Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/61

 and he was so fortunate as to find a eulogist in Francis Jeffrey, then the Aristarchus of critics, and through the "Edinburgh Review" at that time the paramount oracle of the literary world. A very powerful and beautiful article forthwith appeared in that influential periodical upon the long-neglected work; and the consequence was, that the "Essays" immediately took their place as the standard of the "Nature and Principles of Taste." The present generation can well remember how their boyhood and youth were familiarized with it, and how the pulpit and the press did homage to its authority. But time has sobered down this enthusiasm, and Alison is reckoned neither to have invented a new theory (for its leading idea had been distinctly announced by David Hume); nor to have sifted it with the most philosophical analysis, or expressed it in the happiest language. But who shall arrest our fleeting emotions produced by the sublime and the beautiful, and reduce them to such a fixed standard as all shall recognize? Longinus, Burke, Schlegel, and Alison, have all successively passed away, while the science of aesthetics is still accumulating its materials for future theorists and fresh legislation. The theory of taste, like that of the weather or the tides, is still the subject of hypothesis and conjecture. Besides his principal work of "Essays on Taste," which has gone through many editions, both in Britain and America, as well as been translated into French, Mr. Alison published two volumes of sermons, which have also been several times republished; and a "Memoir of Lord Woodhouselee," inserted in the "Transactions of the Edinburgh Royal Society," 1818. The character of Alison, which is thus given by his son, was borne out through a long and well-spent life:—"No man who held firm and uncompromising opinions on the principles of religion and morals, looked with more indulgence on the failings of others, or passed through the world in more perfect charity and good-will to all men. No man who had lived much in society, could retire with more sincere pleasure at all periods of his life into domestic privacy, and into the solitude of the country. * * * * * No man who had attained a high reputation as a preacher or an author, was ever more absolutely indifferent to popular applause, as compared with the consciousness of the performance of duty."

, President of the Royal Scottish Academy of Painting. This distinguished painter was born at Edinburgh, in the year 1782, and was the son of William Allan, who held the humble office of macer in the Court of Session. Notwithstanding the circumstances of his birth, he was destined, like others of the same grade in Scotland, to undergo a classical education, before his future path in life was selected. Accordingly, he was sent, while still in early boyhood, to the High School of Edinburgh, and placed under the preceptorship of Mr. William Nichol, whose memory will descend to posterity more for the "peck o' maut," which he brewed to supply one memorable sitting where Burns was the laureate, than for all his classical attainments, respectable though they were. The future artist, however, was a poor Latin scholar, though Nichol was a stern and able teacher. In fact, the young boy already felt nature strong within him, so that he was employed in sketching the objects around him with whatever instrument came to hand, while his class-fellows were occupied with the commentaries of Cæsar, or the longs and shorts of Ovid. So keen was this artistic tendency, that the forms and floor of the class-room were frequently chalked with his juvenile efforts, while their excellence invariably pointed out the offender who had thus transgressed against academic rule. Another luxury in which he indulged, was V.