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 VOLUME- L 
 
 TH-E UWIYERSITY OF GLASGOW. 
 
 INNER COURT 
 
 6-LJ3S&OW, EDI/7BURG-H >?I7D
 
 A 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY 
 
 OF 
 
 EMINENT SCOTSMEN. 
 
 IN FOUR VOLUMES* 
 
 ORIGINALLY EDITED BY 
 
 EGBERT CHAMBEES. 
 
 NEW EDITION, REVISED UNDER THE CARE OF THE PUBLISHERS. 
 
 WITH A SUPPLEMENTAL VOLUME, 
 
 CONTINUING THE BIOGRAPHIES TO THE PRESENT TIME. 
 
 BY THE EEV. THOS. THOMSON, 
 
 AUTHOR or "THE HISTOBY OF SCOTLAND FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS," ETC., ETC. 
 
 WITH NUMEROUS PORTRAITS. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 ABERCROMBY CREECH. 
 
 BLACKIE AND SON: 
 
 GLASGOW, EDINBURGH, AND LONDON. 
 
 MD C CCLV.
 
 ^ 
 
 GLASGOW : 
 
 W. O. BLACKIK AND CO., PR1NTKE3, 
 VltLA FIELD.
 
 PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. 
 
 THE SCOTTISH BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY was originally printed 
 in four volumes, and completed in the year 1834, as will be 
 seen from the Editor's Preface, which is subjoined. A New 
 Edition, including memorials of the many eminent individuals 
 deceased since that date, having been called for, the Publishers, 
 besides reprinting from stereotype the four volumes of which 
 the Work was primarily composed, have added a fifth volume, 
 including the later lives adverted to, under the editorship of the 
 Eev. Thomas Thomson, author of the " History of Scotland for 
 the use of Schools," &c. 
 
 The stereotypes of the original Work have been revised under 
 the inspection of the Publishers. The alterations required to be 
 made consisted chiefly in bringing references to passing events, 
 and individuals living when the Work was written, into chrono- 
 logical harmony with the more advanced period of time in which 
 it now appears; the emendation of several verbal inaccuracies; 
 the correction of some erroneous statements ; and the interfusion 
 of the original Supplement. In executing this latter part of the 
 revision, it has been found needful, in a few cases to retrench, 
 in others to amplify, individual lives ; two or three biographies 
 have likewise been wholly re-written ; one additional memoir 
 added that of St. Aidan ; and seven, of persons who appeared to 
 have insufficient claims, have been suppressed. In Mr. Thomson's
 
 PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUME, besides the lives of individuals recently 
 deceased, a few belonging to more ancient times have been in- 
 serted, which were casually omitted in the original Work. 
 
 In order to enhance the value oi this edition, the series of 
 Illustrations has been greatly extended ; and the Work, in fact, 
 now presents a very complete Scottish Portrait Gallery. It need 
 scarcely be added, that by this combination of pictorial repre- 
 sentation with biographic delineation, the reader is made familiar 
 at once with the actions, the character, and the countenances of 
 many of those distinguished persons whose genius or exploits 
 have increased the fame of our native land. 
 
 GLASGOW, August, 1855.
 
 PKEFACE 
 
 ORIGINAL EDITION BY MR. ROBERT CHAMBERS. 
 
 A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY of eminent natives of Scotland lias been 
 regarded as a desideratum in our national literature, for the greater part 
 of a century. Such a work was successively contemplated by Sir David 
 Dalrymple and Mr William Smellie, each of whom proceeded so far 
 with the design as to write a few of the articles. When the editor of 
 the present work began a few years ago to inquire into the literary and 
 historical antiquities of his country, he found the desire of possessing a 
 dictionary of this kind not in the least abated, but very little hope enter- 
 tained that, under the existing prospects of literature, it would be pos- 
 sible to present such a book to the public. He proceeded, nevertheless, 
 perhaps rather under the influence of a peculiar enthusiasm, than any 
 wiser or more considerate motive, to take upon himself a task which at 
 least two of his predecessors had failed to accomplish, and for which he 
 could not but feel himself to be in many respects imperfectly qualified. 
 Sometime after beginning his labours, a fortunate alliance with his pre- 
 sent publishers, who had projected a similar work, removed many of 
 the original difficulties, and he was enabled to commence the publica- 
 tion in 1832. 
 
 In now taking a retrospective view of his labours, he sees, with some 
 regret, passages which he could amend, and even one or two articles 
 which, upon a more rigid estimate of merit, he would be disposed to 
 omit. He has much satisfaction, however, in reflecting that very few 
 instances of error in point of fact have been indicated to him ; so that 
 he is enabled to hope that his work, upon the whole, makes that near 
 approach to correctness, which is the most valuable feature in a book 
 of reference. 
 
 With regard to one very important point in the composition of the 
 work, he trusts he may be permitted to hazard an observation. Of the 
 many hundreds of persons whom he has commemorated, there are men 
 of all denominations, religious and political, and even some who were 
 the direct antagonists of each other, either in controversy or in civil 
 war. He is aware that the most of writers, under his circumstances, 
 would have felt it to be a duty, wherever there was occasion to allude
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 to points of controversy, to express their own views, and adjust the 
 estimate of every character by a reference to certain standards erected 
 in their own minds. Such the present editor did not feel to be his 
 duty. Considering that there can hardly be a Scottish Biographical 
 Dictionary on each side of the great questions, and, furthermore, disposed 
 to such a course by a sincere though humble desire to take a mild view 
 of the opinions and proceedings of all honourable men, he studied, on 
 the contrary, to confine himself to a simple representation of the pre- 
 possessions of the various individuals under his notice, even to the 
 extent, occasionally, of what may appear a tenderness, or perhaps some- 
 thing more, for the opinions of various opposite thinkers, and the deeds 
 of various contending partizans. Such a method of mem oil*- writing 
 may expose him to some degree of censure, in an age characterized so 
 much as the present by party heats ; but he trusts that it is the coiirse 
 which will be most approved of by those who may chance to consult his 
 pages in future times, when it is to be hoped that the most of the now 
 existing controversies will only be matter of historical curiosity. 
 
