Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/223

Rh dissipation, Dr Stuart is said to have taken several days to travel on foot between the cross of Edinburgh and Musselburgh, a distance of only six miles; stopping at every public house by the way, in which good ale could be found. In this strange expedition he was accompanied part of the way by several boon companions, who were fascinated beyond their ordinary excesses, by his great powers of wit and hilarity in conversation; but who gradually fell off at various stages of the slow progression. The last of these companions began his return towards Edinburgh from the Magdalen bridge, within a mile of Musselburgh; but, oppressed by the fumes of the ale, which he had too long and too liberally indulged in, he staggered, in the middle of the night, into the ash-pit of a great steam engine, which then stood by the road side, and fell into a profound sleep. On awakening before day, he beheld the mouth of an immense fiery furnace open, several figures, all grim with soot and ashes, Avere stirring the fire, ranging the bars of the enormous grate, and throwing on more fuel; while the terrible clanking of the chains and beams of the machinery above, impressed his still confused imagination with an idea that he was in hell. Horror-struck at the frightful idea, he is said to have exclaimed, 'Good God! is it come to this at last?'"

The persecution of Henry, the author of the History of Great Britain, commenced by Stuart in the Edinburgh Magazine and Review, has been recorded in the memoir of that individual. Before quitting this subject, let us give the parting curse of the editor for his literary disappointments in Scotland. "It is an infinite disappointment to me that the Magazine does not grow in London. I thought the soil had been richer. But it is my constant fate to be disappointed in everything I attempt; I do not think I ever had a wish that was gratified; and never dreaded an event that did not come. With this felicity of fate, I wonder how the devil I could turn projector. I am now sorry that I left London; and the moment I have money enough to carry me back to it, I shall set off. I mortally detest and abhor this place, and every body in it. Never was there a city where there was so much pretension to knowledge, and that had so little of it. The solemn foppery, and the gross stupidity of the Scottish literati are perfectly insupportable. I shall drop my idea of a Scots newspaper. Nothing will do in this country that has common sense in it; only cant, hypocrisy, and superstition, will flourish here. A curse on the country, and on all the men, women, and children of it." Accordingly, Stuart did return to England, and along with Whitaker, the historian of Manchester, a man of very different literary habits, but somewhat similar in temper, for some time supported the English Review. In 1778, he published his well known "View of Society in Europe in its progress from rudeness to refinement; or, Inquiries concerning the History of Law, Government, and Manners." This, the most popular of his works, and for a long time a standard book on the subject, is certainly the most carefully and considerately prepared of all his writings. Its adoption almost to caricature, of that practice of the great Montesquieu, which was all of him that some writers could imitate, of drawing reflections whether there were, or were not facts to support them, was fashionable, and did not perhaps disparage the work; while the easy flow of the sentences fascinated many readers. It cannot be said that in this book he made any discovery, or established any fact of importance. He contented himself with vague speculations on the description of the manners of the Germans by Tacitus, and new reflections upon such circumstances as had been repeatedly noticed before. To have made a book of permanent interest and utility