formation of manners, and of taste in conversation, constituted a no less important part in the education of men destined to mix so largely in the world than their graver pursuits, he rendered his house at this time the resort of all who were most distinguished for genius, acquirement, or elegance in Edinburgh, and of all the foreigners who were led to visit the capital of Scotland. So happily did he succeed in assorting his guests, so well did he combine the grave and the gay, the cheerfulness of youth with the wisdom of age, and amusement with the weightier topics that formed the subject of conversation to his more learned visitors, that his evening parties possessed a charm which many who frequented them have since confessed they have sought in vain in more splendid and insipid entertainments. In the year 1806, he accompanied his friend the earl of Lauderdale on his mission to Paris; and he had thus an opportunity not
only of renewing many of the literary intimacies which he had formed in France before the commencement of the Revolution, but of extending his acquaintance with the eminent men of that country, with many of whom he continued to maintain a correspondence during his life.
While individuals of inferior talents, and of much inferior claims, had received the most substantial rewards for their services, it had been long felt that a philosopher like Stewart, who derived so small an income from his professional occupations, was both unjustly and ungenerously overlooked by his country. During the continuance of Mr Pitt's administration, when the government had so much to do for those who were immediately attached to it, it was hardly perhaps to be expected that an individual who owned no party affection to it, should have participated of its favours. On the accession, however, of the Whig administration, in 1806, the oversight was corrected, though not in the manner which was to have been wished. A sinecure office, that of gazette writer for Scotland, was erected for the express purpose of rewarding Mr Stewart, who enjoyed with it a salary of 600 a-year for the remainder of his life. The peculiar mode in which the reward was conveyed, excited much notice at the time. It was agreed on all hands, that Mr Stewart merited the highest recompense; but it was felt by the independent men of all parties, that a liberal pension from the crown would have expressed the national gratitude in a more elegant manner, and placed Mr Stewart's name more conspicuously in the list of those public servants, who are repaid, in the evening of life, for the devotion of their early days to the honour and interest of their country.
The year after the death of his son, he relinquished the active duties of his chair in the university, and removed to Kinneil House, a seat belonging to the duke of Hamilton, on the banks of the Frith of Forth, about twenty miles from Edinburgh, where he spent the remainder of his days in philosophical retirement.[1] From this place were dated, in succession, the Philosophical Essays in 1810; the second volume of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, in 1813;[2]
- ↑ In 1812, Mr Stewart read, before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a highly interesting memoir, entitled, "Some Account of a Boy born Deaf and Blind;" which was subsequently published in the Transactions of that learned body. The boy was James Mitchell, the son of a clergyman in the north of Scotland; and, owing to his unfortunate defects, his knowledge of external objects was necessarily conveyed through the organs of touch, taste, and smell, only. Mr Stewart entertained hopes of being able to ascertain, from this case, the distinction between the original arid acquired perceptions of sight; an expectation, however, which, from various circumstances, was not realized.
- ↑ He retired from active life, upon an arrangement with the scarcely less celebrated Dr Thomas Brown, who had been his own pupil, who now agreed, as joint professor with Mr Stewart, to perform the duties of the chair. Mr Stewart's biographer in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, gives the following paragraph, in reference to this connexion:—"Although it was on Mr Stewart's recommendation that Dr Brown was raised to the chair of moral philosophy, yet the appointment did not prove to him a source of unmixed satisfaction. The fine poetical imagination of Dr Brown, the quickness of his apprehension, and the
