| Administrative History | Sylvester Douglas, Lord Glenbervie [1743-1823] He became Lord Glenbervie in 1800. He was student at King's College where he graduated with an MA in 1765. He took another degree in Leyden in 1766 before he moved to London where he had a distinguished career in law, politics and goverment. He married Lord North's daughter in 1789 and became a Lord of the Treasury. He was close friend to Beattie in the 1760s, and the two remained occasional correspondents after Douglas moved to London |
| Description | Douglas's plan to write on Scottish barbarism. Beattie has written much on Scoticism, rules of verse, etc., but literary pursuits over [quotes Virgil, Aeneid, Book 2, lines 638-641]. Scots have to study English from books, like a dead language. Cannot achieve neatness and softness of phrase so conspicuous in Addison, Lyttelton and other elegant English authors. Afraid of committing gross blunders. Handle English like a person who cannot fence handles a sword. Absurd to say Hume and Roberston write better than the English. Has read no Scotch authors these several years except those who was obliged to. Comments on the origin of Scots words, Ruddiman's glossary to Gavin Douglas's Virgil, and the variety of Scottish provincial dialects. Believe Erse was once the universal language of Scotland. |