McLean, Ralph R. (2009) Rhetoric and literary criticism in the early Scottish Enlightenment. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/802/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] RHETORIC AND LITERARY CRITICISM IN THE EARLY SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT RALPH R. McLEAN M.A., M. PHIL SUBMITTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF SCOTTISH STUDIES THROUGH THE DEPARTMENTS OF HISTORY AND SCOTTISH LITERATURE FACULTY OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW SEPTEMBER 2008 ABSTRACT In recent years the importance of the Scottish contribution to rhetoric and literary criticism has begun to be fully recognised by historians and literary critics. Men such as Hugh Blair, Adam Smith and George Campbell have now been afforded a just place in the canon of literary critics. However, the period before the 1760s which saw a great flourishing in Scottish intellectual activity has, by in large, remained untouched. The main purpose of this thesis is to rehabilitate those thinkers in Scotland who were active in the period before this, and who began to change the boundaries of rhetoric and literary criticism, which ultimately paved the way for their fellow countrymen to export their own systems to Europe and the wider Atlantic world. In addition to this, the thesis addresses two other major concerns. Firstly, it will argue that Scotland in this period does not deserve to be viewed as merely a cultural province of England, reacting solely to its larger neighbour’s cultural agenda. Instead, the Scots were engaged in a European-wide exchange of ideas which allowed them to develop a system of rhetoric and literary criticism which was richer than a brand that was developed only in response to English cultural pressure. Secondly, the thesis will demonstrate the importance of the classical influence on Scottish thinkers in their attempts to forge a new style of rhetoric for modern consumption. The structure of the thesis has been set in such a way as to provide a balance between the development of rhetoric in regional enlightenment centres, in terms of both university and club activity, and its development and progression in the traditional institutions of Scotland: the parliament, the church and the law. The first three chapters focus on Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and chart the different influences that each city was subjected to, that in turn led to the construction of differing, yet still in many respects, complementary systems. Within the universities themselves, the figures of Thomas Blackwell of Aberdeen, Francis Hutcheson of Glasgow, and John Stevenson of Edinburgh, merit substantial analysis for their role in this process, not only for the influence which they exerted on future generations of literary critics in Scotland and abroad, but also for their own contributions to the discipline, which have been frequently overlooked. The focus on the regional varieties of Enlightenment also permits for a discussion of club activity in Scotland, which was an integral part of the Scottish Enlightenment. This will demonstrate that the growth of rhetoric and literary criticism in the country was not the sole preserve of the educated elites, but was something which could be accessed from all levels of society. The second half of the thesis focuses on the institutions of Scotland. This section seeks to restore to parity, sources such as political pamphlets, sermons and style books which, under the rules of modern day criticism that concerns itself with only a narrow band of literature, have become overlooked as a foundation for rhetorical development. Furthermore, it provides an opportunity to assess the contribution to the advance in critical theory of those individuals such as Lord Kames and Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh who did so away from the universities. 2 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………… 4 ABBREVIATIONS…………………………………………………………………. 5 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………... 6 CHAPTER 1: RHETORIC AND LITERARY CRITICISM IN ABERDEEN….. 28 CHAPTER 2: AESTHETICS AND RHETORIC AT GLASGOW……………... 84 CHAPTER 3: RHETORIC AND CRITICISM IN EDINBURGH……………….. 132 CHAPTER 4: RHETORIC AND POLITICS…………………………………….. 191 CHAPTER 5: RHETORIC AND THE LAW…………………………………….. 237 CHAPTER 6: RELIGIOUS RHETORIC………………………………………… 281 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………….. 333 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................ 