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"He spoke no more.

"His last words were uttered in the night-in rejecting a cordial, he said to miss Perowne, who had presented it to him, "What can it signify?" Yet, even at this time, he did not seem impressed with any idea of dying, although he conceived that nothing would contribute to his health.

"The deplorable inquietude and darkness of his latter years, were mercifully terminated by a most gentle and tranquil dissolution. He passed through the awful moments of death so mildly, that although five persons were present, and observing him, in his chamber, not one of them perceived him to ex

pire: but he had ceased to breathe about five minutes before five in the afternoon.

"On Saturday, the third of May, he was buried in a part of Dereham church, called St. Edmund's chapel, and the funeral was attended by several of his relations.

"He died intestate: his affectionate relation, lady Hesketh, has fulfilled the office of his administratrix; and given orders for a monument to his memory, where his ashes repose. In the metropolis, I trust, the public affection for an author so eminently deserving, will enable me to make his manuscripts relating to Milton, which are now before me, the means of erecting a cenotaph in his honour, suitable to the dignity of his poetical character, and to the liberality of the nation, that may be justly proud of expressing a parental sense of his merit.

"I have regarded my own intimacy with him as a blessing to myself; and the remembrance of it is now endeared to me by the hope that it may enable me to delineate the man and the poet, with such fidelity and truth, as may render his remote, and even his future admirers, minutely acquainted with an exemplary being, most worthy to be intimately known, and universally beloved."

PARTICULARS of the Earlier LIFE of Dr. GEDDES. [From Mr. GOOD'S MEMOIRS of his LIFE and WRITINGS.]

"A

LEXANDER Geddes, who was born in the year 1737, descended, like most other men of letters, from parents who had no pretensions to worldly opulence

or honours: but, though not rich, they were, in every sense of the word, respectable; and, though not ennobled, they had a spirit sufficiently exalted to devote the little

of

of which they were possessed to the best purposes of human life. His father, named also Alexander, the second of four brothers, derived his livelihood from a small farm situated in Arradowl, in the parish of Ruthven and county of Banff in Scotland; in which occupation he endured, in common perhaps with the greater body of smaller tenants in that part of the united kingdom, many severe oppressions from a tyrannic landlord. The maiden name of his mother was Janet Mitchel; she was a na tive of Nether Dalachy, in the parish of Bellay, and was equally exemplary as a wife and a parent.

"It is curious to observe from what apparently trifling incidents we sometimes derive the whole bent of the dispositions and studies of our future lives. In their reli gious profession the parents of Mr. Geddes were Roman-catholics : their library consisted of but a very few volumes; and of these, the principal book was an English Bible. Having been taught to read in the humble mansion of a schoolmistress whose name Sellar, a village matron, whose goodness of heart, with a recol lection that did honour to his feelings, he was accustomed occasionally to make mention of to the latest years of his life; and who, if she were not initiated in all the modern metaphysics of juvenile education, knew at least, according to the testimony of her pupil,

was

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1803.

the book that chiefly struck his at tention, in the meagre catalogue to which his infant choice was confined, was this family-Bible; which, whatever might have been at that time his thirst after know. ledge, could not afford him more pleasure to peruse, than it did his parents that it should be perused by him. They taught me,' says he, to read it with reverence and attention*. His taste was thus fixed from his childhood. From the moment he began to read, he became a biblical critic in embryo: it was a passion to which, the more he reflected, the more he surren→ dered himself; and which, consequently, as may naturally be expected,

'Grew with his growth, and strengthen'd with his strength.'

"Endowed with a mind com prehensive as the whole circle of the sciences, and animated with an ardent genius that must have ensured him pre-eminence in whatever field he might have contended, it is a question that will admit of much doubt, whether, if he had been born under any other circumstances, and particularly if his father's library had allowed him a greater latitude and variety of study, ecclesiastical history and a critical investigation of the sacred records would have formed his chief pursuit. The die however tertainment the Bible afforded him, was thrown: and such was the enand such the corresponding vigour with which he persevered in its and a fact in several instances pubperusal, that it is a well-known fact, licly adverted to by himself, that

* General Answer to Queries, Counsels, and Criticisms, &c. p. 2. B

before

before he had reached his eleventh year he knew all its history by heart*. A laudable example of application directed to the best of objects, and which may well challenge the attention of young persons, whether catholic or protest

ant.

"Having exhausted all the store of knowledge which the meritorious matron of the village (whose distinction of him, he has often declared, was a source of one of his earliest mental pleasures) could afford, our young pupil was next entrusted to the care of a student of Aberdeen, whose name was Shearer, and whom the laird of the district had engaged to educate his two sons. In the family of this gentleman the instruction of Mr. Geddes was gratuitous. The wor-, thy laird had witnessed the anxiety of his parents to gratify his growing thirst after learning: and, with an example well worthy of imitation by men of opulence in every village throughout the kingdoni, he admitted him to a participation of his own family tuition; and, together with himself, two other boys of similar circumstances and age, of whom one was his cousin. Of Shearer I have received no information beyond his present connexion with the laird of Arradowl; but, from the future eminence of the two Geddeses, he must have been either peculiarly fortunate, or peculiarly skilful; for, while Alexander was exhibiting proofs of profound scientific research, and rising into the first ranks of literary distinction, his cousin was progressively advancing through many of the chief dignities of the catho

General Answer, p. 2, compared with the Public, passim.

† See particularly his Prospectus, p. 145.

lic church, and was at length installed into the titular bishopric of Dunkeld. He was also well known as an able theologian, and his writings are occasionally referred to by Dr. Geddes with much deference and respect.

