صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

seek for an addition to his income, by teaching, privately, the Latin and Greek languages.

"For some years after he undertook his charge in the library, he resided in the family of the late worthy Mr. Alexander Tait, clerk of session, as private tutor to his sons; and had a chief hand in the education of the late Mr. William Tait, advocate and member of parliament. Mr. Tait the father, always treated him with great liberality and kindness; and Mr. Gordon in his turn, was much attached to the family, and took a great interest in Mr. William Tait's success in life. This young gentleman possessed excellent abilities for the bar, and became a very fluent and eloquent pleader; and Mr. Gordon was, for some time, much gratified in observing his pupil's success. On one occasion, he even contributed considerable assistance in enabling him to make a most brilliant appearance at the bar, in a cause respecting literary property, in which the plead er surprised the court, by a great display of etymological erudition. At last a suspicion of a want of attention on the part of Mr. Tait, and afterwards his premature death, proved a great source of affliction to Mr. Gordon. So severe a trial, seemed at times to affect his intellectual faculties; and, it was observed, that his constitution never completely recovered from the shock.

"After he quitted the family of Mr. Tait's father, he had devoted many of his spare hours to the private instruction of young gentlemen attending the high school, or the university; and he found much employment in bringing forward students of physic, whose previous education had been neglected, in a knowledge of Latin and Greek,

with a view to their taking the doctor's degree. Some of these he used to assist in composing their Latin inaugural dissertations; though he did not set up for a professed adept in this line, a character well known among the medical students, by the cant appellation of Grinder.

"He had a familiar acquaintance with the Latin classics; and, in particular, he had studied with great care the writings of Celsus, which enabled him to be of singular use to his medical scholars. To many students he taught also the principles of Greek, and assisted them privately in preparing their tasks for the Greek classes in the university. As a private teacher, he showed the same diligence, accuracy and fidelity, which distinguish ed him as keeper of the library.

[ocr errors]

Augmented thus, as his income was, from the rewards of private teaching, still it could not be great; but having no family, and choosing to remain a bachelor, his household expense must have been extremely sinall. His emoluments as assistant-librarian never exceeded 351. per annum; for near twenty years they were not more than 15. The Senatus Academicus, sensible of his great merit, al lowed him lol. in addition; and on professor Dalzel's becoming li brarian he began to receive in all 351. annually. It was chiefly then from his earnings as a teacher, that he raised himself to a state of inde pendence, and indeed opulence, to a man who had so few wants as Mr. Gordon. Having once secured a competency, and to spare, his habits of frugality did not restrain him from the exercise of generosity; and he has been frequently known to relieve, with the utmost readiness, the wants of the indigent.

A taste

"A taste for books was his chief indulgence; and of those he had gradually provided a select collection, chiefly classical. His reading was very extensive; but he has left no specimens of original composition, an exercise at which he seldom seems to have aimed. What he wrote down, consisted of striking passages, selected from various authors, which he transcribed into volumes, without any attention to arrangement; and therefore the title he gave them was Chaos. The blank leaves of most of his books he filled with such anecdotes concerning their authors, some of them extremely curious, as he had gleaned in the course of his reading. In the Glasgow Horace, commonly stiled immaculate, he detected three errors; a discovery by which he was much amused, and which furnished him with one topic for a vein of sarcastic humour, which, in the hours of festivity, he sometimes used to indulge. But his Gesner's Thesaurus remains the most conspicuous proof of his industry, its blank leaves being completely covered

with an account of the tenses of the Latin verb from Schellerus; and the margins of almost every page of the book crowded with additional examples and illustrations.

"To three of his particular friends, professor Dalzel, for whom he entertained a great respect and esteem; the reverend Andrew Johnston, minister of Salton, in whose education, and fortune in life, he had taken an early interest; and Mr. William Whyte, writer in Edinburgh, to whom he considered

himself as under great obligations; he disponed or conveyed, by his will, all the effects which he possessed at the time of his death, burdened with a life-annuity to his only sister, Aitken, and her husband, Nicol Munro, a reputable shoemaker; together with several other private legacies, of which the detail cannot excite any interest. His public bequests were 500l. to the royal infirmary of Edinburgh; the reversion of a tenement of houses of nearly the same value, to the poor of the parish of St. Cuthbert's; and such of his books, to the library of the university of Edinburgh, as the librarian should think proper to be added to that collection.

"The minuteness of this narrative may to some require an apology. No more was at first intended, than a very brief memorial of a man, whose singular merit in a most useful, though humble sphere, entitled him to an honourable remembrance. But as his character could not be well described, detached from a particular account of that sort of duty which he had to perform, it was found necessary to introduce a variety of literary detail, not uninteresting, it is hoped, to those who have received their education in the university of Edinburgh; and who will be soothed with the recollection of those happy days, when they used to be furnished with the instruments of knowledge by the hands of Mr. Duke Gordon.

"The following is an inscription written by Mr. Dalzel, for a monument to be erected to his memory, in the church-yard of St, Cuthbert's.

"Hic jacet DUKE GORDON, A. M.

Qui pro præfecturam bibliothecæ academiæ Edinburgenæ,
Per annos fere quadraginta, feliciter gessit :
Vir in suo genere plane eximius:
Eruditus indefessus, fidelis

Accuratus,

Accuratus, officiosus,-interdum austerus;
Sed, in munere difficillimo fungendo,
Austeritatem comitate tam prudenter temperans,
Ut omnium academicorum laudem et gratiam adipisceretur.
Calebs, ambitionis expers, contentus parvo,

Ex horis subsecivis, quas ingenua juventuti privatim erudiendæ sacravit,
Modicam rem præcipue quærebat;
Unde, summa adhibita frugalitate,
Extra nutum alienum positus,

Vivendi rationem suo arbitrio sibi instituendam decrevit:
Atque, vita parum splendida, at utilissima tamen,
Ad finem vergente,

De facultatibus, quas honesto labore acquisitas pepercerat,
Partem aliquam testamento legavit
Unicæ suæ sorori ejusque marito,
Aliam Nosocomio Regio Edinensi,
Aliam Sancti Cuthberti pauperibus:
Earumque residuum

(Almæ suæ matris academiæ non immemor)
Tribus ex amicis suis, quos præ cæteris dilexit,

Quique hoc marmor, memoriæ ejus sacrum, ponendum curarunt.
Natus est xiii. Kal. Jun. A. D. M.DĊC.XXXIX.
Obiit ipso die penult. seculi xviii.”

MANNERS

MANNERS OF NATIONS.

INTERVIEW with the KAFFER KING; and MANNERS of the KAFFERS. [From BARROW's TRAVELS into the INTERIOR of SOUTHERN AFRICA, in the Years 1797 and 1798.]

"ON

N arriving at his place of residence, we found that the king, not having expected us until the following day, had gone to his grazing-village ten or twelve miles to the northward, in consequence of some intelligence he had received of the wolves having committed great depredations among his young cattle on the preceding night. A messenger was therefore immediately dispatched after him; and in the mean time the king's mother, a well-looking woman, apparently about five-and-thirty, and his queen, a very pretty Kaffer girl, about fifteen, with their female attendants, to the number of fifty or sixty, formed a circle round us, and endeavoured to entertain us with their good-humored and lively conversation. It was not long before Gaika, the king, made his appearance riding on an ox in full gallop, attended by five or six of his people. Our business commenced with little ceremony under the shade of a spreading mimosa. He requested that we might all be seated in a circle on the ground, not as any mark of civility, but that it might the more distinctly be heard what each party had to say. The manner, however, in which he

received us sufficiently marked the pleasure he derived from the visit: of the nature of this he was already aware, and entered immediately upon the subject, by expressing the satisfaction he felt in having an opportunity of explaining to us that none of the Kaffers who had passed the boundary established between the two nations were to be considered as his subjects: he said they were chiefs as well as himself, and entirely independent of him; but that his ancestors had always held the first rank, and their supremacy had been acknowledged on all occasions by the colonists: that all those Kaffers and their chiefs, who had at any time been desirous to enter under the protection of his family, had been kindly received; and that those who chose rather to remain independent had been permitted to do so, without being considered in the light of enemies. He then informed us, that his father died, and left him, when very young, under the guardianship of Zambie, one of his first chiefs and own brother, who had acted as regent during his minority; but that having refused to resign to him his right on coming at years of discretion,

his father's friends had showed themselves in his favor, and that by their assistance he had obliged his uncle to fly: that this man had then joined Khouta, a powerful chief to the northward, and with their united forces had made war against him that he had been victorious, and had taken Zambie prisoner: that he had never been at war with, nor to his knowledge had ever given the slightest offence to, the chiefs of the other side of the Keiskamma, but, on the contrary, had always endeavoured to conciliate their goodwill: that since his friends and subjects had supported him in the assumption and maintenance of his right, he had observed a disposition in those chiefs to withdraw themselves from his friendship: that the people of Malloo and Tooley particularly had committed great depredations on the cattle of his subjects; and that, when he sent to them a civil message to inquire if any had by chance strayed into their territories, to his great surprise he was informed they had quitted the country: that he had more than once, since that period, sent to them his proffers of friendship, but that they had detained, and, as he supposed, put to death his messengers: that still to avoid giving them any pretext for commencing hostilities, he had strictly forbid any of his subjects to molest their habitations, or even to pass the Keiskamma.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

1. That he should send a mes senger of peace and friendship along with one of our interpre ters to the Kaffer chiefs now residing in the colony:

"2. That none of his subjects, on any pretence whatever, unless sent expressly by him, shouldpass the boundary established between the colonists and Kaffers: "3. That none of his subjects should have any intercourse whatever with the colonists; and that, if any of the latter should be found in any part of his territories, he would send them under a strong guard to Graaff Reynet:

[ocr errors][merged small]

4. That should any ship be stranded on the Kaffer coast, he would afford to the unfortunate passengers and crew hospitality and protection, and that he would conduct them in safety to Graaff Reynet:

"5.

That any blacks, hottentots, or bastaards, found in his territories, should be taken and sent to Graaff Reynet:

"6. And that he should keep up a friendly intercourse with the landrost, by sending annually, or oftener, if necessary, one of his captains, bearing a brass gorget with the arms of his Britannic majesty engraven upon

it.

[blocks in formation]
« السابقةمتابعة »