ven. This machine, however, is allowed to have been "but an indifferent one:" and thus it was with almost everything in which Tytler was concerned. Everything was wonderful, considering the circumstances under which it was produced; but yet nothing was in itself very good.
Tytler was at one period concerned in a manufactory of magnesia, which, however, did no good as long as he was connected with it; though it is said to have realized much money afterwards to his partner and successors. Such was constantly his fate: his ingenuity and information, useless to himself, were perpetually taken advantage of by meaner, but more steady minds. On the commencement of the balloon mania, after the experiments of Montgolfier, Tytler would try his hand also at an aeronautic voyage. Accordingly, having constructed a huge dingy bag, and filled it with the best hydrogen he could procure, he collected the inhabitants of Edinburgh to the spot, and prepared to make his ascent. The expei-iment took place in a garden within the Sanctuary; and the wonder is, that he did not fear being carried beyond it, as in that event, he would have been liable to the gripe of his creditors. There was no real danger, however; the balloon only moved so high, and so far, as to carry him over the garden wall, and deposit him softly on an adjoining dunghill. The crowd departed, laughing at the disappointed aeronaut, who ever after went by the name, appropriate on more accounts than one, of "Balloon Tytler."
During his residence in the Sanctuary, Tytler commenced a small periodical work, entitled the "Weekly Review," which was soon discontinued. Afterwards, in 1780, a similar work was undertaken by a printer, named Mennons, and Tytler was employed in the capacity of chief contributor. This was a cheap miscellany, in octavo; and the present writer, who once possessed a volume of it, is inclined, on recollection, to say, that it displayed considerable talent. Tytler also tried poetry, and was the author of at least one popular song "I canna come ilka day to woo;" if not also of another, styled "The bonnie brucket Lassie." Burns, in his notes on Scottish Song, alludes with surprise to tha fact, that such clever ballads should have been the composition of a poor devil, with a sky-light hat, arid hardly a shoe to his feet. One of the principal works compiled by Tytler, was the "Edinburgh Geographical Grammar," published by Mr Kincaid, as an improvement upon the work bearing the name of Guthrie, which had gone through numerous editions, without any revisal to keep it abreast of the march of information. In the year 1792, Mr Tytler was conducting a periodical work, entitled " The Historical Register, or Edinburgh Monthly Intelligencer," and putting the last hand to a "System of Surgery," in three volumes, which he had undertaken for a surgeon in Edinburgh, who wished to have the nominal credit of such a work, when he was suddenly obliged to leave his native country. Having espoused the cause of parliamentary reform, and joined the society entitled "Friends of the People," he published, at the close of the year 1792, a political placard, which, in that excited time, was deemed by the authorities to be of a seditious tendency. Learning that the emissaries of the law had been sent forth in quest of him, he sought refuge in the house of a friend in a solitary situation on the northern skirts of Salisbury Crags; whence, after a short concealment, he withdrew to Ireland; and thence, after finishing his "System of Surgery," to the United States of America. Having been cited before the High Court of Justiciary, and failed to appear, he was outlawed by that tribunal, January 7, 1793. His family, which he necessarily left behind him, was for some time in great distress; nor did they ever rejoin him in the land of his adoption, poverty on both sides, perhaps, refusing the necessary expenses. In America, Tytler resumed