 While he experiences a natural, and, he hopes, allowable satisfaction 
 in thus bringing to a close the greatest literary undertaking of his 
 life, he cannot suppress a simultaneous feeling of regret at observing, 
 throughout his volumes, the names of so many men who, at the time 
 he commenced his undertaking, seemed little likely to go so soon through 
 that solemn change which was to fit them for commemoration in his 
 pages. Some of these he had the pleasure of considering as his friends ; 
 and the pain with which he found himself called upon to narrate their 
 biography, was proportionally great. Even in such a matter as this, 
 humanity may read a touching lesson of the frailty and uncertainty of 
 all that here belongs to it. 
 
 He cannot conclude without gratefully acknowledging the kindness 
 of many eminent and respectable individuals, in supplying him with the 
 information which he required, and also the zeal and talent displayed 
 by various gentlemen in assisting him in the details of the work. 
 
 Anne Street, Edinburgh, 
 November 7, 1334.
 
 EMINENT SCOTSMEN. 
 
 A. 
 
 ABERCROMBY, THE HONOURABLE ALEXANDER (Lord Abercromby), a distin- 
 guished lawyer of the latter part of the 18th century, and an elegant occasional 
 writer, was the youngest son of George Abercromby of Tullibody, in Clack- 
 mannanshire, and brother of the celebrated Sir Ralph Abercromby. He was born 
 on the 15th of October, 1745. While his elder brothers were destined for the 
 army, Alexander chose the profession of the law, which was more consistent 
 with his gentle and studious character. After going through the ordinary 
 course of classes at the university of Edinburgh, he became, in 1766, a member 
 of the Faculty of Advocates. He was at this early period of his life the fa- 
 vourite of all who knew him, not only for the uncommon handsomeness of his 
 person, but for the extreme sweetness of his disposition. Being given to the 
 gaieties of fashionable life, he had little relish for laborious employment ; so 
 that, for some years after his admission into the Faculty of Advocates, his 
 splendid abilities were well-nigh obscured by indolence or frivolity. Roused at 
 length to exertion, he engaged with ardour in all the duties of his profession, 
 and soon became eminent for professional skill, and distinguished as a most 
 eloquent pleader. His reputation and business rapidly increased, and soon 
 raised him to the first rank at the Scottish bar. In May, 1702, he was 
 appointed one of the judges of the Court of Session, when, in compliance with 
 the custom of the Scottish judges, he adopted the title of Lord Abercromby ; 
 and, in December following, he was called to a seat in the Court of Justiciary. 
 "In his judicial capacity he was distinguished by a profound knowledge of law, 
 a patient attention, a clearness of discernment, and an unbiassed impartiality which 
 excited general admiration." His literary performances and character are thus 
 summed up by his friend, Henry Mackenzie, who, after his death, undertook the 
 task of recording his virtues and merits for the Royal Society : " The laborious 
 employments of his profession did not so entirely engross him, as to preclude his 
 indulging in the elegant amusements of polite literature. He was one of that 
 , society of gentlemen who, in 1779, set on foot the periodical paper, published 
 at Edinburgh during that and the subsequent year, under the title of the
 
 2 JOHN ABERCROMBY. PATRICK ABERCROM BV. 
 
 Mirror ; and who afterwards gave to the world another work of a similar kind, 
 the Lounger, published in 1785 and 1786. To these papers he was a very valu- 
 able contributor, being the author of ten papers in the Mirror, and nine in the 
 Lounger.- His papers are distinguished by an ease and gentlemanlike turn of 
 expression, by a delicate and polished irony, by a strain of manly, honourable, 
 and virtuous sentiment." Mackenzie states that they are also characterized by 
 an unaffected tenderness, which he had displayed even in his speeches as a 
 barrister, and adduces the following specimen : " There is one circumstance," 
 says Mr Abercromby, in debating whether long or short life be most desirable, 
 " which with me is alone sufficient to decide the question. If there be anything 
 that can compensate the unavoidable evils with which this life is attended, and 
 the numberless calamities to which mankind are subject, it is the pleasure 
 arising from the society of those we love and esteem. Friendship is the cordial 
 of life. Without it, who would wish to exist an hour? But every one who 
 arrives at extreme old age, must make his account with surviving the greater 
 part, perhaps the whole, of his friends. He must see them fall from him by 
 degrees, while he is left alone, single and unsupported, like a leafless trunk, 
 exposed to every storm, and shrinking from every blast." Such was not destined 
 to be the fate of Lord Abercromby, who, after exemplifying almost every virtue, 
 and acting for some years in a public situation with the undivided applause of 
 the world, was cut off by a pulmonary complaint, at Falmouth, whither he 
 had gone for the sake of his health, on the 17th of November, 1795. 
 
 ABERCROMBY, JOHN, the author of several esteemed works on gardening, 
 was the son of a respectable gardener near Edinburgh, where he was born 
 about the year 1726. Having been bred by his father to his own profession, 
 he removed to London at the early age of eighteen, and became a work- 
 man in the gardens attached to the royal palaces. Here he distinguished 
 himself so much by his taste in laying out grounds, that he was encouraged 
 to write upon the subject. His first work, however, in order to give it greater 
 weight, was published under the name of a then more eminent horticulturist, 
 Mr iVlawe, gardener to the Duke of Leeds, under the title of Mawe's 
 Gardeners' Calendar. It soon rose into notice, and still maintains its place. 
 The editor of a recent edition of this work says, " The general principles 
 of gardening seem to be as correctly ascertained and clearly described by this 
 author, as by any that have succeeded him." And further, " The style of Aber- 
 cromby, though somewhat inelegant, and in some instances prolix, yet appears, 
 upon the whole, to be fully as concise, and at least as correct and intelligible, as 
 that of some of the more modern, and less original, of his successors." Aber- 
 cromby afterwards published, under his own name, The Universal Dictionary 
 of Gardening and Botany, in 4to. ; which was followed, in succession, by the 
 Gardeners' Dictionary, the Gardeners' Daily Assistant, the Gardeners' Vade 
 Mecum, the Kitchen Gardener and Hot-bed Forcer, the Hot-house Gardener, 
 and numerous other works, most of which attained to popularity. Aber- 
 cromby, after a useful and virtuous life, died at London in 1806, aged about 
 eighty years. 
 
