Spencer, in which Lord Spencer used these words That it was very probable that Mr. Ivory would be the successful candidate.' Lord Lauderdale then conversed about the state of the College, and of the manner in which vacancies in the gift of the College had been filled up. He inculcated the necessity of attending to merit in the candidates for vacancies, with the view of restoring the lost reputation and usefulness of the seminary. His Lordship concluded with desiring me to come up to town when the vacancy should take place, and he would then introduce me to Lord Spencer. Such were the foundations of my hopes when I wrote you last. When Lord Spencer went out of office, he returned my certificates. As I have no political interest to support an application, I am in doubt whether I shall apply or not.-I ever am very sincerely yours, &c., JAMES IVORY."

“ LONDON, 1, Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1st July 1807.

"MY DEAR SIR,-It is now a day or two since I have learned that the vacancy in your University is filled up by the appointment of Mr. Haldane. * * * Soon after my last letter to you, I thought it right, after due reflection, to make the same application to the present Ministers that I had formerly made to the last Ministers; but, as I had no hopes of success, I did not choose to trouble any of my friends, and therefore I sent my certificates, with a letter of application, to Lord Hawkesbury, by the post. In my letter I told his Lordship that I had applied to his predecessor in office, and I said that the flattering attention paid to my pretensions by Lord Spencer had encouraged me to make an application to himself. When the appointment is gazetted I shall have my certificates sent back to me.Yours very sincerely, JAMES IVORY."

Out of more than one hundred letters, written during an interval of more than thirty years, I subjoin the following, bearing upon the earlier periods of Sir John Leslie's chequered career :

"EDINBURGH, 21st February, 1788. "DEAR JAMES,—I received yours. I return you my hearty thanks for your good wishes. I long as eagerly for the Ides of March as ever did the Roman patriots. The time approaches, and I hope then to spend a day or two with you. The little weaknesses, the sweet remembrances of friendship, will, I hope, make a deep impression on my mind, which neither distance of time or of place efface. These connect and endear the ties of society, and diffuse some scattered rays to enliven the chequered scene of human life. I consider myself as a citizen of the world, Ubi libertas, ibi Patria.

I go to a new country, where youthful nature sports in her productions, and pours forth everything that can contribute to the utility or pleasure of man. There the loved Equality-there the age of the poets. But is my friend to be left behind? Is there not a field of ambition beyond the Atlantic?-Dear James, I am, ever yours affectionately, Jo. LESLIE."

"RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, January 11, 1789.

"MY DEAR JAMES,-My stay in the country has been too short for my giving any account of it. At my first arrival I was extremely struck with the peculiarities, and had I written you at that time, my letter would have been full of remarks. The novelty is now over, and I am inclined to make cool reflections. I shall therefore defer giving an account till the spring or summer. I must confess that Virginia has fallen below my expectations. I reckon Mr. Randolph's the best family, and Tuckahoe the best land. My republican notions are now completely sobered. I reckon the constitution of Great Britain as the most noble that can be framed. If any person be discontented at home, let him be acquainted with other countries. I am afraid my schemes in America will not succeed. I would wish to return to the bosom of my country, after my peregrinations. At present I am set loose in the sea of adventure, but I long to devote my days to science and philosophy.-I am, my dear friend, yours ever affectionately, Jo. LESLIE."

"LONDON, February 5, 1790.

"DEAR JAMES,-My heart warms when I reflect upon the scenes that are passed. This world, my dear friend, is full of toil and vexation. It amuses and deceives. You are surprised perhaps that I moralize. I have seen as much, I assure you, in the short time I have been here, as to create disgust. I found the scheme of lecturing too expensive for a place divided between business and pleasure. I have therefore relinquished it. Dr. Maskelyne offered to make me his assistant; and when I came to the resolution to accept of his offer, he found that his assistant had recovered his health. But I had more than irresolution to encounter. Lord Mountstewart applied to Dr. Kippis for a mathematical tutor for his son. I was strongly recommended; but the answer was an insult.' He would have no Scotchman.' Such is the gratitude of the Bute family; thus is Scotland despised by her unworthy sons. Dr. Kippis was offended-I was exasperated. The English are not so illiberal. I am advised by several of my friends here to get into a family, and endeavour to get forward in the Church of England.—I am, dear James, ever yours affectionately,

Jo. LESLIE."

Anxious to preserve some biographical notice of Dr. Brown, I applied to Professor Duncan of St. Andrews, and have been favoured with the following communication :

"ST. ANDREWS, 11th July, 1849.

