On this point a recent writer says - "The
last baron of Kintail, Francis. Lord Seaforth, was, as Sir Walter
Scott has said, 'a nobleman of extraordinary talents, who must
have made for himself a lasting reputation had not his political
exertions been checked by painful natural infirmities.' Though deaf
from his sixteenth year and though labouring under a partial
impediment of speech, he held high and important appointments, and
was distinguished for his intellectual activities and attainments
... His case seems to contradict the opinion held by Kitto and others,
that in all that relates to the culture of the mind, and the
cheerful exercise of the mental faculties, the blind have the
advantage of the deaf. The loss of the ear, that 'vestibule of
the soul,' was to him compensated by gifts and endowments rarely
united in the same individual. One instance of the chief's
liberality and love of art may be mentioned. In 1796 he advanced
a sum of L1000 to Sir Thomas Lawrence to relieve him from pecuniary
difficulties. Lawrence was then a young man of twenty-seven. His
career from a boy upwards was one of brilliant success, but he was
careless and generous as to money matters, and some speculations
by his father embarassed and distressed the young artist.
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