 ABERCROMBY, PATRICK, historian, was the third son of Alexander Aber- 
 eromby of Fetterneir, in Aberdeenshire, a branch of the house of Birkenbog in 
 Banffshire, which again derived its descent from Abercromby of Abercromby 
 
 ' Nos. 4, 9, 18, 45, 51, 57, 65, 68, 87, 90, 104. 2 Nos. 3, 10, 14, 23, 30, 47, 74, 81, 91.
 
 PATRICK ABERCROMBY. 
 
 in Fife. Francis, the eldest son of Abercromby of Fetterneir, was created Lord 
 Glassford in 1685 ; but as the patent, by an extraordinary restriction, was 
 limited to his own life only, the title did not descend to his children. Patrick 
 Abercromby was born at Forf'ar in 1656, and was educated at the university of 
 St. Andrews, where he took the degree of Doctor in Medicine in 1C85. His 
 family being eminently loyal, the young physician is said to have changed his 
 religion, to please James VII., who consequently made him one of the physicians 
 of the court. A proceeding so adverse to all propriety, however loyal, and 
 accordant with the temper of the times, was speedily and severely punished ; 
 for, at the Revolution, Abercromby was deprived of his appointment. For 
 some years after he appears to have lived abroad ; but he returned to Scotland 
 in the rein of Queen Anne, and devoted himself to the study of national anti- 
 quities. In 1707, he published a translation of M. Beauge's very rare book, 
 L'Histoire de la Guerre d'Ecosse, 1556, under the title of, The History of the 
 Campagnes 1548 and 1549; being an exact account of the Martial Expeditions 
 performed in those days by the Scots and French on the one hand, and the 
 English and their foreign auxiliaries on the other : done in French by Mons. 
 Beauge, a French gentleman ; with an introductory preface by the Translator. 
 In the preface, the ancient alliance between Scotland and France is strenuously 
 asserted. This curious French work, which gives a complete account of the 
 war carried on by the Popish government of Cardinal Beatoun, aided by the 
 French, against the English under Protector Somerset, was reprinted in the 
 original by Mr Smythe of Methven for the Bannatyne Club, 1829, along with 
 a preface, giving an account of Abercromby's translation. The great work of 
 Dr Abercromby is in two volumes, folio, entitled, The Martial Achievements 
 of the Scots Nation. He tells us in the preface, that, not venturing to write 
 regular history or biography, he had resolved to relate the deeds of all the 
 great men of his country, in a less ambitious strain, and with a more minute 
 attention to small facts, than is compatible with those styles of composition. 
 He also, with great modesty, apologises for his manner of writing, by saying, 
 " When my reader is told that 'twas my fate to spend most part of my youth 
 in foreign countries, to have but viewed, en passant, the south part of Britain, 
 and to have been conversant with Roman and French, rather than with English 
 authors, he will not expect from me those modish turns of phrase, nor that 
 exact propriety of words, Scotsmen, by reason of their distance from the foun- 
 tain of custom, so seldom attain to." The first volume of the Martial Achieve- 
 ments was published, in 1711, by Mr Robert Freebairn, aud shows a respectable 
 list of subscribers. About one-half of it is occupied by the early fabulous 
 history of Scotland, in which the author, like almost all men of his time, and 
 especially the Jacobites, was a devout believer. It closes with the end of the 
 reign of Robert Bruce. The second volume appeared, with a still more nume- 
 rous and respectable list of subscribers, in 1715; it was partly printed by 
 Freebairn, and partly by Thomas Ruddiman, who not only corrected the 
 manuscript, but superintended its progress through the press. This is said by 
 Chalmers to have been the first typographical effort of Ruddiman. Aber- 
 cromby's Martial Achievements is upon the whole a very creditable work for a 
 Scottish antiquary of that period ; the author is not superior to the credulity 
 of his age and party, but he is eminently industrious, and his narrative 13 
 written in an entertaining style. The work shows a wide range of authorities, 
 and is liberally interspersed with controversial discussions of the points most
 
 SIR RALPH ABERCROMBY. 
 
 contested by antiquaries. Dr Patrick Abercromby died poor in 171G, or, as 
 other writers say, in 1726, leaving a widow in distressed circumstances. 
 
 ABERCROMBY, SIR RALPH, a distinguished general officer, under whom 
 the British arms met their first success in the French revolutionary war, was 
 the eldest son of George Abercromby of Tullibody, in Clackmannanshire, a 
 gentleman of ancient and respectable family, and of Mary, daughter of Ralph 
 Dundas of Manor. He was born at Menstrie, in the parish of Logic, on the 
 7th October, 1734. His education seems to have been regarded with more care 
 than was usually manifested by the Scottish country gentlemen of the early 
 and middle parts of the last century. After passing through the customary 
 course at Rugby, he became a student, first in the university of Edinburgh, 
 and subsequently in that of Gottingen. He entered the army, as cornet in the 
 3rd dragoon guards, May 23, 1756, and became a lieutenant, in the same regi- 
 ment, in the year 17GO ; which rank he held till April, 1762, when he ob- 
 tained a company in the 3rd horse. In this regiment he rose, in 1770, to the 
 rank of major, and, in 1773, to that of lieutenant-colonel. He was included 
 in the list of brevet colonels in 1780, and, in 1781, was made colonel of the 
 103rd, or king's Irish infantry, a new regiment, which was broken at the 
 peace in 1783, when Colonel Abercromby was placed on half-pay. It may 
 be noticed, in passing, that he represented the shire of Kinross in the British 
 parliament from 1774 till 1780; but made no attempt to render himself conspi- 
 cuous, either as a party-man or as a politician. In September, 1787, he was 
 promoted to the rank of major-general, and next year obtained the command of 
 the 69th foot. From this corps he was, in 1792, removed to the 6th foot ; 
 from that again to the 5th ; and in November, 1796, to the 2d dragoons, or 
 Scots Greys. 
 
