Grampian Club > Leaves from my autography

LEAVES PROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 25
upon to refer a little more fully to Mr Dempster
personally. His public history is well known. It
was bruited that he was a disciple of David Hume,
and that he cherished infidel sentiments, but what-
ever his private views were, my father assured me he
publicly evinced not only a marked respect for re-
ligion, but was careful to assert its obligations. His
letters to my father indicate a recognition of provi-
dential care. Mr Dempster was benevolent, even in
excess of his resources. My father saw him des-
patch a budget of money to Woodfall, the celebrated
printer, learning that he was in difficulty. With
Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, James Macpherson,
and other notable persons, he was in habits of friend-
ship, and had maintained a correspondence, but some
time before his death he destroyed his MSS. In
answer to a hint that he would be pleased to under-
take his biography, Mr Dempster wrote my father in
June 1816 a letter, which contains these words : '' You
joke about the life of an individual to whom nothing
but oblivion belongs :
" ' Vixi et, quern dederat cursum fortuna, peregi.' "
Mr Dempster died in February 1818, in his eighty-
fourth year. My father testified that the designation
of " Honest George " was correctly applied to him, as
he was actuated by a pure and stainless patriotism.
Disappointed in obtaining ecclesiastical preferment,
my father resolved to attempt a literary career in the