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William Tytler Esq.

VICE-PRESID of the SOCIETY SCOTTISH ANTIQUARIES

and F.R.S. EDIN:

Published by J. Anderson Jan. 2nd 1793.

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NATU

With a portrait.

ATURE bestowed upon William Tytler a kind and beneficent heart; a warm and vivid temper; an upright and affectionate disposition, in which a strong sense of moral rectitude was a prevailing feature : to these were conjoined a decided predilection for poetry, music, and the belles lettres, which he cultivated as the solace of his leisure hours, through every period of his life. These propensities gave a bias to his studies, his actions, and his pursuits, on all occasiens; and will serve as a clue to account for every peculiarity that occurred in his progrefs through life, whether in a public or private capacity.

VOL. Xiii.

A

The mens sibi conscia recti produces in many men a harsh and uncomplying severity of manner. The contempt which they feel for meannefs and vice, serves as an apology to their own minds, for a harshness originating in their natural temper alone. The mind of Mr Tytler, naturally prone to kindnefs, felt no bias of that kind; and being improved by an habitual attachment to objects of taste, which gives a delicacy to the perceptive faculties, and a mildness to the finer propensities of the human heart, it never seems to have felt an impression of that unamiable severity in the smallest degree. His temper was ardent, but his dispositions mild; his feelings were quick and strong, but malevolence never found a place in his bosom. During the hasty imprefsions of the moment, he might have appeared to be sometimes unwise; but no person could accuse him of ever having been unjust.

Perhaps the ingenuity of man is never exerted with greater succefs than in deceiving himself: hence, under the name of virtues, many of the most unamiable dispositions of the mind are cherished with care, while the finest propensities of the heart are stigmatized as failings. A man whose heart is as callous as the stones on which he treads, and all whose thoughts are centered in self alone, fhall persuade himself into a belief that he is humane, beneficent, and sympathising, because he can talk with pity of the distresses of those he is not called upon to relieve, and make many pompous speeches in praise of charity and kindnefs; but as soon as the case comes home to himself, his heart contracts, like

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