 On the breaking out of the French revolutionary war, Abercromby had the 
 local rank of lieutenant-general conferred on him, and served with distinguished 
 honour in the campaigns of 1794 and 1795, under the Duke of York. He 
 commanded the advanced guard in the affair of Cateau (April 16, 1794), in 
 which Chapuy, the French general, was taken prisoner, and thirty-five pieces 
 of cannon fell into the hands of the British. In the reverses that followed, the 
 British army escaped entire destruction solely by the masterly manoeuvres of 
 Abercromby, who was second in command. He was wounded at Nimeguen, 
 in the month of October following; notwithstanding which, the arduous service 
 of conducting the retreat through Holland, in the dreadfully severe winter of 
 1794, was devolved wholly upon him and General Dundas. Than this retreat 
 nothing could be conceived more calamitous. The troops did all that could be 
 expected from them in the situation in which they were placed. Oppressed 
 by numbers, having lost all their stores, they made good their retreat in the 
 face of the foe, amidst the rigours of a singularly severe winter, resembling 
 more that of the arctic circle than that of the north of Germany. For the 
 removal of the sick, nothing could be procured but open waggons, in which 
 they were exposed to the intense severity of the weather, to drifting snows, and 
 heavy falls of sleet and rain. The mortality, of course, was very great. The 
 regiments were so scattered, marching through the snow, that no returns could 
 be made out, and both men and horses were found in great numbers frozen to 
 
 1 He was born in 1705, called to the bar in 1728, and died, June 8, 1800, at the advanced 
 age of ninety-five, being the eldest member of the college of justice.
 
 SIR RALPH ABERCROMBY. 
 
 death. "The march," says an eye-witness, "was marked by scenes of the 
 most calamitous nature. We could not proceed a hundred yards without seeing 
 the dead bodies of men, women, children, and horses, in every direction. One 
 scene," adds the writer, " made an impression on my mind, which time will 
 never be able to efface. Near a cart, a little further in the common, we per- 
 i ceived a stout-looking man and a beautiful young woman, with an infant about 
 seven months old at the breast, all three frozen dead. The mother had most 
 certainly died in the act of suckling her child, as, with one breast exposed, she 
 lay upon the drifted snow, the milk, to all appearance, in a stream drawn from 
 the nipple by the babe, and instantly congealed. The infant seemed as if its 
 lips had just then been disengaged, and it reposed its little head upon the mother's 
 bosom, with an overflow of milk frozen as it trickled down from its mouth. 
 Their countenances were perfectly composed and fresh, as if they had only 
 been in a sound and tranquil slumber." The British army reached De- 
 venter, after incredible exertion, on the 27th of January, 1795 ; but they 
 were not able to maintain the position, being closely pursued by a well- 
 appointed army, upwards of fifty thousand strong. They continued their 
 progress, alternately fighting and retreating, till the end of March, when the 
 main body, now reduced one-half, reached Bremen, where they were embarked 
 for England. Nothing could exceed the vigilance, patience, and perseverance 
 of General Abercromby during this retreat, in which he was ably seconded by 
 General Dundas and Lord Cathcart ; nor did the troops ever hesitate, when 
 ordered, to halt, face about, and fight, even in the most disastrous and distress- 
 ing circumstances. 
 
 While the French were making those gigantic efforts at home, which con- 
 founded all previous calculations in European warfare, they also made unex- 
 pected struggles abroad. They repossessed themselves in the West Indies of 
 Guadeloupe and St. Lucia, made good a landing upon several points in the 
 island of Martinique, and made partial descents on the islands of St. Vincent, 
 Grenada, and Marie Galante. In these various incursions they plundered, in 
 the several islands, property to the amount of one thousand eight hundred 
 millions of livres (about 72,000,000). To put an end to these depredations, 
 a fleet was fitted out in the autumn of the year 1795, for the purpose of con- 
 veying a military force to the West Indies; sufficient for not only protecting 
 what yet remained, but recovering that which had been lost. The charge of 
 the land troops was given to Sir Ralph Abercromby, with the appointment of 
 commander-in-chief of the forces in the West Indies. In consequence of this 
 appointment, he took the command, and hastened the embarkation ; and, 
 although the equinox overtook them, and, in the squalls that usually attend it, 
 several of the transports were lost in the Channel, the fleet made the best of its 
 way to the West Indies, and by the month of March, 1796, the troops were 
 landed and in active operation. St. Lucia was speedily captured by a detach- 
 ment of the army under Sir John Moore, as was St. Vincent and Grenada by 
 another under General Knox. The Dutch colonies, Demerara, Essequibo, and 
 Berbice, on the coast of Guiana, likewise fell into the hands of the British 
 about the same time almost without stroke of sword. The remainder of 1796 
 having been thus employed, Sir Ralph made preparations for attacking, early 
 in 1797, the Spanish island of Trinidad. For this purpose, the fleet sailed 
 with all the transports, from the island of Curacao on the morning of the 15th 
 February, 1797, and next day passed through the Barns into the Gulf of Bria,
 
 SIR RALPH ABERCROMBY. 
 
 where they found the Spanish admiral, with four sail of the line and one frigate, 
 at anchor, under cover of the island of Gaspagrande, which was strongly forti- 
 fied. The British squadron immediately anchored opposite, and almost within 
 gun-shot of the Spanish ships. The frigates, with the transports, were sent to 
 anchor higher up the bay, at the distance of about five miles from the town of 
 Port d'Espagne. Dispositions were immediately made for attacking the town 
 and the ships of war next morning by break of day. By two o'clock of the 
 morning, however, the Spanish squadron was observed to be on fire. The 
 ships burned very fast, one only escaping the conflagration, which was taken 
 possession of by the British. The Spaniards, at the same time that they had 
 set their ships of war on fire, evacuated the island. The troops, under Sir 
 Ralph Abercromby, were of course landed without opposition, and the whole 
 colony fell into the hands of the British. Sir Ralph next made an attack upon 
 Porto Rico, in which he was unsuccessful, and shortly after he returned to 
 Britain, and was received with every mark of respect. He had, in his absence, 
 been complimented with the colonelcy of the second dragoons or Scots Greys, 
 and nominated governor of the Isle of Wight. He was now (1707) advanced 
 to the dignity of the Bath, raised to the rank of a lieutenant-general, and in- 
 vested with the lucrative governments of Fort George and Fort Augustus. 
 
