APPENDIX. (31) 



carried on thefe with uncommon interefl and vivacity ; and Account of 



. , " . Tytler, Efq;. 



the fame kind of impulfe which prompted his converfation (as 

 is jiiftly obferved by an author, who publiflied fomc notices 

 of his life and chara<fler in the periodical work entitled The 

 Bee) induced him to become an author. He wrote not from 

 vanity or vain-glory, which Rousseau holds to be the only in- 

 ducement to writing ; he wrote to open his mind upon paper ; 

 to fpeak to the public thofe opinions which he had often fpoken 

 in private ; opinions on the truth of which he had firmly made 

 up his own convidlion, and was fometimes furprifed when he 

 could not convince others ; it was fair to try, if, by a fuller ex- 

 pofition of his arguments, he could convince the world. 



With this view, he publiihed, in 1759, his " Enquiry, hiflo- 

 " rical and critical, into the Evidence againft Mary ^lee/i of 

 " Scots, and an Examination of tlie Hiftories of Dr Robert- 

 " SON and Mr Hume with refpedl to that Evidence ;" in which 

 he warmly efpoufed the caufe of that unfortunate Princefs, at- 

 tacked with feverity the condudt of her enemies, and expofed 

 the fallacy, in many parts the fabrication, of thofe proofs on 

 which the charges againft her had been founded. This work 

 was the firft on that fide of this celebrated queftion which in- 

 terefted the public in general, and appealed in behalf of the 

 Queen to the judgment and feelings of the people. The learn- 

 ed and induftrious Mr Walter Goodall had feveral years 

 before publifhed his examination of the Letters of Mary, on 

 which htr accufers had fo much refted as evidence of her 

 guilt ; but that examination, however elaborate and acute, was 

 not well calculated, either in form or ftyle, for general perufal. 

 Mr Tytler's work gave to the argviments of Goodall the 

 concifenefs and compreffion neceffary to command the attention 

 of the reader, fupported them by a variety of new proofs and 

 illuftrations, and drew from the general hiftory of the period, 

 in queftion, and from the charadlers of the leading aflors of 

 the fcene, arguments more impreflive and interefting than any 



wJiidn 



