alist, of the one party, is as likely to be unjust to somebody, as a bigot, of the other, to the Queen; and between operatic twaddle involving the theory that Buchanan was a villain, and sectarian virulence talking spiritual radicalism, a cool reader, free from hereditary prejudices on either side, is apt to be soon sickened of the dispute. The observing tourist, meanwhile, with an eye for character, may smile to see, that, though the mass of the Scots cannot make up their minds to believe in the spotlessness of their famous sovereign, they are unanimous in resenting any assault on it from an Englishman! Not many years back a distinguished Southron, lecturing in Edinburgh, found that he pricked his fingers when he meddled with the White Rose.

Tytler had his impartiality severely tested in dealing with this part of his History. His grandfather had not only defended the Queen, but had defended her against Hume and Robertson, and in so doing had laid the foundation of that literary fame of the family which it was one great object of the grandson's life to keep up. He came honourably out of the trial, and displayed qualities which more popular historians would do well to imitate -patience, sobriety, and fair play. Laurels were to be gained, partisans to be won, on either side. Tytler did his best to decide honestly about both. He does not disguise that his convictions regarding Mary were very different from those of his grandfather, but he does not allow them to betray him into exaggeration. He avoids the weak blunder of judging Knox by the standard of Mayfair; but, while he pronounced Knox perfectly honest,' he excited great scandal by arguing that he was privy to Rizzio's murder. The dust of that new controversy is not laid yet, but we shall fling none of it in the reader's eyes on this occasion. Our only business with the matter is to say that Tytler never believed without a reason for his belief, at which he had arrived by some honourable process. He would not have stuck to any assertion which friends and foes had united to demonstrate to him to be false; and we need not say (for example) that if the 'John Knox' of the MSS. had been proved to be only a namesake of the reformer's, he would have withdrawn his original statement with eagerness and gratitude. His style wanted the pungency and brilliance so welcome at the circulating libraries. But the worthy man began each volume with prayer; and though it is a little pedantic, according to modern fashion, for Mr. Burgon to call his biography The Portrait of a Christian Gentleman,' the justice of the title is perfectly unquestionable. As such Tytler lived and laboured, as such he died, and as such he will be remembered.

We are now to deal with the closing years of this useful life.

We

We find him visiting Scotland in 1840, busy as usual, enjoying at the same time the kindness of old friends and the consciousness of growing reputation.

66

"I am distracted," he writes, " by the number of extracts I have to make from MSS., and mobbed by the kindness of old friends who insist on my dining with them. It is pleasant to find one is not forgotten, and yet difficult to manage without seeming cold; and I was never famous for being able to say 'No.' It will end in my staying, I think, a week longer in Scotland; but how to satisfy my uncle, and my brother James, and my old friend David Anderson, and my still older and dearer friends the Alisons-is past my comprehension." It gratified him to find in every quarter an anxious desire to facilitate his researches. "I concluded also with Mr. Tait," he writes, an agreement for a second edition of my history on very fair and just terms; and had the satisfaction to hear from those best qualified to judge upon the subject, that the History had by degrees established itself so firmly in public opinion, that the success not only of a second, but of various successive editions, was considered certain. (I bless God that He has thus prospered the work of my hands. May His goodness strengthen me yet a little, to bring it to a conclusion!) These two weeks in Scot-land I spent chiefly at Woodville, with my dear old friends, Dr. W. Alison, bis dear wife Margaret Alison, and Dora Gerard (dear Montagu's daughter). The place was full of the sweetest and tenderest recollections, for since I had been last there he, the father of the house, who was to me a second father in the affection and interest with which he always regarded me-he had fallen asleep; and as my dear Margaret and Dora took me through the well-known spots-his room, the garden, the walks-every place seemed hallowed by his memory. Surely if ever a blessing descended on filial love, it is falling daily and hourly on the head of that dear creature, our own Margaret, who nursed him with such constant affection and ever wakeful love!"'—p. 299.

