Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/56

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REV. EDWARD IRVING.

directed. His resolution was formed; his choice of a subject was fixed; and after the success of his work entitled "Spain in 1830," he produced his novel of "The New Gil Bias," in which he endeavoured to embody Spanish life as it exists in the present day. It was the best of all his writings, for it combined truthful delineation with the highest efforts of fancy and creative power; and while he brought to it all the resources of his genius, and all the affections of his heart, he seems to have regarded it as the great effort by which, like Sir Walter Scott, he would open for himself a new world of distinction and success, after the old had been exhausted. But, alas! for the unlucky title. Many thought that the first "Gil Bias" was enough, and would not read the second; many opened it, and then threw it aside, mistaking it for a mere paltry imitation; while the few who dared to read on, were troubled with thoughts of Le Sage at every turning of the leaf. And thus the unfortunate production was doomed at the very moment of its birth, and consigned to the fate of a Spartan ill-shapen infant, but without the formality of a Spartan inquest. It was a sore calamity to Inglis, who loved it with a mother's love, and his lamentation over it could only find comfort in a lingering of hope. "Alas!" he would exclaim, "I fear I have written my ’Gil Bias' for posterity!" We suspect that posterity will have too many novels of their own to busy themselves withal instead of attending to those which their fathers neglected.

After his return from Ireland, Mr. Inglis began to prepare for publication his "Travels in the footsteps of Don Quixotte," a work the nature of which is indicated by the title. Undeterred, also, by the failure of his chief attempt in fiction, he had already planned, and even commenced other works of a similar character, when his overtasked physical endurance gave way under such constant intellectual pressure; and a disease of the brain ensued, of which he died in London, before he had completed his fortieth year. His decease occurred on the 20th of March, 1835.

IRVING, REV. EDWARD, A.M.—This remarkable pulpit orator, and founder of a sect, was born in Annan, Dumfries-shire, in the year 1792. His family was originally from France, but had long been settled in the west of Scotland. His father, Gavin Irving, followed the business of a tanner, in which he was so successful, that he became a substantial burgess in Annan, and possessed considerable landed property in the neighbourhood of the town. The mother of Edward Irving was Mary Lowther, daughter of one of the heritors of Dornock. She had three sons, of whom Edward was the second, and five daughters; but the male part of her family died before her; the eldest in the East Indies, the youngest in London, and the second in Glasgow. Edward Irving's earliest teacher was an aged matron named Margaret Paine, an aunt of the too celebrated Thomas Paine, whom, it was said, she also taught to read; and thus, at different periods of her life, she was the instructress of two men entirely unlike in character, but both remarkable for their religious aberrations. From her charge Edward Irving passed to that of Mr. Adam Hope, an excellent teacher of English and the classics; but his progress as a school-boy gave little promise of the talents which he afterwards manifested. From Annan he went as a student to the university of Edinburgh, and there his proficiency in mathematics was so distinguished, that before he had reached the age of seventeen he was recommended by Professor Leslie as the fittest person to teach that department of science in an academy at Haddington. After having occupied this situation for a year, he was translated to a similar office in the larger establish-