Elements of Criticism."-Origin and Progress of Criticism.-Mr Harris's notions on that subject exa- mined.-Aristotle's Critical and Rhetorical Wri- tings.-His Art of Poetry.-His Art of Rhetoric. -Demetrius Phalereus on Elocution.-Longinus.- Lord Kames's plan original, but the way paved by former writers.-Dr Hutcheson's Essay on Beauty and Virtue.-Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination. -Other writers, Gerard, Burke, &c.-Scope and Object of "Elements of Criticism."-Advantages of such Disquisitions.-The Author's method of Discussion.-Examples.-Utility of the work, inde- pendent of the rectitude of its theoretical Opinions. -Certain disadvantages of this sort of Criticism.— Nature of the Author's Taste.-Works proceeding from the school of Lord Kames.-Campbell's Philo- OF LORD KAMES. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. Mr Home's birth—and education.-Classical learning little cultivated at that time.-Causes of its decline in Scotland.-Mr Home's first professional views.—His ardour of study.-No regular institution at that time for the study of the Law.—A more laborious course of study then pursued.-Importance of general erudition to the profession of the Law.-Mr Home's attention turned to Metaphysics. His correspondence with Baxter-and with Samuel Clarke. birth HENRY ENRY HOME, the son of George Home of Mr Home's Kames, in the county of Berwick, North Britain, was born at Kames, in the year 1696. He was descended from an ancient and honourable family; being, on his father's side, the great-grandson of Sir John Home of BOOK I. Renton, whose ancestor was a cadet of the family of the Earls of Home, and who held the office of Lord Justice-Clerk in the reign of King Charles II. His mother was a daughter of Mr Walkinshaw of Barrowfield*, and grandaughter of Mr Robert Baillie, Principal of the University of Glasgow, the author of a learned work on History and Chronology, and of a very curious Journal of his own Times, in a series of letters from 1637 to 1662+. The father of Mr Home, a country gentleman of small fortune, though the heir of an estate which had once been considerable, had never been bred to any profession. * Another daughter of Mr Walkinshaw was married to Mr Campbell of Succoth, grandfather to the Right Honourable Ilay Campbell, Lord President of the Court of Session. Her brother, Mr Walkinshaw, having been engaged in both the rebellions 1715 and 1745, was confined for some time in the Castle of Stirling; from whence he escaped by the courage and address of his wife, a sister of Sir Hugh Paterson of Bannockburn, who exchanged clothes with him, and remained a prisoner in his stead. This remarkable woman, splendide mendax, et in omne ævum nobilis, lived to the age of ninety, in the full possession of her faculties, and of the esteem of all who knew her. For a further account of Principal Baillie, see Appendix, NO. I., among the notices of Scotsmen eminent for literature, in the period from the end of the sixteenth to the be ginning of the eighteenth century. He resided on his paternal lands, and dis- CHAP. I. charged the duties of an active magistrate in the commission of the peace; but from the necessary expences of a numerous progeny, and the indulgence of a taste for living beyond his income, he had considerably reduced his fortune; so that his son Henry, on entering the world, found that he had nothing to trust to but his own abilities and exertions. This circumstance, apparently unfavourable, was always most justly regarded by him as the primary cause of his success in life. If the remark of the satirist, Haud facilè emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat, Res angusta domi, be true in one sense, it is certain, that, in another, the converse of the maxim is equally just, To à man of talents, and of moderate activity, the possession of a competence in early life is very far from being an advantage. In the annals, both of science and literature, and the departments of professional employment, small is the proportion of those eminent men on whom fortune had bestowed hereditary affluence. tion. He was educated at home under a private and educa tutor of the name of Wingate; of whose ca |