1818.] Lord Woodhouseke. 421 



and unfatigued by abstraction. The employments to which he 

 gave his hours of exercise were of the same gentle and cheerful 

 kind. He had little relish for the sports of the field, unless 

 angling, in which, like the amiable and contemplative Walton, 

 he had from his early days delighted ; but he took great delight 

 in gardening, in the embellishment of his pleasure-grounds, and, 

 more than all, in improving the dwellings, and extending the 

 comforts of his cottagers — an occupation, in which taste so 

 fortunately combines with beneficence, and in which, for all the 

 labour or expense he bestowed, Mr. Tytler found himself every 

 day rewarded, by seeing the face of nature and of man bright- 

 ening around him. 



The society that assembled at his table was the best that at 

 that period this country afforded — his own family-relations — the 

 families of the neighbouring proprietors in the populous county 

 of Mid-Lothian — most of the men eminent in science or in lite- 

 rature, of which our metropolis was then so profuse — and 

 occasionally those strangers of distinction whom the love of 

 science or of nature had induced to visit Scotland. His hospi- 

 tality was cordial, but unobtrusive — his attentions were so 

 unostentatious that his visitors found themselves at once at 

 home ; and he himself appeared to them in no other light than 

 as the most modest guest at his own table. The conversation 

 which he loved was of that easy and unpremeditated kind in 

 which all could partake, and all enjoy. To metaphysical discus- 

 sion, or political argument, he had an invincible dislike ; but he 

 gladly entered into all subjects of literature or criticism ; into 

 discussions on the fine arts, or historical antiquities, or the 

 literary intelligence of the day ; and when subjects of wit or 

 humour were introduced, the hearty sincerity of his laugh, the 

 readiness of his anecdote, and the playfulness of his fancy, 

 showed to what a degree he possessed the talents of society. 

 His sense of humour was keen, but at the same time character- 

 istic : it was the ludicrous, rather than the ridiculous, in cha- 

 racter or in manners, which amused him : those excesses rather 

 of the amiable than of the selfish or sordid passions, which are 

 observed with a sentiment of tenderness as well as of disappro- 

 bation, and which the poet has so happily expressed by the 

 phrase, circum pmcordia ludit. The humour of most men is 

 unhappily mingled with qualities which add little to the amiable- 

 ness, and still less to the respectability of character. From the 

 gayest conversation of Mr. Tytler, on the contrary, it was 

 impossible to rise, without a higher sense of the purity of his 

 taste and the benevolence of his nature. 



His evenings were always passed in the midst of his family, 

 either in joining them in the little family concerts with which, 

 like his father, he always wished to close the day, or in reading 

 aloud to them some of those works by which he thought their 

 tastes or their minds might be improved ; or, not unfrequently, 



