The Scottish Philosophy [167]
now view him as delivering his professorial lectures in the class-room in Edinburgh. {281} By far the liveliest account of him is by Lord Cockburn. It is worthy of being read again by those who may have seen it before.
" He was about the middle size, weakly limbed, and with an appearance of feebleness which gave an air of delicacy to his gait and structure. His forehead was large and bald; his eyebrows busily; his eyes gray and intelligent, and capable of conveying any emotion from indignation to pity, form serene sense to hearty humor, in which they were powerfully aided by his lips, which, though rather large perhaps, were flexible and expressive. The voice was singularly pleasing; and, as he managed it, a slight burr only made its tones softer. His ear both for music and for speech was exquisite; and he was the finest reader I have ever heard. His gesture was simple and elegant, though not free from a tinge of professional formality, and his whole manner that of an academic gentleman.... He lectured standing, from notes which, with their successive additions, must, I suppose, at last have been nearly as full as his spoken words. His lecturing manner was professorial, but gentlemanlike, calm and expository, but rising into greatness, or softening into tenderness, whenever his subject required it. A slight asthmatic tendency made him often clear his throat; and such was my admiration of the whole exhibition, that Macvey Napier told him not long ago that I had said there was eloquence in his very spitting, I Then,' said he, I am glad there was at least one thing in which I had no competitor.' . . To me, his lectures were like the opening of the heavens. I felt that I had a soul. His noble views, unfolded in glorious sentences, elevated me into a higher world." There were hearers who felt that there was a want in his expositions, and there are readers still who feel in the same way. Ardent youths, like Brown and Chalmers, looked on him as timid and over-cautious. Chalmers wrote in 1801: " I attend his lectures regularly. I must confess I have been rather disappointed. I never heard a single discussion of Stewart's which made up one masterly and comprehensive whole. His lectures seem to me to be made up of detached hints and incomplete outlines, and he almost uniformly avoids every subject which involves any difficult discussion." Chalmers lived to proclaim him the highest of academic moralists. Still there was ground, in appearance and in reality, for the early criticism. In his writings he adopts the plan which Dr. Robertson took credit for introducing, that of throwing a great deal of his matter into notes and illustrations. This method, carried to the extent to which it has been done by Robertson, Stewart, and M'Crie, is a radically defective one, as it interrupts the flow of {282} the discourse, and, with this, the interest in and comprehension of the whole. He has a most sensitive aversion to all such bold speculations as Leibnitz indulged in, and is jealous of all such consecutive deductions as Descartes and Kant have drawn out. He has no ability for sharp analysis, and he looks on a high abstraction with as great terror as some men do on ghosts. He studiously avoids close discussion, and flinches from controversy; he seems afraid of fighting with an opponent, lest it should exhibit him in no seemly attitudes. Seldom does he venture on a bold assertion, and, when he does, he takes shelter immediately after behind an authority. Determined to sustain his dignity and keep up his flow of language, he often takes rounded sentences and paragraphs to bring out what a more direct mind would have expressed in a single clinching clause, or even by an expressive epithet. Often does the eager, ingenuous youth, in reading his pages, wish that he would but lay aside ceremony for a very little, and speak out frankly and heartily.
Still we should form a very
" He was about the middle size, weakly limbed, and with an appearance of feebleness which gave an air of delicacy to his gait and structure. His forehead was large and bald; his eyebrows busily; his eyes gray and intelligent, and capable of conveying any emotion from indignation to pity, form serene sense to hearty humor, in which they were powerfully aided by his lips, which, though rather large perhaps, were flexible and expressive. The voice was singularly pleasing; and, as he managed it, a slight burr only made its tones softer. His ear both for music and for speech was exquisite; and he was the finest reader I have ever heard. His gesture was simple and elegant, though not free from a tinge of professional formality, and his whole manner that of an academic gentleman.... He lectured standing, from notes which, with their successive additions, must, I suppose, at last have been nearly as full as his spoken words. His lecturing manner was professorial, but gentlemanlike, calm and expository, but rising into greatness, or softening into tenderness, whenever his subject required it. A slight asthmatic tendency made him often clear his throat; and such was my admiration of the whole exhibition, that Macvey Napier told him not long ago that I had said there was eloquence in his very spitting, I Then,' said he, I am glad there was at least one thing in which I had no competitor.' . . To me, his lectures were like the opening of the heavens. I felt that I had a soul. His noble views, unfolded in glorious sentences, elevated me into a higher world." There were hearers who felt that there was a want in his expositions, and there are readers still who feel in the same way. Ardent youths, like Brown and Chalmers, looked on him as timid and over-cautious. Chalmers wrote in 1801: " I attend his lectures regularly. I must confess I have been rather disappointed. I never heard a single discussion of Stewart's which made up one masterly and comprehensive whole. His lectures seem to me to be made up of detached hints and incomplete outlines, and he almost uniformly avoids every subject which involves any difficult discussion." Chalmers lived to proclaim him the highest of academic moralists. Still there was ground, in appearance and in reality, for the early criticism. In his writings he adopts the plan which Dr. Robertson took credit for introducing, that of throwing a great deal of his matter into notes and illustrations. This method, carried to the extent to which it has been done by Robertson, Stewart, and M'Crie, is a radically defective one, as it interrupts the flow of {282} the discourse, and, with this, the interest in and comprehension of the whole. He has a most sensitive aversion to all such bold speculations as Leibnitz indulged in, and is jealous of all such consecutive deductions as Descartes and Kant have drawn out. He has no ability for sharp analysis, and he looks on a high abstraction with as great terror as some men do on ghosts. He studiously avoids close discussion, and flinches from controversy; he seems afraid of fighting with an opponent, lest it should exhibit him in no seemly attitudes. Seldom does he venture on a bold assertion, and, when he does, he takes shelter immediately after behind an authority. Determined to sustain his dignity and keep up his flow of language, he often takes rounded sentences and paragraphs to bring out what a more direct mind would have expressed in a single clinching clause, or even by an expressive epithet. Often does the eager, ingenuous youth, in reading his pages, wish that he would but lay aside ceremony for a very little, and speak out frankly and heartily.
Still we should form a very