Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/323

Rh approbation was deepened: it was soon felt and acknowledged that a truly national history was now in progress, to supersede the fragmentary records in which the Scottish nationality had been hampered and confined. At length the whole was completed in the winter of 1843, when the ninth and last volume appeared. His task was ended, and the author thus gracefully bade it adieu in the last paragraph:—"It is with feelings of gratitude, mingled with regret, that the author now closes this work—the history of his country—the labour of little less than eighteen years: gratitude to the Giver of all good, that life and health have been spared to complete, however imperfectly, an arduous undertaking; regret that the tranquil pleasures of historical investigation, the happy hours devoted to the pursuit of truth, are at an end, and that he must at last bid farewell to an old and dear companion." The completed history was now before the world, but it had not needed to wait thus long to establish the lasting reputation which it now possesses. The generous labour, the indefatigable research, and lucid order by which it is so eminently distinguished; the always deepening interest of the narrative, and increasing eloquence of the style, by which the work gathers and grows in attractiveness to the last, were felt not only by the learned and critical, but the reading public at large, so that even those who could not coincide with the author in his views of the Scottish Reformation, and the agencies by which it was effected, were yet compelled to acknowledge the honesty, the modesty, and the disinterestedness with which his statements were announced, as well as the strong array of evidence with which they were apparently corroborated. With his Tory and high church Episcopalian principles, and with the strange documents in his hands, which he had rescued from the dust of ages, and brought for the first time to the light of day, they could not well imagine how he could have written otherwise. Such was the conviction even of those who entered the field against him, armed with opposite views, and counter-evidence to make them good. A sublunary history wholly divested of sublunary feelings would not be worth reading.

Although Tytier's "History of Scotland " is complete in itself, as far as the original aim and purpose of the author are concerned, yet when the whole was concluded, he felt, in common with many whose opinion he respected, that a still more ample field should have been comprised. Thus, he commenced with the reign of Alexander III., the prelude to the wars of Scottish independence, because it is only from this point that our national history can be properly authenticated. Edward I., who made such wild havoc with the Scottish muniments, so that no trace of Scotland as an independent kingdom should ever be found, was unable to annihilate the memory of the prosperity he had destroyed, the cruelties he had perpetrated, and the gallantry with which his usurpation had been overthrown; these were burnt in, as with a branding-iron, upon Scottish memory to the end of time, and Edward, by his work of demolition, only erected himself into a notorious pillar, to form a new starting-point for the national history to commence its glorious career. Tytler, however, knew that a stirring and eventful era had gone before, and that the early boyhood and youth of Scotland was not only full of interest, but a subject of intense curiosity; and doubly difficult though the task would have been, he had resolved, even long before the history was ended, to explore this mythic period, and avail himself of such facts and probabilities as it afforded, in the form of a preliminary dissertation. Such was his purpose, which his previous investigations had well fitted him to effect; and all that he required was only