338 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would initially like to thank the AHRC for providing a generous grant which allowed me to focus more clearly on thesis, and permitted me to re-allocate some of my time to the learning of Latin and Greek, both of which have benefited my development in this area. Without the grant, this aspect of the thesis would have remained under- developed. My warmest thanks go to my supervisors, Professor Colin Kidd and Dr Gerard Carruthers, both of whom have been inspirational, informative, helpful and supportive in equal measure throughout the duration of my research. Their guidance and advice have been of invaluable importance to me during my time at the University of Glasgow. I have also benefited from the expertise of several individuals, who have taken time to pass on to me some of their detailed knowledge in areas where I initially had little or no experience. To this end I would like to thank Karin Bowie for her advice on the Union of 1707 and her thoughts on the pamphlet debates which surround that event. Esther Mijers was generous enough to provide me with an extensive bibliography of Charles Mackie’s works, for which I am most grateful. John W. Cairns was both generous with his time and his scholarship on the minefield that is Scots Law, while Richard Sher has been equally kind in sharing his formidable knowledge of Hugh Blair and other members of the Scots literati. Indeed, the Eighteenth Century Scottish Studies Society (ECSSS), of which Richard is the guiding light, has, in general, been most helpful. I would therefore like to thank Roger Emerson, Roger Fechner, and Kenneth Simpson for comments on conference papers which formed chapters of the thesis, and to Andrew Hook, who read through a full draft of my work, and provided many helpful suggestions. I would also like to thank my fellow postgraduates in both the History and Scottish Literature departments who have offered both advice and timely distraction on a number of occasions. In particular though, I am grateful to Paul Jenkins for his sure counsel on Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, his knowledge of seventeenth-century Europe, and our convivial chats on the Scottish Enlightenment. I am also indebted to Alex Scroggie who made some sound suggestions concerning Mackenzie, and to Valerie Wallace, who alerted me to material I would otherwise have missed. Last, but not least, I would like to thank my parents, Richard and Barbara, and my sisters, Barbara and Pamela, whom I love, and who have each helped in their own way to get me to this point. Thank you. 4 ABBREVIATIONS AUL Aberdeen University Library BL British Library EUL Edinburgh University Library GUL Glasgow University Library ML Mitchell Library (Glasgow) MUL Manchester University Library NAS National Archives of Scotland NLS National Library of Scotland NLS Adv. National Library of Scotland (Advocates Library) 5 INTRODUCTION The Scottish Enlightenment, a phrase first coined by William Scott in 1900, has now come to be recognised as one of the key intellectual movements in western culture. 1 Although Scots reached across continental divides to engage in an exchange of ideas with their European counterparts, they also led the way in the creation and establishment of new disciplines and critical modes of thought. Enlightened Scots could make a legitimate claim to have initiated several fields of their own, including modern geology, thanks to the investigations of James Hutton; sociology, through the work of John Millar; and also political economy, as a result of the philosophy of Adam Smith (1723-1790), who along with David Hume, was one of the greatest thinkers that Scotland produced in this period. 2 As a consequence of this extensive engagement in a disparate array of subjects, the historians of the Scottish Enlightenment have often been at odds as to what factors constitute the core elements of the movement. It was Hugh Trevor-Roper who first linked the progress of the Scottish Enlightenment to the growth of the study of political economy in Scotland. John Robertson expanded upon this concept to include 1 Although the Scottish Enlightenment has been established as a coherent and concrete movement, it was only recognized as such within the last fifty years. Even though Scott, a historian and biographer of Francis Hutcheson and Adam Smith, was one of the first to refer to the ‘Scottish Enlightenment’ as a discernible term for the period in question, in the 1950s, John Clive and Bernard Bailyn argued that Scotland was no more than a cultural province of England. John Clive and Bernard Bailyn, ‘England’s Cultural Provinces: Scotland and America’, William and Mary Quarterly 3 (1954), pp. 200-213. The debate on the validity of a Scottish Enlightenment was ignited by Hugh Trevor-Roper in his incendiary essay questioning the founding principles of a Scottish branch of Enlightenment. Hugh Trevor-Roper, ‘The Scottish Enlightenment’, Studies in Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 58 (1967), pp. 1635-1658. In response to Trevor-Roper’s arguments Duncan Forbes concentrated his investigations into the Scottish Enlightenment on the study of both Hume and Smith as the key figures in Scotland.