Julia de Roubigne
(1777). As a playwright, he produced four plays, none of which succeeded. As an essayist, he contributed to the
Mirror
(1779-80) and the
Lounger
(1785-86). As a political writer, he supported Pitt, and was rewarded by the comptrollership of taxes. An original member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, many of his papers appear in its
Transactions
. In Edinburgh society he was "the life of the company," a connecting link on the literary side between David Hume, Walter Scott, and Lord Cockburn, and in all matters of sport a fund of anecdotes and reminiscences.