PERSONAL His personal appearance and manner were those of a gentleman, and peculiarly pleasing. His voice in lecturing was low, but fine; and his articulation so distinct that he was perfectly well heard by an audience consisting of several hundreds. His discourse was so plain and perspicuous, his illustrations by experiment so apposite, that his sentiments on any subject never could be mistaken, even by the most illiterate; and his instructions were so clear of all hypothesis or conjecture, that the hearer rested on his conclusions with the confidence scarcely exceeded in matters of his own experience.-ROBISON, JOHN, 1803, Black's Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry, Preface, p. lxii. The physical sciences have few more illustrious names to boast than that of Joseph Black. With all the habits and the disciplined faculties of a true philosopher, with the temper as well as the capacity of a sage, he possessed that happy union of strong but disciplined imagination, with powers of close undivided attention, and ample resources of reasoning, which forms original genius in scientific pursuits; and, as all these qualities may be combined in an individual without his happening to signalise his investigations of nature by any discovery, we must add that his life was crowned with the good fortune of opening to mankind new paths in which both himself and his followers successfully trod, enlarging to an incalculable extent the bounds of human knowledge. . . . The qualities which distinguished him as an inquirer and as a teacher followed him into all the ordinary affairs of life. He was a person whose opinions on every subject were marked by calmness and sagacity, wholly free from both passion and prejudice, while affectation was only known to him from the comedies he might have read. His temper in all the circumstances of life was unruffled.-BROUGHAM, HENRY LORD, 1845-50, Lives of Philosophers of the Time of George III., pp. 1, 21. Black was a prominent member of the intellectual society by which Edinburgh was then distinguished. Amongst his intimates were his relative and colleague Adam Ferguson, Hume, Hutton, A. Carlyle, Dugald Stewart, and John Robison. Adam Smith with whom he knit a close friendship at Glasgow, used to say that no man had less nonsense in his head than Dr. Black." He was one of James Watt's earliest patrons, and kept up a constant correspondence with him. Though grave and reserved, Black was gentle and sincere, and it is recorded of him that he never lost a friend. He was at the same time gifted with a keen judgment of character, and with the power of expressing that judgment in an "indelible phrase.' In person he is described as "rather above the middle size; he was of a slender make; his countenance was placid and exceedingly engaging" (Thomson). As he advanced in years, Robison tells us, he preserved a pleasing air of inward contentment. Graceful and unaffected in manner, "he was of most easy approach, affable, and readily entered into conversation, whether serious or trivial." Nor did he distain elegant accomplishments. -CLERKE, MISS A. M., 1886, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. v, p. 111. GENERAL The The modesty of his nature making him averse to publish his speculations, and the genuine devotion to the investigation of truth, for its own sake, rendering him most open in his communications with all who were engaged in the same pursuits, his incontestable claim to be regarded as the founder of modern chemistry has been oftentimes overlooked; and, while some have endeavoured more or less obscurely to mingle themselves with his discoveries, others have thought it becoming to postdate the new system, that it might seem the produce of a somewhat later age. interests of truth and justice therefore require that we should minutely examine the facts of the case; and, happily, the evidence is so clear that it only requires an attentive consideration to remove all doubt from the subject. I feel it a duty imperatively cast upon me to undertake a task from which, did I not regard it as less difficult than sacred, I might shrink. But I had the great happiness of being taught by himself, having attended one of the last courses of lectures which he delivered; and the knowledge thus gained cannot be turned to a better use than in recording the glory and in vindicating the fame of my illustrious master. BROUGHAM, HENRY LORD, 1845-55, Lives of Philosophers of the Time of George III., p. 1. He struck out a theory which, being eminently original, was violently attacked, but is now generally admitted. With a boldness and reach of thought not often equalled, he arrived at the conclusion, that whenever a body loses some of its consistence, as in the case of ice becoming water, or water becoming steam, such body receives an amount of heat which our senses, though aided by the most delicate thermometer, can never detect. . . The intellect of Black belonged to a class, which, in the eighteenth century, was almost universal in Scotland, but was hardly to be found in England, and which, for want of a better word, we are compelled to call deductive, though fully admitting that even the most deductive minds have in them a large amount of induction, since, indeed, without induction, the common business of life could not be carried on.BUCKLE, HENRY THOMAS, 1862-66, History of Civilization in England, vol. III, chap. v. James Burnett Lord Monboddo 1714-1799 A Scottish lawyer and author, was