The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks. John Millar

Mr. Hume. The urbanity of this illustrious author never failed to conciliate the friendship even of those who viewed his political opinions with dislike, and his metaphysical tenets with abhorrence. Mr. Millar had few prejudices of this kind to conquer. Though a steady and zealous Whig himself, he had no enmity to speculative Tories; and, convinced of the truth of Mr. Hume’s metaphysical opinions, he was not of a temper to abandon a system, which appeared to him to afford a satisfactory explanation of many of the phenomena of the human mind, because it had been attacked by ignorant and illiberal abuse. Mr. Hume’s visit to the Continent, which took place a few years after this, together with Mr. Millar’s change of residence and numerous avocations, prevented this acquaintance from being improved into that intimacy, which their mutual respect would, in other circumstances, have produced; but they never failed to seize such opportunities of enjoying each other’s society, as afterwards occurred. From Mr. Hume, Mr. Millar received the same flattering mark of confidence as<ix> from Dr. Smith, having been entrusted with the education of his nephew, the present very eminent Professor of Scotch Law in the University of Edinburgh.⁷

      In 1760, Mr. Millar was called to the Bar; or, according to the Scotch technical phraseology, he passed advocate. He was fortunate enough, during the very short time he practised as a lawyer, to have some opportunities of appearing before the Inner House,^* and, on these occasions, he received very flattering compliments from several of the Judges. He was indeed universally considered as a very rising young lawyer; and it was not without surprise that his friends learned his intention, on the death of Mr. Hercules Lindsay, of applying for the Law Professorship at Glasgow.⁸ It seemed to them an extraordinary want of ambition in a young man, whose talents entitled him to look forward to the highest honours of his profession, at once to abandon all these hopes, and sit down contented with the moderate revenue, and the less brilliant reputa-<x>tion, of a Teacher of Law. They knew that he could not be prompted to such a step by timidity, for his temper was uncommonly sanguine; nor by indolence, for never was a mind more active. He was induced, however, to take this resolution, by his having, about this time, married Miss Margaret Craig, a lady nearly of his own age, to whom, while visiting on a familiar footing at her mother’s, he had become strongly attached.

      He saw that it was impossible for a young lawyer, whatever his abilities and diligence might be, to maintain a family, even with the most rigid oeconomy; and he was unwilling to risk the becoming a burden on his father and uncle. The emoluments of a Professor of Law were not, indeed, very great; but they were much superior to what, for many years, he could expect to reach at the bar; they were sufficient to enable him to maintain a family in a respectable manner; and, by his own exertions, he hoped to increase the number of students, on which, at Glasgow, the emolument of a Professor chiefly depends. The situation, too, if not brilliant, was highly respectable; and he was happy to think, that those speculations on law and government, which had always been his favourite studies, were now to become the business of his life, the<xi> source of his income, and the foundation of his future reputation.

      With such views, he applied for the vacant Chair; and, through the interest of the guardians of the Duke of Hamilton, then a minor, and at the recommendation of Lord Kames and Dr. Smith, he was appointed Professor of Law in the University of Glasgow, in 1761, about sixteen months after he had been called to the bar.

      From the absence of the higher Courts of Justice, Glasgow lies under many obvious disadvantages, as a school of law; and, accordingly, the students of Law in that University, previously to Mr. Millar’s appointment, seldom exceeded four or five, and sometimes fell short even of that number. From the first moment of his appointment, there was a very general expectation that Mr. Millar would greatly improve, in this branch of education, the character of the University,⁹ but I believe his most sanguine friends never entertained the idea, that he could possibly raise it to that degree of celebrity, which it soon attained. The improvement, in a few years, became rapid: he had, frequently, about forty students of Civil Law; while those who attended his Lectures on Government, often amounted to a much greater number. To establish and maintain the reputation<xii> of his classes, became with him the principal object of his life; and never, perhaps, was any object followed out with more ardour or perseverance. He was not merely desirous to convey to his students just views and accurate information; but he was anxious to convey them in the manner most likely to seize the attention, and to produce habits of original thought and philosophical investigation; thus rendering Lectures, formerly considered as useful only to lawyers, the most important schools of general education.

      From the first establishment of the University, it had been the custom to employ the Latin language in all academical prelections; a custom originating in the exclusive admiration entertained of ancient literature, during the dark ages, and continued to later times, by the blind attachment of all public seminaries to old and antiquated forms. By degrees, it was discovered that every man will express his ideas with the greatest clearness and force in that language in which he is accustomed to think; and that an audience must lose much of the substance of a lecture, when part of the attention is necessarily occupied in estimating the exact import of the words. Such truths, obvious as they now appear, were but slowly received; but, at last, the practice of lecturing in English had been intro-<xiii>duced into the philosophical classes at Glasgow, and this alteration rendered it still more difficult for the students, now unaccustomed to follow the complicated arrangement of a Latin period, to comprehend, with facility and accuracy, the lectures on Roman Law, which still continued to be delivered in Latin. The old custom was however retained in those classes, after it had been laid aside in others, very possibly from some fancied propriety in lecturing on the Laws of Rome, in the language in which they had been promulgated and compiled; and so wedded were the older members of the profession to this practice, that, when Mr. Lindsay (Mr. Millar’s immediate predecessor) began to deliver lectures on the Institutes of Justinian, in English, the Faculty of Advocates made formal application to the University, requesting that the practice of teaching the Civil Law in Latin might be restored. Mr. Lindsay, with a steadiness which did him honour, refused to yield to this interference; and Mr. Millar, from the moment he was appointed to the Chair, adopted the English language in all the courses of lectures which he delivered. But, as Latin is still used in the customary trials, preparatory to a young man’s being called to the Bar, he thought it proper to employ it in the daily<xiv> examination of the Civil Law classes, that his students might not be under the disadvantage of being altogether unaccustomed to the language in which the Faculty of Advocates still conduct their examinations.

      Perhaps it is in some measure to the adoption of the English language in his several classes, that Mr. Millar owed part of his success. Had the same improvement been introduced at Edinburgh, it may, I think, be doubted whether his talents and utmost exertions could have raised the Law Classes of Glasgow from the low state to which they had fallen, and in which, from the absence of the Courts, they seemed destined to remain. But the Law Professors of Edinburgh, for a long time, continued to read their lectures in Latin, and, before they thought proper to abandon this custom, Mr. Millar’s fame was too well established, and too widely diffused, to admit of any competition.

      Mr. Millar never wrote his Lectures; but was accustomed to speak from notes, containing his arrangement, his chief topics, and some of his principal facts and illustrations. For the transitions from one part of his subject to another, the occasional allusions, the smaller embellishments, and the whole of the expression, he trusted to that extemporane-<xv>ous eloquence, which seldom fails a speaker deeply interested in his subject. In some branches of science, where the utmost precision of language is requisite to avoid obscurity or error, such a mode of lecturing may be attended with much difficulty, and several disadvantages: But in Morals, in Jurisprudence, in Law, and in Politics, if the Professor make himself completely master of the different topics he is to illustrate, if he possess ideas clear and defined, with tolerable facility in expressing them, the little inelegancies into which he may occasionally be betrayed, the slight hesitation which he may not always escape, will be much more than compensated by the fulness of his illustrations, the energy of his manner, and that interest which is excited, both in the hearer and speaker, by extemporaneous eloquence.

      Lecturing is obviously more connected with public speaking than with writing. In a finished composition, we expect to find the author’s arrangement accurate, his language