which he had a particular art." "On these occasions," it is added, "it was impossible for the most phlegmatic disposition to continue five minutes in his company without being convulsed with laughter."

The character of Meston may be summed up in a few words. He was a poet, with more of the habits of one than was fortunate for his fame; he was a man of genius, who, to have lived happy, should have been born with the fortune of a fool of quality. That he did not rise to excellence in the line which nature had chalked out for him, we may ascribe, with Dr. Ogilvie, "to the two great foes of every nobler effort of human genius-indigence and dependence."

R. M.

JOHN HOME.

In the romantic ode by Collins on the Superstitions of the Highlands, we meet with a singular instance of poetical prediction; it would seem as if the poet had caught a portion of that second sight, which holds so eminent a place in the superstitions he describes. He had not long before formed, at Winchester, an acquaintance with a Scottish licentiate, of the name of John Home, who was then on a visit to England; and discovered in him so congenial a poetic spirit, that he not only dedicated to him his Ode on the Superstitions, but ventured, in the first stanza, thus to prefigure his future eminence :

"Home,thou return'st from Thames, whose Naiads long Have seen thee ling'ring, with a fond delay, 'Midst those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day, Shall melt perhaps to hear thy tragic song.

It is probable, that Home had communicated to Collins some specimens of his dramatic talent, although none of those which are before the public can be traced to so early a date. Home was, at this time, in his twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth year. He was born in the parish of Ancrum in Roxburghshire, in

1724; studied at Edinburgh, and was licensed to preach the gospel in 1747.

While at the university, Home formed one of a company of twenty students, who, on the interruption given to their studies by the rebellion of 1745, offered their services to act as volunteers with the royal forces; but, from a want of union or zeal, or of both, soon afterwards dispersed themselves. Mr. Home, however, whose patriotic ardour appears to have exceeded that of his companions, retained his arms, and marched with a detachment of the royal army to Falkirk. In the disgraceful route, for it cannot be called battle, which befel the king's army in that neighbourhood, Home was taken prisoner by the rebels, and sent to Doune Castle, on the borders of the Highlands. From this place, however, he, in a short time, contrived to effect his escape, and, on the restoration of tranquillity after the battle of Culloden, returned to the university, to complete his studies for the church. On entering into orders, his hopes did not probably extend beyond sitting down for life, the dull parson of some country parish; and in snatching from his supposed destiny the intermediate opportunity of paying a visit to England, he both gratified a natural desire of extending his knowledge of the world, and threw himself in the way of acquiring a degree of refinement which could not be expected amid the party feuds of the northern metropolis. When in London, there can be little doubt that he drank deeply of the pleasures of theatrical representation; and crude as his ideas of dramatic effect must have been from any thing he could, at that period, have seen in Scotland, they could not PART 1.]

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fail to be wonderfully enlarged and corrected, by witnessing, with his own eyes, the performances of such masters of the art, as a Garrick, a Barry, and others, who, at that period, shed so much lustre on the English stage. Had Mr. Home, the probationer, never visited England, it is probable, that Mr. Home, the parish minister, would never have committed what the church, to which he belonged, deemed so great a sin, that of writing one of the most beautiful dramatic productions in the English language.

In 1750, Mr. Home received a presentation to the church of Athelstaneford in East Lothian, on the demise of the Rev. Robert Blair, the celebrated author of "The Grave." From the quiet of this obscure retreat, he used frequently to resort to the capital, to enjoy the pleasures of enlightened society. Several of the most eminent men of that period had instituted a society in Edinburgh, for literary and philosophical disquisition, and of this Mr. Home became a distinguished member. Among his associates were Mr. Wedderburn, afterwards Earl of Rosslyn and Lord High Chancellor of England; Ferguson, Hume, and Robertson, the historians; and Dr. Blair, the rhetorician and divine. The poetic fire with which a Collins had discovered Home to be so largely fraught, could not miss of being fanned into a flame by such society as this. A year or two had not elapsed, after his settlement at Athelstaneford, before Home had a tragedy already prepared, to try its fortune on the stage. It was called Agis, and founded on a passage of Lacedemonian history. With the manuscript in his pocket, Home stole off to London; but, to his great mortification, found, that he could

not prevail on the managers of the metropolitan theatre to discover either a good plot or good poetry in his production. Without suffering himself to be discouraged by the failure, he returned home, and resolved on making a second trial, by writing a new play, of which Scotland should be the scene, and a Scottish story the subject. When he had completed his labours, he paid another visit to London, and laid his new production before Mr. Garrick. But he had to sustain all the bitterness of a second refusal. Garrick thought the plot too simple and destitute of stage effect. The play, of which the English Roscius pronounced this sage opinion, was THE DOUGLAS, simple, indeed, because natural in plot, but one of the most effective productions ever represented on the British stage. In all probability, Garrick, when he pronounced this opinion, had never read the piece; it is an opinion which has much the air of a theatrical state circular; it stands in need of no proof, for it is no more than saying, "I can't tell how it is, but it won't do." When the absurdity of the criticism was afterwards demonstrated by the extraordinary success of the play, Garrick was as much mortified as the author could have been by its original rejection; and, throughout the remainder of his life, he candidly confessed, that no circumstance, in the course of his theatrical management, ever gave him so much chagrin as his refusal of Douglas.

Home went back to Scotland, not, as may be well supposed, without a strong feeling of disgust for English criticism and English liberality. Satisfied, however, in his own mind, by a dispassionate comparison