equivalently, into such Latin as was current in his age. If ever I translate the Bible," said I then, it must be after this manner*.' "School divinity and biblical criticism by no means, however, occupied the whole of his attention. He entered deeply into an analysis of the Greek and Latin languages; pursued with insatiable avidity those exquisite mines of precision and judgement, of taste and fancy, which are no where else to be met with in an equal degree; and laid the foundation for that elegance and facility, that fecundity and correctness of style, with which he afterwards engaged in Latin and Greek compositions, and which have not often been exceeded by any of his countrymen since the age of George Bucha nan. To these important acquisitions he also added a study of several of the modern languages of Europe. The French was indeed become almost vernacular to him, and required no further study whatever: his first serious engage ment was therefore in the Italian; and having shortly mastered the few difficulties which were here presented to him, he carried his pursuits successively to the Spanish, the German, and the Low Dutch. To the mathematics he never discovered much attachment; at which I have often been considerably surprised; for no man was ever a shrewder logician, or followed with keener penetration, in a controversy, the bearings of an adversary's argument through

all the lights and shades, not merely of every syllogistic propo sition, but of almost every phrase and every individual wordt. The mathematics, however, which have seldom been in any high degree of favour with our neighbours of France as a branch of general education, did not,. I believe, constitute any prominent part of the course of instruction delivered at the Scotch Parisian university; and hence perhaps his distaste for a science for which he was so well qualified by nature. To many of the branches of natural and expe rimental philosophy he paid, ne. vertheless, a considerable portion of attention; devoting to them al most the whole of his intervals at home, and pursuing them rather as a relaxation from the severer duties of stated instruction, than as comprehending a necessary part of such instruction itself,

Having, although with some reluctance, refused the friendly proposal of professor l'Avocat to settle at Paris, and take a share in the public labours of the college, he returned to Scotland in 1764, after an absence of six years; and, shortly posterior to his arrival at Edinburgh, was ordered to Dundee, to officiate as priest among the catholics in the county of Angus. Here he was scarcely settled when he received an offer, far more agreeable to himself, as it allowed a larger portion of time for study, of being a resident in the family of the earl of Tra quaire, whose paternal domain

was

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mestic

was situated in the delightful sce. nery of Tweeddale. This offer he readily accepted, and in May 1765 became an inmate in his lordship's family. He was now at full liberty to prosecute the whole scope of his literary inclinations; and the esteem and friendship with which the noble earl began to honour him, and which from this period never ceased between them, still further facilitated the uniform object of his heart.

"Vicissitude is the lot of man in every situation; and obscurity of rank and deep retirement from the world, which generally afford an impenetrable shield against the attacks of misfortune, forego, at times, their accustomed office, and cruelly assist its triumph. Such, unhappily, was the fate of the subject of these memoirs. The very circumstances which seemed to assure to him a long continuance of happiness, constituted the very rock upon which his peace of mind was first wrecked, and cast him for years, like Ulysses in pursuit of Ithaca, upon the tempestuous ocean of an unfriendly world; with little assistance, save that of the protecting providence of Hea ven, to defend his feeble skiff against the perils to which he was incessantly exposed:

He had at this time reached his twenty-eighth year, and had resided in the hospitable mansion of lord Traquaire for considerably more than a twelvemonth. From every branch of this worthy as well as illustrious family he had received the most unequivocal proofs of friendship and esteem, and never was there a heart created upon which such generousqualities were more calculated to ope rate. Unfortunately for his perso nal quiet, they had in one instance taken a different direction from what he himself had intended, and certainly from what was ever expected in the quarter from which they had proceeded, Why should I conceal that which was productive of honour to all parties? A female relation of the noble earl was at this time a co-resident in the house, and constituted a part of the family. The merit of Mr. Geddes was prominent; her own charms and the regard she openly professed for him were not less so: too soon he felt himself the prey of an impression which he well knew it was not possible for him to indulge, and Buxtorff was in danger of being supplanted by Ovid. He turned philosopher: but it was in vain; self-expostulation was useless; and the well-meditated resolutions of a day were often put to

remained to be taken: he embraced it; and, with more hardihood than is often necessary to obtain a victory, sounded a retreat. He had made, perhaps too has tily, his vow of religious celibacy,

and

and its sanctity was not to be trifled with. Of two evils he had still the consolation to think that he had chosen the least; and with much reluctance of heart, but an approving and sustaining con science, he abruptly broke away from the delightful shades and the more delightful conversations of Tweeddale, in less than two years after his arrival there; and leaving behind him a beautiful but confidential little poem, and as such not to be communicated in the present narrative, entitled The Confessional, addressed to the fair, yet innocent author of his misfortunes, he once more took leave of his native country, and tried to forget himself amidst the greater varieties and volatilities of Paris*. "In this alternating region of wit and folly, of dissipation and letters, he continued for about eight or nine months, beloved with an equal degree of warmth by his former friends, but incapable for some time of making any serious improvement in literazure or criticism of any kind, Paris, however, which had never pleased him much, now pleased him far less than before; and having gradually obtained the selfpossession he had been in pursuit of, an effect produced rather perhaps by time and distance, than by the operation of any other cause, he directed his course homeward, and once more arrived in North Britain in the spring of 1769; after having, notwithstanding his

general listlessness for study, made a variety of very valuable extracts. on biblical criticism, from the pub lic libraries of the city.

