William, of Woodhouselee, one of the most strenuous defenders of Queen Mary, was born at Edinburgh 12th October 1711. He was the son of Mr Alexander Tytler, writer in Edinburgh, by Jane, the daughter of William Leslie, merchant in Aberdeen, and grand-daughter of Sir Patrick Leslie of Iden, provost of that city,—a cadet of the Leslie of Balquhair. He received his education at the High School and the University of his native city, and distinguished himself by an early proficiency in those classical studies which, to the latest period of his life, were the occupation of his leisure hours, and a principal source of his mental enjoyments. At the age of thirty-one he was admitted into the Society of Writers to the Signet; and till the time of his death he continued the practice of his profession with entire success. In September 1745, he married Anne Craig, daughter of Mr James Craig of Dalnair, writer to the signet, by whom he left two sons and a daughter. In 1759 he published his Inquiry, Historical and Critical, into the Evidence against Mary Queen of Scots, and an Examination of the Histories of Dr Robertson and Mr Hume, with respect to that Evidence. Here he warmly espoused the cause of that unfortunate princess, and attacked with severity the conduct of her enemies; effectually, for a time, turning the tide of opinion in her favour. On its first appearance, the book was much read in Britain, and was translated into French. He afterwards published the Poetical Remains of James the First, King of Scotland, Edinb. 1783, 8vo. This volume includes a dissertation on the life and writings of the royal author, and a Dissertation on the Scottish Music. He contributed several papers to the first volume of the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. In the Lounger he wrote a single paper, No. 16. Tytler died on the 12th of September 1792. Of an ardent and enthusiastic temperament, in domestic life his character was particularly amiable. He was the kindest of husbands and most affectionate of fathers.

Alexander Fraser (Lord Woodhouselee), son of the defender of Queen Mary, and father of the historian of Scotland, was born at Edinburgh, 4th October (old style) 1747. He was the eldest of eight children, and inherited the domestic virtues as well as the literary abilities of his admirable father, William Tytler. His mother was Anne, daughter of James Craig, Esq. of Dalnair—a woman remarkable for her feminine gifts and graces. In the home of these parents Alexander Tytler imbibed, at a very early period, those tastes which he afterwards cultivated with such singular success. His home proved, moreover, an admirable school of manners; for the defender of Queen Mary Tytler had gathered round himself whatever was most distinguished in the northern metropolis—the good and the great of his time; and he lived at a period which may justly be regarded as the golden age of Scottish literature.

Sent to a school at Kensington which was kept by Dr Elphinstone, a friend of Johnson, Alexander Tytler attracted the notice of Jortin by his skill in Latin verse, and conciliated the friendship of Dr Russell, a physician of Aleppo, who was then residing in the neighbourhood of Kensington. From him the youth acquired a taste for natural history which never afterwards forsook him. At the age of seventeen he returned to Edinburgh, adopted the profession of the law, and immediately found himself associated, as pupil or as fellow-student, with all the men of that time who afterwards became conspicuous in the literary annals of the northern metropolis. These friendships never forsook him. He was so happy as to retain to the end of life the intimacies of his youth.

His literary and his professional career, though spread over a considerable period of time, and attended with no want either of variety or of success, may be briefly described. He qualified himself to become an author on subjects of such diverse interest as law, history, poetry, language, natural science, and the belles lettres in general, by a most studious youth, spent in domestic seclusion under the paternal roof at Woodhouselee. Nothing that was beautiful, whether in art or literature, was without attraction for Alexander Tytler. At the age of twenty-three (in 1770), he was called to the bar; but neither ambition, nor that humbler but not less effectual spur to exertion which a slender inheritance supplies, impelled the youthful barrister to the laborious practice of his profession. He loved Law, but he loved it as a science. By the advice of his friend and patron, Henry Home, Lord Kames, he compiled a supplementary volume to the Dictionary of Decisions, which brought that work down to the time which was then called "present." On this, his first undertaking of importance, he spent four years. A further continuation of the same work, which appeared in 1796, formed the solace of a season of prolonged sickness and severe suffering; and a Life of Lord Kames himself, which appeared in 1806, and passed through more than one edition, was among the latest of his literary efforts.

