the late Professor Playfair. 127 



the Huttonian theory of the earth. For though nothing can be 

 more beautiful or instructive than his speculations on those cu- 

 rious topics, it cannot be dissembled that their results are less 

 conclusive and satisfactory than might have been desired ; and 

 that his doctrines, from the very nature of the subjects, are 

 more questionable than we believe they could possibly have 

 been on any other topic in the whole circle of the sciences. To the 

 first, indeed, he came under the great disadvantages of being 

 unacquainted with the Eastern tongues, and without the means 

 of judging of the authenticity of the documents which he was 

 obliged to assume as the elements of his reasonings ; and as to the 

 other, though he ended, we believe, with being a very able and 

 skilful mineralogist, we think it is now generally admitted, that 

 that science does not yet afford sufficient materials for any {posi- 

 tive conclusion ; and that all attempts to establish a theory of 

 the earth, must, for many years to come, be regarded as prema- 

 ture. Though it is impossible, therefore, to think too highly of 

 the ingenuity, the vigour, and the eloquence of those publica- 

 tions, we are of opinion, that a juster estimate of Mr. Playfair's 

 talent, and a truer picture of his genius and understanding, is 

 to be found in his other writings ; in the papers both biographi- 

 cal and scientific, with which he has enriched the Transactions 

 of our Royal Society ; his account of De Laplace, and other 

 articles which he is understood to have contributed to the Edin- 

 burgh Review ; the outlines of his lectures on Natural Philo- 

 sophy; and, above all, his Introductory Discourse to the Sup- 

 plement to the EncyclopcBdia Britannica, with the final correc- 

 tion of which he was occupied up to the last moments that the 

 progress of his disease allowed him to dedicate to any intellectual 

 exertion. 



With reference to these works, we do not think we are influ- 

 enced by any national or other partiality, when we say that he 

 was certainly one of the best writers of his age ; and even that 

 we do not now recollect any one of his contemporaries who was 

 so great a master of composition. There is a certain mellowness 

 and richness abobt his style, which adorns, without disguising, 

 the weight and nervousness which is its other great character- 



