HOME (JOHN), a Scottish dramatic writer of great celebrity, was born at Leith, on the 13th Sep tember 1722. His father, Mr Alexander Home, was Town-Clerk of that place, and his mother was a daughter of Mr John Hay, a writer, or solicitor, in Edinburgh. He acquired the elementary branches of his classical education under Mr Hugh Millar, master of the grammar school of Leith, and enter ed the University of Edinburgh in 1735, where he soon contracted an intimacy with William Robert son, William Wilkie, Alexander Carlyle, Hugh Blair, John Blair, Sir Gilbert Elliot, Sir John Dal rymple, and several others, afterwards well known in the literary world. After having attended the Hu manity Class, taught by Mr Kerr, one of the best Latin scholars of the age, Mathematics, taught by the celebrated Maclaurin, Logic, taught by Dr Ste venson, who contributed more than any other man in Scotland to inspire the young men of that period with a taste for good writing and rational investiga tion, he proceeded to the study of Moral and Natu ral Philosophy, under Sir John Pringle and Sir Ro bert Stewart, and then passed through the usual routine of theological instruction. He was licensed by the Presbytery of Edinburgh, as a preacher of the gospel, on the 4th of April 1745.
Before he had enjoyed many opportunities of ex ercising this peaceful function, Scotland became the scene of a civil war ; and the ardour of his mind, int..
bued as it was with a love of enterprise, and a boundless admiration of military glory prompted him, on the first news of the approach of the rebel army, to join an armed association, formed by the inhabitants of Edinburgh, for the defence of the city. On the 9th of September 1745, he was enrolled in the College Company of Volunteers, a corps which was dissolved within a week, when the city was taken possession of by the Pretender's troops. But Mr Home and a few other spirited young men again formed them. selves into a more select and efficient company, in the month of November, and subsequently obtained permission from General Hawley to serve in the field. Of this company, Dr William McGhie was chosen captain, and Mr Home lieutenant. He had the command of the company on the 17th Janu ary 1746, at the battle of Falkirk, where, having re ceived no orders to act, he was an indignant witness of the disgraceful rout of the royal forces, which had fought so well at Dettingen and Fontenoy, and hav ing been one of the last to retreat, he was taken pri soner, with five of his company. They were sent to
the Castle of Down, in Perthshire, on the 25th of January ; but Mr Home, with some of his fellow prisoners, escaped on the 31st, by twisting their blankets into ropes, and dropping from the bat tlements, a height of seventy feet. At this time Mr Home was not less remarkable for the ele gance and symmetry of his person, than for his engaging and prepossessing address. His appear ance bespoke great vivacity, activity, and energy ; his conversation was not merely cheerful, but un commonly sprightly and animated ; and the unceas ing kindness which beamed from his countenance, and marked every action of his life, was such as to render him an universal favourite. • In the course of the year 1746, after the death of Mr Robert Blair, minister of Athelstaneford, and author of the well-known poem The Grave, Mr Home obtained the presentation to the living, by the inte rest of Alexander Home of Eccles, afterwards Soli citor•General. He was ordained to the charge of the parish in February 1747, and was very accept able to the parishiooers. During a considerable part of his incumbency, he gave the use of his manse to Mr Hepburn of Keith, a gentleman who had been engaged in both the rebellions in 1715 and 1745, and whose insinuating manners and en ticing conversation in some measure reconciled Mr Home to the character of the Jacobites. He boarded himself in the house of a grazier or butcher in the village at the moderate rate of L.12 a-year; but as he passed a great part of his time among his nume rous friends in the neighbourhood; it is believed that his host was not inadequately remunerated. Mr Home was frequently absent from his lodgings from Monday morning till Saturday night, and though lie wrote a considerable number of dis courses for the pulpit, he seldom left himself time to finish any one of them. After writing about two thirds of a sermon and committing it to memory, he generally trusted for the remainder to the moment of delivery. These unpremeditated perorations, oc casionally eloquent, were delivered with more than his usual vehemence of action, and are said to have been not a little admired by his rustic audience.