Matheson Collection > Reliquiae Celticae > Ossianica, with memoir of Dr. Cameron

EARLY DAYS. XXXV.
The list is " a never ending one," and includes the chief works
of Shakespeare, Southcy, Ben Johnson, Landor, Coleridge, Carlyle,
Pope, Thomson, Chatterton, Johnson, Swift, Bunyan, Hooker,
Brown (Sir T.), Dunbar, Burns, Milton, Cowper, Hallam, Taylor ;
also, Goethe, Lessing, Rosenkranz, and Plutarch, Herodotus,
Thucydides, Aristotle, &c.
In parting with this episode in Mr Cameron's career, a word
may be added in reference to the subsequent but brief course of
Mr Bruce's life. Whether due to intense longing for a larger
sphere of usefulness and better opportunity of mental improve-
ment, or, as is more likely, to impaired health — of which there is
ample indication in the above letters — and to the constant exercise
of the sword proving too much for the worn scabbard, Mr Bruce
shortly after this date felt the labour and tension of teaching more
trying and irksome than profitable. He felt keenly the necessity,
but fully realised the wisdom, of retiring from all duty, which he
did in the autumn of 1856. And it was not long afterwards when
the mind once so full of activity and promise succumbed to the
unequal strain, and the imprisoned vital spark found final release
from the rough and tumble of this work-a-day world.