T/HE author, as he writes this article, has before him a photograph of a house which stood at Upper North Water Bridge, on the south side of the North Esk River, which there divides Angus from Mearns, and flows into the German Ocean a few miles below.The house consists of two apartments "a but and a ben," with possibly a closet, and a lower addition at one end {371} for a workshop.Here, a hundred years ago, lived a shoemaker, named James Mill, with several men under him; he was also a crofter farming some acres of land.His wife was Isabel Fenton, said to have been a woman of superior manners and intelligence, the daughter of a farmer who was out in the forty-five" on the pretender's side.In this house on April 6, 1773, was born James Mill, destined to exercise such an influence on thought.He was one of a family of three, having a brother William, who died young; and a sister Marjory, who married William Greig, who succeeded to her father's trade and left descendants in the district.He seems to have been educated at the school of his native parish, Logie-Pert.His abilities were discovered by his minister, Rev.Dr.Peter, of Logie-Pert, and by Rev.James Foote, of Fettercairn, some miles off, where was the family seat of Sir John Stuart, to whose notice Dr.Foote introduced him; and he was sent to the university of Edinburgh, his son says, " at the expense of a fund established by Lady Jane Stuart , and some other ladies for educating young men for the ministry." In the university of Edinburgh, he pursued the usual course in arts and theology, and attended the lectures of Dugald Stewart.We have no account of his student's life or his preacher's life; for he became a licentiate of the Church of Scotland." or a few years he was a private tutor in various families in Scotland, among others that of the Marquis of Tweeddale." He expected, it is said, to receive a presentation to the parish church of Craig, which, however, was given to Dr.
James Brewster, brother to (the afterwards) Sir David Brewster.People may speculate as to what sort of minister in faith and practice he would have become, had he been settled in that country parish of farmers and fishers.
We may believe that at no time had the ministry of the gospel any particular charm for him.In the year 1800, he went to London, where it is said that he preached in the Presbyterian churches.But he soon devoted himself to literature and authorship.{372} We do not know to which of the two strong parties in the church of Scotland he had attached himself, whether to the moderate or rationalistic, -- which Burns and most literary men favored,-or to the evangelical, to which Dr.Peter and Mr.James Foote belonged.It is not uncommon for Scotchmen, when they bury themselves in London, to lose their religious faith, which is so sustained by public opinion-as Mill would have said by association of ideas -- in their native land.With his usual reticence he has not furnished us with any account of the struggle which must have passed in his mind when he abandoned his belief, not only in the Bible, but in the very existence of God and providence.Such a record would have given us a deeper insight into the depths of human nature than all his refined metaphysical analyses.If he ever belonged sincerely to the evangelical party, there must have been a tremendous revulsion of feeling in the change.If he belonged to the moderates, he had little to abandon beyond the doctrines of natural religion.
He married -- it is curious that the son never refers to the lady -- not long after his settlement in London, and when he had no resource but the precarious one of writing in periodicals.He must have had a hard struggle in these times, but he bore it resolutely.A writer in the "Edinburgh Review" (July, 1873) describes him." In appearance he was strikingly like the portraits of Charles XII.of Sweden, with a lofty forehead, a keen and cutting face.His powers of conversation were extraordinary; but, both in his family and among his disciples, he was to the last degree tyrannical, arbitrary, and impatient of contradiction." "He was a harsh husband and a stern father." The first great literary work planned by him was the " History of British India," which he commenced and completed in about ten years, and published in 1817-18.In 1819 the Court of Directors of the India Company appointed him to the high post of assistant examiner of India correspondence, and he held this office till within four years of his death.He wrote articles in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica, " on government, education, jurisprudence, law of nations, liberty of the press, colonies, and prison discipline.He was also a contributor to the " Westminster Review," and the " London Review," which after a few months was merged in the " London and Westminster." In 1821-22 he published his " Elements of Political Economy; " in {373} 1829 his "Analysis of the Human Mind;" and in 1835 the " Fragment on Mackintosh,"being the last work before his death, which took place 23d June, 1836.