700
HISTORY OF PAINTING.
daring serenl jeua, by his labour. He grew rich without the loss of chaiacter, in proportion as he extended his industrious occupations. And by Uie minute account which he made of his " woridly goods" in August, 1 739, be valued his estate at J&i,'269 19t. lOid. steriing. We have •liMdv shewn the state of his effects in 1706 ; and when he valued bis worldly goods in 1710, be reckoned them at no more than £24 14t. 9d. sterling. In the mean time he had .maintained his family, educated his children, and sustained the usual losses of a complicated business. Mr. Chalmers exhibits these statements of consider- able riches, at that period, for the benefit of those who may follow the track of Ruddiman, from dependent penary, through the paths of honest diligence, and careful attention, to independent opulence. Having now established his own fame, he turned his thoughts to the introduction of his son into life. With this design be resided August 13, 1739, his halfof the printing busmess to his son Thomas,* by his second wife, who was now twenty-five years old, and had been liberally educated ; and who had besides been diligently instructed in this ingenious art Ruddiman, however, allowed his name to continue in the firm of the company in order to give credit to the house. He moreover lent his son, on his in- troduction into the business, £200 sterlinpp as an additional aid. That resignation, and thu loan, must be allowed to have been a handsome pro- vision for his son at that epoch, considering the scarcity of wealth and the racility of subsistence. Mr. Ruddiman was a man of such uncommon temperance, that in the coarse of so long a life, as to be upwards of eighW-two years of age, he was never once intoxicated with liquor. He loved indeed a cheerful glass ; but, when he was wound op by the enioyment of friendly society to his accustomed exhilaration, he would then refrain from drink ; saying, that the liquor would not go down. For the last seven years he had lived under the affliction of bodily diseases of various lands ; but his mental powers remained unshaken to the end. He was buried in the ce- metry of the Grey friars church, Edinburrb, but without the afiectionate tribute of a tombstone. Cenotaph our " great grammarian" will have none. But his pnilologioal labours will com- municate " eternal blazon" to his name, after the fall of structures of marble, or pillars of brass, had they been erected by other liands than his own. At the time of his decease he was probably worth in " worldly goods," about £3,000 sterling, exclusive of the Caledonian Mercury, and his other printing business. He appears to have been an original member of the British Linen Company, which was first established at Edin- burgh in 1746. He was of middle stature, and a thm habit, but of a frame so compact as to have carried him on beyond the period which is usually assigned to man. His gait, till the latest period of his life, was upright and active. His eyebrows were arched and bushy : and his eyes were origi-
- Seepage tji, ante.
nally so piercing, that it required steady impn- denoe to withstand their fixed look, or sudden glance. The worits of Ruddiman, for which he had made such pierious preparation, shew liim to have been a consumale master of the Latin language. He was aoouainted with Greek, but be pretended to know nouing of Hehrew. He was acquainted with several modern tongues, though which particularly, or to what extent, cannot now be ascertained. His EngliBh has mggedneas without strength, and in^gance without preci- sion : but what he plainly wanted in maaoo', he amply supplied in matter. His writings, whether th^ were composed in his early youth, or during his old ag^, are instructive, as might ica- sonably be expected from his intellect, his eindi- tion, and his oiligenoe. It will easily be allowed that Thomas Ruddiman was the moet learned printer that North Britain has ever eaioyed. At the commencement of the seveDteenth centmy, the printers of Edinburgh were geneialH book- sellers, who, having acquired some wealth oonU purchase a press and employ artificers ; bat knew no more of books than the title-page, tai the price. But, however illiterate, tb^ bad the merit of reforming the language, and settfiw, by silent practice, the orthography of the Notu. These men who practised the art, without pos- sessing the erudition, of which it is the herald, could not dinpute with Ruddiman the palm of literature. Henry Stephens himself would not have complained of Ruddiman as one of those printers who had brought the typographic ait into contempt by their illitemture.* When we recollect his Gasein Douglas, his Buckanass, his Grammars, his Lia/, and his Vindi<Mum tj Buchanan's Psalms, wherein competent judges have found the knowledge of a scholar, and the accuracy of a critic, we may fairly place Ruddi- man in the honourable list of learned printcB, with Aldus Manutius, with Radius Assensins, with Christopher Plantin, and the St^hensV
In 1806, a handsome tablet was erected to the memory of Ruddiman in the church of the Grey Friars', Edinburgh, at the expense of his relative, Dr. William Ruddiman, late of India. It ex- hibits the following inscription : —
SACacO TO TBI llBllOaT or TBAT CBLSBBATSO ICHOLAK AVD WOBTBT MAV,
THOMAS RUDDIMAN, A.M.
»>nB or THE ADTOCATBt* LIBKART HBAK rirTT VKUS.
Bom, Oct 1874, wiOiln three mile* of the town of Buff- Died at Edinburgh, Igth Jammrr, 17S7, In bis cightr-tliiid yew.
Poet oUtan. beaeActa rauient, Btemaitae vlitae. Nod metott StyU* ne nfiatar •qnii-
1767 The title-page of an English and Sue- dish Dictionary by Jacob Serenius, D. D. an- nounces that it was printed tLtHargandSUmbro' near Nykoping in Siueden, by Petrus Mamma, director of his miyesty's printing-house.
- See a 4to. punphlet, printed in 15C9. entitled :—Jttm
tfpognpkkim guBUMOMiA, ie iUUemtis luihutimm tfp*- grapkit, propter juu in coiUemptum nenil. Autore Bemrte* Stepk&no.
VjOOQ IC
