our implicit assent, but it was terminated by a singular feature in the character of this boy, himself. He acquired the rules of Latin verse; tried his powers; and perceiving that he could not rise above his rivals in Virgil, Ovid, or the Lyrics of Horace, he took up the sermoni proprioræ and there overshadowed all his competitors. To give you a faint conception of his powers in that line, much above those of a boy, I will quote a passage which describes the hammer of an auctioneer, with a mock sublimity which turns Horace into Virgil: at the same time, that he is said never to have been once punished, or even reprehended. A pane of glass belonging to the window of one of the inhabitants, happening to be broken, when he was present, all the boys then on the spot were doomed to suffer; but Mr. Combe, a writer of some celebrity, who is still alive, although absent and consequently excluded from the proscription, generously stepped forward and took the guilt as well as the infliction, upon himself. Of his early proficiency the following is a specimen of what he was enabled to achieve, when only in the seventeenth year of his age. Ad Fredericum Secundum Prussia Regem. (A. D. 1758.) "Ergo insolenti sanguine nobilem Deposuit Fredericus ensem. Austriadum graviore casu Culmina flammivomi colonos Vicina terrent; jam violentior Depositum ingeminat furorem. "Jam Jamque cadit, celerique recursu, Erigitur lapsum, retrahens, perque' acra nutat.” was ever thing any more picturesque ? "This prodigy, the young Marcellus of his day, at the University and abroad, gave the world assurance of pre-eminent gifts and powers when death took him from us." LIT. ANEC. Vol. VIII. Tu doctus audis, nec tibi simplicem Et calami decuere dextram. Nec te moretur Pieridum cohors, Perge novis decorare fastos." Here follows a sample of what he accomplished at a little later period of his life: Virga Aurea. (A. D. 1765.) "Apta neci, vitæque potens, somnique ministra Dicitur aligeri virga fuisse Dei: Nec malè (majestas ne desit regia) versu Duxit ad Elysias casta Sibylla domos: Ferre pedum gestit pastor, quo claudit ovile, Fida comes sacris adhibetur virga, silentes Nec minor est hodie venerandæ gratia virgæ, Carmina, vimineâ, musa juvatur ope. Brachia, nec multam dives inauret humum ; Sir James appears to have remained at Eton for several years. He then set out on his travels, and was received every where, by the learned, with that distinction so justly due to his unrivalled talents. At Rome, in particular, great honours were paid him, by several of the Cardinals; and he died in that city in 1766, when only 25 years old! His remains were accompanied by all the English, Scotch, and Irish, then resident in that part of Italy; and it is greatly to be lamented that the materials are so scanty for the life of a youth, who in person, learning, and talents, seems to have realised all the marvellous accomplishments attributed to his countryman, "the admirable Crichton !" No. II. THE VERY REV. WILLIAM VINCENT, D.D. LATE DEAN OF WESTMINSTER. Or this respectable divine and eminent scholar, a copious memoir has been already given in Vol. I. p. 124. It is with great pleasure that the Editor now subjoins the inscription on the monument recently erected to his memory in WestminsterAbbey: Hic requiescit Quod mortale est Sub domûs hujusce penetralibus Enutritus ; Post studia Academica confecta Unde obiit reversus, Atque ex uno Præceptorum gradu Decanatu tandem hujusce Ecclesiæ Decoratus est. Qualis fuerit vitá, studiis, moribus: Lapis sepulchralis taceat. Ortus ex honesta stirpe Vincentiorum Denatus Decembris 21mo 1815. Copy of an original and very interesting letter from Dr. Vincent, in London, to Alexander Henderson, Esq., of Edinburgh, with whom he kept up a long and uninterrupted correspondence during some years. |