Born, at Leith, 22 Sept. 1722. Educated at Leith Grammar School, and at Edinburgh Univ. Licensed Probationer of Presbyterian Church, 4 April 1745. Enlisted as Volunteer during Rebellion of 1745–46. Minister of Athelstaneford, 11 Feb. 1747. Tragedy “Agis” refused by Garrick, 1747. Tragedy “Douglas” refused by Garrick, 1755; performed in Edinburgh, 14 Dec. 1756; produced at Covent Garden, 14 March 1757. Pension of £100 from Princess of Wales, 1857. Returned to Scotland. Indicted by Presbytery; resigned ministry, 7 June, 1757. Tutor to Prince of Wales, 1757. Sec. to Lord Bute, 1757. “Agis” produced by Garrick at Drury Lane, 21 Feb. 1758. “The Siege of Aquileia” produced at Drury Lane, 21 Feb. 1760. Pension of £300 from George III., 1760. Conservator to Scots Privileges at Campvere, Holland (sinecure), 1763–70. “The Fatal Discovery” produced at Drury Lane, 23 Feb. 1769. Married Mary Home, 1770. “Alonzo” produced at Drury Lane, 27 Jan. 1773. To Bath with Hume, April 1776; to Edinburgh with him, July 1776. “Alfred,” produced, at Drury Lane, 21 Jan. 1778. Enlisted in South Fusiliers, 1778. Died, at Murchiston, 5 Sept. 1808. Works: “Douglas” (anon.), 1757; “Agis” (anon.), 1758; “The Siege of Aquileia” (anon.), 1760; “Dramatick Works,” 1760; “The Fatal Discovery” (anon.), 1769; “Alonzo” (anon.), 1773; “Alfred” (anon.), 1778; “The History of the Rebellion in … 1745,” 1802. Collected Works: ed. by H. Mackenzie (3 vols.), 1822. Life: by H. Mackenzie, 1822.

Personal

  John Home was an admirable companion, and most acceptable to all strangers who were not offended with the levities of a young clergyman, for he was very handsome and had a fine person, about 5 feet 10¹/₂ inches, and an agreeable, catching address; he had not much wit, and still less humor, but he had so much sprightliness and vivacity, and such an expression of benevolence in his manner, and such an unceasing flattery of those he liked (and he never kept company with anybody else),—the kind commendations of a lover, not the adulation of a sycophant,—that he was truly irresistible, and his entry to a company was like opening a window and letting the sun into a dark room.

  His temper was of that warm susceptible kind which is caught with the heroic and the tender, and which is more fitted to delight in the world of sentiment than to succeed in the bustle of ordinary life. This is a disposition of mind well suited to the poetical character, and, accordingly, all his earliest companions agree that Mr. Home was from his childhood delighted with the lofty and heroic ideas which embody themselves in the description or narrative of poetry…. Mr. Home’s favourite amusement was angling.

  It is said that the only approaches to a disagreement in the long and intimate friendship existing between these “two Humes” were regarding the relative merits of claret and port, and in relation to the spelling of their name, the philosopher in early life having adopted the orthography indicated by the pronunciation, the poet and preacher always clinging to the old and invariable custom of his family. David carried the discussion so far that on his death-bed he added a codicil to his will, written with his own hand, to this effect: “I leave to my friend Mr. John Home, of Kilduff, ten dozen of my old claret at his choice; and one other bottle of that other liquor called port. I also leave him six dozen of port, provided that he attests, under his hand, signed John Hume, that he has himself alone finished that bottle at a sitting. By this concession he will at once terminate the only difference that ever arose between us concerning temporal matters.” It is to be inferred that this is a joke which got into the head of one Scotchman without a surgical operation.

  Now he became part of Edinburgh society. A welcome addition he proved, with his hearty laugh, his unfailing good-humour; and he was happy once more in the company of his old friends Hume and Blair, Ferguson and Robertson. He and Hume enjoyed a banter, and a favourite subject was their names, which were pronounced alike, and had been spelt the same till the historian changed his paternal surname of “Home to Hume.”… Home’s exuberant praise of everybody and everything was not empty flattery, but sheer good-heartedness; and even his vanity over his achievements was likeable.

