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PREFACE BY THE EDITOR
THOMAS SOMERVILLE, D.D., Minister of
Jedburgh, the author of the following Memoirs, was, as he himself
informs us, born on the 26th of February (old style) 1741. He died on
the 16th of May 1830, in the ninetieth year of his age. He had thus
lived through the whole of the long and eventful reign of George the
Third, having indeed nearly reached manhood at the date of its
commencement, and survived its close more than ten years. It was an age
not only of great events and great men, but one also
characterized—especially in Scotland—by social changes hardly less
memorable. Its nearness to our own times has added to the interest, for
many reasons, felt by us in whatever relates to the epoch in question.
Nor has that interest been lessened, but on the contrary greatly
increased,—indeed it has been mainly created,— by the copious
illustration which the history, and, above all, the personal and
domestic history of the whole period has already received.
With regard to the opportunities of observation enjoyed by the author of
the present autobiography, and his claim generally to be heard as a
chronicler of his own Life and Times, enough is probably said in the few
sentences of introduction, or may be gathered from the work itself. That
he was one of the latest survivors of a past generation is the ground on
which he himself seems chiefly to assert the privilege of writing these
Memoirs. His life, however, was not only greatly prolonged, but, in its
comparatively narrow sphere, had been more than usually active and
varied. He refers to his frequent, and occasionally intimate,
intercourse with many of the best known and some of the most
distinguished of his contemporaries. The list included such names as
those of Burke, Robertson, Dugald Stewart, Fox, Henry Dundas, Sir
Gilbert Elliot, the Duke of Portland, Mr. Pitt, President Blair, Sir
Henry Moncreiff and Dr. Erskine, Lord Kames, Henry Mackenzie, Lord Minto,
Sir Walter Scott. He had, however, not less ample opportunities of
becoming personally acquainted with the middle and the humbler classes
of society than—whether as regards rank or intellectual cultivation—with
the highest; and perhaps the portions of this autobiography which by
many readers will be found the most attractive, are those in which the
minister of Jedburgh speaks of the social condition and social usages of
his own parishioners, as these had been familiar to him in all their
changes during a course of pastoral labours extending over a period of
more than sixty years. Dr. Somerville is known as the author of two
historical works—the Histories of the Revolution, and of the Reign of
Queen Anne—which, besides other acknowledged merits, are distinguished
by their fairness and impartiality. The same qualities will, it is
believed, be found in this less elaborate performance, and, more
especially, great candour and liberality on the author’s part in his
judgments of the personal conduct and character of other men, with an
absence of anything approaching either to pretension or reticence in his
not very frequent or obtrusive allusions to himself and his own affairs.
The work was written in the years 1813 and 1814, and appears to have
been revised on more than one occasion afterwards. It was intended for
publication; and it may be proper to state, that in allowing an interval
of nearly half a century to elapse before making it public, the
representatives of the author have, as in now committing it to the
press, acted in fulfilment of his own instructions. A few notes have
been supplied by the Editor, chiefly for the purpose of identifying the
persons whose names are introduced in the course of the work. These
annotations will sometimes, perhaps, appear superfluous; but, upon the
whole, it has been thought advisable to follow a uniform rule on the
occasion of any name being mentioned for the first time.
Some account may be here given of the last years of the author, for the
sake of completing the narrative. There is not much to be told. Dr.
Somerville concludes his own recollections by expressing his gratitude
to God that up to the advanced age of seventy-three, which he had then
reached, he had been favoured with uninterrupted good health, and that
he was 'still in possession of the capacity of discharging the ordinary
duties of his profession, as well as enjoying the many blessings that
remained to him. With hardly any qualification, the same language might
have been used by him in his ninetieth year, and until within a few days
of his death. He never ceased to be able to take delight in the society
of his friends; or to find pleasure in his books—to the last,. too,
keeping himself abreast with the literature of the day;—or to feel a
keen interest in public events and questions; or, above all, to retain
that active solicitude for the welfare (both temporal and spiritual) of
every individual member of his flock, which, in a very remarkable
degree, characterized him throughout his long and useful life. Mr.
Lockhart, who, at this period, “ spent many pleasant hours under his
hospitable roof with Sir Walter Scott,” speaks of him as “ preserving
his faculties quite entire to a great old age,” and says, “We heard him
preach an excellent circuit sermon when he was upwards of eighty-two;
and at the judge’s dinner afterwards, he was among the gayest of the
company.”—(Life of Sir W. Scotty ch. viii.) In the year 1828, a public
dinner was given to him by his co-presbyters and some of his other
friends, on the occasion of his completing the sixtieth year of his
ministry. He was by that 'time the father of the Church of Scotland,
having outlived the whole of those of his brethren who were ministers of
the Church at the date of his own ordination. On Sunday the 9th of May
1830—to quote an obituary notice in a contemporary newspaper—“he
preached and dispensed the Lord’s Supper to his people, with much
animation, ability, and feeling, alluding in the close of the service to
the probability that it might be the last occasion of the kind on which
they might meet together..... He took a solemn leave of them on that
Sunday afternoon, and gave them what might be considered his parting
admonition and benediction. ‘Yet his eye was not dim, nor his natural
force abated.’ In the course of the same evening he became seriously
indisposed, .... and on the evening of the following Sabbath he departed
peacefully, rejoicing in the hopes and consolations of the gospel.”
Dr. Somerville is buried in the Lady Chapel of Jedburgh Abbey—a portion
of that beautiful ruin, which also goes by the name of “Latiner’s
aisle,” having at one time been used as a Grammar School; and, besides a
monument erected over the grave by his family, a murial tablet was
placed in the parish church a short time after his death by the heritors
of Jedburgh, "AS A MEMORIAL OF THEIR HIGH ESTEEM AND RESPECT FOR HIS
PUBLIC SERVICES AND PRIVATE WORTH”—esteem and respect which, it may be
here added, were largely shared by the whole of his parishioners,
without distinction of sect or party, and by a wide circle of personal
friends.
W. L.
Roxburgh, 25th March 1861.
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