my province to record,-by displaying those fair rewards of extensive usefulness, and of permanent fame, which talents and industry, when worthily directed, cannot fail to secure, —may contribute, in one single instance, to foster the proud and virtuous independence of genius; or, amidst the gloom of poverty and solitude, to gild the distant prospect of the unfriended scholar, whose laurels are now slowly ripening in the unnoticed privacy of humble life. NOTES. NOTE (A), P. 404. In the account, given in the text, of Dr Reid's ancestors, I have followed scrupulously the information contained in his own memorandums. I have some suspicion, however, that he has committed a mistake with respect to the name of the translator of Buchanan's History; which would appear, from the MS. in Glasgow College, to have been-not Adam, but John. At the same time, as this last statement rests on an authority altogether unknown (being written in a hand different from the rest of the MS.), there is a possibility that Dr Reid's account may be correct; and, therefore, I have thought it advisable, in a matter of so very trifling consequence, to adhere to it in preference to the other. The following particulars with respect to Thomas Reid are copied from Dempster, a contemporary writer; whose details concerning his countrymen, it must, however, be confessed, are not always to be implicitly relied on. "Thomas Reidus Aberdonensis, pueritiæ meæ et infantilis otii "sub Thoma Cargillo collega, Lovanii literas in schola Lipsii seriò "didicit, quas magno nomine in Germania docuit, carus Principi"bus. Londini diu in comitatu humanissimi ac clarissimi viri, "Fulconis Grevilli, Regii Consiliarii Interioris et Angliæ Pro"quæstoris, egit: tum ad amicitiam Regis, eodem Fulcone dedu cente, evectus, inter Palatinos admissus, à literis Latinis Regi "fuit. Scripsit multa, ut est magnâ indole et variâ eruditione," &c.-"Ex aula se, nemine conscio, nuper proripuit, dum illi om"nia festinati honoris augmenta singuli ominarentur, nec quid de"inde egerit aut quò locorum se contulerit quisquam indicare po"tuit. Multi suspicabantur, tædio aulæ affectum, monasticæ quieti seipsum tradidisse, sub annum 1618. Rumor postea fuit in au"lam rediisse, et meritissimis honoribus redditum, sed nunquam id consequetur quod virtus promeretur."-Hist. Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum, lib. xvi. p. 576. 66 What was the judgment of Thomas Reid's own times with respect to his genius, and what their hopes of his posthumous fame, may be collected from an elegy on his death by his learned countryman Robert Aytoun. Already, before the lapse of two hundred years, some apology, alas! may be thought necessary for an attempt to rescue his name from total oblivion. Aytoun's elegy on Reid is referred to in terms very flattering both to its author and to its subject, by the editor of the Collection, entitled, "Poëtarum Scotorum Musa Sacra."-" In obitum Thomæ "Rheidi epicedium extat elegantissimum Roberti Aytoni, viri lite"ris ac dignitate clarissimi, in Deliciis Poëtarum Scotorum, ubi et |