vigour of his own mind, that he should have emerged from this monkish hovel with fo decided a bent towards the pursuit of liberal knowledge as he now difcovered. In the most celebrated schools of Paris, a field was opened to him for the gratification of his ruling propensity; of his opportunities of improvement, he would appear to have fully availed himself; and, by his proficiency and fkill in the performance of his academical exercises, he attracted the applaufe and the friendship of his mafters and literary fuperiors.

Hitherto, however, his deftiny appeared to be limited to the humble ftation of a Roman-Catholic prieft among his native mountains. Such was the profeffional object, in pursuit of which he returned to Scotland; and which, after feveral viciffitudes, was at length attained by his acceptance of the charge of a Catholic congregation in the county of Banff. In his own mind, Dr Geddes had long before projected the arduous undertaking of a new tranflation of the Hebrew Scriptures from corrected texts of the originals, and had been industriously training himself for its accomplishment; but, in the feclufion of his prefent fituation, and amidst the various duties which he was called upon to discharge, it appears to have been fufpended or abandoned. But even here, the natural activity and genuine benevolence of his mind were not to be repreffed; and while by his virtues he conciliated the love, and commanded the veneration of his flock, he attracted the notice equally of the learned and of the gay, by the extent of his learning and the pleafing vivacity of his manners.

Here, however, he might have long remained, but for misfortunes, which he may be faid to have brought upon himself by an imprudent indulgence in the exercife of thofe virtues which elevated his character above the level of thofe around him, and gave him the most honourable claim to their fupport; but which, in the end, were fo far fortunate in their operation, by compelling him to quit his retirement, and to return once more into that literary career for which he was naturally deftined. Without repeating the particulars given by his biographer, it may be enough here to ftate, that having injured his private fortune by acts of difinterested beneficence, and having in vain attempted to retrieve the injury by the labours of agriculture, he felt himself strongly impelled, by the preffure of pecuniary difficulties, to avail himfelf of the literary talents which he must have been confcious of poffeffing.

Another caufe, ftill more irrefiftible, operated likewife in the fame direction. Dr Geddes was endowed by nature with a

mind

mind of uncommon ardour and activity; and having early committed himself to the free and undaunted exercise of his own understanding, he had emancipated himself from the illiberai prejudices of theological bigotry, and, by the vigour of his contitution, had repelled the infection of thofe vices which have been thought too apt to taint the prieftly character. Instead of flattering and cherishing the baneful animofities which had long fet his brethren at variance with those who had revolted from the Romith Church, he laboured with unwearied affiduity, and with the most pleafing fuccefs, in foftening their reciprocal afperities, and in training them to habits of mutual charity and forbearance. In his own conduct, he gave an unlimited range to this liberal and comprehenfive benevolence. He lived in undifguifed intercourfe and friendship with the Proteftant clergymen in his neighbourhood; and he had even the hardinefs to think, that, without being polluted, he might liften to the inftructions delivered from a Proteftant pulpit. This unprecedented difregard of the maxims of that malignant and dubious policy, by which the brethren of his order had hitherto been guided, appears to have given alarm and mortal offence to his ecclefiaftical fuperiors; and, finding that he was not of a character to be intimidated by threats from obeying the dictates of his own mind, it was, in their wifdom, judged expedient, by a formal fentence, to feparate him for ever from a flock in whom his virtues had created a dangerous and feducing attachment.

This event might be confidered as fortunate for his fame, if not for his private happinefs, by fixing, or at leaft accelerating, his refolution of quitting his retirement for a fituation better fuited to the profecution of thofe literary fchemes which had awakened his early ambition. His tranflation of Select Satires of Horace, though more remarkable for fpirit than elegance, had already obtained a reception from the public which tended to infpire him with greater confidence in his own powers; and even the very moderate profits of the publication, under the preffure of pecuniary difficulties, operated as an additional incentive to the execution of more arduous undertakings. He now fixed his ordinary refidence in London; was invited to officiate as prieft in the chapel of the Imperial Ambaffador; and refumed his favourite project of a new tranflation of the Bible. This, however, was a work of perilous adventure and doubtful iffue, and would have been probably abandoned for easier and more profitable labours, had not the utmost exertions of its author been called forth by the animating and steady patronage of the

late

late Lord Petre. It was to the princely munificence' of this nobleman that Dr Geddes became indebted for the leisure which was to enable him to profecute his plan; and it may be regarded as honourable alike to both, that fuch weighty obligations could be borne without galling a mind jealous of its own independence, and without difturbing the courfe of an equal and ardent friendship.

For feveral fucceeding years, Dr Geddes feems to have devoted nearly the whole of his attention to the different critical labours preparatory to his great work; and in perufing the minute narrative of Mr Good, it is impoffible not to regret, that the verfatility of his genius, or the ardour of his difpofition, fhould have ever diverted him from the exclufive profecution of a plan, which it would have demanded the undivided exertions of a long life to bring to a fuccefsful completion. His capacity of intense application to literary labour feemed, on the one hand, to promise the most profperous iffue to the undertaking to which he had thus deftined himfelf; but in this undertaking he was never fo completely abforbed, as to become a carelefs fpectator of what was paffing around him in the world; and a natural vehemence of temper, which feems, by indulgence, as much as from the influence of external circumstances, to have grown into a habit of violent irritability, was too often prompting him to take a fhare in difcuffions of merely temporary intereft. As a polemical writer, particularly on thofe queftions which related to the political privileges or ecclefiaftical jurifdiction of the English Catholics, he was unable to refrain from mingling in the din and danger of the contest. As the champion of his party, he diftinguifhed himfelf equally by his acuteness and intrepidity; and had the honour of being marked out as the object of peculiar terror and averfion to thofe of his own perfuafion whofe prejudices or whofe pride were offended by the boldnefs of his fpeculations, or the firm independence of his conduct. In this part of his narrative, the details given by Mr Good are ample to excefs; yet they are not altogether incurious, as exhibiting the feeble, expiring convulfions of that gigantic hierarchy, which once exercised an uncontrouled domination over all Christendom, and which three centuries of rapid decline have not yet brought to a final termination.

