B I0 G RA P €I I CA L S KE T C HE S. 395
I’d rather draw my latest breath,
With independence on a heath.
The philosopher’s pen the soldier disarms,
And‘s more than a match for the world in arms.
‘I With new parables to destroy cruelty, by transferring iniquity from the Effect to the
Cause : and an explanation of the Subduplicate Motion of the Solar Atmosphere, to prove
whether Nature is created or eternal ; and a contest between Faith and Reason, to prove whether
conscience is natural or acquired : with an address to the GOD OF NATURwEh, o steers the Helm
of the Universe.
“The Lecture will be clothed with Elegance and precision, suitable to the dignity and
importance of the subjects. To conclude with a Lecture upon Love, and a new Song for the
Ladies. “ADMITTANCTEw o SBILLINGS.”
This interesting lecture was to have been delivered at Aberdeen j but the
magistrates not being sufficiently enlightened to appreciate its merits, prohibited
the threatened harangue, and caused the enraged philosopher to be removed
without the jurisdiction of the city. This fate he experienced in various
quarters not so far north as Aberdeen. The following lines, entitled “The
Persecutors who robbed the Author at Greenock,” which are printed in his
Book of Fame, record a similar interference :-
“ Forever let the truth be spoke,
Your laws have robbed me of my cloak,
And stopped my lecture, just and sound j
The damage it is just ten pounds.
I cannot go with much respect-
A bad cause has a bad effect ;
In future let this be a lesson-
Ne’er try to stop the Perpetual Motion.”
So extravagant and blasphemous were the Doctor’s nonsensical ravings, that
even the rabble whom he purposed to enlighten, in place of raising their voices
in his favour, not unfrequently rewarded him with hisses and abuse, accompanying
these demonstrations of feeling with something more substantial, in the
shape of mud and stones. Such manifestations he of course attributed to the
secret instigation of his enemies in high quarters; and while he pitied the
blindness of the people, he affected to bear their rudeness with all the cynic
indifference of a Diogenes. In the ‘‘ wicked town o1 Ayr ” a friend recollects
witnessing a similar termination to one of his harangues. He had been denied
a place in which to hold forth ; and, as a last resource, had taken up his station
at the gable of a house, where he was just beginning to “illuminate” the people
on the “Perpetual Motion,” when a volley of stones instantly put himself in
such quick motion, pursued by the crowd, that he found it convenient to make
a rapid retreat, leaving his oration unfinished.
The philosopher’s ‘‘ Book (or rather Books) of Fame ’’-for they were three
in number-consisted of a collection of wretched rhyme and worse prose, the
record of his sage opinions of men and things, thrown together without any
arrangement. The sale of these productions, printed in the shape of pamphlets,
waa latterly the chief source from which he derived a scanty living.
The “Book of Fame,” No. I,, in which the author can be traced through an