born at Monboddo, in Kincardineshire, in 1714, educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he displayed a great fondness for the Greek philosophers, and afterwards studied law for 3 years at Gronigen in Holland. In 1737 he became a member of the Scottish bar, and soon obtained considerable practice; but the first thing that brought him prominently into notice was his connection with the celebrated Douglas case, in which Mr. Burnet acted as counsel for Mr. Douglas. In 1767 he was raised to the bench by the title of lord Monboddo. He died May 26, 1799. Monboddo's first work, on the "Origin and Progress of Language" (1771-76), is a very learned, heretical, and eccentric production; yet in the midst of its grotesque crotches there occasionally flashes out a wonderfully acute observation, that makes one regret the distorted and misapplied talent of the author. The notion that men have sprung from monkeys, is perhaps that which is most commonly associated with the name of Monboddo, who gravely asserted that the orangoutangs are members of the human species, and that in the bay of Bengal there exists a nation of human creatures with tails, and that we have only worn away ours by sitting on them, but that the stumps may still be felt. Monboddo wrote another work, entitled "Ancient Metaphysics," which was published only a few weeks before his death.—PECK, HARRY THURSTON, ed., 1898, The International Cyclopædia, vol. x, p. 16. PERSONAL The metaphysical and philological Lord Monboddo breakfasted with us yesterday. He is such an extravagant admirer of the ancients that he scarcely allows the English language to be capable of any excellence, still less the French. . . . He said we moderns were entirely degenerated. I asked in what? "In everything," was his answer. "Men are not so tall as they were,women are not so handsome as they were, nobody can now write a long period, everything dwindles." . . . Among much just thinking and some taste, especially in his valuable third volume on "The Origin and Progress of Language," he entertained some opinions so absurd that they would be hardly credible if he did not deliver them himself, both in writing and conversation, with a gravity which shows that he is in earnest, but which makes the hearer feel that to be grave exceeds all power of face. He is so wedded to system, that, as Lord Barrington said to me the other day, rather than sacrifice his favorite opinion that men were born with tails, he would be contented to wear one himself.-MORE, HANNAH, 1782, Letter to her Sister, Memoirs, ed. Roberts, vol. 1, p. 146. I was married to the handsomest woman in Scotland, and I believe the best wife in it, with whom I lived most happily seven years. I have been fifteen years a widower, and during all that time I never had the least thought of a second choice, till I saw you at this time in London, so amiable both in mind and person, and your sentiments so much agreeing with mine that I thought, and still think, we are made for one another, and may live most comfortably together. During my widowhood, the affairs of my family have suffered much, chiefly for want of a mother to my children. I am sure I would make a most loving husband to you, and besides I would propose to be a father to that excellent girl who lives with you and whose admirable genius it would give me the greatest pleasure to cultivate and improve, as I think I could do. Now my dear Mrs. Garrick, tell me if you know any three in Britain that you think would be happier together than we three? And if you pleased, I would add a fourth, my young daughter, who is almost as handsome as her mother, a good figure, a very good disposition, and not defective in genius, particularly in painting.-BURNETT, JAMES LORD MONBODDO, 1782, Letter to Mrs. David Garrick. The answer I gave you in that moment when you did me the honor of proposing an union between us came from my heart: it was that I never would change my situation; and which you must give me leave to repeat again as a final answer to your letter, I remain, my Lord, Your most obliged and obedient servant.-GARRICK, MRS. DAVID, 1782, Letter to Lord Monboddo, June 26. Lord Monboddo's temper was affectionate, friendly and social. He was fond of convivial intercourse; and it was his daily custom to unbend himself, after his professional labours, amidst a select party of literary friends, whom he invited to an early supper. The entertainment itself partook of the costume of the ancients: it had all the variety and abundance of a principal meal; and the master of the feast crowned his wine, like Anacreon, with a garland of roses. His conversation, too, had a race and flavour peculiarly its own: it was nervous, sententious, and tinctured with genuine wit. His apothegms, (or, as his favourite Greeks would rather term them Tywua), were singularly terse and forcible; and the grave manner in which he often conveyed the keenest irony, and the eloquence with which he supported his paradoxical theories, afforded the highest amusement of those truly attic banquets, which will be long remembered by all who had the pleasure of partaking in them.