516 MEMOIR OF 



this city, by their manners, their talents, or their accomplish- 

 ments. These advantages 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 con- 

 duct 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 so- 

 ciety. 



In the year 1755, he was sent by his father to the High 

 School, then under the direction of Mr Matheson. In that 

 school he remained five years, distinguished to his school-fel- 

 lows by the gaiety and playfulness of his manners, and to his 

 teachers, by his industry and ability ; and, when he left it, he 

 left it with the highest honours which the school can bestow, 

 as Dux of the Rector's, or highest class. 



The High School, however, although then a respectable se- 

 minary of education, had not yet acquired the eminence which 

 it has since attained, by the zealous activity of the late Dr 

 Adam, and, more recently, by the enlightened improvements 

 of the present Rector, Mr Pillans. To complete the classical 

 education of his son, Mr Tytler, therefore, determined to 

 send him to one of the academies of England ; and for this 

 purpose he chose the Academy at Kensington, then under the 

 care of Mr Elphinston, a man of learning and of worth, and 

 distinguished by the friendship of Dr Samuel Johnson. It 

 was in the year L763, when he was fifteen years of age, that 

 Mr Tytler went to Kensington. He was himself at that time 

 conscious of the imperfection of his classical knowledge ; he felt 

 that he had yet much to learn, particularly in the articles of 

 Prosody and of Composition, and he entered the academy with 

 the ambition of returning an accomplished scholar. The pro- 

 gress of youth, and the instructions of his father, had now 



awakened 



