Page:The British Controversialist - 1867.djvu/492

Rh truth, but about the energy, faith, courage, composure, and comfort of soul which a life's devotion to truth can give.

James Frederick Ferrier was the son of John Ferrier, Writer to the Signet—as a member of the highest class of attorneys or legal agents is called in Scotland,—and his wife, Margaret Wilson, sister of Christopher North. His aunt, on the Father's side, was Miss Susan Edmonston Ferrier,the novelist—whom Sir Walter Scott named his "Sister Shadow,"—authoress of "Marriage," "Inheritance," and "Destiny;" while his uncle, by the mother's side, owes the "Isle of Palms," "Noctes Ambrosianæ," &c., from whom the students of Edinburgh University received their inspirations in Moral Science for upwards of thirty years, and who was for an equal period the main man, though never actual editor, of Blackwood's Magazine. Literary, legal, and philosophic influences, therefor surrounded the author of "the Institutes of Metaphysic" from his very birth, which occurred at Edinburg, 16th June, 1808. He was placed, when very young, under the care of the Rev. Henry Duncan, D.D., author of the "the Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons;" memorable to posterity as the founder of savings banks, a work in which he was sedulously employed, among his other avocations, when J. F. Ferrier was sent to the manse of Ruthwell, of which parish Dr. Duncan was the clergyman. Ruthwell lies along the north coast of the Solway Firth for about six miles; it was just about this time newly intersected by the road from Portpatrick to England, and the village had been almost entirely rebuilt. It contained, within its bounds, among other antiquities, a curious sculptured stone, and the ruins of the venerable Comlongan Castle. Here, at the parish school, in the manse study, by the sea, upon the high road, up among the hills, beside the trout streams, and in the devious bypass of the parish in which Robert Burns had made his last endeavor to acquire restorative vigor, the lively-minded boy found health, play, knowledge, and intellectual influences. Here, along with Dr. Duncan's sons, he pursued the elementary studies which form part of a school boys training, and was advanced so far otherwise as to have been initiated into the elements of English composition, and an acquaintance with some of the classical authors of Rome and Greece. His knowledge of Ovid and Virgil enabled him to take a fair position in the High School of Edinburgh, which he attended for a short time; but as it was intended that he should pursue his studies in and English university comma he was placed under the scholastic training of Dr. Charles Parr Burney, of Greenwich, where we believe he had for a compeer his age-fellow and fellow-thinker, G. H. Lewes.

Dr. Burney was the son of one of the most learned and accomplished scholars in the critics of Greek language and literature of his age, and was himself considered to be a worthy successor of a famous father. Here Ferrier was thoroughly drilled into the usual quantity of classical reading and composition. During sessions