The reader must take this statement at its own value, which he will probably not consider high. The "cast," has no pretensions to be a transcript of any contemporary document; for Dr. Robertson was not then Principal of the University, but minister of the country parish of Gladsmuir; and Ferguson was not a Professor, but an army chaplain, with leave of absence, spending his time chiefly in Perthshire. Lord Kames, spoken of as "only" a lawyer, had been raised to the bench in 1752.
[421:1] This last appears to have been suppressed. The publication of the others is mentioned further on.
[422:1] MS. R.S.E.
[423:1] Account of John Home, p. 24.
[424:1] There is an amusing traditional anecdote, with which this periodical has some connexion. Dr. Walter Anderson, minister of Chirnside, having caught the fire of literary ambition, made the remark to Hume, one afternoon when they had been enjoying the hospitalities of Ninewells: "Mr. David, I daresay other people might write books too; but you clever fellows have taken up all the good subjects. When I look about me, I cannot find one unoccupied."—"What would you think, Mr. Anderson," said Hume, in reply, "of a History of Crœsus, king of Lydia? This has never yet been written." Dr. Anderson was a man who understood no jesting, and held no words as uttered in vain; so away he goes, pulls down his Herodotus, and translates all the passages in the first book relating to Crœsus, with all the consultations of the oracles, and all the dreams; only interweaving with them, from his own particular genius, some very sage and lengthy remarks on the extent to which there was real truth in the prophetic revelations of the Pythoness. This book, which is now a great rarity, was reviewed with much gravity and kindness in The Edinburgh Review. It was more severely treated in The Critical Review, edited by Smollett, where it is said, "There is still a race of soothsayers in the Highlands, derived, if we may believe some curious antiquaries, from the Druids and Bards that were set apart for the worship of Apollo. The author of the History before us may, for aught we know, be one of these venerable seers, though we rather take him to be a Presbyterian teacher, who has been used to expound apothegms that need no explanation."
[427:1] Page 342. MS. R.S.E.
[427:2] The case of Sir John Leslie, see above, [p. 89].
[428:1] Attributed to Dr. Blair by Tytler, (Life of Kames, i. 142,) as well as by Mackenzie; as on the [preceding] page.
[429:1] Besides those mentioned above, the occasion seems to have called forth some blasts of the trumpet, still better suited to split the ears of the groundlings—such as "The Deist stretched on a Death-bed, or a lively Portraiture of a Dying Infidel." The contemporary Edinburgh Review, which carried on a guerilla warfare on the side of the threatened philosophers, thus commences a notice of this production. "This is a most extraordinary performance. The hero of it is an infidel, 'a humorous youth,' as the author describes him, 'a youth whose life was one successive scene of pleasantry and humour: who laughed at revelation, and called religion priestcraft and grimace: a gay and sprightly free-thinker. But yesterday,' says he 'this gay and sprightly free-thinker revelled his usual round of gallantry and applause, till, satiated at length, he staggered to bed devoid of sense and reason.' We suppose, (continues the reviewer,) the author's meaning is, that he went to bed very drunk.'"
[430:1] Scots Magazine, 1756, pp. 248, 280, where those who are partial to such reading, will find a pretty clear abstract of the debate. The General Assembly had its hands at that time pretty full. A deadly dispute had arisen between the partisans of the old and new church music, which is thus described in Ritchie's Life of Hume, p. 57: