quietly in the house, or in bed when he was sick, she had only to give him a book, and be it Bible or ballads, he was satisfied at once. The whole of his initiatory education was communicated by his mother; and as he acquired the mere art of reading with so much facility, he read his books, not as a task, but for the information that they afforded.

At the age of seven years, Dr. Brown was sent to England, where he remained for about nine years at different schools in the vicinity of London. At all of these he made rapid progress, and was a favourite equally with the other pupils and their parents. Many persons, who have since risen to high offices in the State, were among his school-fellows; but, though he was the delight of them all, his ambition was not for mere connection. He continued his reading; indulged in solitary walks beyond the playground-for which he had tasks set him, till his master abandoned it as not being any punishment;-and he composed verses, some of which were published.

At the age of fifteen he entered the University of Edinburgh; and, during the year 1793, he visited Dr. Currie at Liverpool, who recommended him to read the first volume of Professor Stewart's Philosophy. The next winter he attended that eloquent lecturer; and soon gave evidence that he had paid attention to the volume and the lectures: for, at the close of one of them, he walked up to the Professor, who, in his class, was not the most approachable man in the world, and with great firmness, yet with great modesty, read an answer to some of his positions. The Professor told him that the very same objection had been made, and urged by the very same argument, in a private letter which he had received from Professor Prevost of Geneva.

At the age of eighteen, Brown composed his remarks on Dr. Darwin's "Zoonomia," which he conceived himself in courtesy bound to read to the Doctor before publication. The Doctor was at first a little testy with the young philosopher; but as Brown was calm, and maintained his positions with that firmness and acuteness which characterized all his philosophical proceedings, Darwin did not obtain a victory even in the epistolary correspondence.

About the last years that Brown attended the classes in Edinburgh, there was a literary junto formed in that city, which has had as much influence on the literature of Britain as the celebrated junto of Franklin had upon the politics of the States of America. Many young men of great talents were then in Edinburgh, either at the college, or continuing their professional education. So far as we recollect, at this distance of time, it was Brougham who gave the first impulse; but there were others there who were after rather than inferior,-Dr. Brown, Dr. Leyden, Lord William Seymour, the late Mr. Horner, Mr. Jeffrey, and a number of others. On the 7th of January 1797, they formed themselves into a society for the investigation of the phenomena and laws of nature, to which they gave the name of The Academy of Physics." The laws of that academy were drawn up by Mr. Brougham; and in the first section of them is to be found the germ of that general study of philosophy

which that gentleman has never lost sight of amid all the occupation of business, and all the distraction of politics. Many of the results of this devotion are already proved to the world. In this there is a striking instance of the real advantage that results from giving a proper bias to a powerful mind early in life. Though the Academy of Physics lasted only for about three years, the effect of it, both upon the members and upon society, has been much greater than those, who have not all along attended to the facts, would be apt to suppose. Among men so young in years, and so few in number, there probably never was so much and so varied talent; and in no country was there probably seen such perfect liberality—so unmingled a desire to find out the truth. There was no dogmatism-no appeal to authority-no colouring of the phenomena to meet a theory,-the rule ever was to go straight forward to the result. A good deal of jealousy was excited among a certain class in Edinburgh; but as party politics and religious disputes were wisely excluded, no coercive measure was taken, although it is probable that the vials of vengeance were in some instances bottled up until occasion should serve. From the Academy the spirit ramified into other parts of society; and many, of whom the existence was not then known, caught from it a spirit of philosophy which has carried them forward to stations and degrees of eminence, which, but for this three years' Academy, they would not, in all probability, have reached. The channel into which this tide of talent more immediately flowed was the Edinburgh Review; and probably there never was a publication which took the world so instantly by storm, or which, for so long a period, gave law to opinion on so many subjects. No doubt a reaction came at last; but it was a reaction of good, and not of evil. Other men, whose opinions were on some points different from those advocated in the Review, were compelled to exert themselves; and thus, a knot of striplings, (for they were little else,) in a provincial capital, gave a vast impulse toward intellectual power, to all ranks and classes of people in the empire. Nor did the exercise of such an influence stop here, for it extended to the world; and it would take a good deal of investigation and analysis to find out how much of the improvement, more especially in liberality of opinion, which the present century has witnessed, is not owing to this very association of young men, whose primary object was, we feel convinced, nothing more than their own improvement. The encouragement which this holds out to other young men is great; and the example is of too much value to be hid from the world.