Douglas, 1754

  On Wednesday, February the 2d, 1757, the Presbytery of Glasgow came to the following resolution. They having seen a printed paper, intituled, “An admonition and exhortation of the reverend Presbytery of Edinburgh;” which, among other “evils” prevailing, observing the following “melancholy” but “notorious” facts: that one who is a minister of the church of Scotland did “himself” write and compose a “stage-play,” intituled, “The tragedy of Douglas” and got it to be acted at the theatre of Edinburgh; and that he with several other ministers of the church were present; and “some” of them “oftener than once,” at the acting of the said play before a numerous audience. The presbytery being “deeply affected” with this new and strange appearance, do publish these sentiments, &c.

  With great pleasure I have more than once perused your tragedy. It is interesting, affecting, pathetic. The story is simple and natural; but what chiefly delights me, is to find the language so pure, correct, and moderate. For God’s sake, read Shakespeare, but get Racine and Sophocles by heart. It is reserved to you, and you alone, to redeem our stage from the reproach of barbarism.

  I can now give you the satisfaction of hearing that the play, though not near so well acted in Covent Garden as in this place, is likely to be very successful. Its great intrinsic merit breaks through all obstacles. When it shall be printed (which shall be soon) I am persuaded it will be esteemed the best, and by French critics the only tragedy of our language.

  The extraordinary merits of this performance, which is now become to Scotchmen a subject of national pride.

  The “Douglas” of Home is not recommended by his species of merit. In diction and character it does not rise above other productions of the period. But the interest turns upon a passion which finds a response in every bosom; for those who are too old for love, and too young for ambition, are all alike awake to the warmth and purity of maternal and filial affection. The scene of the recognition of Douglas’s birth possesses a power over the affections, which when supported by adequate representation, is scarce equalled in the circle of Drama. It is remarkable that the ingenious author was so partial to this theatrical situation, as to introduce it in several of his other tragedies.

  I think nobody can bestow too much praise on “Douglas.” There has been no English tragedy worthy of the name since it appeared.

  His great dramatic essay was a grievous offence against the laws of his church, to the practical duties of which he had again surrendered himself. Had it not been that Sarah Ward was willing to help author and friends, even the reading of “Douglas” would never have come off. Sarah lent her sitting room in the Canongate, to Home; and Digges was present and silent, for once, with Mrs. Ward, to enact audience. The characters were thus cast; and a fine group of intellectual persons, sitting as they could best catch the light, in an obscure room of the Cannongate, cannot well be imagined. Lord Randolph (or Barnard, according to the original cast) was read by Robertson; Glenalvon, by the greater historian, David Hume; Old Norval, by the famous Dr. Caryle, the minister of Musselburgh; and Douglas, by Home, in right of authorship. Lady Randolph was allotted to Professor Ferguson; and the part of Anna was read by Dr. Blair, the minister of the High Church, and author of the once popular sermons! But the Presbyteries of Edinburgh and Glasgow speedily denounced author, play, dramatists, and dramas generally, as instruments and children of Satan; and excommunicated, not only Home, but actors and audiences, and all abettors and approvers! The triumph of the play compensated for every thing. The nation confirmed the sentiment of the critic in the pit, whose voice was heard in the ovation of the first night, exultingly exclaiming, “Weel, lads, what do ye think o’ Wully Shakspeare, noo?”

  The indisputable merits of the play cannot blind us to the fact that “Douglas” is the child of “Merope.”

  All the dramatic capital of “Douglas” is exhausted in telling a sentimental tale; for characters there are none. There is, it is true, some poetry in the piece; but it is poetry of a weak type, pretty, but not beautiful, mildly interesting, but not rousing with new and great thoughts.

  A sort of affection, mingled with contempt, and connected with the universally known “My name is Norval,” keeps in twilight rather than utter darkness the once famous “Douglas” of Home. But it is pretty certain that most audiences, and almost all modern readers, would be affected by it with the same sort of fou rire as that which Thackeray, by a slight anachronism, ascribes to General Lambert and Mr. George Warrington at an early performance of the play.