-TYTLER, ALEXANDER FRASER, 1806-14, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Henry Home of Kames, vol. 1, p. 250, note. Lord Monboddo was a humorist both in private life and in his literary career. He was, says Sir Walter Scott, a gentleman of the most amiable disposition, and of the strictest honour and integrity. He was deeply read in ancient literature, was a devout believer in the virtues of the heroic ages and the deterioration of civilized mankind, and so great a contemner of luxuries that he would never use a wheel carriage. There were several points of similarity between him and Johnsongreat learning, clearness of head, precision of speech, and a love of inquiry on subjects which people in general do not investigate. Foote used to call Lord Monboddo "an Elzevir edition of Johnson."-FORD, EDWARD, 1883, Lord Monboddo and Mrs. Garrick, National Review, vol. 2, p. 106. In his judicial capacity he showed himself to be both a profound lawyer and an upright judge, and his decisions were free from those paradoxes which so frequently appeared in his writings as well as in his conversation. He was not, however, without peculiarities, even in the court of sessions, for instead of sitting on the bench with his fellow-judges, he always took his seat underneath with the clerks. Nor was he as a rule inclined to agree with his colleagues in their decisions, but was generally in the minority and sometimes alone. Burnett is, however, best known to the world as a man of letters. In private life Burnett was an amiable, generous, and kind-hearted man. Though in his habit he was exceedingly temperate and lived much according to rule, yet he greatly delighted in the convivial society of his friends.-BARKER, G. F. RUSSELL, 1886, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. VII, pp. 412, 413. Lord Monboddo was known rather for his quaint eccentricities and social humour than for any consummate mastery of the law.-CRAIK, SIR HENRY, 1901, A Century of Scottish History, vol. II, p. 148. The venerable figure of Monboddo was every year seen on horseback posting off to London, to visit old friends and delight old circles. At last, however, such expeditions were too fatiguing for his shrivelled old body. He was on his way in 1799 to make his annual visit, but only got as far as Dunbar, where he was taken ill, and forced to undergo the ignominy of being conveyed home in the despised chaise. "Oh, George," he said plaintively to his nephew, "I find that I am eighty-four." A few days later, in May, the venerable humorist was dead. Then the world gossiped, according to its fashion, of stories true and false about the old man's humours-how he used to fancy that the tails of babies were snipped off by midwives at their birth, and how he would watch at the bedroom door when a child was born, in order to detect the relics of a primeval ancestry. Others more worthily recalled memorable nights in his society, his sayings of curious wit, his sallies which set the table in a roar, while perfect gravity reigned on his ugly old face; his pleasant ways, his courtly, old-fashioned manners. They missed the familiar form which had trotted up innumerable stairs to merry suppers-the worn-out old figure they had daily seen standing at the door of Creech's shop, or pacing the Parliament Close the owner of a most kindly heart, the author of most unreadable books. -GRAHAM, HENRY GREY, 1901, Scottish Men of Letters in the Eighteenth Century, p. 197. GENERAL And with Monboddo still believ'd in tails. -MATHIAS, THOMAS JAMES, 1797, The Pursuits of Literature, Eighth ed., p. 331. The writings of Lord Monboddo display a profound acquaintance with the philosophy of the ancients, which he has explored with the ardour, and admired perhaps with the prejudices of an enthusiast; but in so far as they relate to criticism and philology, they are valuable monuments of classical taste, and a sound discriminating judgment in the excellencies and defects. of rhetorical composition.-TYTLER, ALEXANDER FRASER, 1806-14, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Henry Home of Kames, vol. I, p. 246. The writings of the eccentric James Burnet, Lord Monboddo, contain interesting passages, such as his theory about the origin of man, and his humorously extravagant defence of the superiority of ancient over modern writers; but the interest is more in the matter than in any felicity or original force of expression. -MINTO, WILLIAM, 1872-80, Manual of English Prose Literature, p. 487. I confess that I have felt a deep interest in reading the philosophical works of Lord Monboddo, he is so unlike any other Scotch metaphysician, he is so unlike his age. As appearing among a body of inductive inquirers, and in the middle of the eighteenth century, he looks very much like a megatherium coming in upon us in the historical period. His society is not with the modern empiricists, not even with the Latins, but with Plato and the NeoPlatonists, with Aristotle and his commentators. As regards the higher Greek philosophy, he is the most erudite scholar that Scotland has produced, not excepting even Sir William Hamilton. He had two great philosophic works. . . He dwells with evident fondness on categories or universal forms. All things are to be known by their causes. The knowledge of first causes belongs to metaphysics. Everything that is to be known falls under one or other of the categories. He shows that God must have ideas. Man is capable of forming ideas. Time is not a cause, but is a necessary adjunct or concomitant of the material world. McCOSH, JAMES, 1874, The Scottish Philosophy, pp. 248, 250, 252. A brief reference must suffice to one other thinker of considerable ability, who, in attempting to assail the dominant philosophy, produced at least a literary curiosHarris, the author of "Hermes," attempted ity. Lord