Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/220

566 ties, together with her great talents and learning, drew upon her the universal esteem and respect of her cotemporaries of all ranks.

HALL, (, Bart, was born at Dunglass in East Lothian, on the 17th January, 1761. He was the eldest son of Sir John Hall, who had married his cousin, Magdalen, daughter to Sir Robert Pringle of Stitchell in Berwickshire. The subject of our memoir received a private education until his twelfth year, when he was sent by his father to a public school in the neighbourhood of London, where he had the good fortune to be under the care and superintendence of his uncle, Sir John Pringle, the king's physician. He succeeded to the baronetcy by the death of his father, in July 1776, and much about the same period entered himself in Christ's college 3 Cambridge, where he remained for some years. He then proceeded with his tutor, the reverend Mr Brand, on a tour on the continent, whence he returned to Edinburgh, when twenty years old, and lived there with his tutor until he became of age, attending, at the same time, some of the classes of the Edinburgh university. In 1782, Sir James Hall made a second tour on the continent of Europe, where he remained for more than three years, gradually acquiring that accurate information in geology, chemistry, and Gothic architecture, which he afterwards made so useful to the world. During this period he visited the courts of Europe, and made himself acquainted with their scientific men. In his rambles he had occasion to meet with the adventurer Ledyard; the interview between them, its cause, and consequence, are, with a sense of gratitude and justice not often witnessed on similar occasions, detailed in the journals and correspondence of that singular man; and the scene is so honourable to the feelings of Sir James Hall, that we cannot avoid quoting it in Ledyard's own words:

"Permit me to relate to you an incident. About a fortnight ago, Sir James Hall, an English gentleman, on his way from Paris to Cherbourg, stopped his coach at our door, and came up to my chamber. I was in bed, at six o'clock in the morning, but having flung on my robe de chambre, I met him at the door of the anti-chamber I was glad to see him, but surprised. He observed, that he had endeavoured to make up his opinion of me with as much exactness as possible, and concluded that no kind of visit whatever would surprise me. I could do no otherwise than remark that his opinion surprised me at least, and the conversation took another turn. In walking across the chamber, he laughingly put his hand on a six livre piece, and a louis d'or that lay on my table, and with a half stifled, blush, asked me how I was in the money way. Blushes commonly beget blushes, and I blushed partly because he did, and partly on other accounts. 'If fifteen guineas,' said he, interrupting the answer he had demanded, 'will be of any service to you, there they are,' and he put them on the table. 'I am a traveller myself, and though I have some fortune to support my travels, yet I have been so situated as to want money, which you ought not to do you have my address in London.' He then wished me a good morning and left me. This gentleman was a total stranger to the situation of my finances, and one that I had, by mere accident, met at an ordinary in Paris."

The sum was extremely acceptable to Ledyard, for the consumption of the six livre piece and the louis d'or would have left him utterly destitute; but he had no more expectation or right to assistance from Sir James Hall, than (to use his own simile) from the khan of Tartary. On his return to Scotland, Sir James Hall married, in 1786, the lady Helen Douglas, second daughter of Dunbar, earl of Selkirk. Living a life of retirement, Sir James commenced his connexion with the Royal Society of Edinburgh, of which he was for some time president,