prietors. His scientific bent then took the turn of constructing a fire balloon (after the pattern of the Parisian Montgolfières of 1783), with which on 27 Aug. 1784 he made an ascent at Comely Gardens, Edinburgh, to a height of 350 feet (see Gent. Mag. 1784, ii. 709, 711). Attributing his want of perfect success to the smallness of the stove, he constructed another with an enlarged stove, in which he endeavoured to ascend one morning unwitnessed by any one. It began to ascend with great force, but coming in contact with a tree the stove was broken, and Tytler found himself unable to prosecute the experiment further. He was ‘the first person in Great Britain to navigate the air,’ and, with the exception of Smeath in 1837, the only aeronaut to use a Montgolfière in this country (cf. Turnor, Astra Castra, p. 56; and art. Lunardi, Vicenzo).
In 1786 he published ‘The Observer,’ a weekly paper, extending to twenty-six numbers and comprising a series of essays; and in 1788 he published a system of geography. Other works by him are ‘The Hermit, imitated from Virgil's “Silenus”’ (Edinburgh, 1782); a ‘History of Edinburgh;’ ‘The Edinburgh Geographical, Historical, and Commercial Grammar;’ and ‘A Dissertation on the Origin and Antiquity of the Scottish Nation’ (London, 1795, 8vo). His abilities as a writer of verse are shown in various songs signed ‘T.’ contributed to Johnson's ‘Musical Museum,’ including ‘The Bonnie Bruckel Lassie,’ with the exception of the first two lines; ‘As I came by Loch Erochside;’ ‘As I went over yon meadow;’ and ‘One night I dreamed.’
In 1792 Tytler joined the ‘Society of the Friends of the People,’ and shortly afterwards he published ‘A Pamphlet on the Excise,’ exposing the abuses of the government. The same year he started ‘The Historical Register, or Edinburgh Monthly Intelligencer,’ in which he set forth advanced views in regard to reform; and, having at the close of the year published ‘A Handbill addressed to the People,’ a warrant was issued for his apprehension. Learning the intentions of the authorities, he suddenly left Edinburgh, and, crossing over to Ireland, sailed thence to America. Failing to appear at the high court of justiciary, Edinburgh, he was outlawed on 7 Jan. 1793. Shortly after his arrival in America he proceeded to Salem, Mass., where he conducted a newspaper until his death in 1805 in his fifty-eighth year.
[A Biographical Sketch of the Life of James Tytler, Edinburgh, 1805 (with engraved portrait), is attributed to Robert Meek. See also Kay's Edinburgh Portraits; Laing's edition of Stenhouse's Notes to Johnson's Musical Museum, 1853; Anderson's Scottish Nation.]
TYTLER, PATRICK FRASER (1791–1849), Scottish historian, born in 1791, was youngest son of Alexander Fraser Tytler, lord Woodhouselee [q. v.], and of his wife, Ann Fraser, eldest daughter and heiress of William Fraser of Balnain in Inverness-shire. He was educated at the high school of Edinburgh, and at home under tutors. In 1808, when seventeen, he was sent to a school at Chobham, kept by Charles Vernon, curate to Richard Cecil [q. v.] Returning home in the autumn of 1809, he attended lectures on classics and law at the university of Edinburgh, but early showed a predilection for history.
As a young man he read widely, and early commenced authorship by writing an ‘Essay on the History of the Moors during their Government in Spain,’ of which he had made a sketch before he went to England. He also composed a masque, on the model of ‘Comus,’ which was acted in 1812 at Woodhouselee by members of his family. His father died on 4 June 1813, and on 3 July of the same year Tytler was called at the age of twenty-one to the Scottish bar. In the summer of 1814 he visited Paris with his friends William Pulteney Alison [q. v.], the physician, and Archibald (afterwards Sir Archibald) Alison [q. v.], the historian. He was appointed in 1816 king's counsel in exchequer, an office worth about 150l. a year. After his father's death he lived with his mother during vacation at a villa on the Esk, where he frequently saw Walter Scott, who had then a cottage at Lasswade. He continued to practise at the bar till 1832, but never obtained much business, and devoted most of his time to general reading. In the summer of 1818 he made a short tour to Norway with David Anderson of St. Germains, and was at Trondhjem when the king Bernadotte and Prince Oscar of Sweden made their entry.
He began to write occasionally for ‘Blackwood's Magazine,’ and in 1819 he published his first work, ‘The Life of the Admirable Crichton of Cluny, with an Appendix of Original Papers’ (Edinburgh, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1823, 12mo). He showed in this, as in all his historical work, an instinctive desire to go to the original sources, a desire less common then than now. In 1822 he took part, with Walter Scott, in forming the Bannatyne Club. Tytler became its poet-laureate, and his verses under the name of ‘Garlands’ were composed for the anniversaries of the club, at which they were sung, and were