"MY DEAR SIR,-I shall now try to give you some account of Dr. James Brown. He was the son of a miller who resided in the village of Lochgelly on the river Orr in Fife, and received his earliest education at a country school. He afterwards removed to live with a relative also a miller on the river Eden near Cupar in Fife, where he attended the grammar-school, under a master of some eminence of the name of Gray. At St. Andrews he distinguished himself both in literature and science, and hence attracted the attention of Dr. Hunter, the celebrated Professor of Humanity, and of Mr. West, the distinguished assistant of Mr. Vilant, Professor of Mathematics. I have heard him say more than once, that the first thing which led him to think was the lectures of Dr. Hunter on the philosophy of grammar; and by the friendship of Mr. West, he was appointed successor to that gentleman as assistant to Professor Vilant. He held that situation for eleven years, and taught the mathematical classes with great ability, securing the respect and attachment of the students in a remarkable degree by the clearness and elegance of his expositions, and by the kindness of his manner. During the last six years that he officiated in the college, he was at the same time minister of Denino, a parish within four miles of St. Andrews, to which he had been presented by the College, the patrons. Denino being my native parish, where my father acted as Dr. Brown's elder, I had the pleasure and advantage of hearing Dr. Brown preach during a great part of the year. I admired his sermons exceedingly. They were, many of them, exceedingly eloquent. His facility of composition was extraordinary. It was his custom on the Sunday evening to look out his text for next Sunday, and make a few notes on the subjects, which were then in a great measure dismissed from his mind until Saturday next, when he sat down, and often wrote two sermons in the course of the Saturday and Saturday night before their delivery. Indeed, he often in four hours wrote a sermon which occupied half an hour in the delivery, and therefore he must literally have composed currente calamo, for it is only a ready writer who can transcribe in four hours a sermon of half an hour. But notwithstanding the extraordinary rapidity with which his sermons were written, there was scarcely an erasure or interlineation in the manuscript. This I had occasion to observe when Mrs. Brown sent me the manuscripts for perusal, after her husband's death.

"On the death of Dr. Forrest, he became a candidate for the Chair of

Natural Philosophy at St. Andrews, in the gift of the United College, but was disappointed in consequence of the family influence of the Hill party, which was then very powerful. Within six months after this disappointment, he was successful in his application for the corresponding Chair at Glasgow, which was in the gift of that University, and which he contested with a no less formidable candidate than his friend John Leslie, afterwards Sir John Leslie. Unfortunately, however, his health gave way, and he was able to teach only one session, and even that very irregularly. This was the session 1796-97. Though of a large and strong make, he had not a strong nervous system, and he was not able to bear the transition from the bracing air of St. Andrews to the moist and relaxing atmosphere of Glasgow. He was unfortunate, too, in catching a cold at the commencement of his session; and the complaints of some of his colleagues, operating on a sensitive mind, increased his illness, and having dragged with difficulty through one session, he never had courage to resume his duties. He taught by assistants for three or four years, and then retired altogether, with a pension from the University of, I think, £170, which he drew for about thirty-five years, dying at the age of seventyfive. During that long period he amused himself by miscellaneous reading, and for some years was very much addicted to the study of botany. I am not aware that he ever published any thing either in science or literature. He was exceedingly fastidious in his taste, and had higher notions of what was great or fine, both in literature and science, than he was able to realize. But his taste was fine, and his imagination brilliant, and, if he had given them full scope, he would have far surpassed many authors of deserved celebrity. His powers of conversation were certainly uncommonly great, as Dr. Chalmers so forcibly states. Whether the subject was politics or literature, books or men, science or the ordinary topics of the day, the business of the empire or the occurrences of this little city, it assumed an air of importance, without the appearance of pomposity, which, upon recollection, still surprises me. What was said of some other notable, might be said with truth of him- Nil quod tetigit, non ornavit.' It would be difficult to say in what the charm consisted. He did not deal in prosy dissertations, nor in long-winded anecdotes, for which he had even a dislike, and for which his rather deficient memory unfitted him; but everything was embellished by a fine fancy; and I must add that there was not wanting, on some subjects, a spice of satire. At the same time, I have my doubts whether he would have come out or attracted notice in large companies, where powers of a somewhat different kind are required. I never had an opportunity of seeing him in such situations. All his life he lived retired,

seen only by the few who called upon him in his retreat, and particularly by young men, in whom he always took a particular interest, and whom he was at much pains both to instruct and amuse. Lord Campbell, alluded to in this volume, was one of those who visited him, and was much delighted by his conversation. The last time I met Lord Campbell, about a year and a half ago, he spoke of Dr. Brown with strong feelings of gratitude, stating that it was intercourse with Dr. Brown which first excited in his mind aspirations after distinction.

"In looking over the preceding account, I think it contains everything worthy of notice concerning Dr. Brown. I might have said that, in addition to the relaxation of the nervous system which overtook him on his removal to Glasgow, he felt more than ever the inconvenience of an organic complaint under which he had laboured all his life. This was hernia, which particularly unfitted him for performing experiments; a kind of duty for which great demands were made at Glasgow, in consequence of the popular and experimental courses of his predecessor, and the popular institution which, on his deathbed, he had founded in opposition to the University. He spent the last twelve years of his life in Edinburgh. The rest of his life, from the date of his coming to College, was spent in St. Andrews, unless six or eight months in Glasgow, two summers while he was tutor in families, and a few months when he was schoolmaster on board a frigate. In one of these summers he was tutor to the late Earl of Home, at The Hirsel, in Berwickshire, and was asked to accompany him to the Continent, but declined on account of his prospects at St. Andrews.-I remain, my dear Sir, yours very truly, THOMAS DUNCAN."

APPENDIX B.-P. 39.

The following letter, addressed to Dr. James Brown, contains a very different account of the origin of the feud between Leyden and Campbell from that which Dr. Beattie has lately given to the world. As this version of the story is given upon Campbell's authority, it is but right that Leyden's version of it should not be suppressed

"EDINBURGH, December 23, 1799. "MY DEAR FRIEND,-I have this moment received yours of the 22d with great pleasure, and really felt myself relieved from considerable anxiety, though I recollect the principle originally fixed of our correspondence, 'That each should write and reply as he pleased and how he pleased.' I affirm that I will always adhere to the condition of never believing evil of my friend till I have the whole statement from his own mouth.'