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James Boswell (1740-95) has gone down in history as the biographer of Samuel Johnson, a sexual adventurer, a toadying Scot, and as a writer who typified the divided consciousness of the Scottish eighteenth century. Before the discovery and (since 1950) publication of his private papers, critics often saw him as a bit of a fool, whose achievement was primarily that of being lucky enough to be the friend and amanuensis of the most famous Englishman of his day. More recently, the stature of Boswell's achievement and his complexity as a writer have been better appreciated, but without adequate understanding of his role as a specifically Scottish author and thinker of the age of Enlightenment: in particular, his anxious critique of Humean scepticism is discussed here. This study examines, through a close reading of both published and unpublished materials, how Boswell deliberately sets out to write ambiguously about himself and the major events of his time; how, far from echoing Johnson, Boswell improves on his sayings and teasingly criticizes him; and how Boswell's political and religious sympathies with Jacobitism, Scotland and Catholicism coloured the way in which he understood his own, and his country's, uncertain place in the new world of British imperial opportunity.
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Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) was among the Scottish Enlightenment's most influential philosophers as well as one of its most colourful and engaging characters. His pioneering contributions to the development of political economy and social theory have long been acknowledged--though, unfortunately, they have also often been misrepresented. At the same time, it is clear that the significance both of his professional activities as a distinguished university teacher in Edinburgh and of his status as one of the eighteenth century's foremost historians of the Roman republic has been insufficiently appreciated. This innovative study of Ferguson's life and ideas sets out to introduce this much-misunderstood figure to a new and wider audience. Paying particular attention to the powerful intellectual currents which converged so fruitfully in his writings, it explores the deep Scottish and European roots of Ferguson's thought and assesses the continuing pertinence of some of his arguments about the origins and nature of society for an understanding of the modern world.
Enlightenment --- Philosophers --- Ferguson, Adam, --- Influence. --- Scotland --- History
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Herbert Grierson was only 28 when he was appointed Professor of English Literature at the University of Aberdeen in 1895; in the following quarter of a century he established himself as the most distinguished literary critic of his time: first, by the publication in 1912 of his edition of the poetry of the then little acknowledged seventeenth-century English poet John Donne, and subsequently by his influential anthology of The Metaphysical Poets, published in 1919. Because of Grierson, Donne became the most admired poet of some of the twentieth-century's most influential poets, and the 'Metaphysicals' became the model for many of the most radical developments in twentieth-century poetry.
Scots --- Authors, Scottish --- Scotch --- Scottish people --- British --- Ethnology --- Travel --- History --- Scott, Walter, --- Author of "Waverley," "Ivanhoe," &c., --- Cleishbotham, Jedediah, --- Layman, --- Malagrowther, Malachi, --- Paul, --- S., W. --- Scott, W. --- Skott, Valʹter, --- Skott, Walter, --- Somnambulus, --- Ssu-ko-tʻe, --- Ssu-ko-tʻe, Wa-erh-tʻe, --- Sukotsu, --- Sukotto, --- Templeton, Laurence, --- W. S. --- Wa-erh-tʻe Ssu-ko-tʻe, --- "Waverley," "Ivanhoe," &c., Author of, --- סקאט, וואלטער, --- סקוט, וולטר, --- Critics --- College teachers --- Grierson, Herbert John Clifford,
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John Witherspoon (1723 - 1794) is remembered today as one of only two Scots among the 56 'signers' of the Declaration of American Independence and the only clergyman to have added his name to the list of founding fathers of the nation that was set to become the United States. On that basis alone, Witherspoon earns his place as an important figure in the early history of the 'Empire of Liberty' - even though he has been described by some American scholars as the 'forgotten Founder.'But Witherspoon had two careers. His American career (as College President at Princeton and an influential politician in the revolutionary and immediate post-revolutionary war period) has understandably tended to overshadow his earlier career in Scotland as a leading light within the Popular (or Evangelical) party in the Church of Scotland at a time when the Kirk was dominated by the Moderates led by such men as William Robertson, Hugh Blair and Alexander 'Jupiter' Carlyle. This study shows that he had few friends among the preponderance of Moderate ministerial colleagues in the Presbytery of Paisley. The ground-breaking research underpinning this book reveals for the first time the full astonishing story of Witherspoon's involvement in an action against him in the Court of Session in Edinburgh, a process that was begun by a lawyer, John Snodgrass, and five others in 1762 and was not determined until 1776, by which time the Paisley minister had long left Scotland for a new life as sixth President of the College of New Jersey. The process would engage the professional skills of some of the most celebrated figures in Scottish advocacy of the period, including George Wallace, Henry Dundas, David Dalrymple, Charles Hay and Andrew Crosbie.
Statesmen --- Presbyterian Church --- Clergy --- Witherspoon, John, --- United States. --- Signers
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John Dickie was born in Aberdeen in 1824. Five years later the family moved to a croft at Balquhain, in the shadow of Bennachie, and up to the age of 23 his world was contained within a 15-mile radius of Inverurie. An itinerant farm servant, John worked at Harlaw, Thainstone, Daviot, Tarves, Udny and Oldmeldrum until in December 1847 he exchanged the country for the city, when he returned to Aberdeen to marry and take up employment as a warehouseman. Throughout his life John Dickie enjoyed dipping his pen in the ink. Some of his efforts were for the benefit of others: on two occasions in the 1860s he petitioned his employers, on behalf of his fellow workers, to request a Saturday half-day and an increase in wages. But his most illuminating piece of work is this unpublished memoir of his early years, which reflects not only his personal rhythms of life and work, but also the impact of regional and national issues on the farming communities of Aberdeenshire.
Agricultural laborers --- Social conditions --- Dickie, John,
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