and even that we do not now recollect any and the singular thing in his case was one of his contemporaries who was so great a only that he left this most material part of ba master of composition. There is a certain work to be performed after the whole outle mellowness and richness about his style, had been finished, but that he could proceed which adorns, without disguising the weight with it to an indefinite extent, and enrich and and nervousness which is its other great char-improve as long as he thought fit, without any acteristic,-a sedate gracefulness and manly risk either of destroying the proportions simplicity in the more level passages, and a that outline, or injuring the harmony and unit? mild majesty and considerate enthusiasm of the original design. He was perfectly where he rises above them, of which we aware, too, of the possession of this extror scarcely know where to find any other exam- dinary power; and it was partly, we presume, ple. There is great equability, too, and sus- in consequence of it that he was not only at tained force in every part of his writings. He all times ready to go on with any work a never exhausts himself in flashes and epi- which he was engaged, without waiting for grams, nor languishes into tameness or in- favourable moments or hours of greater alacsipidity: At first sight you would say that rity, but that he never felt any of those doubts plainness and good sense were the predomi- and misgivings as to his being able to gel eze nating qualities; but by and bye, this sim-ditably through with his undertaking, to which plicity is enriched with the delicate and vivid we believe most authors are occasionally liable. colours of a fine imagination,-the free and As he never wrote upon any subject of wres forcible touches of a most powerful intellect, he was not perfectly master, he was secure -and the lights and shades of an unerring and against all blunders in the substance of what harmonising taste. In comparing it with the he had to say; and felt quite assured, that i styles of his most celebrated contemporaries, he was only allowed time enough, he should we would say that it was more purely and finally come to say it in the very best way of peculiarly a written style,—and, therefore, re- which he was capable. He had no anxiety, jected those ornaments that more properly therefore, either in undertaking or proceeduz belong to oratory. It had no impetuosity, with his tasks; and intermitted and resumed hurry, or vehemence,- -no bursts or sudden them at his convenience, with the comfortable turns or abruptions, like that of Burke; and certainty, that all the time he bestowed on though eminently smooth and melodious, it them was turned to account, and that what was not modulated to an uniform system of was left imperfect at one sitting might be solemn declamation, like that of Johnson, nor finished with equal ease and advantage at spread out in the richer and more voluminous another. Being thus perfectly sure both of elocution of Stewart; nor, still less, broken his end and his means, he experienced, in the into that patchwork of scholastic pedantry and course of his compositions, none of that little conversational smartness which has found its fever of the spirits with which that operatice admirers in Gibbon. It is a style, in short, of is so apt to be accompanied. He had te great freedom, force, and beauty; but the de- capricious visitings of fancy, which it wa liberate style of a man of thought and of necessary to fix on the spot or to lose for ever, learning; and neither that of a wit throwing -no casual inspirations to invoke and to wait out his extempores with an affectation of care- for,-no transitory and evanescent lights to less grace,-nor of a rhetorician thinking more catch before they faded. All that was in his of his manner than his matter, and deter-mind was subject to his control, and amenamined to be admired for his expression, whatever may be fate of his sentiments.

porated, and assimilated with the first, as if they had sprung simultaneously from the same happy conception.

ble to his call, though it might not obey at the moment; and while his taste was so sure, His habits of composition were not perhaps that he was in no danger of over-working any exactly what might have been expected from thing that he had designed, all his thonghia their results. He wrote rather slowly,-and and sentiments had that unity and congruity, his first sketches were often very slight and that they fell almost spontaneously into harimperfect, like the rude chalking for a mas-mony and order; and the last added, inest terly picture. His chief effort and greatest pleasure was in their revisal and correction; and there were no limits to the improvement which resulted from this application. It was not the style merely, nor indeed chiefly, that gained by it: The whole reasoning, and sentiment, and illustration, were enlarged and new modelled in the course of it; and a naked outline became gradually informed with life, colour, and expression. It was not at all like the common finishing and polishing to which careful authors generally subject the first draughts of their compositions, - nor even like the fastidious and tentative alterations with which some more anxious writers assay their choicer passages. It was, in fact, the great filling in of the picture,-the working up of the figured weft, on the naked and meagre woof that cad been stretched to receive it;

