When up to heaven his thoughts he piled, As blush to blush she stood; The pillars of the Lord are seven, Which stand from earth to topmost heaven; O David, scholar of the Lord! O strength, O sweetness, lasting ripe! The lion and the bee! There is but One who ne'er rebelled, But One by passion unimpelled, By pleasures unenticed; He from himself his semblance sent, Grand object of his own content, And saw the God in Christ. 'Tell them, I Am,' Jehovah said At once above, beneath, around, Sweet is the dew that falls betimes, Sweet Hermon's fragrant air : Sweet the young nurse with love intense, Sweeter in all the strains of love Paired to thy swelling chord; Strong is the horse upon his speed; Which makes at once his game: Strong the tall ostrich on the ground; Strong thro' the turbulent profound Shoots xiphias to his aim. Strong is the lion-like a coal But stronger still, in earth and air, And far beneath the tide ; And in the seat to faith assigned, Glorious the sun in mid career; Glorious the comet's train: Glorious the northern lights astream; Glorious hosanna from the den; Glorious the martyr's gore: Glorious-more glorious-is the crown William Mason (1724–97), the friend and literary executor of Gray, long survived the association which did him so much honour, but he had appeared early as a poet. Born at Hull, the son of a clergyman, he took his B.A. from St John's College, Cambridge, in 1745, and was elected a Fellow of Pembroke through the influence of Gray, who had been attracted to him by his Musaus (1747), a lament for Pope in imitation of Lycidas. To his poem Isis (1748), an attack on the Jacobitism of Oxford, Thomas Warton replied in his Triumph of Isis. In 1753 appeared his tragedy of Elfrida, 'written,' as Southey said, 'on an artificial model, and in a gorgeous diction, because he thought Shakespeare had precluded all hope of excellence in any other form of drama.' Mason's model was the Greek drama, and he introduced into his play the classic accompaniment of the chorus. A second drama, Caractacus (1759), is of a higher cast than Elfrida: simpler in language, and of more sustained dignity in scenes, situations, and characters. Mason also wrote odes on Independence, Memory, Melancholy, and the Fall of Tyranny, in which his sonorous diction swells into extravagance and bombast. His longest poetical work is his English Garden, a descriptive poem in four books of blank verse (1772-82). He also indited odes to the naval officers of Great Britain, to the Honourable William Pitt, and in commemoration of the Revolution of 1688. Under the name of Malcolm Macgregor, he published in quite another vein An Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers, Knight (1773), in which the taste for Chinese pagodas and Eastern bowers is cleverly ridiculed. Gray left him a legacy of £500, together with his books and manuscripts; and Mason in 1775 published his friend's poems with a memoir. In that memoir he made a greater and more important innovation than he had done in his dramas; instead of presenting the continuous narrative in which the biographer alone is heard, he incorporated the poet's journals and letters in chronological order, thus making the subject of the memoir in some degree his own biographer. This plan was afterwards adopted by Boswell in his Life of Johnson. Mason became vicar of Aston in Yorkshire in 1754, and Canon of York in 1762. When politics ran high he took an active part on the side of the Whigs, but retained the respect of all parties. His poetry is lamentably lacking in simplicity, yet at times his rich diction has a fine effect. In his English Garden, though it is verbose and languid as a whole, there are some fine things. Gray quoted as superlative' from one of the odes: While through the west, where sinks the crimson day, Meek twilight slowly sails, and waves her banners gray. Apostrophe to England. In thy fair domain, Yes, my loved Albion! many a glade is found, And there are scenes where, though she whilom trod, (From The English Garden.) Snowdon. Mona on Snowdon calls: See, their gold and ebon rod, And burst thy base with thunder's shock: Shall Mona use, than those that dwell Busy murmurs hum around, Through the twilight, through the shade, (From Caractacus.) Epitaph on his Wife. Take, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear: Her faded form; she bowed to taste the wave, And died! Does youth, does beauty, read the line? Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm? Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine; Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm. Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee; Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move; And if so fair, from vanity as free; As firm in friendship, and as fond in love. Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die Twas e'en to thee—yet the dread path once trod, Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high, And bids the pure in heart behold their God. The last four lines, which form a worthy climax to the whole, were added by Gray. George Campbell (1719-96), minister in Aberdeen and Principal of Marischal College, was a theologian and critic of vigorous intellect and various learning. His Dissertation on Miracles (1762), written in reply to Hume, was at the time greatly admired as a masterly piece of reasoning; and his Philosophy of Rhetoric, published in 1776, was praised (unreasonably) as perhaps the best book of the kind since Aristotle, but may yet be studied as an acute and well-written statement of contemporary critical opinion. Other works were a Translation of the Four Gospels, some sermons, and a series of Lectures on Ecclesiastical History. Hume admitted the ingenuity of Campbell's reply to his thesis on the impossibility of proving a miracle. Hume's contention was that no testimony for any kind of miracle can ever amount to a probability, much less to a proof. Miracles can only be proved by testimony, and no testimony can be so strong as our own experience of the uniformity of nature. Campbell argued that testimony has a natural and original influence on belief, antecedent to experience; and insisted that the earliest assent which is given to testimony by children, and which is previous to all experience, is in fact the most unlimited. The improbability of an event may be outweighed by slight direct evidence. His answer was divided into two parts: that miracles are capable of proof from testimony, religious miracles. not less than others; and that the miracles on which the belief of Christianity is founded are sufficiently attested. The following paragraph is characteristic: I do not hesitate to affirm that our religion has been indebted to the attempts, though not to the intentions, of its bitterest enemies. They have tried its strength, indeed, and, by trying, they have displayed its strength; and that in so clear a light, as we could never have hoped, without such a trial, to have viewed it in. Let them, therefore, write; let them argue, and when arguments fail, even let them cavil against religion as much as they please; I should be heartily sorry that ever in this island, the asylum of liberty, where the spirit of Christianity is better understood-however defective the inhabitants are in the observance of its precepts-than in any other part of the Christian world; I should, I say, be sorry that in this island so great a disservice were done to religion as to check its adversaries in any other way than by returning a candid answer to their objections. I must at the same time acknowledge, that I am both ashamed and grieved when I observe any friends of religion betray so great a diffidence in the goodness of their cause for to this diffidence alone can it be imputed -as to shew an inclination for recurring to more forcible methods. The assaults of infidels, I may venture to prophesy, will never overturn our religion. They will prove not more hurtful to the Christian system, if it be allowed to compare small things with the greatest, than the boisterous winds are said to prove to the sturdy oak. They shake it impetuously for a time, and loudly threaten its subversion; whilst in effect they only serve to make it strike its roots the deeper, and stand the firmer ever after. Richard Hurd (1720–1808), called the 'Beauty of Holiness' on account of his comeliness and piety, was born at Congreve in Staffordshire, and became a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1742. In 1750 he became a Whitehall preacher, in 1774 Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and in 1781 of Worcester. Among his many works, theological and other, were a Commentary on Horace's Ars Poetica (1749); Dissertations on Poetry (1755-57); Dialogues on Sincerity (1759), his most popular book; Letters on Chivalry and Romance (1762), which revived interest in an unfashionable subject, and promoted the tendency towards romanticism in literary taste; Dialogues on Foreign Travel (1764); and An Introduction to the Prophecies (1772). He was long a very conspicuous and 'representative' author; Gibbon knew few writers more deserving of the great though prostituted name of the critic;' but he is now rarely cited and more rarely read. A collected edition of his works appeared in eight volumes in 1811; there is a memoir by Kilvert (1860). Richard Price (1723-91), a Nonconformist divine, published in 1758 A Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals, which attracted attention as 'an attempt to revive the intellectual theory of moral obligation, which seemed to have fallen under the attacks of Butler, Hutcheson, and Hume, even before Smith.' The son of a minister at Tynton in Glamorgan, Price at seventeen went to a Dissenting academy in London, became a preacher at Newington Green and Hackney, and established a reputation by his Review and a work on the Importance of Chris tianity (1766). In 1769 he was made D.D. by Glasgow, and published his Treatise on Rever sionary Payments, the celebrated Northampter Mortality Tables, and other books on finance and political economy. In 1771 appeared his Appeal on the National Debt; in 1776 his Observations on Civil Liberty and the War with America, which brought him an invitation from Congress to assist in regulating its finances. He took an active part in the political questions of the day at the time of the