Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/324

66 providence in the most striking light. Nothing carries in it more express characters of design; nothing can be conceived more opposite to chance, than a plan so artfully contrived for adjusting our impressions and feelings to the purposes of life." The doctrine may appear at first sight anomalous ; but it displays equal ingenuity in its discovery, and acuteness in its support, and is well worthy of the deepest attention. A certain clergyman of the church of Scotland is said to have seen in this theory an admirable exposition of the doctrine of predestination, and to have hailed the author as a brother; and certainly a little comparison will show no slight analogy betwixt the two systems; but other persons thought differently, and the reverend gentleman was superseded. These fiery controversies have carried us beyond an event which served to mitigate their rancour the elevation of Mr Home to the bench of the court of session, where he took his seat in February, 1752, by the title of lord Kames; an appointment which, as it could not be but agreeable and satisfactory to the learned and ingenious, seems to have met the general concurrence and approbation of the common people of the country. Arguing from the productions of his pen, no one would hesitate to attribute to lord Kames those qualities of acuteness, ingenuity, and plausible interpretation, necessary for the acquirement of distinction and success at the bar but that he was characterized by the unprejudiced and unwavering uprightness of the judge, whose conclusions are formed less on finely spun theories and sophisms than on those firm doctrines of right and wrong which can form a guide alike to the ignorant and the learned, would seem questionable, had we not the best authority to believe, that his strong good sense, and knowledge of justice, taught him as a judge to desert, on most occasions, the pleasing speculations which occupied his mind as a lawyer. "He rarely," says Tytler, "entered into any elaborate argument in support of his opinions; it was enough that he had formed them with deliberation, and that they were the result of a conscientious persuasion of their being founded on justice, and on a fair interpretation of the laws." Unfortunately there are some exceptions to this general characteristic; refined speculation seldom entirely deserts its favourite abode, and in some few instances lord Kames was a special pleader on the bench.

In 1755, lord Kames was appointed a member of the board of trustees, for the encouragement of the fisheries, arts, and manufactures of Scotland, and likewise one of the commissioners for the management of the annexed estates, on both of which important duties it would appear he bestowed the attention his ever active mind enabled him to direct to many different subjects. In the midst of his varied judicial and ministerial labours, two legal works appeared from the pen of lord Kames. "The Statute Law of Scotland abridged, with Historical Notes," published in 1759, Avas never known beyond the library of the Scots lawyer, and has now almost fallen into disuse even there. "Historical Law Tracts," published in 1757, was of a more ambitious sort, and acquired something beyond professional celebrity. The matters discussed in this volume are exceedingly miscellaneous, and present a singular mixture of "first principles" of morality, metaphysics, &c., and Scots law. The author has here displayed, in the strongest light, his usual propensity for hunting all principles so far back into the misty periods of their origin, that, attempting to find the lost traces of the peculiar idea he is following, he pursues some fanciful train of thought, which has just as much chance of being wrong as of being right. "I have often amused myself," says the author, "with a fanciful resemblance of law to the river Nile. When we enter upon the municipal law of any country in its present state, we resemble a traveller, who, crossing the Delta, loses his way among the numberless branches of the Egyptian river. But when we begin at the source, and follow the current of law, it is in that case no less easy and agreeable; and