Monboddo, following James to revive the Aristotelian philosophy. His six quartos upon "Antient Metaphysics," and his six octavos upon the prothought amidst huge masses of digression, gress of language, contain much acute repetition, and apology for eccentric crochets. His main point is really a criticism of Locke and Hume for their confusion of sensation and perception. He makes many of the criticisms which from this point of view would commend themselves to the metaphysical school of which he professes himself an adherent; but he produced no influence upon thoughtpartly because his doctrine was an attempt to resuscitate the dead; and even more, perhaps, because it was overlaid with oddities, some of which are remembered when his more serious remarks are forgotten. Reid and Hartley each founded a school; but Monboddo remained an isolated being, annointing himself according to the fashion of the ancients, growling at the degeneracy of mankind, and regarded by them as a semi-lunatic, outside the sphere of practical influence.-STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1876, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. 1, pp. 68, 69. 349 Patrick Henry 1736-1799 Henry was born at Studley, Virginia, May 29th, 1736. He was of good Scotch and English blood, and was educated by his father; he married at eighteen and went early into business. He became a lawyer when twenty-four, and was successful from the first. When pleading the cause of a clergyman in 1763 in the celebrated tobacco-tax question, he showed himself to be a fine speaker; and from this on, advanced rapidly in public life. Elected in 1765 to the Virginia House, in a fiery speech he advocated resistence to the Stamp Act and became the leader of his colony. He was a delegate to the first Continental Congress, and in 1776, on the adoption of the Constitution, his own state made him four times governor; he declined re-election in 1786, to be again elected in 1796 and again to decline. Retiring from public life in 1791 at the age of fifty-five, he practiced law, preferring to guard his broken health and provide for his large family; although subsequently Washington offered him the post of Secretary of State and that of Chief Justice, and President Adams named him minister to France. In 1799, however, at Washington's appeal he allowed himself to be elected to the Legislature; but died June 6th, before taking his seat.-WARNER, CHARLES DUDLEY, ed., 1897, Library of the World's Best Literature, vol. XII, p. 7241. PERSONAL On the 6th inst. departed this life Patrick Henry, Esquire, of Charlotte Count. Mourn, Virginia, mourn! Your Henry is gone! Ye friends to liberty in every clime, drop a tear. No more will his social feelings spread delight through his happy house. No more will his edifying example dictate to his numerous offspring the sweetness of virtue, and the majesty of patriotism. No more will his sage advice, guided by zeal for the common happiness, impart light and utility to his caressing neighbors. No more will he illuminate the public councils with sentiments drawn from the cabinet of his own mind, ever directed to his country's good, and clothed in eloquence sublime, delightful, and commanding. Farewell, firstrate patriot, farewell! As long as our rivers flow, or mountains stand-so long will your excellence and worth be the theme of homage and endearment, and Virginia, bearing in mind her loss, will say to rising generations, imitate my Henry.-VIRGINIA GAZETTE, 1799, June 14 I have not time to compare the characters of Washington and Henry, or I would clearly show that fewer blunders fell to the share of the latter than the former, and yet I have no objection to paying a tribute to the past services and virtues of either. -TYLER, JOHN, 1799, Letter to James Monroe, Dec. 27. His disposition was indeed all sweetness-his affections were warm, kind, and social-his patience invincible-his temper ever unclouded, cheerful and serene his manners plain, open, familiar, and simple-his conversation easy, ingenious and unaffected, full of entertainment, full of instruction, and irradiated with all those light and softer graces, which his genius threw, without effort, over the most common subjects. It is said that there stood in the court, before his door, a large walnut-tree, under whose shade it was his delight to pass his summer evenings, surrounded by his affectionate and happy family, and by a circle of neighbours who loved him almost to idolatry. Here he would disport himself with all the careless gaiety of infancy. Here, too, he would sometimes warm the bosoms of the old, and strike fire from the eyes of his younger hearers, by recounting the tales of other times; by sketching, with the boldness of a master's hand, those great historic incidents in which he had borne a part; and by drawing to the life, and placing before his audience, in colours as fresh and strong as those of nature, the many illustrious men in every quarter of the continent, with whom he had acted a part on the public stage. Mr. Henry's con versation was remarkably pure and chaste. He never swore. He was never heard to take the name of his Maker in vain. He was a sincere Christian, though after a form of his own; for he was never attached to any particular religious society, and never, it is believed, communed with any church. His morals were strict. As a husband, a father, a master, he had no superior. He was kind and hospitable to the stranger, and most friendly and |