Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/309

Rh exposure of the new-born affection then manifested by the Tory party for the existing dynasty. This composition, however, is degraded by a panegyric on the infamous Cumberland, and a number of other allusions to secular persons and affairs, more consistent perhaps with the manners of the times, than with the immutable principles of taste in pulpit oratory. It has only the negative merit of being less fulsome in its respect for the hero of the day, than a similar composition by Dr Hugh Blair, which contained the following passage “When the proper season was come for God to assert his own cause, then he raised up an illustrious deliverer, whom, for a blessing to his country, he had prepared against this time of need. he crowned with the graces of his right hand; to the conspicuous bravery of early youth, he added the conduct and wisdom which in others is the fruit only of long experience; and distinguished him with those qualities which render the man amiable, as well as the great. He sent him forth to be the terror to his foes, and in the day of death, commanded the shields of angels to be spread around him." At the time when this and similar eulogia were in the course of being pronounced, the subject of them was wreaking upon a defeated party the vengeance of a mean and brutal mind. He whom the shields of angels had protected on a day when superior strength rendered danger impossible, was now battening, with savage relish, on the fruits of an easy conquest. Cottages were smoking in every direction for a hundred miles around him, a prey to conflagration; their tenants, either murdered by cold steel, or starved to death; while the dictates of law, of hunanity, of religion, were all alike unheard. Nor could these circumstances be unknown to the courtly preachers.

Dr Webster had now become a conspicuous public character, and the utility of his talents and dignity of his character were universally acknowledged, The comprehensiveness of his mind, and the accuracy of his calculating powers, rendered him a desirable and imost useful ally in almost all kinds of schemes of public improvement, of which, at that period of nascent prosperity, a great number were set in motion. As the friend of provost Drummond, he aided much in the plan of the new town of Edinburgh, not scrupling even to devise plans for those public places of amusement which, as a ninister of the church of Scotland, he was forbidden by public opinion to enter. He was a most zealous encourager of the plan of civilizing and propagating religion in the Highlands; and in 1753, published a sermon on that subject, entitled, "Zeal for the civil and religious Interests of Mankind Recommended." In the year 1755, he drew up, at the desire of lord president Dundas, for the information and service of government, an account of the number of people in Scotland; being the first attempt at a census ever made in the kingdom. His researches on this occasion were greatly facilitated by a general correspondence which he had opened in 1743, both with the clergy and laity, for the purposes of the Clergy's Widows' Fund. " Dr Webster's well-known character for accuracy," says Sir John Sinclair, "and the success with which his calculations have been uniformly attended, ought to satisfy every one that the report he drew up inay be safely relied on." Yet, as the means employed on the occasion were only calculated to produce an approximation to correctness, it must not be disguised that the census of 1755, as it is sometimes called, was in no respect comparable to those which actual survey has since effected.

Our limits will not allow us, nor our information suffice, to enumerate all the charitable institutions, or projects of public welfare, temporary or lasting, in which Dr Webster was engaged. As he lived to an advanced age, he had the pleasure of seeing many of them arrive at their maturity of usefulness; the best reward, perhaps, which merit ever enjoys. He preservred, to the latest