In 1786, Mr Tytler was appointed to the professorship of Universal History and Roman Antiquities in the University of Edinburgh; from which period, until the year 1800, he devoted himself almost exclusively to the duties of his office; and ten years of assiduous study were employed in the composition and improvement of the course of lectures which he read annually before a respectable body of students—one of whom was the future author of Waverley. The best known of Tytler's works (the Elements of General History) exhibits the substance of those lectures. The Elements, which have been translated into most of the languages of Europe, and even into Hindoostanee, established the fame of their author on a solid basis. The lectures themselves were not published till the year 1834, when they appeared in Murray's Family Library.

A short account of the Life and Writings of Dr John Gregory; some papers in the Mirror and Lounger, which were found to have been written on the blank leaves of his sketch-book; An Account of the Origin and History of the Royal Society; A Memoir of Robert Dundas, Lord President of the Court of Session; and a paper on the Vitrified Forts of the Highlands, comprise the sum of Mr Tytler's minor works from 1778 to 1789. In the following year he read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh a series of papers on translation, which he published shortly afterwards under the modest title of an Essay on the Principles of Translation. This performance attracted great and deserved notice, passed through five editions, and has long been regarded as a standard work. He also wrote a treatise on the Law of Courts Martial.

But it is high time to allude to the private side of this excellent man's history, exhibiting as it does one of the loveliest pictures which the annals of literature will be found to supply. Happily wedded, at the age of twenty-nine, to Ann, daughter and heiress of William Fraser, Esq. of Belmain, he became the father of seven children, several of whom attained to eminence or to literary celebrity. Ann Fraser Tytler, his eldest daughter, at a mature period of life, delighted the world by her inimitable stories (Mary and Florence, Leila, &c.); Alexander, his third son, achieved for himself no common reputation in India; Patrick, the youngest, is the best known of any who have ever borne Lord Woodhouselee's honoured family name. William Fraser Tytler of Belmain, his eldest son, the late much-respected sheriff and vice-lieutenant of Inverness-shire; and James, his second son, now of Woodhouselee, have been men honourable in their generation, and would have been of those "who have left a name behind them," if the highest public character and the most sterling private worth constituted a title to the world's abiding homage. The youngest daughter became the wife of James Baillie Fraser, Esq. of Reelick, the well-known Eastern traveller.

