sage from his Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning, very briefly records the change of manners which took place among literary men during the seventeenth century :

DECLINE OF PEDANTRY IN ENGLAND.

The last of Sir William Temple's reasons of the great decay of modern learning is pedantry; the urging of which is an evident argument that his discourse is levelled against learning, not as it stands now, but as it was fifty or sixty years ago. For the new philosophy has introduced so great a correspondence between men of learning and men of business; which has also been increased by other accidents amongst the masters of other learned professions; and that pedantry which formerly was almost universal is now in a great measure disused, especially amongst the young men, who are taught in the universities to laugh at that frequent citation of scraps of Latin in common discourse, or upon arguments that do not require it; and that nauseous ostentation of reading and scholarship in public companies, which formerly was so much in fashion. Affecting to write politely in modern languages; especially the French and ours, has also helped very much to lessen it, because it has enabled abundance of men, who wanted academical education, to talk plausibly, and some exactly, upon very many learned subjects. This also has made writers habitually careful to avoid those impertinences which they know would be taken notice of and ridiculed; and it is probable that a careful perusal of the fine new French books, which of late years have been greedily sought after by the politer sort of gentlemen and scholars, may in this particular have done abundance of good. By this means, and by the help also of some other concurrent causes, those who were not learned themselves being able to maintain disputes with those that were, forced them to talk more warily, and brought them, by little and little, to be out of countenance at that vain thrusting of their learning into every thing, which before had been but too visible.

Lecture the Chirty-Fourth.

SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE-JOHN STRYPE-HUMPHREY PRIDEAUX-CHARLES LESLIE -ANDREW

FLETCHER-WILLIAM

NICOLSON-MATTHEW TINDAL-WILLIAM

LOWTH-RICHARD BENTLEY-FRANCIS ATTERBURY-WILLIAM WHISTON-JOHN ARBUTHNOT-DANIEL DEFOE.

URING the period which we are now contemplating, Scotland pro

any who attempted to compose in the English language. The difference between the common speech of the two countries, had been widening ever since the days of Chaucer and James the First, but particularly since the acquisition of James the Sixth to the English throne-the Scotch language remaining stationary or declining, while the English was advancing in refinement, both in structure and pronunciation. Accordingly, except the works of William Drummond, who had studied and acquired the language of Jonson and Drayton, there appeared, in Scotland, no estimable specimen of vernacular prose or poetry, between the time of Maitland and Montgomery, and that of Sir George Mackenzie, Lord Advocate for Scotland, from the Restoration to the Revolution.

GEORGE MACKENZIE, descended from an ancient and noble family, was the nephew of the Earl of Seaforth, and was born at Dundee, in the county of Angus, in 1636. He gave early proofs of remarkable genius, having made the necessary preparations, and entered the university of Aberdeen, before he had reached the tenth year of his age. Thence he passed to St. Andrews, where he finished his studies in his sixteenth year, immediately after which he turned his thoughts, with great application, to the study of the civil law; with a view to perfect himself in which, he travelled into France, and applied himself, in the university of Bourges, very closely to his studies, for about three years. On his return to Scotland he was immediately admitted as an advocate at the bar, though he had not yet attained the legal age. In the course of a few years he attained to such eminence as a pleader, that, in 1661, he was chosen to plead the cause of the Marquis of Argyle, who was beheaded at Edinburgh, for high-treason, on the twenty-seventh of May of the

same year. In pleading this case he allowed some unwary expressions in favor of his client to escape him, for which he was reprimanded; but he replied with great quickness, as well as boldness, that 'it was impossible to plead for a traitor without speaking treason.'

Though Mackenzie made the law his profession and chief study, yet he did not suffer his abilities to be confined entirely to that province. He composed some poems, which, if they have no other merit, are, at least, written in pure English, and appear to have been fashioned after the best models of the time he also wrote some moral essays, that possess the same merits. These are entitled, On Happiness; The Religious Stoic; Solitude Preferred to Public Employment; Moral Gallantry; The Moral History of Frugality; and Reason. Mackenzie is one of the standard writers on the law of Scotland, and the author also of various political and antiquarian tracts. An important historical production of his pen, entitled Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland from the Restoration of Charles II., lay undiscovered in manuscript till the present century, and was not printed until

1821.