"From the hospitable mansion of the laird of Arradowl, and by the immediate interference of his patron, our pupil, at the age of fourteen, was removed to Scalan; a free Roman-catholic seminary in the Highlands, of obscure fame, and limited to boys who are des stined for the church, and whose studies are designed to be com pleted in some foreign university.

"The vale in which this seminary was situated was so deeply excavated and overhung by surrounding hills, as to require almost as perpetual a use of the lamp as the subterranean cell of Demosthenes. Of its sombre and melancholy aspect the reader may form some idea from the following reply of Mr. Geddes to one of his fellow-students, who had obtained leave to pay a visit to his friends at a distance, and who asked him if he had any commands he could execute. Pray be so kind,' replied Geddes, as to make particular inquiries after the health of the suN: fail not to present my compliments to him, and tell him I still hope I shall one day be able to renew the honour of a personal acquaintance with him.'

"To a knowledge of the Bible in the vulgar English, he added in this academy a knowledge of it. in the vulgar Latin; but it does not appear that he made much further proficiency in classical erudition:

his Prospectus, p. 1, and his Address to

for

for he himself assures us that in the year 1760, long after he had left Scalan, and when he must have acquired the age of twentythree, the vulgar Latin and the vulgar English were the only two versions of the Bible with which he was acquainted; and that it was not till the year 1762 that he began to read it in its original languages*. Had he been initiated into the Greek tongue in his present situation, there can be no doubt, from his uninterrupted at tachment to the Bible history, that one of the first books he would have perused in this language would have been a Greek Testa ment; but as he did not begin to read either a Greek Testament or a Septuagint till four years after he had quitted the Highlands, we have every reason to suppose that his attention was solely directed in this seminary to a general know ledge of Latin, and principally to the Latin Bible of the vulgar or St. Jerom's edition ; a version which affords a noble instance of the powers of the human mind, which was deservedly sanctioned by the council of Trent, and which, in its different impressions, constituted, for eleven hundred years, the general text-book of all the western churches.

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sary for him to recruit his strength by some degree of relaxation and quietude, before he prosecuted his journey any further. On his arrival at Paris, a field of literature was presented to him to which he had hitherto been a stranger. He determined to avail himself of every possible advantage with every power of his mind; and the progress he soon attained was a source of equal pleasure and astonishment to the professors under whom he studied. Of the Scotch college into which he officially entered, Mr. Gordon was at that time principal; and to him he was recommended by introductory letters, as well as by his own comprehensive talents and ingenuousness of heart: a double foundation of esteem, and which, as may easily be imagined, did not fail of success. He had heard much of the college of Navarre, and of the lectures delivered in this celebrated seminary; and with an inextinguishable thirst after knowledge, he commenced his attendance upon several of the latter a few days after he reached Paris. He opened his course with rhetoric, of which science M. Vicaire was at that time professor; and notwithstanding the general emulation he excited, and the prior existence in the class of two veteran pupils, his unwearied assiduity soon placed him at its head; and, which was at least equally honourable and far more advantageous to him, secured him the friendship of the professor, which continued without interruption till M. Vicaire's decease.

66

According to the routine of study in the university to which he was now transferred, he should in

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the ensuing year, 1759, have entered upon a course of natural and experimental philosophy; but his predilection for divinity still prevailed, and he was easily persuaded by several friends, who justly estimated his talents as a theologian, to relinquish the common order, and apply to divinity in the first instance. To this branch of science he now therefore began to direct almost the whole of his public studies; and to the theological lectures of MM. Buré and de Saurent, at the college of Navarre, he added a scrupulous attention to those on the study of Hebrew delivered at the Sorbonne by M. l'Avocat, professor of the Orleans chair; an institution so denominated from its having been founded in 1751, for the purpose of reviving oriental learning in the university of Paris, and of explaining the Hebrew scriptures, by the duke of Orleans, son of the celebrated regent, and who was one of the most pious and learned princes of his age. Here he was at least as fortunate as in the college of Navarre; for no professor was ever perhaps better qualified for fulfilling this double object than M. l'Avocat. He had a penetrating genius, an astonishing memory, a correct judgement, and an exquisite taste.

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He was

the most universal scholar, the most pleasant teacher, the most benevolent man, and the most moderate theologian, I ever knew. Had he lived a little longer, and enjoyed more leisure to accomplish the work he meditated on the Scripture, we should now possess a treasure of great value; but a weakly constitution, and too constant an application to his professional duties, hurried him away in his 56th year, to the great regret

of all who knew him; but of none,' says his grateful and affectionate pupil, who thus describes him, more than of him who dedicates these lines to his memory.' M. l'Avocat left nothing behind him, however, but a few theses, and some valuable but unprinted critical essays. We cannot wonder at the regret of Mr. Geddes upon the death of the professor, which occurred about the year 1780, since the latter conceived for him, at an early period after his introduction into the university, a very high esteem and affection, and even strenuously pressed him at length to a settlement at Paris. This, however, was altogether inconsistent with the plan he had conceived at an early age of life, of forming a new English version of the Bible, for the use of his fellow-countrymen of the catholic church, and which plan was in his own mind daily advancing towards maturity. He had at this time an opportu nity, and he improved it to its utmost extent, of adding to his knowledge of the Latin Vulgate a close acquaintance with the originals, with which he, moreover, perpetually compared the established version of England. He was soon therefore able to speak with more critical accuracy upon the comparative merits of the Latin of St. Jerom, and the English of king James's translators: I had both versions,' says he, constantly before me, and I now discovered the cause of the great difference between them. The study of the English translators, I found had been to give a strictly literal version at the expense of almost every other consideration; while the author of the Vulgate had endeavoured to render his originals equivalently,

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