In 1790 the subject of the present memoir was appointed Judge-Advocate of Scotland; and Lord Melville, to whose friendship he owed his advancement, subsequently raised him to the bench of the Court of Session, where he took his seat in the beginning of 1802, with the title of Lord Woodhouselee. Free from academical engagements, and placed in more than easy circumstances by the death of his venerable father in 1792, it henceforth became his delight to create a scene of rural and domestic bliss in his beloved Woodhouselee. There, supremely happy in the society of his wife and children; blessed with health, affluence, and leisure; assiduous in the cultivation of those literary pursuits which formed the joy of his existence, and which had the entire homage of his well-stored mind, refined classical taste, and tutored understanding; given, moreover, to a graceful hospitality, which made Woodhouselee the favourite resort of all the most distinguished of his contemporaries (for the delightful converse and perfect manners of its owner was a favourite topic with his friends),—this excellent man passed through life beloved and respected, and honoured by all who knew him. Among his familiar and frequent guests were Sir Walter Scott, Dugald Stewart, Henry M'Kenzie, Dr Gregory (his friend and physician), Sir James Mackintosh, Sydney Smith, and the Rev. Archibald Alison (father of the historian), who afterwards became Lord Woodhouselee's very feeling biographer. Many picturesque anecdotes of these persons, as well as very lively sketches of those bright days, are preserved in the touching reminiscences committed to writing, so late as the year 1856, by his daughter Ann, and since published. Of his acute taste, a singular indication is afforded by the fact, that he detected the poetical powers of Lord Byron when, by the "Scotch Reviewers," they were made the subject of public ridicule. But it is still in the bosom of his family, in the strict privacy of his home, amid the sweet charities of daily life, that the admirable subject of this short memoir shines out in most attractive colours. The unaffected piety of his disposition was ever overflowing in gratitude to the Giver of all good for the happiness he enjoyed. Keenly alive to the beauties of nature, he delighted in nothing so much as fostering a like passion in his children, to the level of whose tastes he loved to come down, and to relax his mind by entering with almost boyish ardour into their games and amusements. Music, in which all the family were skilled, closed the day at Woodhouselee; and, seated at the early supper-table with his children, together with his son Patrick's accomplished tutor Mr John Black (author of some pleasing poems and a Life of Tasso), he delighted to entertain the little circle with lively converse and witty anecdote; while a catch or glee, in which himself occasionally joined, concluded the happy evening. Lord Woodhouselee's tastes were all of that unambitious kind which find their fullest gratification amid the sacred charities of home. "Every evening whilst he was in town," writes his daughter Ann, "Mr Black used to assemble us in his favourite room, his library in the tower at the top of the house. The back window looked upon a little dell, through which ran the rippling burn which Leyden, whilst on a visit to Woodhouselee, addressed in a beautiful sonnet. The front window of the library commanded a most extensive view of the distant country; and in those days, when we knew my father was to be detained in town till late, we always placed a candle in the window. Often did he remark, that he never gained sight of this twinkling light through the trees of the avenue, without feeling his heart raised in gratitude to heaven for the many blessings by which he was surrounded, and the happy home to which he was returning."

"Of all my literary labours," he writes in his commonplace book, "that which affords me most pleasure, on reflection, is the edition I published of Derham's Physico-Theology." It appeared in 1799. "When engaged in that work, I had a constant sense that I was well employed, in contributing, as far as lay in my power, to those great and noble ends which this most worthy man proposed in his labours—the enforcing on mankind the conviction of an Eternal, Almighty, All-wise, and All-beneficent Author of Nature; the demonstration, in short, of that truth on which depends our greatest present happiness and our future hopes." Paley's Natural Theology had not yet appeared.

A political pamphlet, entitled, Ireland profiting by Example—which 3000 copies were sold on the day of publication—and a Dissertation on the subject of Laura and Petrarch, are the only productions of the same prolific pen which it remains to notice. In the beginning of 1812, Lord Woodhouselee conveyed to London, and presented to the Prince-Regent, the insignia of the Bath which had been worn by his cousin, Sir J. H. Craig, governor-general of British North America, the last survivor of the Dalnair family. His description of that interview, sent to his wife on the same day, is very interesting. A baronetcy was soon after offered to him, which he declined.

Already was this excellent man conscious of a presentiment that his end was not far distant. In the beginning of winter he was prevailed upon to leave his favourite residence, and to remove to his town house—No. 65 (now 108) Prince's Street. On the 4th January 1813 he felt himself more than usually unwell; requested to have the service of the Church read to him, and solemnly blessed each one of his children before he retired to rest. Next morning he ordered his carriage, and desired that it might drive out on the road towards Woodhouselee. On coming within sight of his own grounds, he raised himself in the carriage, and his eye was observed to kindle as he looked once more upon the hills which he was so soon to leave, and which he had loved so well. The influence of the scene appeared to renew his strength, and on returning, he walked up the stairs of the house with more than usual vigour. But the excitement was momentary. He had scarcely entered his study before he sank down upon the floor, without a sigh or groan. Dr Gregory, the tried friend of half a century, was sent for; but when he arrived, it was found that medical skill was no longer of any avail.

