88 B I 0 GRAPH I CA L S KE T C HE S,
newspapers-denounced as a coward and a scoundrel-and pointed to as one
deserving magisterial surveillance. “ I bore it all,” says poor Tytler, “ with
patience, well knowing that one successful trial would speedily change the
public opinion.” Accordingly, on the third occasion, he did not trust to his
friends j he had the stove enlarged nearly a foot, and with great hopes of success
proceeded to the trial. So early as five o’clock in the morning the balloon was
inflated, and when he took his seat it rose with much force ; but having come
in contact with a tree, the stove was broken in pieces, while the adventurer
himself narrowly escaped injury. This disaster put an end to the speculation,
although not to the spirit of the projector, who remained firmly convinced of
the practicability of his invention.
Tytler’s first wife being dead, he married, in 1779, a sister of Mr. John
Cairns, flesher in Edinburgh, by which union he had one daughter. On the death
of his second wife in 1782, he was wedded, a third time, to Miss Aikenhead in
December following, by whom, says Mr. Kay’s MS., “he has two daughters
(twins) so remarkably like each other, though now four years of age, that they
can hardly be distinguished from each other, even by their parents, who are often
obliged to ask their name, individually, at the infants themselves.” Kay also
mentions, and while he does so, admits his own belief in the practicability of the
invention, that he (Tytler) “is at present engaged in the construction of a machine,
which, if he completes it according to his expectations, will in all probability make
his fortune.” This machine was no less than “the perpetmm mobile, or an
instrument which, when once set agoing, will continue in motion for ever !”
Kay further adds-“ He has just completed a chemical discovery of a certain
water for bleaching linen, which performs the operation in a few hours, without
hurting the cloth.” This was a practical and beneficial discovery ; but, like the
other labours of Tytler, however much others may have reaped the benefit, it
afforded very little to himself.
To add to, or rather to crown, the misfortunes of the unlucky son of genius,
he espoused the cause of the “Friends of the People,” in 1792, and having
published a small pamphlet of a seditious nature, was obliged to abscond. He
went to Ireland, where he finished a work previously undertaken, called “A System
of Surgery,” in three volumes. Immediately afterwards he removed to the
United States, where he resumed his literary labours, but died in a few years
after, while conducting a newspaper at Salem His family were never able to
rejoin him.’
The third, in the background on the left, represented, when first executed,
In a life of Tytler, Edinburgh, 1805, 12m0, it is said that he had “ a brother a medical gentleman
of a respectable character on the Staff of Great Britain, well known to the literary by his
translation of Callimachus, highly cornmended by the great Quintilian ; ” a strange fact, certainly,
and one which, however creditable to the Roman’s prophetic knowledge, says very little for his
critical acumen, for more wretched stuff can hardly be figured. Tytler’s anonymous biographer
further informs his reader-“He h a also adaughter in Edinburgh, in the capacity of a servant-maid,
mrhose conduct, I have remon to believe, is such 89 to be no dis,mce to her respectable connexions.”.
