than they ought to be, to amusement and company, I think it a dangerous study.

Though my Son was now my assistant and colleague, it was not my intention to devolve upon him any of the duties of my office; those excepted for which I might be disqualified by bad health. For I had long taken pleasure in the employment; and I wished him to be a little further advanced in life, before he should be engaged in the more laborious parts of it. My health, however, during the winter 1787-88 was in such a state, that recovery seemed doubtful; and he was obliged, sooner than I wished, to give proof of ability in his profession. In this respect he acquitted himself, as in all others. His steadiness, good-nature, and command of temper, • secured his authority as a teacher; and by his presence of mind, and ready recollection, he satisfied his audience that, though young, he was abundantly qualified to instruct them. The talents that form a publick speaker he possessed in an eminent degree. As he could not allow himself to study any thing superficially, all his knowledge was accurate, and in his memory so well arranged, that he was never at a loss; his language perspicuous and correct, flowing easily, without hesitation, hurry, or apparent effort; his voice distinct and manly; his manner never declamatory, or ostentatious, but simple, concise, and to the purpo and he was at all times s

ly

ed almost every other person I have known. But my advice was not necessary to prevent his cultivating that art. On the stage it may have its use; but in private life he knew how improper it is, and how dangerous; and of his own accord left it off entirely, with my hearty approbation.

Although with a few minutes of preparation, and a few written notes, (as he wrote short-hand with the utmost readiness) he could qualify himself sufficiently for giving an hour's lecture on most topicks that occur in Moral Philosophy and Logick, yet he wished to comprehend the whole course in a series of written prelections. The composing of these would, he rightly thought, make him master of his business; and to these, when they were composed, he could trust as a provision, if bad health should at any time render him unequal to the effort of lecturing extempore. But of this plan he did not live to execute the tenth part.

To make the young scholar perform exercises in Latin verse, is not now customary, so far as I know, in any of the schools of North Britain: which I have long thought a deficiency in our discipline. I wished him to attempt this mode of composition, resolving, however, not to urge it, if he should find it difficult. Accordingly, as soon as I knew him to be

sufficiently master of antient prosody, I advised him to write Latin verses. He said, he did not think he could do it, but that, since I desired it, he would make a trial, provided I gave him a subject. A lobster happening to be on the table, I proposed that as the argument of his first essay; and next day he brought me four hexameters, which, considering his age and inexperience (for he was then only fourteen), I thought tolerable; and I encouraged him to make further trials, when he should find himself in the humour and at leisure. He continued from time to time to amuse himself in this way, and soon acquired a facility in it. He found it, he said, of the greatest advantage in giving him a ready command of Latin phraseology; by obliging him to think in that language, and to revolve in his mind a variety of synonimous expressions, while in quest of that which would suit the measure and sound of his verse. must not be imagined that he lost much time in this study. He applied to it very seldom, and when he had nothing else to do; and never, for so I advised, above half an hour in one day. Being urged by me to declare how much he might do in that half hour, he owned, with a modest reluctance natural to him on such occasions, that in half an hour he would sometimes compose from ten to fifteen or twenty lines. Were all the half hours he ever employed in this exercise to be thrown into one sum, they would not amount to fourteen days.

It

Among his Latin compositions, I find one or two original odes, and some epistles in imitation of Horace; and translations of several favourite English songs, of some detached stanzas from the Castle of Indolence, and of some parts of the Minstrel. Whether he purposed to make a complete version of this last poem, I know not; his partiality to it was no doubt excessive; which the good-natured reader will pardon.

In November 1786 he translated into Latin verse Pope's Elegy on an unfortunate Lady, and the Messiah of the same poet. The former were printed, but without a name; the latter never received his last emendations. In both these pieces, as well as in the version of Sir Balaam, the translation has the same number of lines with the original. His notions of translation were as strict as those of Horace ;† he

*The inost humorous, and one of the longest, of his poetical essays, is a Latin epistle (in imitation of Horace) giving a description of a publick entertainment: but to private characters, though it is not satirical, it has so many allusions, that I suppress it, as I know he himself would have done.

+ It is strange that the passage of Horace here alluded to (Epist. ad Pison. v. 133.) should have been so generally understood to mean just the contrary of what the poet intended; as if he had been there laying down rules for translation, and disapproving of literal or close translations. The meaning of those words, Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere fidus Interpres, viewed in

ir connection with what immediately goes before and fol

is this: "It is difficult and hazardous to invent new fables