NOTES ON BOOKS, NO. I.
Mackintosh on Ogilvie's Essay on the Right of Property in Land.
At the dispersion of the library of the late Sir James Mackintosh, striking evidence of his extensive reading appeared. It seems to have been his custom to always read with a pencil in his hand, to score the remarkable passages, and to make occasional notes; generally at the end of the book he indicates the place where, and date when he read it.
One remarkable and not uninteresting example occurs in the following volume in my possession:
"An Essay on the Right of Property in Land, with respect to its foundation in the Law of Nature: its present establishment by the municipal laws of Europe; and the regulations by which it might be rendered more beneficial to the lower ranks of Mankind." London, 1782, 8vo.
On the inside of the cover Sir James Mackintosh has written:
"Clapham Common, July 18, 1828.—An ingenious and benevolent, but injudicious book, which is a good example of the difficulty of forming plans for the service of mankind. To the author, an accomplished recluse, a lettered enthusiast of no vulgar talent or character, I owe the cultivation of a sense of the beautiful in poetry and eloquence, for which at the distance of near half a century I feel a lively gratitude. It was written by William Ogilvie, Professor of Humanity in King's College, Aberdeen. I even now recollect passages of his Translation of the 4th Book of the Eneid.—J. MACKINTOSH."
I have found a corroboration of the estimate above given of this person, by another of his countrymen, James Ogilvie (who appears to have been an itinerant teacher of oratory in America) in a volume of Philosophical Essays published in Philadelphia in 1816. Speaking of a gifted native of Scotland of the name of McAllester, settled in the far west, near Bard's Town, and lamenting that he should choose to bury his talents in obscurity and indolence, the writer says:
"He came nearer to the character of a scientific sage than any human being the narrator has ever known, with the exception of William Ogilvie, Professor of Humanity in King's College, Old Aberdeen, Author of a profound original 'Essay on the Right of Property in Land.'"
The book itself is, in some respects at least, well worthy of attention, and especially at the present moment, when the subject it embraces presses itself upon all men's consideration. On emigration, for instance, Ogilvie has some anticipatory views: thus he observes with truth:
"To increase the prosperity and the happiness of the greater number, is the primary object of government, and the increase of national happiness must be the increase of national strength. Is it not then the duty, and perhaps also the interest of every legislature in the West of Europe to promote the emigration of its less opulent subjects, until the condition of the lower classes of men at home be rendered nearly as comfortable as the condition of the same classes in the new settlements of North America?"—Pp. 50, 51.