Befides thefe more ferious deviations from the course of his favourite purfuit, Dr Geddes feems to have been incapable of refraining from lighter excurfions into the fields of fancy and of wit and from time to time he attracted a fhare of public notice as a writer of humorous and macaronic verfes. These

mu

muft be regarded merely as the relaxations of an active mind; but they do not appear to us to be of that happy fort which can furvive the fleeting intereft of the topics to which they relate. Some of the best of his Latin verfes are thofe which celebrate the French Revolution. It was fcarcely poffible that a mind, formed like that of Dr Geddes, fhould not have been feduced into admiration of an event which, at least when beheld at a diftance, appeared to open with the moft fplendid profpects of national felicity; and while it yet remained poflible to mistake the evils which it engendered, for inconveniences of only fecondary importance, it is not much to be wondered at that he should have clung with fondnefs to his first visionary prepoffeflions. It is more to be regretted that his native benevolence does not feem to have completely protected him from a flight taint of that ferocity of temper which is but too apt to take poffeffion of those whofe minds are agitated by events which involve fo deeply the future fortunes of mankind.

Although the details given by Mr Good relative to the controverfial as well as poetical writings of Dr Geddes, occupy a confiderable portion of this bulky volume, yet they are by no means the most important or interefting part of his literary life. We have already expreffed our regret that thefe inferior and temporary pursuits fhould have diverted fo much of his attention from an object to which he ought to have been folely devoted. The evil, however, confifted not fo much in the mere wafte of time or of labour, as in the increafe of that distempered irritability of mind which his controverfial warfare produced, and which not only tended to unfit him for the calmer bufinefs of of philology, but indirectly created additional obftacles to the fuccefs of an undertaking, in its own nature abundantly pe

rilous.

To thofe who have remarked the progrefs of critical learning in modern Europe, it must be obvious, that in its application to thofe writings which are accounted facred, and which are appealed to as the ftandards of religious belief, its advances have been comparatively flow. At a period when the learning and ingenuity of fcholars were zealously employed in the restoration of the profane writings of Greece and Rome, from that degraded ftate of corruption into which they had fallen in the dark ages, the Chriftian divine feems to have acted on the fuppofition that the facred fcriptures were, by a perpetual miracle, exempted from thofe contingencies which naturally accompany the fucceffive tranfcriptions of the fame work; nor did his veneration for the text ever fuffer him to approach it, unlefs, perhaps, when

fome

fome laudable object was to be gained by the fubftitution of a more commodious reading. It may be regarded as a difcovery of recent date, and which has been occafioned by the perverfe labours of modern collators, that the originals of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, are no longer to be met with in a state of abfolute purity; that, in the lapfe of ages, they have fuftained the fame injuries from the ignorance, inattention, or infidelity of tranfcribers, which it is the object of profane criticism to redrefs; and that precifely the fame rules and methods of correc tion must be applied to every written compofition in the language of men, from whatever fource it may have been derived. Yet, while all this is now generally admitted in theory, it seems ftill to be with trembling reluctance that the greater number of Chriftians allow their Bibles to be fubjected to the tinkering operations of collators and emendatory critics; and it may probably be long before the labours of the Biblical philologift are fuffered to proceed unimpeded by thofe peculiar and extraneous difficulties which the interefts and the paflions of men are fo apt to create in this department of literature.

Although feveral English divines of great eminence had made partial inroads into this province, yet Dr Geddes was the first who, unappalled by the natural or adventitious difficulties of the tafk, conceived the defign of giving to his countrymen a verfion of the Old and New Teftaments, in which he thould avail himself of all thofe additional lights which modern criticifm had thrown on the ftate of the Hebrew and Greek origin

als.

It was not till the year 1786, that Dr Geddes, at the age of fifty, had advanced fo far in his arduous courfe of preparatory ftudy, as to come forward with a profpectus of his intended work. This profpectus, which is itself a confiderable volume, exhibited a very elaborate and learned account of the progrefs of Biblical philology, and a very formidable difplay of the defects of his predeceffors, which it was his object to fupply. After giving an analysis of this publication, for the minutenefs of which he offers fome apology, Mr Good obferves that its favourable reception, and the compliments paid him on a perufal of it by many fcholars of the first eminence and erudition, were regarded by the author as an omen of his future fuccefs, and ferved to ftimulate him, in a tenfold degree, to perfeverance in his labours. Several other fmaller publications alfo preceded the appearance of the principal work, in which Dr Geddes took occafion either to ftate the difficulties in the execution of a vernacular verfion which it was his aim to overcome, or VOL. III. NO. 6. Cc

to