ANNALS 



OF 



PHILOSOPHY. 



DECEMBER, 1818. 



Article I. 



Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Honourable Alexander 

 Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee. By the Rev. Archibald 

 Alison, LL.B. F.R.S Lond. and Edin.* 



ALEXANDER TYTLER was born at Edinburgh, Oct. 15, 

 1747. He was the eldest son of our late venerable associate 

 William Tytler, Esq. of Woodhouselee, in the county of Mid- 

 Lothian, and of Anne Craig, daughter of James Craig, Esq. of 

 Costerton, in the same county. 



If the most important education is that which is received 

 beneath the paternal roof, — if it is there that the principles and 

 tastes of future life are chiefly formed, the education of Mr. 

 Tytler began under fortunate auspices. His father was a man 

 of high honour, of generous affections, of cultivated taste, and 

 of distinguished eminence in his profession. His mother was a 

 woman of elegant manners, of great gentleness and tenderness of 

 disposition, and of still greater firmness of moral and religious 

 principle. And the society in which they lived was nearly that 

 of all those who then were distinguished in this city, by their 

 manners, their talents, or their accomplishments. These advan- 

 tages were not lost upon Mr. Tytler ; and in this domestic school 

 he early acquired that taste in life, or that sensibility to whatever 

 is graceful or becoming in conduct or in manners, which ever 

 afterwards distinguished him, and which forms, perhaps, the 

 most important advantage that the young derive from an early 

 acquaintance with good society. 



» From the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. viii. part ii. 



Vol. XH. N° VI. 2 C 



