Tyrtjeus
edinburgh published tytler
TYRTJEUS, Greek elegiac poet, lived at Sparta about 1. ALEXANDER FRASER TYTLER (1747-1813), Lord the middle of the 7th century B.c. According to the Woodhouselee, Scottish judge, was the eldest son of William legend current in later times, he was a native of the Tytler (see below), and was born at Edinburgh on 15th Attic deme of Aphidnw, and was invited to Sparta, on October 1747. After passing through the High School, the suggestion of the Delphic oracle, to assist the Spartans he was sent in 1763 to a school at Kensington taught by in the Second Messenian War. It is difficult, if not im- Dr Elphinston, the translator of Martial's Epigrams. He possible, to determine the element of truth in this story. returned to Edinburgh in 1765, skilled in Latin versificaHerodotus at least either did not know, or disbelieved, tion, and with a competent knowledge of Italian, and a the tradition, which meets us first in Plato (Laws, i. 629A), taste for drawing and natural history. He was called to to the effect that, although Tyrtwus was by birth an the bar in 1770. His first work, a supplement to the Athenian, he had the Spartan citizenship conferred upon Dictionary of Decisions, undertaken on the suggestion of Lord Karnes, was published in 1778, and a continuation appeared in 1796. In 1780 Tytler was appointed conjoint professor of universal history in the university of Edinburgh, becoming sole professor in 1786. In-1782 he published Outlines of his course of lectures, afterwards extended awl republished under the title of Elements of General History. The Elements has passed through many •editions, and has been translated into several European languages as well as into Hindustani. The lectures themselves were published in 1834 in Murray's Family Library. In 1790 Tytler was appointed judge-advocate of Scotland, and while holding this office he wrote a Treatise on the Law of Courts-Martial. In 1801 he was raised to the bench, taking his seat (1802) in the court of session as Lord Woodhouselee. He died at Edinburgh on 5th January 1813.
Besides the works already mentioned, he was the author of several papers in the Mirror, the Lounger, and the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ; he also wrote Life and Writings of Dr John Gregory ; Essay on the Principles of Translation, 1790 ; a dissertation on Final Causes, prefixed to his edition of Derham's PhysicoTheology, 1799; a political pamphlet entitled Ireland profiting by Example, 1799 ; an Essay on Laura and Petrarch ; and The Life and Writings of Henry Home, Lord Names, 1807.
During the progress of his History a large amount of other work came from his pen, as the following list shows : - Lives of Scottish Worthies, for Murray's Family Library, 3 vols., 1831-33 ; Historical View of the Progress of Discovery in America, 1832, and Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, 1833, for the Edinburgh Cabinet Library ; Life of Henry VIIL, 1837 ; England under the Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, from original letters, 2 vols., 1839 ; article "Scotland" in the seventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (afterwards published separately as a school history) ; Notes on The Darnley Jewel, 1843 ; on the Portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, 1845 (privately printed) ; and Memoirs of the War carried on in Scotland and Ireland, 1689-91, by General Mackay, edited in conjunction with Hog and Urquhart, and presented to the Banuatyue and Maitland Clubs in 1833.
3., WILLIAM TYTLER (1711 -1792), of Woodhouselee, writer on historical and antiquarian subjects, was the son of Alexander Tytler, writer in Edinburgh, and was born in that city on 12th October 1711. He was educated at the High School and the university, and, having adopted his father's profession, was in 1744 admitted into the society investigation. In 1759 he published an Inquiry, Historical and Critical, into the Evidence against Mary Queen of Scots, and an Examination of the Histories of Dr Robertson and Mr Hume with respect to that Evidence. This work, which warmly defended the character of the queen, met with great success. Four editions, the later ones considerably enlarged, were published in the author's lifetime; and it was translated into French. In 1783 he published the Poetical Remains of James the First, King of Scotland, to which he added a dissertation on the life and writings of the royal author. He wrote an essay on "Scottish Music," which was appended to Arnot's History of Edinburgh. His " Dissertation on the Marriage of Queen Mary to the Earl of Bothwell " and " Observations on the Vision, a Poem," appeared in the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1791-92). A paper in the Lounger, on "Defects of Modern Female Education," and an Account of Fashionable Amusements in Edinburgh in the Seventeenth Century complete the list of his works. He died at Edinburgh on 12th September 1792.

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