met on all hands with ridicule and contempt. "Elphinstone's Martial," says Dr Beatue, in a letter to Sir William Forbes, "is just come to hand. It is truly a unique. The specimens formerly published did very well to laugh at; but a whole quarto of nonsense and gibberish is too much. It is strange that a man not wholly illiterate should have lived so long in England without learning the language." The work, in fact, both in the poetry and the notes, displayed a total absence of judgment ; and, accordingly, it has sunk into utter neglect.
In 1778, Elphinstone lost his wife, an event which is supposed to have somewhat unhinged his mind. To beguile his grief, he travelled into Scotland, where he was received with great civility by the most distinguished men of the day. It was even purposed to erect a new chair—one for English literature—in the university of Edinburgh, in order that he might fill it. Though this design misgave, he delivered a series of lectures on the English language, first at Edinburgh, and then in the public hall of the university of Glasgow. In the autumn of 1779, he returned to Edinburgh.
In his translation of Martial, Mr Elphinstone had given some specimens of a new plan of orthography, projected by himself, and of which the principal feature was the spelling of the words according to their sounds. In church and in state, he was a high tory; but he was the most determined jacobin in language. The whole system of derivation he set at defiance ; analogy was his solvent; and he wished to create a complete revolution in favour of pronunciation. In 1786, he published a full explanation of his system, in two volumes quarto, under the extraordinary title of "Propriety ascertained in her Picture." Though the work produced not a single convert, he persisted in his desperate attempt, and followed up his first work by two others, entitled "English Orthography Epitomized," and "Propriety's Pocket Dictionary." In order, further, to give the world an example of an ordinary book printed according to his ideas, he published, in 1794, a selection of his letters to his friends, with their answers, entirely spelt in the new way ; the appearance of which was so unnatural, and the reading so difficult and tiresome, that it never was sold to any extent, and produced a heavy loss to the editor. If Mr Elphinstone had applied his political principles to this subject, he would have soon convinced himself that there is more mischief, generally, in the change than good in the result. His pupil, Mr R. C. Dallas, thus accounts for his obstinacy in error. "He was," says this gentleman,[1] " a Quixote in whatever he judged right; in religion, in virtue, in benevolent interferences; the force of custom or a host of foes made no impression upon him; the only question with him was, should it be, or should it not be? Such a man might be foiled in an attempt, but was not likely to be diverted from one in which he thought right was to be supported against wrong. The worst that can be said of his perseverance in so hopeless a pursuit is, that it was a foible by which he injured no one but himself."
Having seriously impaired his fortune by these publications, the latter days of this worthy man would have probably been spent in poverty, if he had not been rescued from that state by his brother-in-law and sister, Mr and Mrs Stralian. The former of these individuals, at his death, in 1785, left him an annuity of a hundred a-year, a hundred pounds in ready money, and twenty pounds for mournings. Mrs Strahan, who only survived her husband a month, left him two hundred pounds a-year more, and thus secured his permanent comfort. In the same year, he married, for his second wife, Miss Falconer, a niece of bishop Falconer of the Scottish episcopal church, who proved to him a most faithful and attentive partner till the close of his life. Mr Elphinstone lived on his
- ↑ Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, iii. 33.
