death. Of his private history, however, after he took up his residence in the metropolis, little or nothing is known. It is to be feared that he spent his latter days in neglect and poverty. He had contributed several papers to the Transactions of the Royal Society; but we find his name omitted in the list of members, after the year 1742, probably in consequence of his inability to pay the small annual contribution which, we may remark by-the-bye, was a few years after remitted to Simpson, and which Sir Isaac Newton had, on his own petition, been excused from paying. He is spoken of, by a writer in the Critical Review for 1760, as of unblemished reputation; and yet, notwithstanding his universally acknowledged abilities, and his uncontested services to the public, "living, at an advanced age, unrewarded, =except by a mean employment that reflects dishonour on the donors." Ramsay, in a letter already quoted, speaks in the strongest terms of Stone's simple, ingenuous, and upright character, and of his ardent and disinterested attachment to science. He was, however, by no means a man of the same powers of mind with Simpson. Even in those departments of learning in which he chiefly excelled, his knowledge appears to have been somewhat superficial; and his principal works have been characterized as abounding in errors. He seems, upon the whole to have had rather a quick and active, than either a very profound or a very acute understanding; and some of his speculations are singularly unphilosophical, especially that contained in the last work he gave to the world, in which he attempts to expose the insufficiency of the proofs on which the spherical form of the earth has been assumed, arguing, with incredible absurdity, that it is just as likely to be an angular figure,-as if the waters of the sea, for example, could any where maintain themselves in a position like that of the rafters of a house,

VOL. III.

9*

We may, perhaps, trace something of all this to the entirely unassisted and solitary efforts to which he owed his first acquaintance with science and literature. A want of depth and solidity is by no means the necessary or uniform characteristic of the attainments of the self-educated scholar; who, on the contrary, is apt to be distinguished for a more than usually perfect acquaintance with the subjects which he has studied with more than usual effort and application. But a mind gifted in a remarkable degree with the capacity of rapid apprehension, is just that which is likely to suffer most from being left to be altogether its own instructor; and especially when placed in circumstances which shut it out from that most salutary and strengthening of all intellectual exercises, communication and encounter with other intellects. This was Stone's case. He had not only no master, but no companions in his studies-no one even to put his knowledge to the proof, or with whom, by trying it, as it were, in conflict, he might discover either its strength or its weakness. Then, his facility in possessing himself of the outlines of a subject deceived and betrayed him: he skimmed its surface with so much ease and expedition, that he had no time to think of what was beneath, or that any thing was beneath; and thus he acquired a habit of precipitate procedure, and vague and unphilosophic thinking, in all his speculations. If he had had a few associates in his early pursuits, he probably would have escaped all this, as well as some other deficiencies under which he laboured during his life.

Our readers will be amused by a specimen of the ambitious rhetoric of his English style. He is talking, in the second edition of his book on Mathematical Instruments, published in 1760, of a newly-invented mariner's compass; and the following are the terms in which, at the close of his description, he expresses

what must be understood, we presume, to be his unfavourable opinion of the contrivance. "The

plants and trees," says he, "of the gardens of the arts and sciences cultivated by the dung of ambition, and nourished with the waters of interest, are very subject to be blasted by the winds of error, and sometimes stunted by the weeds of imposition." The metaphors of genuine eloquence start forth finished and glowing from the imagination; but this is to construct them, as a mason does the wall of a house, with a plummet and a trowel.

Edmund Stone must not be confounded with his countryman and contemporary JEROME STONE, who was also, in great part, a self-educated man. The only notice we have of his life is in Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, where we are told that he was born in 1727, in the parish of Scoonie, in Fife, and that his father was a seaman, who died abroad when Jerome was only three years old, leaving his widow to maintain herself and her young family in the best way she could by her own exertions. Elementary education in Scotland, however, has long been so cheap as to be within the reach of the poorest; and Jerome was accordingly taught reading, writing, a little arithmetic, at the parish school. But in his mother's narrow circumstances it was necessary that he should, as soon as possible, do something for his own support; and therefore, while yet a boy, he commenced travelling the country as a chapman or pedlar, with a miscellaneous assortment of trinkets, tapes, and other portable wares. Jerome, however, soon found this occupation too unintellectual; and converted his stock into books, with which he used to attend at fairs, in those days the great marts of all kinds of popular commerce in Scotland. Profiting by the opportunities of his new vocation, he now proceeded to make himself a scholar; and either from

a predilection for theological learning, natural to the Scottish peasantry in general, or from an idea that he was in this way beginning at the beginning, he commenced his studies with the Hebrew language. In this, unassisted by any instructor, he eventually attained such proficiency, as to be able to read any passage in the Old Testament at first sight. Encouraged by this success, he next applied himself to Greek; and in a short time made himself as familiar with the original of the New Testament as he was with that of the Old. All this time he knew nothing of Latin; but finding that all the best books even on the Greek and Hebrew were written in this language, he determined to acquire it also. We think it probable, though it is not SO stated, that he had obtained much of his knowledge of the two sacred tongues through the medium of the common translation of the Bible, there being at that time we believe no Grammar or Dictionary of either, written in English. It is likely that, when he proposed to make himself master of Latin, he might not be aware that the same resource was still open to him; nor indeed was it open in the same degree, as the English Bible does not correspond so exactly to any Latin version of the Scriptures, as it does to the Greek and Hebrew originals. At all events he thought it necessary, we are told, to apply on this occasion to the parish schoolmaster. Under this master's guidance his Latin studies proceeded so prosperously, that he soon became known in the neighbourhood as a prodigy of learning. Fortunately among the heritors, or landed proprietors, of the parish was the Rev. Dr. Tuliedelph, principal of the United College in the University of St. Andrews, and a gentleman of distinguished erudition and talent. Struck with the remarkable abilities and acquirements of young Stone, he proposed

his removal to the University, where he under took that such provision should be made, in order to enable him to pursue his studies, as his circumstances rendered necessary. Stone accordingly proceeded to St. Andrews, where he soon more than fulfilled the expectations his early attainments had excited, both by his rapid progress in every branch of study, and by a display of talent out of the class-room which still more contributed to make him the pride of the university and the idol of his fellow-students. Unhappily, the remainder of his history is too soon told. When he had been about three years at college, he was appointed, on the recommendation of the professors, assistant in the grammar school of Dunkeld, of which he was two or three years after elected head master. It does not appear how long he held this situation; but he was in the midst of his literary pursuits, and giving every promise of a distinguished career, when he was suddenly cut off by fever, in 1757, in the thirtieth year of his age. At this time, none of his productions had been given to the world, except some humorous pieces in verse, which had appeared in the Scots Magazine, when he was at college. Since his death, an allegory, which he left in manuscript, entitled "The Immortality of Authors," has been frequently printed. The work, however, which had principally engaged the last years of his short life, was an inquiry into the origin of the nation and language of the ancient Scots, with conjectures about the primitive state of the Celtic and other European nations. This, although unfinished, is said to have displayed extraordinary ingenuity and learning. It has never, we believe, been printed; although, if the manuscript be still in existence, its publication might possibly not be unacceptable to the students of history and philology, among whom the subject to which it relates has in recent times excited