LORD WOODHOUSELEE. 539 



cipal of Marischal College, Aberdeen, from which, however 

 painful at first, Mr Tytler might easily have foretold its fu- 

 ture fortune in the literary world. Dr Campbell had, some 

 time previous to this, published his Translation of the Gospels, 

 to which he had prefixed, in a preliminary dissertation, some 

 very acute and ingenious observations upon the principles of 

 translation. Upon the publication of Mr Tytler's anonymous 

 work, he immediately procured it, and was so much struck with 

 the coincidence of their views upon the subject, that he wrote to 

 his printer Mr Creech, to know who was the author ; and 

 while he acknowledged himself " to have been flattered not a 

 " little to thinlc, that he had in these points the concurrence injudg- 

 " ment of a writer so ingenious" he expressed at the same time 

 some suspicion, that the author might have borrowed from his 

 Dissertation, without acknowledging the obligation. Mr Creech, 

 with great propriety, communicated the letter to Mr Tytler ; 

 and he instantly wrote to Dr Campbell, acknowledging himself 

 to be the author, but assuring him, that the coincidence of sen- 

 timent was purely accidental, and that the name of Dr Camp- 

 bell's work had never reached him until his own had been 

 composed. " The coincidence of our general principles, (says 

 " Mr Tytler), is indeed a thing flattering to myself; but I can- 

 " not consider it as a thing at all extraordinary. There seems 

 " to me no wonder , that two persons, moderately conversant in 

 " critical occupations, (I am far from thinking equally so), sitting 

 " down professedly to investigate the principles of this art, should 

 hit upon the same principles, when in fact there are none other 

 to hit upon, and the truth of these is acknowledged at their first 

 enunciation. In my opinion, there would, on the contrary, be just 

 matter of wonder if they did not hit upon them. But in truth, 

 (concludes Mr Tytler), the merit of this little essay, (if it has 

 " any), does not, in my opinion, lie in these particulars. It lies in the 

 Vol. VIII. P. II. SY « establishment 



