Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/339

Rh of the times, and with which all would be benefited by becoming- acquainted. A shallow spirit of scepticism was abroad, which, aided by ignorance and misrepresentation, was threatening to become universal, and to change the sober and meditative character of Britons, into frothy petulance and flippant vanity. This he attempted to meet by sober investigations into the truth of the facts that had been so confidently assumed respecting the early history of Christianity, by which he certainly left his opponents without the shadow of an excuse for persisting in their conclusions, having proved to a demonstration that their premises were false. Whether he might not have done this in a more popular form, we cannot now stay to inquire into. We certainly think the mode he adopted that which was best calculated to cut oft* the cavilling of adversaries, and to carry conviction to the mind of the reader ; and to those who wish to treat the subject in a more popular form, his lordship has furnished abundant materials. His various republications of the ancient poetry of Scotland, and the publication of original letters regarding her history and manners, while they throw much light upon the history of the country and the domestic economy of the times to which they relate, present his lordship in a most amiable point of view; and, while we admire the scholar and the philosopher, we cannot cease to venerate and to love the man. Of his Annals we have already spoken. Though necessarily written in a close and severe style, they have long ago risen to a pitch of popularity far beyond many works that took a more immediate hold of the public mind; and we have no doubt that ages will only add to their value. Indeed, he has left nothing to be done for the periods that came under his review. His inquiry into the secondary causes which Gibbon has assigned for the rapid progress of Christianity, is also a masterpiece of its kind, displaying great critical acumen, close reasoning, and great zeal for truth, without the smallest particle of that rancour which too often runs through the theological controversy. With all his virtues and all his acquirements, joined to the finest natural abilities, lord Hailes was not one of those who could boast of the immense sums he received for the copyright of his works. He was most commonly his own publisher; and, as is generally the case in such circumstances, the circulation of his writings was, with a few exceptions, confined to the particular friends and acquaintances whom he had drawn around him. The consequence is, that there are many of them no longer to be met with, being wholly confined to the cabinets of the curious. It would be meritorious work, in these days of literary enterprise, and we cannot doubt that an intelligent and spirited publisher might find if a profitable speculation, to publish a neat, cheap, and uniform edition of his multifarious publications. Lord Hailes possessed a natural taste for retirement. The state of his affairs, at a most important period of his life, rendered it necessary for him, and the habit grew upon him as he advanced in years. His constitution, of which he was careful, as well as his principles and habits, rendered him averse to every kind of dissipation. After he was constituted a judge, he considered it unbecoming his character to mingle much with the fashionable and the gay world. When he chose to unbend his mind, therefore, it was in the society of a few easy friends whom he had selected, as much on account of their moral and religious worth, as for their genius or learning. With that constellation of men of genius and science which illuminated Edinburgh at that period, lord Hailes had much agreeable and profitable conversation, but it was impossible for friendship or close intimacy to subsist between men who thought so differently, as he and the most of them did, upon the most important of all subjects. Though a whig, and strongly attached to the best principles of the revolution, he took no part in the broils, civil or ecclesiastical, which agitated the country in the first period of the reign of George III. Some of these he regarded as frivolous, and others