Thus, at the age of sixty-five, died Lord Woodhouselee, one of the most accomplished gentlemen of his time. His literary performances have won for him the respect and gratitude of posterity, as, in his own day, they secured for him the admiration and applause of his contemporaries. Few have left behind them a more fragrant memory; few have bequeathed to their children a lovelier example, or to their country a more unsullied name. In every relation of life he was admirable. He excelled in most departments of polite learning, as well as of the fine arts. He died universally beloved and regretted; and carried with him to the grave the abiding regrets of his children, and of a large circle of friends.

Tytler, Patrick Fraser, author of the History of Scotland, was born at his father's house in Prince's Street, Edinburgh, on the 30th August 1791. He was the youngest of seven children, as will be found stated in the foregoing memoir.

The son of Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, and grandson of William Tytler, the defender of Queen Mary, may be said to have inherited a claim to literary celebrity. But his boyhood afforded no signs of the powers which he afterwards displayed, except, indeed, to the partial eyes of his fond father. To him the boy's passion for poetry and romance was a sufficient indication that he would prove a studious man in after-years. In truth, a general taste for whatever is beautiful in literature or in art, combined with a vast amount of humour, high spirit, and lofty principle, might well have satisfied those who watched the boyhood of Peter Tytler, as his intimates ever called him. The influence of his father, whom he idolized, was ever at hand to direct his taste and stimulate his endeavours.

At first he was sent to Miss Stalker's reading-school in Edinburgh. This lady was daughter to the well-known reading-master from whom Walter Scott received his own early instruction. Thence he was removed to the High School, under Professor Christison, and Dr Adams, the rector of the institution. His progress at school was unmarked by any distinction. He kept a respectable place in his class, and took a spirited share in the bickers which then ranged between the youthful heroes of the High School and of the University. But it was no mean reputation to have been respected by his schoolfellows for his inflexible truthfulness, as well as beloved for the generosity of his temper and the playfulness of his disposition. At Woodhouselee, under his father's roof, and under the fostering influences already adverted to, he made considerable progress. The Rev. John Black was no common tutor, and Walter Scott was no common friend. Neither were his father's intimates common guests. It was not, however, until Peter Tytler was sent to an English school, at the age of seventeen, that the transition from boyish thoughtlessness to manly gravity took place. His father made choice of a school at Chobham, kept by the Rev. Charles Jerram, a worthy man and good scholar, addicted to the opinions miscalled "evangelical." Tytler remained at Chobham for a year, and then returned finally to the paternal roof. His after-life showed what beautiful results may be obtained even from irregular culture.

Tytler offers a singular illustration of the extent to which the tastes and inclinations of early youth develop themselves in manhood, and become the ruling passions of after-life. His boyish love of fishing and shooting never forsook him. His early passion for music, poetry, and drawing was prolonged to the end of his days. Revelations of singular tenderness and softness of disposition were found in his early papers, as well as proofs of the exceeding piety and purity of his heart. Who that knew him well in after-life was not struck with the same characteristics? The humour of the child was very conspicuous in the man. At a debating-society which he helped to form at Chobham, we find him showing great historical knowledge, and acquiring much credit as the advocate of the favourable effect of the Crusades on Europe. "I had a copious source for materials," he writes to his father, "in your Elements, and Charles V., and only regretted I had not more time to collect them. . . . I shall, whenever I can, propose historical questions..." of this nature. It is impossible, my dearest father, to describe the delight with which I look forward to September. I shall be much obliged to Boyd if he will oil the lock and clean the barrel of the general's gun." To his brother Sandy, in India, he wrote (in 1810): "At Mr Jerram's I began to understand and like Greek, and to make some progress in Latin versification. But I acquired a high relish for another noble branch of literature, and which I am at present perusing with the greatest pleasure—I mean History. To me it seems the noblest of all studies."

After three years of cloudless sunshine, spent at Woodhouselee in the society of his parents and sisters, in January 1813 Tytler lost his father. He was now little more than twenty-one years of age, and the only remaining unmarried son. On him, therefore, the burden of grief most heavily fell. This bereavement, though it bowed his spirit and almost broke his heart, served to bring out the manliness of his character, and to touch the secret springs of his inner life. In the following month of July, having passed the public examination with credit, he was admitted into the Faculty of Advocates.

