Excerpt from Thomas Gordon, the "Independent Whig"

Unfortunately, we know very little about Thomas Gordon's own history, for, though a prodigal dispenser of Opinions, he was very sparing of the facts about his origins and career, so that we might very well call him Silentio rather than Silenus (an epithet applied to him because he happened to be a Commissioner of Wine Licenses) as Pope did in the Dunciad Gordon's own reticence was further accentuated by the disapproval of his Opinions on the part Of his literary countrymen. For example, Chalmers, in his General Bio graphical Dictionary dismisses the Independent Whig as a gross and indecent libel on the established religion, describes his style as extremely vulgar, and tells us that his Tacitus is miserably mangled. Thomas Murray in his Literary History of Galloway (1822) was even more shocked by Gordon's views, thinking it a fortunate circumstance that the Independent Whig was now known only by name N 0 family of the house of Gordon was anxious to claim kin with him, because the Gordons as a race have never greatly interested themselves in ideas - they are essen tially men of action - and least of all in radical ideas, so that be yond a note in a letter written by Sir Alexander Gordon of Culvennan to the effect that Gordon's brother was a surgeon in Glasgow, we are quite in the dark.

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