408 Biographical Account of [Dec. 



into the obscurity of our antiquities the torch of severe but 

 sagacious criticism ; and Lord Karnes was throwing over every 

 subject almost of science or of literature the lights of his own 

 original and comprehensive genius. 



These were circumstances sufficient to excite and to justify 

 ambition ; but although Mr. Tytler was ambitious, it was not 

 so much of fame he was ambitious as of usefulness. The modesty, 

 as well as the benevolence of his nature, disqualified him for 

 those adventurous speculations in which nothing but personal 

 celebrity is attained ; and in looking at the literary scene before 

 him, the path that invited him was not that which rises amid 

 dangers and difficulties into solitary eminence, but that which 

 follows out its humbler and happier way amid the duties and 

 charities of social life. In all his ambition too there was (if I 

 may use the expression) something always domestic. The 

 honours to which he aspired were those which he could share 

 with those he loved ; and the " eyes " in which he wished to 

 read his history were not so much the eyes of the world as those 

 of his family and friends. It was with this moral and chastised 

 taste that he looked even to the honours of his profession ; and 

 when he recollected the brightest distinction it ever received, it 

 was not Cicero in the Forum or in the Senate House that was so 

 much the object of his admiration, as Cicero at his Formian or 

 his Tusculan Villa, amid the enjoyments of domestic friendship 

 and the delights of philosophic study. 



With these dispositions, Mr. Tytler soon found that the share 

 of business which a young man can acquire at the bar was insuf- 

 ficient to employ the activity of his mind ; and that the merely 

 occasional attention which particular cases required was at 

 variance with those habits of continued study in which he was 

 accustomed to be employed. To consider law as a science was 

 more congenial to his mind than to consider it only as a profes- 

 sion ; and he became desirous, therefore, of engaging in some 

 continued work, where (like some eminent men before him) he 

 might entitle himself to the honours of his profession rather by 

 the labour of solitary study than by the celebrity of actual prac- 

 tice. While he was forming this resolution, the advice of his 

 patron and friend Lord Karnes not only encouraged him to exe- 

 cute it, but suggested to him also a subject in which it might 

 usefully be executed. As this incident gave origin to the first 

 work which Mr. Tytler published, and as it is descriptive of the 

 benevolent attention of that distinguished man to his younger 

 friends, I am happy to be able to relate it in Mr. Tytler's own 

 words, from a little manuscript account of the principal events 

 of his life, which he has left for the instruction of his family. 



" The first time (says he) I became intimately acquainted 



with Lord Karnes was, I think, in autumn 1767, when he asked 

 my father and me to accompany him on the southern circuit. 

 We passed a few days with him at his estate of Karnes, and 