It was in the society of William and Archibald Alison, and Mr David Anderson of Moredun, that Tytler visited Paris, in the months of May and June 1814. His imagination was much struck by the many remarkable sights which he witnessed in the French metropolis at that memorable season, and the letters which he sent home are full of graphic and interesting details. Napoleon embarked from Frejus for Elba on the very day when the friends reached York, on their way south. They saw the allied sovereigns, our own Wellington, Platoff, Blucher; together with all the treasures of art, which were at that time accumulated at Paris. "Only think," wrote Tytler to his mother, "of seeing the Apollo Belvidere one morning, and the Emperor Alexander the next!" From Dr Crichton, the emperor's physician, the young Scotchmen picked up many striking anecdotes of the recent campaign. But Tytler's heart was in his own loved home, and almost in his father's grave. When Lord Meadowbank, then Lord Advocate, soon after his return, appointed him king's counsel in the Exchequer, what made the favour acceptable was the consciousness that it could only be ascribed to respect for his father's memory. He often stole back to revisit Woodhouselee, and nurse his grief amid the sorrowful records of the happy past.

This visit to Paris led to the appearance (in 1815) of two interesting little volumes by Sir Archibald Alison, to which Tytler contributed certain chapters. It constituted his first appearance in print; but both the Travels in France and the contributed chapters were produced anonymously. The interval between 1814 and 1822 (which was diversified by a tour in Norway, taken in company with Mr David Anderson of St Germain, in 1818, and of which his letters and journals preserve a very interesting account) is marked by no striking personal incidents, nor by any literary achievement of moment. Tytler was, during all this time, professedly a barrister; and although by no means a successful practitioner of the Law, yet he wanted not that measure of success which was sufficient to stimulate him to further exertion, had he been able to give up his heart to his profession. But he never loved it. The din of the Courts distressed him; the excitement of a criminal trial he could not endure. Though passionately fond of society, and eminently qualified to shine, the distractions of the Edinburgh season were the reverse of congenial to him. He was not unconscious of possessing many perilous gifts; and his sensitive conscience was for ever taking the alarm. Most happy was he when, in the summer months, he stole away to his cherished friends, the Stuarts of Ardgowan, to Basil Hall's family, or to the Alisons. At Ardgowan, a well-furnished library supplied him with that occupation for the mind, and a breezy moor with that relaxation for the body, which his studious disposition needed. He was, in fact, always pursuing a course of private reading—miscellaneous and extensive—whether at home or abroad. More than the intervals of business he gave to such pursuits; and his memorandum-books show that he was already an author. But his first essays were but tentative, and only a few of them, it is probable, ever saw the light. In the pages of Blackwood, and other magazines, he made his first modest appearance as an author.

He was at this time a surprising student, as the list of the books he read in a single year shows. But he is found to have read more of Divinity than of Law; and more of History than of Divinity. Howe's Meditations was never for a day out of his hands. Ever a man of exemplary piety, it may be worth stating that his religious opinions acquired less and less of a sectarian character as he advanced in life. He noted in his memorandum-book, that, on the 1st January 1837, he adopted the practice of reading the Scriptures according to the calendar and not according to the directory.

Tytler's disposition was eminently social; and his talents well qualified him to shine in society. He sung delightfully, and his poetical vein found freest expression in the composition of humorous songs. Many are the playful specimens which survive of his powers. But the most amusing of his compositions of this class are connected with the Mid-Lothian Volunteer Yeomanry Corps, which numbered among its members many a name as distinguished in the aristocracy of talent as of birth, and of which he soon became the most conspicuous member. His delightful manners, his exuberant flow of spirits, his ready wit, rendered him a general favourite; while his beautiful songs made him the very soul of the mess. On one occasion, he stole away from the corps and from the prospect of duty, to enjoy a quiet afternoon with his brother at Woodhouselee; but being missed at head-quarters, a mock-warrant was sent for his seizure, and he was apprehended on his brother's threshold, after having, with much discomfort, concealed himself (as he thought) for a reasonable space in the glen. Led back in triumph to the military encampment at Musselburgh, Tytler threw the adventure into a ballad, called The Deserter, which was long a favourite with the mess. It should be said of his songs that they were written to be sung,—to be sung by himself,—and that he ever wrote them for amusement, not for fame. Hence, as a poet, Tytler was known only to his acquaintances; and but for his contributions to Thomson's Select Melodies of Scotland, published in 1824, he might be said to hold his chance of being remembered by the same tenure as the orator, the vocalist, or the wit.