Next spring a slight paralytic seizure warned him of the danger of over-work; but he rallied from this, and recovered his old cheerfulness. Mr. Burgon naturally wishes to give us some impression of his friend's social hours and conversation; but this task, difficult at all times, is still more so in the case of so decided a book-man as Tytler. Notwithstanding, however, that the relaxations of a life so peculiarly secluded and laborious are apt to be too homely to bear the criticism of strangers.-desiring, as we all do above most things, to be amused,'-the biographer is more successful than we should have expected. A reader, knowing nothing of Tytler but his History of Scotland,' will probably be somewhat surprised, on the whole, with the amount of liveliness recorded of him in the following sketch:

In truth his wit was of that delicate kind which will scarcely bear repetition; his bons mots owed their attractiveness to the quiet humour

and

and the extreme drollery with which they were delivered, and carr scarcely be reproduced. Thus, though he used to make us very merry at home; and though, when we went into the country for the summer months, he would reside with us for many days together, and had always something playful and pleasant to say; I can recall but a few such passages; and scarcely one of them seems sufficiently striking to set down. A friend of the poet Cowper, whom I once begged to give me any specimens he could remember of that poet's conversation, expressed himself concerning Cowper in exactly the same terms.

Tytler had great vivacity; and when he liked his company (as I am sure he liked all of us), he used to talk a great deal, and overflowed with amusing anecdote. He came out delightfully in society also; the gentlemanly reserve of his manners, and his extreme urbanity, always conciliating the good will of strangers who saw him for the first time. But he was most delightful when we were quite by ourselves. If I try to recall him on such occasions, I commonly see him smiling over a quaint sketch which he is intent on making in one of his own pocketbooks. At last he lays it down, as if exhausted with the effort, and proposes with a submissive insinuating voice, that every one present shall sing a song; adding (to the relief of the whole party) that he should like to sing first, and earnestly requesting that we will all supply the ludicrous chorus, in which he proceeds to instruct us. Then he begins, in a fine rich strong voice, without a particle of hesitation— "There were two flies upon a time," &c. &c. It is needless to add that the song proves full of drollery; and leads to another, and another: so that, at the end of many years, the incident lingers in the memory; and the burden of the first song passes into a family proverb.

'From the commonest incidents of the hour he knew how to extract the soul of playfulness and humour. At Houghton Conquest we had once been calling on a friend who possessed a museum of Natural History, and who pressed us to accept of several specimens on our departure. He took a great fancy to Tytler, whom he conducted through all his greenhouses. On driving off, I asked Tytler what made him spring so nimbly into the carriage? "O Johnny," he exclaimed, with a face drolly expressive of alarm and insecurity, "I was so afraid your friend would insist on my putting one of those stuffed bustards into my pocket." "But you were pleased with his greenhouse plants, were not you ?" asked my sister. "O, very much pleased," he replied; and paid the plants and their owner every compliment she could desire: but he explained that he feared he did not care enough for such objects to bestow upon them all the attention they need; adding thoughtfully" I don't think I should like sitting up all night with a sick cactus."

We had taken a cottage at Moulsey for the summer; and one day, after dinner, were looking at a cherry-tree on the lawn. Tytler, turning to one of my sisters, modestly inquired the meaning of an empty box of figs and a strip of red bunting in the middle of the tree? She explained that she had put it there in order to frighten away the birds. "O, I assure you, Miss Burgon," said Tytler very gravely and thought

fully,

fully, "that's all a mistake. The birds stand upon the box to eat the cherries, and then wipe their beaks on the rag." When he heard that my brother-in-law was a rural dean, he said he thought it such a pretty title; adding—“ Do you know, I always think a rural dean ought to walk about with a daisy in his bonnet." . . . . So trifling, at the end of a few years, are the sayings which linger in the memory!'-pp. 305-307.