 The disturbed state of Ireland at this time calling for the utmost vigilance, 
 Sir Ralph Abercromby was appointed to the command of the forces in that 
 unhappy country, where he exerted himself most strenuously, though with less 
 success than could have been wished, to preserve order where any degree of it 
 yet remained, and to restore it where it had been violated. He was particularly 
 anxious, by the strictest attention to discipline, to restore the reputation of the 
 army ; for, according to his own emphatic declaration, it had become more for- 
 midable to its friends than to its enemies. During this command he did not 
 require to direct any military operations in person; and the Marquis Corn wall is 
 having received the double appointment of lord-lieutenant and Commander-in- 
 chief of the forces, Sir Ralph transferred his head-quarters to Edinburgh, ami, 
 on 31st of May, assumed the command of the forces in Scotland, to which he 
 had been appointed. 
 
 In the year 1799, an expedition having been planned for Holland, for the 
 purpose of restoring the Prince of Orange to the Stadtholdership, Sir Ralph 
 was again selected to take the chief command. The troops destined for this 
 service being assembled on the coast of Kent, sailed on the 13th of August, 
 under convoy of the fleet which was commanded by Vice-Admiral Mitchell ; 
 and, after encountering heavy gales, came to anchor off the Texel, on the 22d 
 of the month. On the 27th, the troops were disembarked to the south-west of 
 the Helder point, without opposition. Scarcely had they begun to move, how- 
 ever, when they were attacked by General Daendels, and a warm, but irregular, 
 action was kept up from five o'clock in the morning till five in the afternoon, 
 after which the enemy retired, leaving the British in possession of a ridge of 
 eand-hills stretching along the coast from south to north. In this day's evolu- 
 tions, the enemy lost upwards of one thousand men, and the British about half 
 that number. Encouraged by this success, Sir Ralph Abercromby determined 
 to seize upon the Helder next morning, when he would be in possession of a 
 seaport, an arsenal, and a fleet. The brigades of Generals Moore and Burrard 
 were ordered *to be in readiness to make the attack early in the morning; but 
 the garrison was withdrawn through the night, leaving a considerable train of
 
 SIR RALPH ABERCROMBY. 
 
 artillery, a naval magazine, thirteen ships of war, and three Indiamen, which 
 fell into the hands of the British without opposition. Admiral Mitchell, having 
 shipped pilots at the Helder, immediately stood down into the Texel, and 
 offered battle to the Dutch fleet lying there ; the whole of which, consisting of 
 twelve sail of the line, surrendered to the British admiral, the sailors refusing 
 to fight, and compelling their officers to give up the ships for the service of the 
 Prince of Orange. Taking the surrender of the fleet as the criterion of Dutch 
 feeling, the most extravagant hopes of the success of the expedition were enter- 
 tained by the people of England. The sentiments of the people of Holland, 
 generally, were not as yet in unison with those of her sailors, and every pre- 
 caution was taken for defence. The British army, in the meantime, left the 
 sand-hills, and took up a new position, their right extending to Petten, on the 
 German Ocean, and their left to Oude Sluys on the Zuyder Zee. A fertile 
 country was thus laid open to the invaders; while the canal of Zuyper, imme- 
 diately in front, contributed to strengthen their position, enabling them to 
 remain on the defensive, until the arrival of additional forces. At day-break 
 of llth September, the combined Dutch and French army attacked the 
 centre and right of the British lines, from St. Martins to Petten, with a 
 force of 10,000 men, which advanced in three columns ; the right, com- 
 posed of Dutch troops, commanded by General Daendels, against St. Martins ; 
 the centre, under De Monceau, upon Zuyper Sluys; and the left, com- 
 posed entirely of French troops, under General Brune, upon Petten. The 
 attack, particularly on the left and centre, was made with the most daring 
 intrepidity, but was repulsed by the British, and the enemy lost upwards of a 
 thousand men. On this occasion, General Sir John Moore was opposed to 
 General Brune, and distinguished himself by the most masterly manoeuvres; 
 and, had the British been sufficiently numerous to follow up their advantage, 
 the United Provinces might have shaken off the French yoke even at this early 
 period. The want of numbers was felt too late ; but, to remedy the evil, the 
 Russian troops, engaged for the expedition, were hastily embarked at the ports 
 of Cronstadt and Revel, to the number of seventeen thousand, under the com- 
 mand of General D'Hermann, and were speedily upon the scene of action. The 
 Duke of York now arrived as commander-in-chief ; and his army, with the 
 Russians and some battalions of Dutch troops, formed of deserters from the 
 Batavian army, and volunteers from the Dutch ships, amounted to upwards of 
 thirty-six thousand men, a force considerably superior to that under Generals 
 Daendels and Brune. In consequence of this, the Duke of York, in concert 
 with D'Hermann, made an immediate attack upon the enemy's position, which 
 was on the heights of Camperdown, and along the high sand-hills, extending 
 from the sea, in front of Petten, to the town of Bergen-op-zoom. Any defi- 
 ciency of numbers on the part of the enemy was far more than counterbalanced 
 by the advantages of their position ; improved, as it was, by strong entrench- 
 ments at the intermediate villages, and by the nature of the ground, intersected 
 by wet ditches and canals, whose bridges had been removed, and the roads ren- 
 dered impassable, either by being broken up, or by means of felled trees stuck in 
 the earth, and placed horizontally, so as to present an almost impenetrable barrier. 
 The attack, however, notwithstanding all disadvantages, was made with the most 
 determined resolution, early on the morning of the 19th of September, and was 
 successful at all points. By eight o'clock in the morning, the Russians, under 
 D'Hermann, had made themselves masters of Bergen-op-zoom; but they no
 