A few words should be added of his early efforts of a graver character. In June 1820, he was engaged on A Historical Essay upon the European Moors during their Government of Spain. This will have been his earliest prose effort. In 1816, he speaks of a paper On Gratitude; and mentions that he had been drawing up a Memoir of his brother Alexander, a Parallel between Milton and Shakespeare, and an Essay on Feudal Law. Like the other essays mentioned above, these have either never been printed, or they are lying perdu where so many interesting literary productions repose in a state of suspended animation—namely, in the pages of some forgotten review or magazine. But the Historical and Critical Essay on the Life of Crichton, which he wrote in the beginning of 1817, was destined to appear in a more important shape, and laid the foundation of his literary celebrity. It appeared, corrected and enlarged, in 1819, under the following title: Life of James Crichton of Cluny, commonly called the Admirable Crichton; with an Appendix of Original Papers. A second edition was published in 1823. To Blackwood, at the time of its first appearance in April 1817, Mr Tytler was a considerable contributor. Only two of his contributions are, however, remembered—Remarks on Lucan's Streelmanse (November 1817), and verses To my Dog (January 1818). A highly fanciful fragment, under the title of A Literary Romance, which appeared in July, August, and September 1817, seems to be the only other piece which he published at this time.

Simultaneously with the biographical sketch of Crich- ton, Mr Tytler was engaged on a Memoir of Sir Thomas Craig of Riccarton. It appeared in 1823, "including biographical sketches of the more eminent legal characters since the institution of the Court of Session by James V. till the period of the union of the crowns." This work, like the last, was published by Mr Tait, and was limited to a small impression. Together, they showed literary predilections which were deemed at the time incompatible with legal success; and it soon became apparent to the young barrister that he must decide between the Law, which he loved not and which loved not him, and History, which he loved passing well. It would not have been difficult to foresee his decision. The founding of the Bannatyne Club, in 1822, of which he was one of the original members, (and for which, jointly with Mr Hog and Mr Urquhart, he afterwards edited a volume), by drawing him yet more intimately into connexion with the literary antiquaries of that day, may have done somewhat to decide the colour of Mr Tytler's future life. His lively lyrics, sung at the yearly meetings of the society, will not be forgotten while the friends live who heard them. In the mean time, his renewed and increased intimacy with Sir Walter Scott, the president of the club, which led to a visit to Abbotsford in 1823, was productive of memorable consequences.

"It was in the month of July, soon after the rising of the Court of Session," writes Mr Alexander Pringle of Whytebank to Mr James Tytler, "when P. F. T. happened to be on a visit here for some days, that we one day went over to dine at Abbotsford.... While we were riding home at night (I remember well the place; it was just after we had forded the Tweed at Boldside), your brother told me that in the course of that evening, Sir Walter Scott had taken him aside and suggested to him the scheme of writing a history of Scotland. Sir Walter stated that some years before the booksellers had urged him to undertake such a work, and that he had at one time seriously contemplated it. The subject was very congenial to his tastes; and he thought that by interspersing the narrative with romantic anecdotes, illustrative of the manners of his countrymen, he could render such a work popular. But he soon found, while engaged in preparing his materials, that something more was wanted than a popular romance; that a right history of Scotland was yet to be written; but that there were ample materials for it in the national records, in collections of documents, both public and private, and in Scottish authors whose works had become rare, or were seldom perused." Prevented by his other avocations from bestowing the necessary labour on such a work, he had "confined his undertaking to a collection of historical anecdotes for the amusement of the rising generation, calculated to impress upon their memories the worthy deeds of Scottish heroes, and inspire them with sentiments of nationality. He also mentioned that the article on the Culloden Papers, published in the Quarterly Review for January 1816, had been originally conceived in the form of an introductory essay to the contemplated historical work, which was now likely to go no further.—He then proposed to your brother to enter on the undertaking.... offering all the aid in his power for obtaining access to the repositories of information, as well as advice in pursuing the necessary investigations.—I asked my friend if the suggestion pleased him. He replied that the undertaking appeared very formidable;... but that the suggestion, coming from such a quarter, was not to be disregarded. You may be sure that I encouraged him to the best of my power; for though I knew how much it was likely to withdraw his attention from his professional avocations, I also knew how much more congenial a pursuit it would prove, and how much more likely he was to attain to excellence in this channel."

