that kind of composition. It neither gained, nor was intended to gain, a prize; but was thrown in as a work of supererogation; either to make the professor smile, or to convince him that he had not only been far from idle, but intensely active during his five months' vacation. In the course of the summer, as he was about to enter the logic class, we read Watts's Logic, D. Stewart's Elements, &c. In a part of this we were accompanied by a young French gentleman, Mr. Hine, then visiting at our house; who was to become his class-fellow at College; who there ranked among his dearest friends; and who expressed his friendship towards us by assiduous attentions at my son's dying bed, and by mingling his tears with mine at his grave.

The Essay on the Tribunicial power is much too long for insertion in these memoirs. It consists of An INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.CHAPTER 11. which contains preliminary considerations on Roman Government, from the foundation of the city, to the year (U. C.) 260.

CHAPTER III. Reaches from the year 260, to

the year 349, when pay was first given to the soldiers.-CHAPTER IV. Reaches from the year 349, to the tribunate of T. Gracchus, in the year 619.-CHAPTER V. Extending from the year 619, to the breaking out of the Civil War in 703.-CHAPTER VI. Considers,-Was the tribunal power injurious or beneficial to the state?

The copy in my possession is less perfect than that which was given in at College: for he improved it, and, in some slight degree, altered the arrangement, after his arrival at Glasgow, and before the prescribed season for its delivery to the Professor. As the first and last chapters are not long, I will give them as spe· cimens of his style at a little more than sixteen years of age.

ESSAY ON THE TRIBUNICIAL POWER.

INTRODUCTORY.

CHAP. I.

"ETERNAL ROME!"-"ETERNAL!!" "And this is little man's eternity!" might the moralist exclaim, were he disposed to moralize amid her nodding arches, her roofless temples, her broken columns, her mouldering porticoes, her ruined theatres, her desecrated shrines! Yet, if he were inclined to take a more encouraging, and, perhaps, a less misanthropic view of human labour, genius and glory, he might find something to raise his spirits, should he happen to remember Horace's triumphant prophecy, so certainly fulfilled, and still in the course of fulfilment,

Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei
Vitabit Libitinam !

Such an observer might feel almost proud

of our commou nature, should he turn to contemplate the breathing, burning, everliving thoughts, that glow in the pages of a Virgil; or should he give himself up to the magic charm which the descriptions of a Livy still throw round the ruins of what once was Rome-ruins, where every object meeting the eye proclaims the instability of empires, the fluctuations of human affairs, and the transitory nature of earthly splendor; while it reminds the observer, that in the closet of some laborious and, perhaps, neglected recluse, monuments were reared, which, after having withstood the shock of time, and survived the wreck of ages, still continue to bestow on the ruins of palaces and the vestiges of ancient grandeur, an intense, although melancholy interest, that conquerors and senates, heroes and emperors, would never have been able to confer.

Yet it is precisely all this fine feeling and classic prepossession, of which the diligent inquirer into the infancy of Rome must strip himself: it is especially against this enthu

siasm, against these associations, that he finds it necessary to be on his guard.

We must be content to give up every theory, however beautiful,-every, however plausible, conjecture, which would induce us, among the military barbarians of infant Rome, to look for refined policy, philosophical legislation, or measures of resistance to the arbitrary power of the crown or aristocracy, sufficiently enlightened to call for our praise, or so rational as to deserve commendation.

Even after the expulsion of the kings, and after a form of government had been established, more conformable to the wishes, opinions or prejudices of the aristocratic leaders, who headed the revolution, we ought to be extremely careful how we credit all the splendid and imposing accounts which historians relate about the popular assemblies, or infant senate. It will be confessed that the earlier secessions have much more the appearance of a military mutiny than of a rational plan, laid by wise politicians, and executed by enlightened free