 8 SIR RALPH ABERCROMBY. 
 
 sooner found the place evacuated, than they flew upon the spoil, and began to 
 plunder the citizens, whom they had professedly come to relieve. The vigilant 
 enemy seized the opportunity to rally his broken battalions, and, being rein- 
 forced from the garrison at Alkmaav, attacked the dispersed Russians with so 
 much impetuosity, that the latter were driven from Bergen-op-zoom to .Schorel, 
 with the loss of Generals D'Hermann and Tcherchekoff, wounded and taken 
 prisoners. This failure of the Russians compelled the other three columns of 
 the British army to abandon the positions they had already stormed, and return 
 to the station they had left in the morning. For this disappointment three 
 thousand prisoners taken in the engagement was but a poor recompense ; while 
 the impression made upon the minds of the Dutch, by the conduct of the Rus- 
 sians, was incalculably injurious to the objects of the expedition. The conflict 
 was renewed on the 2d of October, by another attack 011 the whole line of the 
 enemy, the troops advancing, as before, in four columns, under Generals Aber- 
 cromby, D'Esson, Dundas, and Pulteney. The centre ascended the band-hills 
 at Campe, and carried the heights of Schorel ; and, after a vigorous contest, tlie 
 Russians and British obtained possession of the whole range of sand-hills in the 
 neighbourhood of Bergen-op-zoom ; but the severest conflict, and that which 
 decided the fate of the day, was sustained by the first column under Sir Ralph 
 Abercromby. He had marched without opposition to within a mile of Egmont- 
 op-Zee, where a large body of cavalry and infantry waited to receive him. Here 
 Sir John Moore led his brigade to the charge in person ; he was met by a 
 con nter-charge of the enemy, and the conflict was maintained till evening with 
 unexampled fury. The Marquis of Huntly, who, with his regiment (the 
 ninety-second), was eminently distinguished, received a wound by a musket- 
 ball in the shoulder ; and General Sir John Moore, after receiving two severe 
 wounds, was reluctantly carried off the field. Sir Ralph Abercromby had two 
 horses shot under him, but he continued to animate the troops by his example, 
 and the most desperate efforts of the enemy were unavailing. Their loss in this 
 day's engagement was upwards of four thousand men. During the night they 
 abandoned tbeir posts on the Lange Dyke and at Bergen-op-zoom, and next 
 day the British took up the positions that had been occupied by the French at 
 Alkmaar and Egmont-op-Zee. Brune having taken up a strong position be- 
 tween Beverwyck and the Zuyder Zee, it was determined to dislodge him 
 before tlie arrival of his daily-expected reinforcements. In the first movements 
 made for this purpose the British met with little opposition ; but the Russians, 
 under General D'Esson, attempting to gain a height near Buccum, were sud- 
 denly charged by an overwhelming body of the enemy. Sir Ralph Abercromby, 
 observing the critical situation of the Russians, hastened with his column to 
 support them. The enemy also sent up fresh forces, and the action, uudesignedly 
 by either party, became general along the whole line, from Lemmen to the sea, 
 and was contested on both sides with the most determined obstinacy. About 
 two o'clock in the afternoon, the right and centre of the Anglo- Russian army 
 began to lose ground, and retire upon Egmont ; where, with the co-operation 
 of tlie brigade under Major-General Coote, they succeeded in keeping the enemy 
 in check during the remainder of the day. Evening closed over the comba- 
 tants, darkened by deluges of rain; yet the work of mutual destruction knew 
 no intermission. The fire of musketry, which ran in undulating lines along 
 the hills, with the thunder-flash of the artillery, and the fiery train of the 
 death-charged shell, lighted up with momentary and fitful blaze the whole
 
 SIR RALPH ABERCROMBY. 
 
 horizon. About ten o'clock at night, worn out by such a lengthened period 
 of exertion, though their mutual hostility was not in the least abated, the con- 
 tending parties ceased fighting, and the British were left in possession of the 
 ground upon which they had fought, with upwards of two thousand of their 
 companions lying dead around them. General Brune was, in the course of the 
 night or next morning, reinforced by an addition of six thousand men, and the 
 ground he occupied was by nature and art rendered nearly impregnable. The 
 British lay through the night exposed to the weather, which was terrible, on 
 the naked sand-hills ; their clothing drenched, and their arms and ammunition 
 rendered useless by the rain. Nor was the inhospitality of the people less than 
 that of the elements; the greater part being violently hostile, and the remainder 
 sunk in supine indifference. Retreat was therefore a measure of necessity, and 
 next night, the 7th of October, about ten o'clock, amidst a deluge of rain, 
 the troops marched back to their former station at Petteu and Alkmaar, which 
 they reached without immediate pursuit or any serious loss. To embark, how- 
 ever, upon such a shore, and in the face of such an enemy, without great loss, 
 was impossible ; and, to prevent the unnecessary effusion of blood, an armistice 
 was proposed by the Duke of York, till the troops should be quietly embarked. 
 The French general was willing to accede to the proposal, provided the Dutch 
 fleet were restored, and all forts, dykes, &c., &c., left as they had been taken; 
 or, if any improvements had been made upon them, in their improved state. 
 To the first part of the proposal the duke utterly refused for a moment to listen ; 
 and, being in possession of the principal dykes, he threatened to break them 
 down and inundate the country. The fleet was not given up ; but in lieu 
 thereof, eight thousand French and Dutch prisoners, that had been taken pre- 
 vious to this campaign, were to be restored, with all that had been taken in it. 
 the Dutch seamen excepted. The troops were instantly embarked, and safely 
 landed in England, with the exception of the Russians, who were landed in the 
 Llands of Guernsey and Jersey. Though this expedition totally failed in its 
 main object the liberation of Holland it was not without advantage. The 
 capture of the Dutch fleet, in the then state of affairs, was of very considerable 
 importance. Nor was the impression it left upon the enemy of the superior 
 skill of British officers, particularly of the subject of this memoir, and the 
 daring valour of British troops, without its use in the succeeding periods of 
 the war. 
 