French Revolution. He was a republican in principle, and was attacked by Burke in his Reflec tions on the Revolution. In his great ethical treatise, Price, after Cudworth, supports the doctrine that moral distinctions being perceived by reason, or the understanding, are equally immutable with all other kinds of truth. Actions are in themselves right or wrong: right and wrong are simple ideas incapable of analysis, and are given us by the intuitive power of the reason or understanding. There is a Life of Price by Morgan (1815). The following extract from the chapter in the Observations on English policy towards America, published while the war was in progress, shows how hearty were some of the supporters the colonists found in the home division of the Empire, as Price already called the British dominions : Our governors, ever since I can remember, have been jealous that the Colonies, some time or other, would throw off their dependence. This jealousy was not founded on any of their acts or declarations. They have always, while at peace with us, disclaimed any such design; and they have continued to disclaim it since they have been at war with us. I have reason, indeed, to believe that independency is, even at this moment, generally dreaded among them as a calamity to which they are in danger of being driven, in order to avoid a greater.—The jealousy I have mentioned was, however, natural; and betrayed a secret opinion that the subjection in which they were held was more than we could expect them always to endure. In such circumstances, all possible care should have been taken to give them no reason for discontent; and to preserve them in subjection, by keeping in that line of conduct to which custom had reconciled them, or at least never deviating from it, except with great caution; and particularly, by avoiding all direct attacks on their property and legislations. Had we done this, the different interests of so many states scattered over a vast continent, joined to our own prudence and moderation, would have enabled us to maintain them in dependence for ages to come. -But instead of this, how have we acted?- It is in truth too evident, that our whole conduct, instead of being directed by that sound policy and foresight which in such circumstances were absolutely necessary, has been nothing (to say the best of it) but a series of the blindest rigour followed by retractation; of violence followed by con cession ; of mistake, weakness and inconsistency. i recital of a few facts within everybody's recollection Fill fully prove this. In the 6th of George the Second, an act was passed or imposing certain duties on all foreign spirits, aolasses and sugars imported into the plantations. n this act, the duties imposed are said to be given and granted by the Parliament to the King; and his is the first American act in which these words have been used. But notwithstanding this, as the ict had the appearance of being only a regulation of trade, the colonies submitted to it; and a small direct revenue was drawn by it from them.—In the 4th of the present reign, many alterations were made in this act, with the declared purpose of making provision for raising a revenue in America. This alarmed the Colonies; and produced discontents and remonstrances, which might have convinced our rulers this was tender ground, on which it became them to tread very gently.—There is, however, no reason to doubt but in time they would have sunk into a quiet submission to this revenue act, as being at worst only the exercise of a power which then they seem not to have thought much of contesting; I mean, the power of taxing them externally.—But before they had time to cool, a worse provocation was given them; and the Stamp-Act was passed. This being an attempt to tax them internally, and a direct attack on their property, by a power which would not suffer itself to be questioned; which eased itself by loading them; and to which it was impossible to fix any bounds; they were thrown at once, from one end of the continent to the other, into resistance and rage.—Government, dreading the consequences, gave way; and the Parliament (upon a change of ministry) repealed the Stamp-Act, without requiring from them any recognition of its authority, or doing any more to preserve its dignity, than asserting, by the declaratory law, that it was possessed of full power and authority to make laws to bind them in all cases whatever. - Upon this peace was restored; and, had no further attempts of the same kind been made, they would undoubtedly have suffered us (as the people of Ireland have done) to enjoy quietly our declaratory law. They would have recovered their former habits of subjection; and our connection with them might have continued an increasing source of our wealth and glory.- -But the spirit of despotism and avarice, always blind and restless, soon broke forth again. The scheme for drawing a revenue from America, by parliamentary taxation, was resumed ; and in a little more than a year after the repeal of the Stamp-Act, when all was peace, a third act was passed, imposing duties payable in America on tea, paper, glass, painters colours, &c.