Before entering into this society, Dr. Brown had a strong bias in favour of liberty; but there can be no doubt that it was strengthened by the example of his associates. When they found the increase both of knowledge and of pleasure which they derived from their own little society, it is hardly to be supposed that they should not wish to see the same extended to the great society of the world; and when in after life they found the advantage, which the perfect examination of every argument that the freedom of that society necessarily imparted, gave them over those who had been taught to decide upon authority and not upon evidence, it must have still further confirmed

them; nor can we call to mind one member of "The Academy of Physics" who ever took the side of illiberality, or ever was foiled in argument, or adhered dogmatically to an erroneous theory.

Brown's first professional study was that of the law, with the intention of qualifying himself for practising at the Scottish bar; but he abandoned that pursuit in his twentieth year, and applied himself to the study of Medicine. In that he made great proficiency; but even there his disposition to intellectual philosophy, which had been first evinced in his remarks on Darwin, did not forsake him; for in his thesis "De Somno," which he prepared for his graduation, he again reverted to the exception which he had taken to Professor Stewart's account of the cause of the suspension of volition in sleep, with so much force of argument, that Mr. Horner acknowledged that he had got the better of the Professor.

For some time after receiving his degree, Dr. Brown continued to practise as a physician, without however abandoning either his philosophic studies, or the muse. In his poetry there is a great deal of beauty, but it cannot bear a comparison with his philosophical writings in power, or with some of the illustrations in his lectures, even in poetry.

The Leslie controversy was the first occasion that drew forth the powers of Dr. Brown in their full force, and at once raised him to the rank of the most acute metaphysician of his time. The elevation of Professor Playfair to the chair of Moral Philosophy had left that of Mathematics vacant; and the ministers of Edinburgh, who had long been desirous of uniting the professorships in the University to their spiritual cures, set up one of their own number for the vacant office, and began to canvass for him with all their influence. At the same time, Mr. John Leslie, who was then living in philosophic retirement, and whose name stood higher, and deservedly higher, than any of the other candidates, took the field for the Mathematical chair. Mr. Leslie's scientific name and his recommendations were equally invulnerable, and to have attacked them would but have exposed the weakness of the clerical party; aud they each sought for some other point of attack. This was found in a note to Leslie's Essay on Heat, in which praise is given to Hume's doctrine of causation, a doctrine which the ministers looked upon as perfectly heretical. Parties ran high, the advocates of science took part with Leslie, and the ministers, if not quite so philosophical, were to the full as loud against him; but none of them went to the merit of the objection taken to Mr. Leslie. Dr. Brown, without any reference to the dispute, sat coolly down to examine the offensive doctrine, and in an Essay on cause and effect, shewed very clearly that though there were errors in the doctrine of Hume, they were of a merely speculative nature, and in no way calculated to injure the foundations of religion or morality. The Essay was not answered; Mr. Leslie got the appointment; the ministers were beaten; and Dr. Brown, though still a very young man, was at once admitted to be a master of reasoning and intellectual analysis. Mr. Horner wrote a splendid review of the Essay; and the congratulations of those whose party he had so effectually served, without being or pretending to be a

partizan, were as abundantly as justly bestowed upon the essayist. The essay, which was expanded and rendered more complete in future editions, contained the germ of all the improvements which Dr. Brown subsequently introduced into the science of intellectual philosophy; and showed that even then he had studied the whole science with minute attention, and wanted only the proper opportunity to make a most conspicuous figure in it.

In the year 1806, Dr. Brown was associated in the medical pro fession with the celebrated Dr. Gregory, then the most eminent practitioner in Scotland. The causes and mode of this connexion were equally creditable to the discernment of Dr. Gregory, and to the talents of his young friend. With Dr. Gregory, he had every prospect both of fame and of fortune; but his ambition lay in another direction. When he was only twenty-one, an exertion had been made to place him in the chair of Rhetoric, which was then vacant; but that had failed, by the very same influence, though not upon grounds similar to those which had nearly led to the failure of Mr. Leslie. A vacancy in the chair of Logic led to a similar application, which was followed by a similar result, although, upon that occasion, some of the most influential even of the "court party”. were in his favour.

