ven to the world by Robert Chambers, as
'that plain, honest, worthy man, the Professor. I think,' adds the
poet, 'his character, divided into ten parts, stands thus: Four parts
Socrates, four parts Nathaniel, and two parts Shakespeare's Brutus.'
The estimate of Sir James Mackintosh is equally high; nor will it
weigh less with many of our readers that the elder M'Crie used to give
expression to a judgment quite as favourable. 'He was fascinated,'
says the son and biographer of the latter, 'with the _beau ideal_ of
academical eloquence which adorned the Moral Chair in the person of
Dugald Stewart. Long after he had sat under this admired leader, he
would describe with rapture his early emotions while looking on the
handsomely erect and elastic figure of the Professor--in every
attitude a model for the statuary--listening to expositions, whether
of facts or principles, always clear as the transparent stream; and
charmed by the tones of a voice which modulated into spoken music
every expression of intelligence and feeling. An esteemed friend of
his happening to say to him some years ago, "I have been hearing Dr.
Brown lecture with all the eloquence of Dugald Stewart," "No, sir," he
exclaimed with an air of almost Johnsonian decision, "you have not,
and no man ever will.'" The first volume of the collected works of
Stewart, now given to the world in a form at once worthy of their
author and of the name of Constable, contains the far-famed
_Dissertations_, and is edited by Sir William Hamilton. It contains a
considerable amount of original matter, now published from the
author's manuscripts for the first time. It would be idle to attempt
criticising a work so well established; but the brief remark of one of
the first of metaphysical critics--Sir James Mackintosh--on what he
well terms 'the magnificent Dissertations,' may be found not
unacceptable. 'These Dissertations,' says Sir James, 'are perhaps most
profusely ornamented of any of their author's compositions,--a
peculiarity which must in part have arisen from a principle of taste,
which regarded decoration as more suitable to the history of
philosophy than to philosophy itself. But the memorable instances of
Cicero, of Milton, and still more those of Dryden and Burke, seem to
show that there is some natural tendency in the fire of genius to burn
more brightly, or to blaze more fiercely, in the evening than in the
morning of human life. Probably the materials which long expe