Before Tytler set his hand in right earnest to his history, an event occurred which altered or influenced the complexions of all his after-life. On the 30th March 1826, he was united to Rachel Elizabeth, the beautiful daughter of Thomas Hog, Esq. of Newliston.

"For nearly two years before," writes Miss A. F. Tytler, "we had become aware of his attachment to this beautiful Rachel, for beautiful and accomplished she was; and her pursuits, particularly in music and painting, were most congenial to his own. She was twenty-two at the time of her marriage; but she had lived constantly in retirement, either in the country at Newliston, or during the winter months in her father's house at Lauriston, which went by the name of the convent. My brother, after being introduced to her, found it very difficult to penetrate those convent walls; but the old gentleman, after he had recovered from the first shock of seeing a young gentleman frequently calling, on what appeared to him very frivolous pretences, became so fond of my brother, that soon no pretence whatever was necessary, his visits appearing to give equal pleasure to all parties."

Immediately before his marriage, besides an Essay on the Revival of Greek Literature in Italy, which he had read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Tytler published his Life of Wickliff. It appeared anonymously in 1826, in a small volume of 207 pages. Henceforth, the desire to prosecute the necessary collections for his History of Scotland engaged no small share of his time and attention. But he did not abandon the Law; and while his bride was yet at Newliston, he came into the metropolis daily to attend the Exchequer Court. In the meantime, he purchased a house in Edinburgh (26 Melville Street), and before the winter established himself there. The birth of three children Mary Stewart, Alexander, and Thomas Patrick, completed his wedded happiness. It would be hard indeed to find a more perfect picture of domestic bliss than was presented by his little household.

Tytler now worked indefatigably at his history; love adding a stimulus where ambition already supplied a sufficient spur. In March 1828, he was correcting the last proof of his first volume; and before September 1829, he had finished writing his third. Sir Walter Scott reviewed the first two volumes in the Quarterly. It was impossible, in fact, to withhold from this work the praise of having called attention more than any which had preceded it, to the wondrous mine of historical information, yet unwrought, which exists in the State-Paper-Office; and Scott was liberal, yet discriminating in his praise. He expressed a wish that the historian would bestow an introductory volume on the dark ages preceding the accession of Alexander III. (1249); and to produce such a volume was a favourite project with Mr Tytler to the last. He had also purposed to terminate his history, not at the union of the two crowns of England and Scotland under James I., but of the two kingdoms under Queen Anne. This, however, he subsequently found, would have constituted a task equal in magnitude to all his past labours, and would have required a new lifetime for its fulfillment. The third volume of the Scottish history appeared in 1829, the fourth in 1831; the rest (vols. v.–ix.) appeared respectively in 1834, 1837, 1840, 1842, and 1843.