These mots want the epigrammatic sharpness of fashionable wit, but there is a natural fun about them, and unaffected fun is a very good sign of the character.

On the 25th October, 1843, he wrote the last sentence of the last chapter of his History. Earlier in the year he had been commanded by Her Majesty to examine and report on the 'Darnley Jewel,' and in November was farther honoured with an invitation to Windsor. In the following year Sir Robert Peel announced to him the grant of a literary pension of 2007.

About this time Mr. Burgon ceased to see almost anything of Tytler, and in 1845 was somewhat taken by surprise to hear from him that he meditated a second marriage. After this event the health of the historian gave way; he disappeared from society, and lived mostly on the Continent, seeking benefit from 'cold-water establishments.' But he never recovered himself; his nervous system was shattered, and his mind unfit for exertion or excitement. On Christmas-eve, 1849, he breathed his last. His remains were conveyed to Edinburgh to the family-vault in the Greyfriars Churchyard, already made memorable in literature by the interment of his great predecessor in history, Buchanan, whose grave, however, can no longer be pointed out. He left three children-a daughter, Mary Stewart, and two sons in the Indian army.

Tytler's admirers cannot claim for him a place in the highest rank of historians. But in the class just below them he holds an honourable position, and his book will probably remain for several generations the standard History of Scotland. The excellence of his character, at once so sound and so attractive, deserves cordial sympathy. Mr. Burgon's Memoir' does full justice to it, and that with a tact which is not the least merit of his unpretending and readable pages. It is not easy to make so quiet and studious a career an engaging object of contemplation; but neither is it by any means so impossible as is sometimes assumed. When literary biography comes to be fairly studied as an art, the world will soon forget that it ever seriously believed that those whose labours alone preserve the memory of other men were entirely unfit subjects for commemoration themselves.

ART.

Books.

ART. V.-1. Siluria. By Sir R. I. Murchison. Third Edition. 1859.

3

2. Geology and Mineralogy (Bridgewater Treatise). Buckland. Third Edition.

By Dr.

3. Recent Discoveries in Geology and Paleontology. Supplement to Sir C. Lyell's Fifth Edition of his Manual of Elementary Geology.

4. The Geology of Pennsylvania. A Government Survey. By H. D. Rogers, F.R.S. 3 vols., 4to. With 7 large Maps, &c. 5. Etudes sur la Métamorphisme des Roches. By M. Delesse, Ingénieur des Mines, Professeur de la Géologie à l'Ecole Normale.

6. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom. 7. Geological Survey of Canada. Reports of Progress for the years 1853-56. By Sir W. Logan and others.

8. Reports of the Geological Survey of Victoria (Australia). By A. R. C. Selwyn, Esq.

9. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India. Vol. I., Parts 1 and 2. By T. Oldham, LL.D., and others.

10. Earthquake Catalogue of the British Association, and Reports by R. Mallett, F.R.S., and J. W. Mallett, Ph.D.

11. Address of the President (Professor Owen) to the British Association at Leeds (1858).

12. On Lavas of Mount Etna formed on Steep Slopes and on Craters of Elevation. By Sir C. Lyell. From Phil. Transactions. 1858.

13. Report on the Copper Mines of South Namaqualand. By Andrew Wyley, Esq., Geological Surveyor of Cape of Good Hope.

MAPS.

1. Maps and Sections of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom.

2. Geological Map of Europe. By Sir R. I. Murchison and Professor Nicol.

3. Geological Map of Europe. By M. Dumont.

4. Geological Map of Scotland. By Professor Nicol.

5. Geological Map of England and Wales. By Professor Ramsay. 6. Geological Map of North America, with Reports. By Professor J. Marcou.

7. Geologisk Karta öfver Fyris åus Dalbäcken. Af A. Erdmann.

8. Geological Map of Ireland. By Sir R. Griffith. New Edition. 9. Geological Map of Yorkshire. By Professor J. Phillips. THE