 Sir Ralph Abercromby, now a universal favourite, and esteemed the most 
 skilful officer in the British service, was appointed in the month of June, 
 1800, to command the troops sent out upon a secret expedition to the Medi- 
 terranean, and which were for the time quartered on the island of Minorca, 
 where he arrived on the 22d of June. The very next day the troops were 
 embarked for Leghorn, where they arrived on the 9th of July ; but in conse- 
 quence of- -an annistice between the French and the Austrians, they were not 
 allowed to land. Part of them now proceeded to Malta, and the remainder 
 sailed back to Minorca. Sir Ralph himself arrived again at that island on the 
 26th of July, and on the 3d of September the troops were again embarke.' 1 , 
 and on the 14th the fleet came to anchor off Europa point in the bay of Gib- 
 raltar. On the 20th the armament sailed for the bay of Tetuan to procure 
 water, and on the 23d returned to Gibraltar. In a few days the fleet was again 
 ordered to rendezvous in the bay of Tetuan ; and, on the 30th of October, the 
 whole, consisting of upwards of two hundred sail, came to anchor off Cadiz, and
 
 10 SIR RALPH ABERCROMBY. 
 
 preparations were made for landing the troops without delay. On the 6th the 
 troops got into the boats, and everything was ready for the disembarkation. In 
 consequence of a flag of truce from the shore, the landing was delayed, and in 
 the afternoon the troops returned to their respective ships. The negotiations 
 between the commanders having failed, the order was renewed for disembarking 
 the troops next day. This order was again countermanded about midnight ; 
 the morning became stormy, and at break of day the signal was made for the 
 fleet to weigh, and by the afternoon the whole fleet was again under sail. Part 
 of the forces were now ordered for Portugal under the command of general Sir 
 James Pulteney, and the remainder for Malta, where they arrived about the 
 middle of November. Than this sailing backwards and forwards, nothing was 
 ever exhibited more strongly indicative of extreme folly and absolute imbecility 
 in the national councils. 
 
 It was now resolved by the British government to drive the French out 
 of Egypt, and the armament, which had uselessly rolled about the Medi- 
 terranean for so many months, was appointed for that purpose. Sir Ralph 
 Abercromby, accordingly, embarked at Malta on the 20th of December for 
 the bay of Marmorice, on the coast of Caramania ; where cavalry horses were 
 to be procured, and stores collected for the expedition, which, it was cal- 
 culated, would sail for Alexandria by the 1st of January, 1801. Many things, 
 however, occurred to retard their preparations. Among others of a like nature, 
 three hundred horses, purchased by order of Lord Elgin, the British ambassador 
 at Constantinople, were found, when they arrived at Marmorice, so small and 
 stf galled in their backs, as to be of no use, so that it was found necessary to 
 shoot some, and to sell others at the low price of a dollar a-piece. It was believed 
 that Lord Elgin had paid for a very different description of horses, but the per- 
 sons to whose care they had been confided had found their account in changing 
 them by the way. Good horses were procured by parties sent into the country 
 for that purpose ; but the sailing of the expedition was in consequence delayed 
 till the end of February, instead of the first of January, as had been originally 
 intended ; and from the state of the weather, and other casualties, the landing 
 could not be attempted before the 8th of March, on which day it was accom- 
 plished in Aboukir Bay, in a manner that reflected the highest honour on the 
 British troops. During this delay Bonaparte had found means to reinforce his 
 army in Egypt, and furnish it with all necessary stores ; and the weather, pre- 
 venting the immediate disembarkation of the troops, enabled the French to make 
 every preparation to receive them. The sand-hills which form the coast, they 
 had lined with numerous bodies of infantry, and every height was bristling with 
 artillery. A most tremendous discharge of grape-shot and shells from the bat- 
 teries, and of musketry from the infantry that lined the shore, seemed for a 
 moment to stay the progress of the boats as they approached. But it was only 
 for a moment. The rowers swept through the iron tempest to the beacli ; the 
 troops leaped on shore, formed as they advanced, and rushing up the slippery 
 declivity without firing a shot, drove the enemy from their position at the point 
 of the bayonet. Successive bodies, as they were disembarked, proceeded to the 
 help of their precursors, and, in spite of every obstruction, the whole army was 
 landed before night ; and Sir Ralph Abercromby advancing three miles into the 
 country, took up a position with his right resting upon lake Madyeh or Aboukir, 
 and his left stretching to the Mediterranean. On the 12th he moved forward 
 to attack the French, who were most advantageously posted on a ridge of sand-
 