In the session of 1808, the health of Professor Stewart rendered him incapable of attending to his class; and he applied to Dr. Brown, who officiated for him for some little time. In the following winter he was again applied to, and as he had more scope for displaying his talents, he made a much more powerful impression, so powerful, indeed, that some of the most eminent of the professors attended the class regularly, and with apparently great satisfaction; and a committee of the students, in the name of the rest, conveyed to Professor Stewart their high opinion of the talents of his successor. The essay had confirmed that opinion of his powers which had been founded upon his more early productions; and the way in which he had turned those powers to account, gave assurance of his value as a lecturer.

Abilities so searching and so profound, accompanied by eloquence which commanded the most deep attention, adorned by a gracefulness of manner which no one could resist, and without one fault to which even illiberality itself could object—an ardent love of liberty-far removed from party and party politics, and rather deserving the name of universal benevolence, could not remain concealed; and the more intelligent and philosophical members of the University of Edinburgh could not bear the thought that their seminary, their city, their country, the world, should be deprived of the philosophic labours of Dr. Brown. Accordingly when, at the close of the session for 1810, Professor Stewart intimated his intention of resigning the labours of his professorship, his friends were again in the field. The letters which were on that occasion addressed to the magistrates of Edinburgh, as petitions of the University, by the venerable Professor, by Dr. Gregory, and by the late Lord Meadowbank, contained arguments that were irresistible; and on the second of May, in that year, Dr. Brown was chosen assistant and successor to Professor Stewart. Among the lovers of philosophy

the appointment was hailed with delight; and the Doctor's private friends were each more forward than another in congratulating him on his appointment to an office for which he was so eminently qualified, both by nature and by habit. One short sentence from the letter of Francis Horner, whose heart was as true as his mind was clear and comprehensive, and whom nothing but premature death could have prevented from devoting his great talents to his country, in some of the most important offices in the state, may serve as a key to what was done and what was felt upon that occasion. "What gives me," says Mr. Horner, more pleasure than any other consideration, is to see the University, and through it the interests of philosophical opinion in Scotland, rescued from the danger, which seemed to threaten them with complete ruin, of the chair of Moral Philosophy being filled by one of those political priests who have already brought such disgrace upon the University, and done so much injury to learning."

But though Dr. Brown had thus arrived at the very summit of his ambition, and though he had done so at the early age of thirtytwo, the labour which the elevation had cost him, the intense and incessant operation of mind, which, amid the labours of his profession, (which with such a partner as Dr. Gregory were not light,) had already enabled him to see a clear and straight path through the field of mental physiology, chequered and tangled as he found it, had made a permanent inroad upon his bodily health. That constitutional cheerfulnesss-the eye ever beaming and the face perpetually in smiles, which procured him at school the name of "the little laugher," and which carried him without an enemy to his grave, had not deserted him, did not desert him till his race was run; but beneath all those indications, they who felt that he should, that he ought to live, and lengthen out the lines of science, could not help seeing the presages of approaching mortality, could not help perceiving that the mental fire which was beaming in his eye and brightening up his features, was at the same time consuming his strength; and when the season of his academic labours came round, and the splendour of his introductory lecture made the thrilling and ecstatic audience confess that he was the chosen friend of true Philosophy, there mingled with it the mournful foreboding that he was also the victim upon her altar, and that although by his talents and his temper he had subdued party and bigotry for the good of mankind, he had received his death-wound in the conflict. That conflict was probably the most singular that ever was carried on; for Dr. Brown, without one word of controversy, without any applications to party, overthrew the intolerants of Edinburgh, by com. bating and cutting down the general reasons of mankind in the silence of his chamber, and by the weapon of abstract philosophy. Out of this there arises a very valuable maxim: men will seldom fail to succeed, if they have first learned to deserve.

After his appointment Dr. Brown retired to the country for the recovery of his health; and returned to Edinburgh within a few weeks of the opening of the session, with little other preparation for his labour than the consciousness of his own ability. Thus