  “Douglas” was successful—though it only ran a usual nine nights at first. On the third night the Duke of Cumberland handed twenty guineas to the elated author, his pride not objecting to take what an author out-at-elbows would blush now to have offered. Society found a charm about the play which struck a finer note than the turgid dramas which were fashionable at that time; there were true touches of nature, a chord of human tragedy, a vein of poetry, which, though the play does not appeal strongly to us to-day, made it, by contrast with the bombast and fustian then in vogue, deserving of the honour it won. The fastidious Mr. Gray wrote to his friend Horace Walpole that the author of “Douglas” “seems to have retrieved the true language of the stage, which has been lost for a hundred years, and there is one scene (between Lady Randolph and the stranger) so masterly that it strikes one blind to all its defects.” It was played with success in Ireland; and Thomas Sheridan, the manager, munificently sent from Dublin a gold medal—worth £10—as a mark of admiration of the author. This Dr. Johnson stigmatised in his sweeping way not merely as a piece of impudence, but as an act of folly in rewarding a play “without ten good lines.” English praise was high, but the enthusiasm of Scotsmen was boundless. The drama was proclaimed “the first of English tragedies”—though really and chronologically it was only the first of Scottish tragedies. The delighted dramatist absorbed the flattery and believed it all. He had not that modest self-estimate shown by Dr. Samuel Johnson, who, when he was informed that young Mr. Pott, the poet, had pronounced “Irene” “the finest tragedy of modern days,” growled out, “If Pott says so, Pott lies.”

  The literary merits are not so apparent to modern readers as they were to his contemporaries, but which had its own literary importance as a precursor of the romantic revival which was ere long to make itself more distinctly felt…. The excellence, as literature, of Home’s tragedy has not been accepted by posterity; and its importance as an instrument in affecting thought may well be doubted.

General

  Mr. Home, author of the tragedy of “Douglas,” is also to be numbered in the list of Scotish song writers; but it must be confessed that “The Banks of the Dee” has lost much of its popularity, though surely nothing of its merit, since the “valiant Jemmy” failed to “quell the proud rebels.” That Jemmy’s ghost now wanders on those banks, instead of his person, might be no improper or unpathetic subject for a second part.

  Home’s other tragedies are all very indifferent,—most of them quite bad. Mr. Mackenzie should not have disturbed their slumbers.

  The work of Home was not entirely such as might have been expected from one who was not only an actor in the scene, but the author of a tragedy like “Douglas,” elegant enough to have pleased on the French stage, and yet affecting enough to succeed on ours. The “History of the Rebellion” was a work which had been meditated so long, that it was delivered to the world too late,—when the writer was no longer what he once was. But I recommend it to your perusal, because it has all the marks of authenticity; possesses, I think, more merit than is generally supposed; treats of a very remarkable event in our history; and is, after all, entertaining, and not long.

  So much of the flavour of Home’s work has evaporated that the reader of the present day almost inevitably asks what is the secret of the extraordinary popularity he enjoyed in his own time. As far as Scotland is concerned, the explanation might be supposed to lie, and no doubt did in part lie, in the feeling of patriotism. Home was the representative Scot of literature, and the honour of his country was bound up with his. But he was scarcely less warmly received in England; and a Scot living in England under the Bute administration was not the person to arouse a prejudice in favour of himself. The explanation of the popularity must therefore be sought within Home’s writings, and not in external circumstances. It was probably due to the fact that his dramas appeal to sentiment; and thus, in an age when the appeal to reason had been somewhat overdone, they caught the fancy of the multitude. So long as the love of melodrama survives, and it is perennial, work such as Home’s is sure of a temporary popularity…. Home was a man who could harp with success upon one string; but he could do nothing more. However foreign it might be to his plot, he must either enlist the spirit of sentiment or fail. To the true heroic he could not rise. He had glimmerings of it in his soul, his heart warmed to it, but he could not express it. Now that the glitter of novelty is gone, it is easy to see that a niggard nature had denied him the wreath of the vates sacer. Johnson, whose scornful disbelief in Home is well known, though he expressed his opinion in exaggerated language, was essentially right. But a literary reputation is rarely achieved without some more or less real foundation; and Home’s power was real within the limits of sentiment. He was master of a kind of pathos cognate to, yet different from, that of “East Lynne.” He could at least make a martial figure stalk with a gallant bearing across the stage, and he could fill his mouth with sounding phrases. It ought in justice to be added that he has occasional lines of a high order.

  No mortal now can go over any of Home’s laborious tragedies except “Douglas;” and one may apply to them the verdict which the Marquis of Wellesley passed on Dr. Johnson’s Latin verses—“All of them are bad, but some of them are worse than others.” We need not, however, superciliously laugh at Home’s defunct tragedies, for they admirably suited the taste of the age. All dramatists gave the same sort of produce for the stage, and society, strange to say, admired it.