Chapter Sellar to Shairp of S by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

maintains, as against Hobbes, the existence of a moral sense, a view subsequently developed by the Scottish school of philosophy. The style of Shaftesbury is stately and sonorous but laboured. He died at Naples, whither he had gone in search of health, at the early age of 42. Though his writings are directed strongly against Atheism, they have been held to be hostile to a belief in revelation.

Shairp, John Campbell (1819-1885).—Poet and critic, educated at Glasgow and Oxford, became Professor of Latin at St. Andrews 1861, Principal of the United College there 1868, and Professor of Poetry at Oxford 1877-87. Among his writings are Kilmahoe and other Poems (1864), Studies in Poetry and Philosophy (1868), Culture and Religion (1870), and a Life of Burns in the English Men of Letters Series. He also collaborated with Professor Tait in writing the Life of Principal Forbes (q.v.), and edited the Journal of Dorothy Wordsworth.