and Alexander Carlyle. By the presbytery of Edinburgh he was licensed a probationer of the kirk in 1745, the year of the rebellion. On the approach of the rebel army Home enlisted in the college company of volunteers formed for the defence of Edinburgh. When the surrender of the city was decided on, he and a few companions made their way to Dunbar, where Sir John Cope gave them a reconnoitring mission, which came to an end with the battle of Prestonpans. Home next joined a regiment of volunteers raised by the town of Glasgow, in which he held the rank of lieutenant, and with which he was present at the battle of Falkirk (17 Jan. 1746). With some of his comrades he was taken prisoner and confined in Doune Castle, but under his leadership the whole party effected a daring escape. On 11 Feb. 1747 he was inducted minister of Athelstaneford in East Lothian, in succession to Robert Blair [q. v.], author of ‘The Grave.’ Home did not live at the manse (New Statistical Account, &c.), but in the village, and was often absent on visits to friends, at whose houses his lively manners made him always a welcome guest. As a minister he joined the broad church party, of which his friend Robertson became the leader, and he formed a close intimacy with David Hume the philosopher [q. v.], who belonged to the same family as himself.
Soon after his settlement at Athelstaneford, Home completed his tragedy of ‘Agis,’ founded on the life of Agis in Plutarch, one of his favourite authors. He took it to London towards the close of 1747, and offered it to Garrick, who summarily rejected it. Home expressed his disappointment in a plaintive apostrophe (in verse) to Shakespeare's statue in Westminster Abbey. Hume thought that ‘Agis’ showed Home's taste to have been ‘corrupted by the imitation of Shakespeare,’ but (according to Hume) it was ‘much approved’ by Pitt, Lyttelton, and the Duke of Argyll (Burton, i. 392). Before returning to Scotland Home paid a short visit at Winchester to a friend, Barrow, who had escaped with him from Doune Castle. The poet Collins was another guest, and Collins inscribed to him in friendly terms, with a prediction of his ultimate success in tragedy, his ‘Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland,’ some of his knowledge of which he doubtless owed to Home's conversation [see Collins, William].
After his return to Scotland, Home was introduced by Lord Milton [see Fletcher, Andrew, Lord Milton] to Archibald Campbell, duke of Argyll, through whom he came to know the Earl of Bute. Bute treated him with every consideration. Meanwhile Home was engaged on his tragedy of ‘Douglas,’ founded partly on the then popular Scottish ballad of ‘Childe Maurice,’ the ‘Gil Morris’ of Percy's ‘Reliques.’ Hume thought highly of the drama, like other Edinburgh friends who read and revised it in manuscript. Again, in February 1755, Home travelled to London on horseback, and offered his tragedy to Garrick, who refused it. Home's Scottish friends advised its performance in Edinburgh. It was accordingly put in rehearsal at the theatre in the Canongate, which although unlicensed was tolerated, and had a fairly good company of performers. The rehearsals were attended by many distinguished persons; but the statement that at one of them the parts were performed by Robertson, Blair, Home himself, Hume, and other celebrities seems to be apocryphal. The first public performance took place on 14 Dec. 1756. The piece was received with enthusiasm, and had a long and successful run. But the ruling party in the kirk regarded the enterprise as an outrage. They were opposed on principle to theatrical representations, and that ‘Douglas’ should have been written by a minister, and its performance attended by other ministers, seemed to them serious aggravations of the offence. Portions of the play were denounced, too, as profane. A war of pamphlets ensued. Alexander Carlyle [q. v.], one of the ministers who attended the performance, was prosecuted by the kirk. Home himself was cited to appear before the presbytery of Haddington, but delayed obeying the summons.
In February 1757 he went to London, and on 14 March Rich produced ‘Douglas’ at Covent Garden, Barry playing Young Norval, and Peg Woffington Lady Randolph. Its success was decided, and it was published. Gray said that it had ‘retrieved the true language of the stage, which had been lost for two hundred years.’ Hume described it in the ‘dedicatory preface’ of his ‘Four Dissertations’ addressed to Home (1757) as ‘one of the most interesting and pathetic pieces that was ever exhibited in any theatre,’ and he credited Home with ‘the true theatric genius of Shakespeare and Otway, refined from the unhappy barbarism of the one and licentiousness of the other’ (Hume, Philosophical Works, ed. Grose and Green, iii. 66). Sheridan, father of the wit and politician, and then manager of the Dublin Theatre Royal, sent Home, as the author of ‘Douglas,’ a gold medal of some value, but Johnson angrily declared that there were not ‘ten good lines in the whole play’ (Boswell, Johnson, ed. 1848, p. 390). While in England Home paid a visit to Bute at Kew, where he was well received, and was probably introduced
