and national happiness and improvement. For seldom, in the distractions which accompany the rise of kingdoms and enlargement of empires, do national happiness and prosperity, in at least their most proper acceptation, keep pace with those external indications of greatness and distinction, which in the annals of the historian make so imposing an appearance. We must turn rather to more peaceful eras, when the campaigns and triumphs of the warrior have been followed by repose-or when, after a period of successive distractions and internal convulsions, a nation has begun to concentrate its energies and acquire solidity and strength-if we wish to contemplate the proper results of all this previous national contention-the establishment, namely, and progress of the arts of peace, from which alone human improvement and happiness can proceed. But while the truth of this statement will be generally admitted, especially in a country such as this, which has so long been exempted from the ravages of foreign invasion, or the still more melancholy and disastrous exhibition of civil strife, the general reader, who has perused with keen relish and interest the more stirring and brilliant records of other historical periods, will naturally-more especially the younger student-feel the want of that stimulant which before at once whetted and gratified his curiosity and attention. His eye probably runs over many a dry page, filled with the records of his country's quiet but sensible improvement; and, unless he be distinguished by a more than ordinary thoughtful and reflective character, he will find some difficulty in keeping up his attention, in the absence of a high-strained, though sometimes unhealthy excitement.

What is true of nations, and of the effect produced by a perusal of their histories at different periods, is equally true of individuals, and the occurrences which form the

subject-matter of their respective memoirs. Of course we have no intention to state that, either in the history of nations or individuals, much that is useful, as well as what is interesting, may not be obtained from the more stirring events which may have occurred in each; but we still maintain that there is not, in general, sufficient attention given to the more still and peaceful tenor of a nation's or individual's life, when the very circumstances of their respective repose enable them to collect all their latent energies to effect the design which the Supreme Author of their destinies had in view-the development, namely, of their moral and intellectual powers (for nations, too, as well as individuals, have a moral character and obligations) for their personal or social progressive amelioration and prosperity. In either case, in a period of peaceful repose, the history and progress of a nation or individual resembles the still and placid stream, whose passage, scarce ruffled by a ripple on its waters, glides by an almost imperceptible movement in its channel, spreading fertility in its onward course-noiseless, and unaccompanied by the fretful clamour which marks the passage of the mountain torrent. By the latter may be indicated the more stirring and active scenes of a nation's or individual's history, which too frequently, as already observed, attract the vulgar gaze and admiration, however delusive may prove their brilliancy, and however injurious or destructive may prove its course. The dancing sparkle of the sunbeam on the spray of the dashing and foaming mountain torrent, reflects not seldom the deceptive brilliancy of more stirring acts of national or personal history, as the ravages which such a torrent commits have too lively a counterpart in the little utility, or positive injury, which such actions.

sometimes occasion.

The improvement and utility to which above reference

has been made, as connected with times of comparative repose, is strictly in accordance with the nature of man. When by a reflective process the mind is enabled to turn in upon itself, it is necessarily most thoughtful, and less disposed to require external and adventitious means of occupation or enjoyment. In colloquial phraseology, the stillest streams are said to be the deepest; and this sentiment is invariably confirmed by experience. Very commonly, in public life, those whose names are most heard of, and whose characters and performances seem, and justly, most brilliant, are not the most useful members of a popular assembly or a state. In our legislative assembly, for instance, the laborious workers on committees perform often most efficiently the practical business of the House and the country. Nor is this, indeed, matter of surprise, as calm reflection is most conducive to a close and proper consideration of questions, undisturbed by personal motives of ostentatious display, or by any of those external influences or attractions which are calculated to divert the attention from the subject on which it is exerted. Both are useful in their several departments, whether the brilliant orator or the practical man of business; but, to recur to the statement with which we commenced these remarks, the claims of the former will greatly preponderate, in general estimation, over those of the latter.

In connexion with the subject with which we are more immediately concerned, the commendations that have been lavished in all ages on a life of literary retirement, and sometimes even on one involving mere withdrawal from public business and addiction to rural pursuits, are too many to enumerate, and are, besides, sufficiently known. To confine ourselves, however, to those authors with whom the subject of this memoir was so intimately acquainted,

Cicero, in his De Senectute,* De Officiis, † and others of his works, refers in the strongest terms of commendation to the pleasures of a country life. Virgil and Horace§ allude

in similar strains, in many passages of their poems, to the superior enjoyments of rural retirement and agricultural pursuits. In the elegant epistles of Pliny, we are presented with a graphic account of the beauties of some of his Italian villas, and his ordinary occupations and amusements; in the latter of which he much resembled his uncle, the elder Pliny, in his addiction to study and elegant literature. After his retirement from public business, and his Eastern campaigns, Lucullus finally forsook the paths of ambition, and resisted all the applications of the leaders of Rome previous to the first triumvirate, and the entreaties of his friends, to take a public part in the civil affairs of that busy period, in which he might have aspired, if not to the first, at least to a prominent position. If not as addicted, during his retirement, to literary pursuits as much as others who might be mentioned, still, as the introducer of the Cerasus, or Cherry-tree, from Pontus into Europe, he would seem to have given his attention to subjects connected with matters of practical utility in a country life. The whole history of Atticus, as recorded by Cornelius Nepos, from its commencement to its close, illustrates, more strongly than any mere commendations, the happiness and benefit which may be obtained and produced in the quiet and even tenor of a life withdrawn for the most part from general view and public employments. And finally may be instanced the concluding years in the life of Sallust the historian, as presented to us in the admirable essay prefixed to his translation of that author's works by the subject of this Memoir; who, when he had

* Cic. De Sen. §§ 15, 16.
Virg. Georg. lib. ii.

+ Cic. De Off. lib. i. cap. 42.

§ Hor. Epod. lib. ii.

withdrawn from the turmoil and business of public life, addicted himself to those literary objects, of which only inconsiderable fragments remain, during those years of elegant leisure which were alternately spent in his Italian villas and magnificent palace at Rome.

These remarks bear materially on the life of the subject of this Memoir. Even were our materials more abundant, our limits restrict us from doing more than touching on the prominent occurrences in the life, and salient points of the character, of the author of the work to which this biographical sketch is prefixed. What is properly required in such a general sketch is, a portrait, as true in its lineaments as may be, of the individual whose character and habits it is proposed to describe.

The Author of the following treatise was born at Allanton, in the county of Lanark, 20th October 1759. He was the second son of James Steuart, tenth Baron of Allanton, (according to the usual form of Scottish designation,) and fourteenth in descent from the Lord High Steward of Scotland, who was great-grandfather of King Robert II., the first prince of the Stewart line. About the close of the thirteenth century, in the reign of Alexander III., Sir John Stewart of Bonkle, or Bonkill, the son of Alexander the sixth, the said Lord High Steward of Scotland, bestowed the estate of Daldowie, on the river Clyde, part of his extensive possessions in Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, in patrimony on his son Sir Robert, and was himself slain at the fatal battle of Falkirk, (1298,)

* Sir Henry had two brothers and a sister, two of whom predeceased, and the youngest died a few years after, his father. Sir Henry seems to have inherited a taste for retirement, and literary and country pursuits, from his father, who, as we learn from Robertson's edition of Crawford's History of Renfrewshire, "was eminent both as an agriculturist and a scholar, and greatly improved his estate by enclosing and planting, which were beginning to become fashionable in his time in Scotland."