Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/144

 of young men of keen ambition and conspicuous talents settled in Edinburgh in the closing years of the eighteenth century. The long French war debarred them from visiting the countries of the continent, and the absence of any liberality of thought in the dons drove them from the colleges of the English universities. Parents whose views in politics were not opposed to progress in liberalism and who desired some expansion of sentiment for their sons, looked outside their native country of England for more congenial training for their offspring. This was found in the capital of the North and the favourite tutor for such youths was Dugald Stewart, a man of philosophic mind and eloquent expression of speech. Literature and science ruled the circles of life in Edinburgh at this time. Its citizens lived simple and frugal lives. The love of display had not eaten into their minds, and in intellectual activity they were certainly not inferior to the residents in the more populous city on the Thames.

Some of these young men, who were destined to high position in subsequent life, lived under Stewart's roof and came under the personal charm of his second wife, familiar to us now as " Ivy." The future lords Palmerston and Dudley were two of these favourites of fortune. Others were his pupils although not living in his house, and the list included the future marquess of Lansdowne, and the statesman best known as lord John Russell. Stewart had early in life been imbued with the doctrines of Adam Smith and his successive visits to France, in 1783, 1788 and