"In returning a second time to his native country, Mr. Geddes dared not entrust himself to the fascinating spot,. or re-engage in the domestic situation, from which, in the preceding year, he had found it so necessary to fly. He accepted therefore of the charge of a catholic congregation at Au chinhalrig, in the county of Banff, not far distant from the place of his nativity. This congregation, though numerous, laboured under a variety of disadvantages, and at the time in which the subject of this biography was elected to the pastoral office, was equally diminishing in zeal and number. The members of whom it consisted were for the most part poor, their chapel was in a state of irrepa rable dilapidation, the condition of the parsonage house was but little better, and the most unchristian rancour had long subsisted between themselves and their more wealthy as well as more numerous brethren of the protestant commupity.

"Never was there a man better qualified for correcting the whole of these evils than Alexander Geddes, and never did man apply himself with more ardour to their removal. Activity and liberality were indeed the characteristic principles of his soul: much worldly prudence he never pos

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sessed;

fruit, and his kitchen-garden, though little boastful of foreign productions, were each of them perfect in its kind; and the admiration of his flock, who were generously supplied, according to their respective wants, from the abundance it afforded,

tions of the parsonage-house; he ornamented it with fresh improvements, and rendered it one of the pleasantest and most convenient in his country. He not only, indeed, superintended these buildings, but laboured at them himself; being as ready a carpenter, and as expert in the use of the saw and the plane, as if he had been professedly brought up to the trade. Gardening and carpentering were in reality at all times favourite amusements with him; they constituted his chief relaxations from the severity of study to the last moment of his life; and I have frequently rallied him, when at work, upon the multiplicity of his tools, which, in the article of planes of different mouldings, were more numerous than those of many professed artists, and on the dexterity with which he handled them.

"To his humble but neat and hospitable cottage, it is to be expected therefore that he added the luxury of a good garden. Mr. Geddes had drawn his knowledge of botany rather from practice than theory, which nevertheless he had not altogether neglected. Satisfied with the indigenous bounties as well as beauties of nature, he did not largely seek for exotic ornaments; nor would the paucity of his means have admitted of any considerable indulgence in this respect, had he even possessed the inclination. But his flower, his

stores.'

Never indeed was there a man more liberal in diffusing to others the little of which he was possessed than himself; never was a priest better beloved by the mem bers of his congregation. I did not know him myself till many years afterwards; but I have been credibly informed by a variety of persons who did know him at the time we are now speaking of, and were intimately acquainted with his situation, that he seemed to live in the hearts of every one of his hearers; that his kindness and affability excited their affection, his punctilious attention to the duties of his office their veneration, and his extensive reputation for learning their implicit confidence in his opinions.

"I have said that at the time of his fixing at Auchinhalrig he found a high degree of rancour and illiberality subsisting, and mutually fomented, between his own congregation and the surrounding community of protestants. To correct this evil, than which a greater cannot exist, nor one more hostile to the spirit of the sacred pages to which both parties reciprocally appeal, he la boured with all his might. By an extensive study and a deep knowledge of ecclesiastical history, he had freed himself completely

from

from the bigotry which still attaches in no inconsiderable degree to the more ignorant of his own persuasion. He knew as well, and was ready to admit as largely, as any protestant whatever, the alternate systems of force and fraud by which the see of Rome has endeavoured to obtain an unjust temporal supremacy over the great body of the catholic church itself, to enslave the consciences of the laity to its own views of peculation and power, and to exercise, in a variety of highly important concerns, an authority which had never been officially conceded to it, and concerning which the reader will meet with a more detailed account when we advance to an analysis of the controvérsial writings into which he was shortly afterwards compelled. Free and independent in his own mind, he took the sacred Scriptures alone as his standard of faith; and exhorted every member of his congregation to do the same, to study for himself, to interpret for himself, and to submit to no foreign control, excepting in matters fairly decided by the catholic church at large assembled in general councils. He could ridicule the infallibility of the pope, and laugh at images and relics, at rosaries, scapulars, agnus Deis, blessed medals, in dulgences, obiits and dirges, as much as the most inveterate protestant in his neighbourhood; and could as abundantly abhor the old-fashioned and iniquitous doctrine, that faith ought not to be held with heretics. Claiming the fullest liberty of conscience for himself, he was ever ready to extend it in an equal degree to others; and could therefore, with the utmost cordiality, embrace the protestant as well as the catholic.

Honesty of heart was the only passport necessary to ensure his esteem, and where this was conspicuous, he never hesitated to offer the right-hand of fellowship.

"By such a conduct he could not fail of softening that rigid disinclination to associate, which operated as a wall of partition be tween the protestants and catholics of Scotland; while it enabled him to establish many of his closest literary connexions, as well as most intimate alliances, amongst several of the most distinguished characters of the former persua sion. Of these may be enumerated the duke and duchess of Gordon, who spent a great part of every summer at Gordon Castle, in his immediate vicinity, and who became closely attached to him, and contributed very largely to the happiness of his situation; the venerable earl of Buchan, count Murray of Melgum, lord Findla ter, principal Robertson, doctors Reid and Findlay of Edinburgh, Dr. Beattie of Aberdeen, and indeed almost all the professors of this celebrated university; and particularly the reverend Mr. Crawford, a very worthy presbyterian clergyman of an adjoining parish, and a brother or cousin of that justly celebrated philosopher and physician the late Dr. Crawford, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, who has contributed so largely to a knowledge of the animal economy by his valuable treatise on animal heat.

"But though he had the plea, sure of dispersing many of the prejudices, and of melting into Christian charity many of the hearts, of his own congregation, he was so far from influencing the great body of surrounding papists, and especially those of the priesthood, to imbibe his opinions, and

deviate