be grown, vent would be demanded to such an extent as to raise the price of the home produce to a par with the imported—in the former case the rent being the natural consequence of commerce, in the latter the creature of legislation. The principle maintained by Dr Anderson, would here exactly apply, the higher price of importing corn to that of producing it at home, being a parallel to the higher cost of raising produce in sterile than in fruitful soils. But this intricate subject, unsuited to the present work, we gladly relinquish, more especially as the discussion of our author's ideas on this topic has fallen into other and abler hands. In these Essays we think we can perceive here and there traits of that simplicity and abstraction from the routine of the world, which was on some occasions a characteristic of their author. Men who mingle unobserved with the rest of their species, may be well versant in the lighter and more historical portions of the philosophy of mind and matter ; but the illustrious examples of Newton, Locke, Smith, and many others, have shown us, that the limitation of the human faculties calls to the aid of the more abstruse branches of science, a partial, if not total abstraction from all other subjects, for definite periods. Dr Hamilton was remarkable for his absence; not that he mingled subjects with each other, and mistook what he was thinking about, the error of a weak mind, but he was frequently engaged in his mathematical studies, when other persons were differently employed. As with other absent men, numberless are the anecdotes which are preserved of his abstractions—many of them doubtless unfounded, while at the same time it must be allowed, that he frequently afforded amusement to inferior wits. He possessed a singular diffidence of manner, which in a less remarkable man might have been looked upon as humility. Taking advantage of this feeling, and of his frequent abstractions, his class gave, him perpetual annoyance, and in the latter days of his tuition, the spirit of mischief and trickery, natural when it can be followed up in classes the greater portion of which consisted of mere boys, created scenes of perfect anarchy arid juvenile mischief. The author of this memoir recollects distinctly his stooping shadowy figure as he glided through the rest of his colleagues in the university, with his good-humoured small round face, and his minute but keenly twinkling eyes, surrounded by a thousand wrinkles, having in his manner so little of that pedagogical importance so apt to distinguish the teachers of youth, especially in spots where the assumption of scientific knowledge is not held in curb, by intercourse with an extensive body of men of learning. It is not by any means to be presumed, however, that the subject of our memoir, though retired, and occasionally abstracted in his habits, excluded himself from his due share in the business of the world. He led a generally active life. He maintained a correspondence with various British statesmen on important subjects, and with Say and Fahrenberg, the latter of whom requested permission to translate the work on the national debt into German. He frequently represented his college in the General Assembly. On the bursary funds of the university, and on the decision of a very important prize intrusted to him and his colleagues, he bestowed much time and attention; and he gave assistance in the management of the clergymen's widows' fund of Scotland, and in plans for the maintenance of the poor of Aberdeen.
It was once proposed among some influential inhabitants of Aberdeen, that a public monument should be erected to the memory of this, one of the most eminent of its citizens. Strangers have remarked, not much to the credit of that flourishing town, that while it has produced many great men, few have been so fortunate as to procure from its citizens any mark of posthumous respect. We sincerely hope the project may not be deserted, and that such a testimony of respect will yet appear, to a man on whom the city of Aberdeen
