Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/286

346 a minute knowledge of all branches of Scottish law: he voluntarily acted the part of a lawyer, in historical subjects, in a manner which has called forth the highest praise to his merely forensic talents; and it may, on the whole, be safely concluded, that the limited extent of his practice at the bar must be attributed more to his choice than to his talent. The first fruit of Mr Laing's laborious constitutional investigations, was the preparing for the press the last volume of Dr Henry's History of Great Britain in 1793, after that author's death. The matter collected by Henry did not extend to a period at which the work could be terminated, and Laing was requested by his executors to write two terminating chapters, to which he annexed a dissertation on the alleged crimes of Richard III. The labours of the two authors could not be very aptly united, and many consider Laing as a fierce liberalist, whose doctrines appeared harsh and prejudiced, when compared to the calm narrative of Henry. The authors were indeed extremely dissimilar, but we must pause before we decide in favour of the former. Henry was a man of tame mind and tolerable good sense; but if he appeared calm and moderate in his historical opinions, he was so, in the very safe and reputable cause of despotism, in which he ensconced himself as an impregnable fortress, which it did not require much skill to defend. Laing, on the other hand was a man of strong judgment and profound speculation; and if he was violently argumentative in support of the opinions he had adopted, he was so, not as a man who is determined to maintain a given point because he has chosen it, and is personally interested in its being shown to be true; but as one who had considered the matter accurately, had submitted it to the arbitration of his strong judgment, and was resolved to crush those prejudices which prevented others from seeing it as it appeared to himself. It is the height of all prejudice to blame an historian for his opinions; but many have deserved to be censured severely for twisting facts to support opinions, instead of bending opinions to accommodate them to facts. It was the object of Laing to discover the truth. Perhaps prepossession in favour of the line of principles he had adopted may have, therefore, prompted him to derive improper deductions from the facts which he produced; but his strongest political opponents have never accused him of perverting facts. Laing is said likewise to have composed the memoir of Henry which accompanied the History; but it certainly does not display his usual energy of style. Whatever defects some may have discovered in the continuation of Henry's History, the critical world in general saw its merit, and bestowed the countenance of its approbation. The author thus encouraged to new historical labours, looked towards his native country, and in 1800, he published "The History of Scotland, from the union of the crowns, on the accession of king James VI. to the throne of England, to the union of the kingdoms, in the reign of queen Anne. With two dissertations, historical and critical, on the Gowry Conspiracy, and on the supposed authenticity of Ossian's Poems." As in the previous case, his book was very dissimilar to that of the person of whose labours his were a continuation Dr Robertson. Of the flowing academical ease of that author it is very destitute. It cannot be called either inelegant or harsh, but it is complicated; and by being laboured to contain much meaning, is occasionally obscure. There is much in the profundity of the remarks and reflections which Dr Robertson could not have reached; but the chief merit lies in the display of critical power on matters of evidence, in which he displays all the acumen of the practised lawyer, and the close observer of human nature. From this peculiar merit, the separate dissertations, containing nothing but special pleadings, are the most useful and admirable parts of the book. In all parts of the work, the author's ruling spirit has prompted him to search for debated facts, few of which he has left without some sort of settlement