- -This, as might have been expected, revived all the former heats; and the Empire was a second time threatened with the most dangerous commotions.—Government receded again; and the Parliament (under another change of ministry) repealed all the obnoxious duties, except that upon tea. This exception was made in order to maintain a shew of dignity. But it was, in reality, sacrificing safety to pride; and leaving a splinter in the wound to produce a gangrene.- -For some time, however, this relaxation answered its intended purposes. Our commercial intercourse with the Colonies was again recovered; and they avoided nothing but that tea which we had excepted in our repeal. In this state would things have remained, and even tea would perhaps in time have been gradually admitted, had not the evil genius of Britain stepped forth once more to embroil the Empire. Ships The East India Company having fallen under difficulties, partly in consequence of the loss of the American market for tea, a scheme was formed for assisting them by an attempt to recover that market. With this view an act was passed to enable them to export their tea to America free of all duties here, and subject only to 3d per pound duty, payable in America. By this expedient they were enabled to offer it at a low price; and it was expected the consequence would prove that the Colonies would be tempted by it; a precedent gained for taxing them, and at the same time the company relieved. were, therefore, fitted out; and large cargoes sent. The snare was too gross to escape the notice of the Colonies. They saw it, and spurned at it. They refused to admit the tea; and at Boston some persons in disguise buried it in the sea.- -Had our governors in this case satisfied themselves with requiring a compensation from the province for the damage done, there is no doubt but it would have been granted. Or had they proceeded no further in the infliction of punishment than stopping up the port and destroying the trade of Boston till compensation was made, the province might possibly have submitted, and a sufficient saving would have been gained for the honour of the nation. But having hitherto proceeded without wisdom, they observed now no bounds in their resentment. To the Boston port bill was added a bill which destroyed the chartered government of the province; a bill which withdrew from the jurisdiction of the province persons who in particular cases should commit murder; and the Quebec bill. At the same time a strong body of troops was stationed at Boston to enforce obedience to these bills. All who knew any thing of the temper of the Colonies saw that the effect of this sudden accumulation of vengeance, would probably be not intimidating but exasperating them, and driving them into a general revolt. But our ministers had different apprehensions. They believed that the malecontents in the Colony of Massachusetts were a small party, headed by a few factious men; that the majority of the people would take the side of government, as soon as they saw a force among them capable of supporting them; that at worst the Colonies in general would never make common cause with this province; and that the issue would prove in a few months order, tranquillity and submission.—Every one of these apprehensions was falsified by the events that followed. a When the bills I have mentioned came to be carried into execution, the whole Province was thrown into confusion. Their courts of justice were shut up, and all government was dissolved. The commander in chief found it necessary to fortify himself in Boston; and the other Colonies immediately resolved to make a common cause with this Colony. Disappointed by these consequences, our ministers took fright. Once more they made an effort to retreat; but indeed the most ungracious one that can well be imagined. A proposal was sent to the Colonies, called Conciliatory; and the substance of which was, that if any of them would raise such sums as should be demanded of them by taxing themselves, the Parliament would forbear to tax them.It will be scarcely believed hereafter that such a proposal could be thought conciliatory. It was only telling them: 'If you will tax yourselves by our order, we will save ourselves the trouble of taxing you.'- -They received the proposal as an insult; and rejected it with disdain. At the time this concession was transmitted to America, open hostilities were not begun. In the sword our ministers thought they had still a resource which would immediately settle all disputes. They considered the people of New-England as nothing but a mob, who would be soon routed and forced into obedience. It was even believed that a few thousands of our army might march through all America, and make all quiet wherever they went. Under this conviction our ministers did not dread urging the Province of Massachusetts Bay into rebellion, by ordering the army to seize their stores, and to take up some of their leading men. -The attempt was made.-The people fled immediately to arms, and repelled the attack.. -A considerable part of the flower of the British army has been destroyed.- -Some of our best Generals, and the bravest of our troops, are now disgracefully and miserably imprisoned at Boston.