Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/373

Rh upon a period of productiveness which, in view of his wretched health, was, both as regards quantity and worth, highly remarkable. The year 1881 was marked by his unsuccessful candidature for the Chair of Constitutional Law and History at Edin., and by the publication of Virginibus Puerisque. Other works followed in rapid succession. Treasure Island (1882), Prince Otto and The Child's Garden of Verse (1885), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Kidnapped (1886), Underwoods (poetry), Memories and Portraits (essays), and The Merry Men, a collection of short stories (1887), and in 1888 The Black Arrow. In 1887 he went to America, and in the following year visited the South Sea Islands where, in Samoa, he settled in 1890, and where he d. and is buried. In 1889 The Master of Ballantrae appeared, in 1892 Across the Plains and The Wrecker, in 1893 Island Nights Entertainments and Catriona, and in 1894 The Ebb Tide in collaboration with his step-son, Mr. Lloyd Osbourne. By this time his health was completely broken, but to the last he continued the struggle, and left the fragments St. Ives and Weir of Hermiston, the latter containing some of his best work. They were pub. in 1897. Though the originality and power of S.'s writings was recognised from the first by a select few, it was only slowly that he caught the ear of the general public. The tide may be said to have turned with the publication of Treasure Island in 1882, which at once gave him an assured place among the foremost imaginative writers of the day. His greatest power is, however, shown in those works which deal with Scotland in the 18th century, such as Kidnapped, Catriona, and Weir of Hermiston, and in those, e.g., The Child's Garden of Verse, which exhibit his extraordinary insight into the psychology of child-life; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a marvellously powerful and subtle psychological story, and some of his short tales also are masterpieces. Of these Thrawn Janet and Will of the Mill may be mentioned as examples in widely different kinds. His excursions into the drama in collaboration with W.E. Henley—Deacon Brodie, Macaire, Admiral Guinea, Beau Austin,—added nothing to his reputation. His style is singularly fascinating, graceful, various, subtle, and with a charm all its own.

Works, Edinburgh ed. (28 vols., 1894-98). Life by Grahame Balfour (1901), Letters, S. Colvin (1899).

Author:Dugald Stewart (1753-1828).—Philosopher, s. of Matthew S., Prof. of Mathematics at Edin., was b. in the Coll. buildings, and at the age of 19 began to assist his f. in his classes, receiving the appointment of regular assistant two years later. In 1785 he became Prof. of Moral Philosophy, and rendered the chair illustrious by his learning and eloquence, his pupils including Lords Palmerston, Russell, and Lansdowne. S. was, however, rather a brilliant expositor than an original thinker, and in the main followed Reid (q.v.). His works include Philosophy of the Human Mind, in three vols., pub. respectively in 1792, 1813, and 1827, Outlines of Moral Philosophy (1793), Philosophical Essays (1810), Dissertation on the Progress of Metaphysical and Ethical Philosophy (1815, part II. 1821), and View of the Active and Moral Powers of Man. He also wrote memoirs of Robertson the historian, Adam Smith, and Reid. The Whig party, which he had always supported, on their accession