Very various, however, was the web of Mr Tytler's life during the many years thus indicated. Many, too, were the works in which he engaged while his History was in First came the Lives of Illustrious Statesmen, in three volumes, which he wrote for Murray's Family Library; next, a Life of Sir Walter Raleigh; then, a Historical Dissertation on the Progress of Democracy in America; after that, a Life of King Henry VIII. These last three works were published by Messrs Oliver and Boyd in the Edinburgh Cabinet Library.—In the meantime, Mrs Tytler's health gave way. The winter of 1832 was spent at Torquay, that of 1833 at Bute. In the spring of 1835, while in the very pursuit of health, she breathed away her gentle spirit, overflowing with every Christian grace, and leaving her husband overwhelmed with the greatness of his loss.

He now removed from Edinburgh, and took up his residence with his sisters, first at Hampstead, then in Wimpole Street, London, devoting his time to the prosecution of his History, and to the education of his children. He had been disappointed in his hopes of being appointed Historiographer of Scotland, and keeper of the Records in the Chapter-House. But in the prosecution of his favourite studies in the State-Paper-Office, he forgot everything except his domestic grief. In the meanwhile, he was called upon to give his evidence before a Select Committee on the Record Commission, and the report was attended with important consequences.

In London he led a singularly quiet life, gathering round himself a small society of men engaged in kindred pursuits and studies. He was one of the projectors of the English Historical Society, which has since rendered such distinguished service to literature. For the rest of his time he sought his happiness in the bosom of his family; in the summer, to his beloved Newliston, or to Inverness-shire, where his brother William, sheriff of the county, and his sister, Mrs James Baillie Fraser, resided, never repairing for health and relaxation in vain.

One of the most interesting of Tytler's literary labours appeared in 1839, Original Letters Illustrative of the Reigns of Edward VI. and Queen Mary. The documents, which are connected together with a slender link of historical narrative, he met with in the course of his historical researches pursued in the State-Paper-Office. Simultaneously with this work, he wrote the article "Scotland" for the seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. In October 1843, he finished the ninth and last volume of his History of Scotland, after having expended on that work the labour of little less than eighteen years.

It was in the early part of 1843 that he was commanded to examine a singular relic in her Majesty's possession, known as "the Darnley jewel." His Notes were printed; and the historian was honoured by her Majesty's commands to dine at Windsor Castle in the ensuing November. This led to his being intrusted with a collection of royal miniatures, to study and report upon; and finally, in 1844, a royal pension of L200 per annum was bestowed upon him "for literary services to the country." Many were the undertakings which he yet contemplated; of which an introductory volume to his History of Scotland, and a History of the Reformation, were the principal. But a memoir, privately printed in 1845, On the Portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, was the last thing that he was destined ever to see through the press.

In the August of the same year, he contracted a second marriage. The lady of his choice was Anastasia, daughter of Thomson Bonar, Esq., of Camden-Place, Kent, who had long been a friend of his family. Altogether melancholy, however, from this period, was the sudden decline of his health, the singular prostration of his mental powers, and the morbid melancholy into which the cheerful author of other years was seen to sink. True it is, that Tytler had been an excessive student, especially from the time of his first marriage, and that he had overtaxed his powers; but this does not seem sufficient to account for the sad change which, at the age of fifty-four, overtook him. He submitted to the cold-water system, as it is called; and traversed France and Germany in pursuit of that relief which he was to find only in the grave. He died at Malvern on Christmas Eve, 1849, surrounded by his family, and sustained to the last by a most blessed hope. His remains were laid in the vault of his ancestors, in the Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh.

A memoir of this excellent man appeared in 1859. From his letters, and the various reminiscences of friends there preserved, a better notion will be derived than any mere sketch can convey of the playfulness of his disposition, the piety and solid worth of his character. He was learned without an atom of pedantry; of a social turn without being either frivolous or given to dissipation; religious without moroseness; witty, but never at the expense of others. He was seen to most advantage in the society of his family, surrounded by his children; and was most beloved by those who knew him the most intimately. His passion for letters was genuine; and, in the pursuit of historical truth, he instinctively apprehended whatever was noble, lofty, and good. It was impossible to be much in his society without being the better for it. His biographer endeavoured to express his character in a single sentence, when he styled his life "the portrait of a Christian gentleman."