BOOK I.

Mr Home's first profes

sional views.

bestowing on their sons a learned education, which was formerly the honourable badge of their condition, now threw them into the Shop or the Counting-house, with no other preparatory accomplishment than what was merely necessary for the function of a clerk or a book-keeper. Classical learning was therefore confined to the few who were destined for the learned professions; of which the number became daily the more limited, as new, and easier, and shorter paths were opened to wealth and distinction.

It was owing to these prevailing notions of the times, that the father of Mr Home, who probably had never felt the defects of his own education, saw no necessity for bestowing on his son the tedious and expensive discipline of an University. Young Home, with no other stock of learning than what he had acquired from Mr Wingate, was, about the year 1712, bound by indenture to attend the office or chambers of a writer to the Signet in Edinburgh. This profession, being of a liberal nature, was always filled by gentlemen of good birth; and it was deemed a very useful piece of education, even for the sons of the first families, who were destined to inherit large estates, to attend the writing-chamber for a few years, and thus qualify themselves for conducting their own affairs with intelligence and discretion*. This

* That this branch of education was a characteristic of the Scottish gentry, in a former and not a distant age, we have the honourable testimony of Sir William Blackstone; and it were earnestly to be wished, that the praise were

equally

This discipline corresponded to that which is so earnestly recommended by the great Lord Clarendon *, as equally beneficial to an English gentleman with an University education; the attendance on the Inns of Court. With Mr Home, however, it was preparatory to the profession of a writer or solicitor before the Supreme Court, to which it ap pears that his views were at first directed; when they received, from a trifling incident, a bias to an ampler field of occupation. One winter evening, Home's master sent him

with

equally merited in the present day, as we believe it to have been at the time when it was given: "The science of the laws and constitution of our own "country, is a species of knowledge in which the gentlemen of England have "been more remarkably deficient than those of all Europe beside. In most "of the nations on the Continent, where the civil or imperial law, under dif"ferent modifications, is closely interwoven with the municipal laws of the "land, no gentleman, or, at least, no scholar, thinks his education is completed till he has attended a course or two of lectures, both upon the Insti"tutes of Justinian, and the local constitutions of his native soil, under the "very eminent professors that abound in their several Universities. And in "the northern parts of our own island, where also the municipal laws are fre "quently connected with the civil, it is difficult to meet with a person of li"beral education, who is destitute of a competent knowledge in that science, "which is to be the guardian of his natural rights, and the rule of his civil "conduct." BLACKSTONE'S Comment. vol. i. Introd. § 1.

It is curious to remark, that among the many proofs of the liberal and enlightened policy of the Scottish Monarch James I. one is an edict mentioned by Hector Boece," Ne cuiquam insignem hæreditatem adeundi jus esset, qui prorsùs juris civilis aut municipalis ignarus esset." BOET. Hist. Scot. lib. 17. * See his Dialogue on Education.

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CHAP. I.

BOOK I.

with some papers to the house of Sir Hew Dalrymple, then President of the Court of Session, who lived in a sort of suburban villa, at the end of Bristo Street. He was shewn into the parlour, a very elegant apartment, where a daughter of the President, a beautiful young lady, was performing a piece of music on the harpsichord; while the venerable Judge sat by her, with his book on the table. The music was suspended, and a short conversation ensued on the business to which the papers related, in which the young man acquitted himself so much to the President's satisfaction, as to draw from him a very handsome compliment on his knowledge and proficiency in the law. The conversation then turned to general topics, and was prolonged with much pleasure; while the young lady made tea, and afterwards, at her father's desire, sung, and played some Scots airs on the harpsichord. The youth was struck with every particular of the scene in which he had borne a part; and his ardent mind, as he was wont himself to relate, caught instant fire from the impression. Happy the man," said he to himself, "whose old age, crowned with honour and dignity, can thus

66

repose itself after the useful labours of the day, in the "bosom of his family, amidst all the elegant enjoyments "that affluence, justly earned, can command! Such are "the fruits of eminence in the profession of the law." From that moment, Mr Home determined to abandon the more limited occupation of a Writer, and qualify himself for the function of an Advocate before the Supreme Courts; to

which the employment of the past years formed a very useful preparation.

CHAP. I.

of study.

It was now, that, by the testimony of his cotemporaries, His ardour he began to apply himself with unwearied diligence to repair the defects of his domestic education. He resumed the study of the Latin and Greek languages, to which he added French and Italian. Conscious that of all the liberal occupations, the profession of a barrister is that which requires, to the attainment of eminence, the greatest variety of knowledge, and the widest range of scientific acquirements, he applied himself to the study of Mathematics, Natural Philoso phy, Logic, Ethics, and Metaphysics. These pursuits, which he followed at the same time with the study of the law, af forded, independently of their own value, a most agreeable variety of employment to his active mind.

The sciences of the Roman law, and the municipal law of Scotland, were not, till the year 1710, taught by a regular institution or system of lectures, in any of the Scottish Universities. In that year, Mr James Craig, Advocate, was appointed Professor of Civil Law in the College of Edinburgh, with the endowment of a small salary from the Faculty of Advocates. The civil law, which forms a most essential part of the education of a Scottish Advocate, as being the basis of the municipal law in all matters not depending on feudal principles, was, previously to that time, acquired either by

No regular that time for the study of the law.

institution at

BOOK I.

private study, or by resorting to the foreign Universities, particularly those of Utrecht, Leyden, Halle, and Groningen. It was unsuitable to Mr Home's circumstances to prosecute the latter plan: and, indeed, to a mind like his, the confinement to a regular method and system of tuition is perhaps less advantageous, than the exercise of its native and unassisted efforts, which, the greater are the difficulties it has to surmount, are always the more vigorous and the more successful. In fact, it has been frequently observed, that those whom Nature has destined to be the teachers and instructors of mankind, have not been the most willing pupils. They receive with suspicion every thing that is announced in the shape of a dogma: they have always a stronger propensity to scrutinize and impugn, than to subscribe to the doctrines of a preceptor; and every task is either submitted to with reluctance, or indignantly resisted as fettering the free progress of the understanding. In the character I am now describing, this was a predominant feature. He may truly be said to have been his own instructor in all his mental acquisitions ; and his common mode of study was not so much to read what had been written or taught upon the subject, as to exercise his mind in earnest and patient investigation; tracing known or acknowledged facts to principles, and thence ascending to general laws. On many subjects of speculative inquiry, he is therefore justly entitled to the name of a Discoverer; as his tenets and opinions were truly the result of his own investigation, unassisted by the researches of

others;