xxvi_ Dr. Kirkland’s Discourse in Commemoration of 
and perseverance, made progress enough, before his arrival, to 
read Spanish authors with considerable ease. 
He made himself acquainted with the Anglo-Saxon, which he 
considered as the parent stock of the English. He honoured 
Locke and Stewart, but ceased to take an interest in metaphysical 
theories. As a practical ethical treatise, explaining duties to God 
and man, he esteemed the French work on Wisdom by Charron. 
He was accustomed to read Demosthenes and Cicero in the origi- 
nal, preferring the former. 
His favorite study had been mathematics from his youth; 
which he esteemed an essential part of high education for a 
young man, both for the improvement of his thinking powers and 
general benefit of his mind, and for practical usefulness. As he 
advanced in life, this science influenced all his tastes; he was 
more attached to the exact, and less fond of what was speculative 
and imaginative. 
He had been attached to poetry, of the classic, not romantic 
school; but, as he grew old, retained almost none but Shakspeare 
and Pope. He had been in early years passionately fond of 
music, using the violin; on which he excelled, and practised, till 
the bustle of public life forbade him the recreation. 
He possessed a taste and skill in the mechanic arts, having an 
apartment with tools appropriated to his use in this exercise. For 
his invention of a model of a Mould-board, executed by his own 
hand, he received a gold medal from the Society for Agriculture 
of the Department of the Seine. He studied architecture, and 
drew the plan of the beautiful University edifices. 
He sought knowledge among the living as well as the dead. 
When minister abroad, he formed his society rather among the 
academicians and philosophers, than the members of the diplo- 
matic corps. 
