MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 



xiii 



close of the last century, were compelled to pay an exor- 

 bitant price for coal ; and the object of Sir Henry's 

 pamphlet \Yas to prove that, were a navigable canal carried 

 from Edinburgh through the heart of the coal districts of 

 Lanarkshire, coals, of a quality generally superior, could be 

 brought to that city, for very little more than one-half of 

 what was then paid for coal brought from its neighbour- 

 hood. A further object which the author proposed, and 

 whose practicability he also endeavoured to establish, was 

 that of not merely supplying Ireland, the Isle of Man, 

 and the southern coasts of Scotland with coal, but like- 

 wise many of the foreign ports, at a less cost than, from 

 various causes, could be probably done by the coal-masters 

 of the south. It may be added, however, that other cir- 

 cumstances intervened, which prevented the adoption of 

 any of the different measures then proposed, which were, 

 however, carried into effect in another form, at a much 

 later period. 



About this time Sir Henry contemplated his first 

 important literary undertaking, on which he was sedu- 

 lously employed for several years — ^his translation, namely, 

 of the principal remaining works of the Roman historian 

 Sallust ; to which were prefixed two elaborate essays on the 

 life and character of that historian, whom he justly 

 describes as the father of philosophical history. This 

 translation of Sallust, with the preliminary essays, was 

 accompanied by a large body of notes, which discover a 

 most extensive knowledge of classical literature, brought 

 by the author to bear on and illustrate both the circum- 

 stances of the Catiline conspiracy and Jugurthine war, 

 and further, the motives and events of the Julian and 

 Augustan periods. Before commencing this translation of 

 a work which had already frequently appeared in an 

 English form, Sir Henry had made himself thoroughly 



