406 Biographical Account of [Dec* 



of his own country ; and, in comparing the great writers of 

 England with those of the different nations of the Continent, he 

 was enabled to form a more accurate estimate both of the extent 

 of English genius and the powers of the English language. 

 While engaged in this pursuit, his curiosity was led into a field 

 at that time little cultivated in this country, I mean to the study 

 of the ancient writers of England, those original masters of com- 

 position, in whose writings the genius of the people and of the 

 language is most strongly displayed, and who conducted him (in 

 the language of Spenser) to " the pure well of English ■ttndejited." 

 The pursuit not only rewarded him at the time, but tended to 

 form his taste in future days ; and he was among the first lite- 

 rary men of this country who felt the beauty of our language in 

 its first stage of improvement, and foresaw the advantages that 

 the study of our earlier writers would give to modern composi- 

 tion, by introducing greater unity of character, a purer analogy 

 of construction, and the peculiar energy that arises from idiomatic 

 expression. 



The same taste which guided the studies of Mr. Tytler at this 

 period directed also his amusements. The art of drawing, which 

 he had at first begun to practise at Kensington, he now resumed 

 with ardour, amid the beautiful scenery he inhabited. The love 

 of music, which was hereditary in his family, had been culti- 

 vated by the example, and under the instructions of his father ; 

 and he willingly became a performer, not only to indulge his 

 own taste, but that he might add his assistance to the little 

 family concerts with which that excellent man loved always to 

 close his active day. But the amusement in which at this period 

 Mr. Tytler peculiarly delighted, was that of making excursions 

 to visit the remarkable scenery either of England or of his own 

 country. He had an early love of the great and beautiful in 

 nature ; and his sensibility in this respect had been increased by 

 his study of landscape painting. But his taste was not of that 

 servile kind which looks only to the art of imitation : and he felt 

 that there were many other sources of beauty in the scenery of 

 nature than the painter can employ. His mind was Open, not 

 only to all those moral expressions which form what has been 

 called the poetry of nature, but to all those local and accidental 

 expressions which it receives from the events of time ; and he 

 loved to mingle in such scenes with the sensibilities of taste, 

 the associations of poetical description, and the memory of histo- 

 rical events. In this manner Mr. Tytler used always to pass 

 some parts of the summer, or autumnal months ; and, in the 

 course of a few years, there were few scenes either in England 

 or in Scotland which he had not visited that were distinguished 

 either by natural beauty, by poetical celebration, by the residence 

 of eminent men, or by the occurrence of memorable transactions. 

 In such employments, to him (as to all who are capable of it) 

 there was something more than amusement ; and he never 



