526 MEMOIR OF 



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 mo- 

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

 for those adventurous speculations, in which nothing but perso- 

 nal 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 pro- 

 fession : 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 enjoy- 

 ments of domestic friendship, and the delights of philosophic 

 study. 



With these dispositions, Air Tytler soon found, that the 

 share of business which a young man can acquire at the Bar, 

 was insufficient to employ the activity of his mind, and that 

 the merely occasional attention which particular cases requi- 

 red, 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 profession ; 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 



