corded in Scottish history. He was possessed of good natural talents, which,
considering the age in which he lived, and the troubled life he led, had been
considerably cultivated, but he was totally destitute of that which alone constitutes true dignity of character, moral worth. His private character, as may well be conceived, from what we have detailed of his public one, was vicious,
his appetites coarse, and his pleasures low and unscrupulous. He had, however, seen much of the world, possessed great address, and when he had a purpose to serve, could make himself peculiarly agreeable. Few men have ever been so
very fortunate, and as few have recklessly thrown their good fortune from them. "A protracted course of wickedness," one writer has remarked "seems at last to have impaired his natural shrewdness; he digged a pit into which he himself fell, spread a snare with his own hands in which he was caught, and in the just judgment of God, his hoary hairs came to the grave with blood."
Besides his early affair with the dowager of Lovat his lordship was twice married, first to Margaret, daughter to the laird of Grant, and secondly to Primrose, daughter to John Campbell of Mamore. This latter marriage was singularly unfortunate, and after the most unheard of barbarities exercised upon the lady, his lordship was under the necessity of granting her a separate maintenance. By his first wife he had three children, two sons and one daughter, and by the second one son, who eventually succeeded to the estate of Lovat.
FULTON, George, the author of an improved system of education, was born, February 3, 1752. He served an apprenticeship to a printer in Glasgow, and afterwards worked as journeyman with Mr Wiliison of Edinburgh. He also practised his profession for a time at Dumfries. In early life he married the daughter of Mr Tod, a teacher in Edinburgh. His first appearance as a teacher was in a charity school in Niddry's Wynd, which he taught for twenty pounds a year. There an ingenious and original mind led him to attempt some improvements in what had long been a fixed, and, we may add, sluggish art. Adopting his ideas partly from the system of Mr Sheridan, and partly from his late profession, he initiated his pupils with great care in a knowledge of the powers of the letters, using moveable characters pasted on pieces of wood, (which were kept in cases similar to those of a compositor in a printing house,) the result of which was, a surprising proficiency generally manifested by his scholars, both in the art of spelling, and in that of pronouncing and reading the English language.
Having thus given full proof of his qualifications as an instructor of youth, Mr Fulton was appointed by the town council one of the four teachers of English under the patronage of the city corporation, in which situation he continued till about the year 1790, when a dispute with the chief magistrate induced him to resign it, and set up on his own account He then removed from Jackson's Close in the Old Town, to more fashionable apartments in Hanover Street, where he prospered exceedingly for more than twenty years, being more especially patronised by Thomas Tod, Esq., and the late Mr Ramsay of Barnton. In teaching grammar and elocution, and in conveying to his pupils correct notions of the analogies of our language, Mr Fulton was quite unrivalled in his day. Many teaehers from other quarters became his pupils, and were successful in propagating his system; and he had the honour to teach many of the most distinguished speakers of the day, both in the pulpit and at the bar. During the long course of his professional life, he was indefatigable in his endeavours to improve his method, and simplify his notation; and the result of his studies was embodied in a Pronouncing Dictionary, which was introduced into almost all the schools of the kingdom.
Mr Fulton was an eminent instance of the union of talent with frugal and
