426 
old by William Gordon and C. Wright, 
a itheir shops in the Parliament Close, 
price one penny each number, and regu- 
Jarly delivered to subscribers in town, or 
sent to the country by post. 
“ Tuts Paper, which lately began its 
course at London, seems very happily 
calculated after the manner of the Srec- 
TATOR, Inavariety of moral and critical 
essays, equally solid and agreeable, to 
iipprove taste while it entertains it; to 
expose vice, with all the force of ridi- 
cule, as well as of argument; and to set 
forth virtue in all hercharms. This be- 
ing the sole design of the Rawster, he 
hever ranges in the regions of politics, 
and conveys neither news nor advertise- 
ments. The reception he has met with 
in his native céuntry, and which he must 
indeed meet with, wherever learning and 
knowledge, digested by genius and virtue, 
wherever delicacy of sentiment or 
beauty of style, is admired, flatters his 
Scottish editor, that he introduces to his 
countrymen no unacceptable acquaint- 
ance, by having prevailed with this new 
writer, ‘ blessed (as the Remembrancer 
justly paints him) with a vigorous imagi- 
nation, under the restraint of a classical 
Judgment, and master of all the charms 
and graces of expression,’ to renew in 
Scotlend his Rambles at half the London 
price.” 
Johnson was highly gratified with the 
successful zeal of his friend, and tran- 
scribed himself (he mottoes for the nuim- 
bers of the English edition, when pub- 
lished in volumes, affixing the name of 
the translator, which has been continued 
in every subsequent edition. 
In the year 1750, Mr. E}phinston, 
while residing in Edinburgh, lost his 
mother, of whose death he gave a 
very affecting account, in a letter to his 
sister, Mrs.Strahan, then living in London. 
This being shown to Johnson, brought 
tears to his eyes, and produced from his 
pen one of the most beautiful letters of 
condolence ever written. Jt was pub- 
lished among his other works. This debt 
Mr. Elphinston had a melancholy oppor- 
tunity of repaying about two years after, 
when Johnson Jost his wife; and again, 
in 1759, on the death of his mother; 
hor was it paid in coin less sterling.* 
In 1751, he married Miss Gordon, 
the daughter of a brother of General 
Gordon, of Auchintoul, and grand- 
daughter of Lord Auchintoul, one of the 
* Those of these letters which are original, 
will be given in our next Number, 
Memoirs of Jemes Elphinsion, esq. 
[Degat, 
senators of the college of Justice, before 
the revolution of 1688. About two 
years after his marriage, Mr. Elohinston 
left Scotland, and fixed his abode near 
the metropolis of England; first at 
Brompton, and afterwards at Kensing- 
ton ; where, for many years, he kept a 
school in a large and elegant house, op- 
posite to the king’s gardens, and which, 
at that time stood the first on entering 
Kensington. This noble mansion has 
since, not only been hid by new houses, 
some of which stand upon the old play- 
ground, but detaced by the blocking up 
of the handsome bow-windows belong- 
ing to the once elegant ball-room, at the 
top of the eastern division of the bouse. 
On that site of learning, Mr. Elphin- 
ston net only infused knowledge, taste, 
and virtue, into the minds and hearts of 
his pupils, but seized every opportunity 
of sacrificing to the Muses himself, and 
of extending instruction and service to 
the larger circle of the world. In the 
year 1753, he made a poetical version of 
the younger Racine’s celebrated poem 
of Religion, which at the suggestion of 
Richardson, the amiable author of Cla-- 
rissa, &c. he sent to the author of the 
Night Thoughts, whose applause it re- 
ceived ; both for the utility of the work, 
and the spirit of the translation. Find. 
ing no English grammar, of which he 
could approve, he, about this time, com- 
posed one himself for the use of his 
pupils, which he afterwards published in 
two duodecimo volumes, In 1763, he 
published his Poem, entitled, “ Edu. 
cation.” It is a complete plan of reason, 
detailed in spirited verse, and evinces 
not only the just ideas he had conceived 
of the province he had adopted, but his 
powers to execute it: 
“¢ Of all the arts that honour human kind, 
The first must be the culture of the mind; 
And of the objects that our care employ, 
The most raomentons is the rising boy ; 
How then to form the infant head and heart, 
To mould the outward, with the inward 
part; 
To trace young genius from its latent 
Springs, ; 
T’ explore what each denies, and what it 
brings ; 
T’ improve the powers, as nature bids them 
play, 
To make the passions own bland reason’s 
sway 5 
To rear the child to youth, the youth to 
man, 
Be my advent’rous theme.”” seams 
The purity of his plan, and at the 
same time the independence of his mind 
in 
