Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/220

356 was, to Dr Robertson and others, sufficient reason for opposing him, without farther inquiry. To the influence of the worthy principal, it has generally been considered tlmt his rejection was owing; and as he was of a temperament never to forgive, he turned the course of his studies, and the future labour of his life, to the depreciation of the literary performances of his adversary; turning aside only from hid grand pursuit, when some other object incidentally attracted his virulence, and making even his inordinate thirst of fame secondary to his desire of vengeance. After his disappointment, Stuart proceeded to London, where he was for some time employed as a writer in the Monthly Review. His particular contributions to this periodical have not been specified; but to one at all curious about the matter, it might not be difficult to detect every sentence of his magniloquent pen, from the polished order of the sentences, their aspect of grave reflection, and the want of distinctness of idea, when they are critically examined. By the establishment of the Edinburgh Magazine and Review, in 1773, Stuart had more unlimited opportunities of performing the great duty of his life. As manager of that periodical, he was associated with Mr Smellie, a man of very different habits and temperament; and Blacklock, Richardson, Gillies, and other men of considerable eminence, were among the contributors. This periodical, which extended to five volumes, uas creditable to the authors as a literary production, and exhibited spirit and originality, unknown to that class of literature in Scotland at the period, and seldom equalled in England. But in regard to literature, Edinburgh was then, what it has ceased to be, a merely provincial town. The connexions of the booksellers, and the literature expected to proceed from it, did not enable it to support a periodical for the whole country. It was the fate of that under consideration, while it aimed at talent which would make it interesting elsewhere, to concentrate it, in many instances, in virulence which was uninteresting to the world in general, and which finally disgusted those persons more personally acquainted with the parties attacked, whose curiosity and interest it at first roused. Mr D'Israeli has discovered, and printed in his Calamities of Authors, a part of the correspondence of Stuart at this period, curiously characteristic of his exulting hopes of conquest. "The proposals," he says, "are issued: the subscriptions in the booksellers' shops astonish: correspondents flock in; and, what will surprise you, the timid proprietors of the Scots Magazine, have come to the resolution of dropping their work. You stare at all this; and so do I too." "Thus," observes Mr D'Israeli, "he flatters himself he is to annihilate his rival, without even striking the first blow; the appearance of his first number is to be the moment when their last is to come forth." Authors, like the discoverers of mines, are the most sanguine creatures in the world. Gilbert Stuart afterwards flattered himself that Dr Henry was lying at the point of death, from the scalping of his tomahawk pen. But of this anon. On the publication of the first number, in November, 1773, all is exultation; and an account is facetiously expected, that " a thousand copjes had emigrated from the Row and Fleet Street." There is a serious composure in his letter of December, which seems to be occasioned by the tempered answer of his London correspondent. The work was more suited to the meridian of Edinburgh, and from causes sufficiently obvious, its personality and causticity. Stuart, however, assures his friend, that "the second number you will find better than the first, and the third better than the second." The next letter is dated March 4th, 1774, in which I find our author still in good spirits. "The magazine rises and promises much in this quarter. Our artillery has silenced nil opposition. The rogues of the. 'uplifted hands' decline the combat" These rogues are the clergy: and some others, who had "uplifted hands,"