—A horrid civil war is commenced;--And the Empire is distracted and convulsed. Can it be possible to think with patience of the policy that has brought us into these circumstances? Did ever Heaven punish the vices of a people more severely by darkening their counsels? How great would be our happiness could we now recall former times, and return to the policy of the last reigns!But those times are gone. -I will, however, beg leave for a few moments to look back to them; and to compare the ground we have left with that on which we find ourselves. This must be done with deep regret; but it forms a necessary part of my present design. Adam Ferguson (1723-1816), son of the minister of Logierait in Perthshire, was educated at St Andrews; removing to Edinburgh for divinity studies, he became an associate of Robertson, Blair, and Home. As chaplain to the Black Watch he was present at Fontenoy, but in 1754 left the army (and the clerical profession), succeeding David Hume in 1757 as keeper of the Advocates' Library. He was afterwards Professor of Natural Philosophy and of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. In 1778 he went to America as secretary to the commissioners appointed to negotiate with the revolted colonies. On his return he resumed the duties of his professorship. His latter days were spent in ease and affluence at St Andrews, where he died at the patriarchal age of ninety-two. The works of Ferguson are: Essay on Civil Society (published in 1766), Institutes of Moral Philosophy (1772), A Reply to Dr Price on Civil and Religious Liberty (1776), The History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic (1783), and Principles of Moral and Political Science (1792). His History of the Roman Republic was translated into French and German, and long remained a standard authority (4th ed. 1825). Sir Walter Scott supplied some interesting information as to the latter years of this venerable professor, whom he considered the most striking example of a modern Stoic philosopher; in Ferguson's house Scott as a boy had met Burns. Lord Cockburn also left a graphic account of the venerable man. He had a warning of paralysis in the fiftieth year of his life, from which period he became a strict Pythagorean in his diet, eating nothing but vegetables, and drinking only water or milk. The deep interest which he took in the French war had long seemed to be the main te which connected him with passing existence; Scott says, 'The news of Waterloo acted on the aged patriot as a nunc dimittis.' There is a Life of Ferguson by Small (1864). Climate and Civilisation. On this scene mankind have twice within the compass of history ascended from rude beginnings to very high degrees of refinement. In every age, whether destined by its temporary disposition to build or to destroy, they have left the vestiges of an active and vehement spirit. The pavement and the ruins of Rome are buried in dust, shaken from the feet of barbarians who trod with contempt on the refinements of luxury, and spurned those arts the use of which it was reserved for the posterity of the same people to discover and to admire. The tents of the wild Arab are even now pitched among the ruins of magnificent cities; and the waste fields which border on Palestine and Syria are perhaps to become again the nursery of infant nations. The chieftain of an Arab tribe, like the founder of Rome, may have already fixed the roots of a plant that is to flourish in some future period, or laid the foundations of a fabric that will attain to its grandeur in some distant age. Great part of Africa has been always unknown; but the silence of fame on the subject of its revolutions is an argument, where no other proof can be found, of weakness in the genius of its people. The torrid zone everywhere round the globe, however known to the geographer, has furnished few materials for history; and though in many places supplied with the arts of life in no contemptible degree, has nowhere matured the more important projects of political wisdom, nor inspired the virtues which are connected with freedom, and which are required in the conduct of civil affairs. It was indeed in the torrid zone that mere arts of mechanism and manufacture were found, among the inhabitants of the new world, to have made the greatest advance; it is in India, and in the regions of this hemisphere which are visited by the vertical sun, that the arts of manufac ture and the practice of commerce are of the greatest antiquity, and have survived, with the smallest diminution, the ruins of time and the revolutions of empire. The sun, it seems, which ripens the pine-apple and the tamarind, inspires a degree of mildness that can even assuage the rigours of despotical government: and such is the effect of a gentle and pacific disposition in the natives of the East, that no conquest, no irruption of barbarians, terminates, as they did among the stubborn natives of Europe, by a total destruction of what the love of ease and of pleasure had produced. . . . Man, in the perfection of his natural faculties, is quick and delicate in his sensibility; extensive and various in |