among them.[60] Logan, it is certain,
expressed his contempt for them; they their hatred of him: folly and
pride in a poet, to beard Presbyters in a land of Presbyterians![61]

He gladly abandoned them, retiring on a small annuity. They had,
however, hurt his temper--they had irritated the nervous system of a
man too susceptible of all impressions, gentle or unkind--his
character had all those unequal habitudes which genius contracts in
its boldness and its tremors; he was now vivacious and indignant, and
now fretted and melancholy. He flew to the metropolis, occupied
himself in literature, and was a frequent contributor to the "English
Review." He published "A Review of the Principal Charges against Mr.
Hastings." Logan wrestled with the genius of Burke and Sheridan; the
House of Commons ordered the publisher Stockdale to be prosecuted, but
the author did not live to rejoice in the victory obtained by his
genius.

This elegant philosopher has impressed on all his works the seal of
genius; and his posthumous compositions became even popular; he who
had with difficulty escaped excommunication by Presbyters, left the
world after his death two volumes of sermons, which breathe all that
piety, morality, and eloquence admire. His unrevised lectures,
published under the name of a person, one Rutherford, who had
purchased the MS., were given to the world in "A View of Ancient
History." But one highly-finished composition he had himself
published; it is a philosophical review of Despotism: had the name of
Gibbon been affixed to the title-page, its authenticity had not been
suspected.[62]

From one of his executors, Mr. Donald Grant, who wrote the life
prefixed to his poems, I heard of the state of his numerous MSS.; the
scattered, yet warm embers of the unhappy bard. Several tragedies, and
one on Mary Queen of Scots, abounding with all that domestic
tenderness and poetic sensibility which formed the soft and natural
feature of his muse; these, with minor poems, thirty lectures on the
Roman History, and portions of a periodical paper, were the wrecks of
genius! He resided here, little known out of a very private circle,
and perished in his fortieth year, not of penury, but of a broken
heart. Such noble and well-founded expectations of fortune and fame,
all the plans of literary ambition overturned: his genius, with all
its delicacy, its spirit, and its elegance, became a prey to that
melancholy which constituted so large a