But we need dwell no longer on qualities that may be gathered hereafter from the worke he has left behind him. They who lived with him mourn the most for those which will be traced in no such memorial! And prize far above those talents which gained him his high name in philosophy, that Personal Character which endeared him to his friends, and shed a grace and a dignity over all the society in which he moved. The same admirable taste which is conspicuous in his writings, or rather the higher principles from which that taste was but an emanation, spread a similar charm over his whole life and conversation; and gave to the most learned Philosopher of his day the manners and deportment of the most per

fect Gentleman. Nor was this in him the | never failed to manifest the most open scorn result merely of good sense and good temper, and detestation. Independent, in short, of his assisted by an early familiarity with good high attainments, Mr. Playfair was one of the company, and a consequent knowledge of his most amiable and estimable of men: Delightown place and that of all around him. His ful in his manners, inflexible in his principles, good breeding was of a higher descent; and and generous in his affections, he had all that his powers of pleasing rested on something could charm in society or attach in private; better than mere companionable qualities. and while his friends enjoyed the free and With the greatest kindness and generosity of unstudied conversation of an easy and intelnature, he united the most manly firmness, ligent associate, they had at all times the and the highest principles of honour, -and proud and inward assurance that he was a the most cheerful and social dispositions, with Being upon whose perfect honour and genethe gentlest and steadiest affections. rosity they might rely with the most implicit confidence, in life and in death,-and of whom it was equally impossible, that, under any circumstances, he should ever perform a mean, a selfish, or a questionable action, as that his body should cease to gravitate or his soul to live!

If we do not greatly deceive ourselves, there is nothing here of exaggeration or partial feeling, and nothing with which an indifferent and honest chronicler would not heartily concur. Nor is it altogether idle to have dwelt so long on the personal character of this distinguished individual: For we are ourselves persuaded, that this personal character has done almost as much for the cause of science and philosophy among us, as the great talents and attainments with which it was combined,

Towards Women he had always the most chivalrous feelings of regard and attention, and was, beyond almost all men, acceptable and agreeable in their society,-though without the least levity or pretension unbecoming his age or condition: And such, indeed, was the fascination of the perfect simplicity and mildness of his manners, that the same tone and deportment seemed equally appropriate in all societies, and enabled him to delight the young and the gay with the same sort of conversation which instructed the learned and the grave. There never, indeed, was a man of learning and talent who appeared in society so perfectly free from all sorts of pretension or notion of his own importance, or so little solicitous to distinguish himself, or so sincerely willing to give place to every one else. Even and has contributed in a very eminent deupon subjects which he had thoroughly studied, gree to give to the better society of this our he was never in the least impatient to speak, city that tone of intelligence and liberality by and spoke at all times without any tone of which it is so honourably distinguished. It is authority; while, so far from wishing to set not a little advantageous to philosophy that it off what he had to say by any brilliancy or is in fashion,-and it is still more advantaemphasis of expression, it seemed generally geous, perhaps, to the society which is led to as if he had studied to disguise the weight confer on it this apparently trivial distinction. and originality of his thoughts under the It is a great thing for the country at large,— plainest forms of speech and the most quiet for its happiness, its prosperity, and its reand indifferent manner: so that the profound-nown,-that the upper and influencing classes est remarks and subtlest observations were often dropped, not only without any solicitude that their value should be observed, but without any apparent consciousness that they possessed any.

of its population should be made familiar, even in their untasked and social hours, with sound and liberal information, and be taught to know and respect those who have distinguished themselves for great intellectual attainments. Nor is it, after all, a slight or despicable reward for a man of genius, to be received with honour in the highest and most elegant society around him, and to receive in his living person that homage and applause which is too often reserved for his memory. Now, those desirable ends can never be ef fectually accomplished, unless the manners of our leading philosophers are agreeable, and their personal habits and dispositions en

Though the most social of human beings, and the most disposed to encourage and sympathise with the gaiety and even joviality of others, his own spirits were in general rather cheerful than gay, or at least never rose to any turbulence or tumult of merriment; and while he would listen with the kindest indulgence to the more extravagant sallies of his younger friends, and prompt them by the heartiest approbation, his own satisfaction might generally be traced in a slow and tem-gaging and amiable. From the time of Hume perate smile, gradually mantling over his and Robertson, we have been fortunate, in benevolent and intelligent features, and light- Edinburgh, in possessing a succession of dising up the countenance of the Sage with the tinguished men, who have kept up this saluexpression of the mildest and most genuine tary connection between the learned and the philanthropy. It was wonderful, indeed, con- fashionable world; but there never, perhaps, sidering the measure of his own intellect, and was any one who contributed so powerfully to the rigid and undeviating propriety of his own confirm and extend it, and that in times when conduct, how tolerant he was of the defects it was peculiarly difficult, as the lamented in and errors of other men. He was too indul-dividual of whom we are now speaking: And gent, in truth, and favourable to his friends! and made a kind and liberal allowance for the faults of all mankind-except only faults of Baseness or of Cruelty, against which he

they who have had most opportunity to observe how superior the society of Edinburgh is to that of most other places of the same size, and how much of that superiority is