Soon after the trial and condemnation of the Earl of Argyle, Mackenzie was raised to the office of a judge in the criminal court; and such was the credit and reputation with which he discharged the duties which that important station devolved upon him, that, in 1674, he was knighted by his majesty, made king's advocate, and one of the lords of the privy-council of Scotland. Though personally disposed to humanity and moderation, yet the severities which Sir George was instrumental in perpetrating against the covenanters, in his capacity of Lord Advocate under a tyrannical government, excited, against him, a degree of popular odium which has never entirely subsided. He is more honorably distinguished as the founder of the library of the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, than as a judge. At the Revolution, he retired into England, and took up his residence in the "university of Oxford, where he intended to pass the remainder of his days; but he died soon after, while on a visit to London, on the second of May,

1691.

The following extracts are taken from Sir George Mackenzie's moral essays:

AGAINST ENVY.

We may cure envy in ourselves either by considering how useless or how ill these things were, for which we envy our neighbours; or else how we possess as much or as good things. If I envy his greatness, I consider that he wants my quiet: as also I consider that he possibly envies me as much as I do him; and that when I begun to examine exactly his perfections, and to balance them with my own, I found myself as happy as he was. And though many envy others, yet very few would change their condition even with those whom they envy all being considered. And I have oft admired why we have suffered ourselves to be so cheated by contradictory vices, as to contemn this day him whom we envied the last; or why we envy so many, since there are so few whom we think to deserve as much as we do. Another great help against envy is, that we ought to consider how much the thing envied

costs him whom we envy, and if we would take it at the price. Thus, when I envy a man for being learned, I consider how much of his health and time that learning consumes if for being great, how he must flatter and serve for it; and if I would not pay his price, no reason I ought to have what he has got. Sometimes, also, I consider that there is no reason for my envy: he whom I envy deserves more than he has, and I less than I possess. And by thinking much of these, I repress their envy, which grows still from the contempt of our neighbour and the overrating ourselves. As also I consider that the perfections envied by me may be advantageous to me; and thus I check myself for envying a great pleader, but am rather glad that there is such a man, who may defend my innocence: or to envy a great soldier, because his valour may defend my estate or country. And when any of my countrymen begin to raise envy in me, I alter the scene, and begin to be glad that Scotland can boast of so fine a man; and I remember, that though now I am so angry at him when I compare him with myself, yet if I were discoursing of my nation abroad, I would be glad of that merit in him which now displeases me. Nothing is envied but what appears beautiful and charming; and it is strange that I should be troubled at the sight of what is pleasant. I endeavour also to make such my friends as deserves my envy; and no man is so base as to envy his friend. Thus, whilst others look on the angry side of merit, and thereby trouble themselves, I am pleased in admiring the beauties and charms which burn them as a fire, whilst they warm me as the sun.

AVARICE.

The best plea that avarice can make, is, that it provides against those necessities which otherwise would have made us miserable; but the love of money deserves not the name of avarice, whilst it proceeds no farther. And it is then only to be abhorred, when it cheats and abuses us, by making us believe that our necessities are greater than they are, in which it treats us as fools, and makes us slaves. But it is indeed most ridiculous in this, that ofttimes, after it has persuaded men that a great estate is necessary, it does not allow them to make use of any suitable proportion of what they have gained; and since nothing can be called necessary but what we need to use, all that is laid up can not be said to be laid up for necessity. And so this argument may have some weight when it is pressed by luxury, but it is ridiculous when it is alleged by avarice.

I have, therefore, ofttimes admired how a person that thought it luxury to spend two hundred pounds, toiled as a slave to get four hundred a year for his heir. Either he thought an honest and virtuous man should not exceed two hundred pounds in his expense, or not; if he thought he should not, why did he bribe his heir to be luxurious, by leaving him more? If he thought his heir could not live upon so little, why should he who gained it defraud himself of the true use?

I know some who preserve themselves against avarice, by arguing often with their own heart that they have twice as much as they expected, and more than others who they think live very contentedly, and who did bound their designs in the beginning with moderate hopes, and refuse obstinately to enlarge, lest they should thus launch out into an ocean that has no shore.

To meditate much upon the folly of others who are remarkable for this vice, will help somewhat to limit it; and to rally him who is ridiculous for it, may influence him and others to contemn it. I must here beg rich and avaricious men's leave, to laugh as much at their folly as I could do at a shepherd who would weep and grieve because his master would give him no more beasts to herd, or at a steward, because his lord gave him no more servants to feed. Nor can I think a man, who, having gained a great estate, is afraid to live comfortably upon it, less ridiculous than I would do him, who, having built a convenient, or it may be a stately house, should choose to walk in the rain, or expose himself to storms, lest he should defile and pro