86 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
No. XXXVIII.
A GROUP OF AERONAUTS.
IN this group the principal figure is LUNARDIo, f whom we ,am previously
given some account. The next, to the left, is MR. JAMES TYTLER, chemist,
and well known in Edinburgh as a literary character of some eminence. He
was born at the manse of Fearn, of which place his father was minister. James
received an excellent provincial education ; and afterwards, with the proceeds
of a voyage or two to Greenland, in the capacity of medical assistant, he llemoved
to Edinburgh to complete his knowledge of medicine, where he made rapid
progress not only in his professional acquirements, but in almost every department
of literature.
At an early period he became enamoured of a sister of Mr. Young, Writer
to the Signet, whom he married. From this event may perhaps be dated the
laborious and poverty-stricken career of Tytler. His means, at the very outset,
were unequal to the task of providing for his matrimonial engagements, and from
one failure to another he seems to have descended, until reduced to the verge of
indigence.
He first attempted to establish himself as a surgeon in Edinburgh ; and then
removed to Newcastle, where he commenced a laboratory, but without success.
In the course of a year or two he returned to Leit,h, where he opened a shop
for the sale of chemical preparations ; and here again his evil destiny prevailed.
It is possible his literary bias might have operated as a drag upon his exertions.
These repeated failures seemed to have destroyed his domestic happiness. His
wife, after presenting him with several children, left him to manage them as best
he could, and resided with her friends, some time in Edinburgh, and afterwards
in the Orkneys.
Previous to this domestic occurrence, Tytler had abandoned all his former
religious connexions, and even opinions j and now finding himself thrown upon
his literary resources, he announced a work entitled, “Essays on the most
important subjects of Natural and Revealed Religion.” Unable to find a bookseller
or printer willing to undertake the publication of his Essays, Tytler’s
genius and indefatigable spirit were called forth in an extraordinary manner.
Having constructed a printing-press upon a principle different from those in
use,’ and having procured some old materials, he set about arranging‘ the types
of his Essays with his own hands, and without previously having written down
his thoughts upon paper. Mr. ‘Ray states in his MS., that twenty-three
Supposed to have been the origin of those afterwards manufactured by the ingenious John
Ruthven. -Chambers’s BiogTaJhy.