 SIR RALPH ABERCROMBY. \\ 
 
 hills, their right towards the sea, and their left resting upon the canal of Alex- 
 andria. On the morning of the 13th, the army marched in two lines by the left, 
 to turn the right flank of the enemy. Aware of this, the French, with their 
 whole cavalry, and a considerable body of infantry, poured down from the 
 heights and attacked the heads of both lines, but were repulsed by the advanced 
 guard, consisting of the 90th and 92nd regiments, with incomparable gallantry. 
 The first line then formed into two, and advanced, while the second line turned 
 the right of the French army, and drove it from its position. The enemy, 
 however, made a regular retreat, and contested every inch of ground till they 
 had reached the heights of Nicopolis, which form the principal defence of Alex- 
 andria. Anxious to carry these heights, Sir Ralph Abercromby unfortu- 
 nately ordered forward the reserve under Sir John Moore, and the second line 
 under general Hutcheson, to attack (the latter the right, and the former the 
 left) both flanks at once. Advancing into the open plain, they were exposed to 
 the whole range of the enemy's shot, which they had it not in their power to 
 return; and, after all, the position was found to be commanded by the guns of 
 the forts of Alexandria, so that it could not have been kept though they had 
 stormed it. They were accordingly withdrawn, but with a most serious loss of 
 men ; and the British army took up the ground from which the enemy had been 
 tlriven, occupying a position with its right to the sea and its left to the canal of 
 Alexandria; a situation of great advantage, as it cut off all communication with 
 Alexandria, except by the way of the Desert. In this action, Sir Ralph was 
 nearly enveloped in the charge of the French cavalry, and was only saved by 
 the intrepidity of the 90th regiment. The garrison of Aboukir surrenderee! on 
 ihe 18th ; but to counterbalance this advantage, the French commander-in-chief, 
 Menou, arrived at Alexandria from Cairo on the 20th, with a reinforcement of 
 nine thousand men. Expecting to take the British by surprise, Menou, next 
 morning, March the 2Jst, between three and four o'clock, attacked their position 
 with his whole force, amounting to from eleven to twelve thousand men. The 
 action was commenced by a false attack on the left, their main strength being 
 directed against the right, upon which they advanced in great force and with a 
 prodigious noise, shouting, "Vive la France ! Vive la Republique !" They were 
 received, however, with perfect coolness by the British troops, who not only 
 checked the impetuosity of the infantry, but repulsed several charges of cavalry. 
 Greater courage was perhaps never exhibited than on this occasion : the different 
 corps of both nations rivalled each other in the most determined bravery, and pre- 
 sented the extraordinary spectacle of an engagement in front, flanks, and rear, 
 at the same time ; so much were the contending parties intermingled. Nine 
 hundred of Bonaparte's best soldiers, and from their tried valour denominated 
 Invincibles, succeeded in turning the right of the British, between the walls of 
 a large ruin and a battery. Three times did they storm the battery, and three 
 times were the successive parties exterminated. Getting at last into the rear 
 of the reserve, the 42nd and the 28th regiments charged them with the bayonet, 
 and drove them step by btep into the inclosure of the ruin ; where, between six 
 and seven hundred of them being already stretched lifeless on the ground, the 
 remainder called out for quarter, and were made prisoners. Not one of them 
 returned. Equally determined was their attack on the centre, and it was there 
 repelled with equal success. A heavy column having broken through the line 
 the cavalry accompanying it wheeled to their left and charged the rear of the 
 reserve ; but this charge was broken by the accidental state of the ground, which
 
 12 SIR RALPH ABISKCROMBY. 
 
 had been excavated into pit-holes about three feet deep for the men to sleep in, 
 before the arrival of their camp equipage. Over these holes they had to make 
 their charge, and in consequence were completely routed, more than three hun- 
 dred of them being left dead on the spot. Finding all his movements frustrated, 
 Menou at length ordered a retreat, which he was able to effect in good order; 
 the British having too few cavalry to pursue. His loss was supposed to be 
 between three and four thousand men, including many officers, among whom 
 were treneral Raize, commander of the cavalry, who fell in the field, and two 
 generals who died of their woiinds. The loss of the British was also heavy, 
 upwards of seventy officers being killed, wounded, and missing. Among these 
 was the lamented commander-in-chief. Having hastened, on the first alarm, 
 towards the cannonading, Sir Ralph must have ridden straight among the enemy, 
 who had already broken the front line and got into its rear. It was not yet 
 day, and, being unable to distinguish friend from foe, he must have been embar- 
 rassed among the assailants, but he was extricated by the valour of his troops. 
 To the first soldier that came up to him, he said, " Soldier, if you know me, don't 
 name me." A French dragoon, at the moment, conjecturing the prize he had 
 lost, rode up to Sir Ralph, and made a cut at him, but not being near enough, 
 only cut through the clothes, and grazed the skin with the point of his sabre. 
 The dragoon's horse wheeling about, brought him again to the charge, and he 
 made a second attempt by a lounge, but the sabre passed between Sir Ralph's 
 side and his right arm. The dragoon being at the instant shot dead, the sabre 
 remained with the general. About the same time it was discovered that he had 
 been wounded in the thigh, and was entreated to have the wound examined ; 
 but he treated it as a trifle, and would not for a moment leave the field. No 
 sooner, however, had the enemy begun to retreat, and the excitement of feeling 
 under which he had been acting to subside, than he fainted from pain and the 
 loss of blood. His wound was now examined, and a large incision made in order 
 to extract the ball, but it could not be found. He was then put upon a litter, 
 and carried aboard the Foudroyant, where he languished till the 28th, when he 
 died. His body was interred in the burial ground of the commandery of the 
 Grand Master, under the walls of the castle of St Elan, near the town of Valetta 
 in Malta. 
 
 Of the character of Sir Ralph Abercromby there can be but one opinion. 
 Bred to arms almost from his infancy, he appeared to be formed for command. 
 His dispositions were always masterly, and his success certain. He had served 
 in America, in the West Indies, in Ireland, in the Netherlands, in Holland, and 
 in Egypt, and had in all of these countries gained himself great distinction. In 
 the two latter countries, especially, he performed services that were of incalculable 
 advantage to his country. The battle of the 21st of March, or of Alexandria, 
 while it decided the fate of Egypt, left an impression of British skill and of British 
 valour upon the minds of both her friends and her enemies, that materially con- 
 tributed to the splendid results of a contest longer in continuance, and involving 
 interests of greater magnitude, than Britain had ever before been engaged in. The 
 manner in which he repressed the licentiousness of the troops in Ireland, was 
 at once magnanimous and effective ; and he ended a life of dignified exertion by a 
 death worthy of a hero. "We have sustained an irreparable loss," says his suc- 
 cessor, "in the person of our never enough to be lamented commander-in-chief, 
 Sir Ralph Abercromby ; but it is some consolation to those who tenderly loved 
 him, that, as his life was honourable, so was his death glorious. His memory
 
 JOHN ABERNETHY. 13 
 
 will be recorded in the annals of his country, will he sacred to every British 
 I soldier, and embalmed in the recollection of a grateful posterity.'" 
 
 Sir Ralph Abercromby was married to Mary Anne, daughter of John Menzies 
 of Fernton, Perthshire ; by whom he had issue four sons and three daughters, 
 who survived him. On the official account reaching England of the fate of her 
 lamented husband, his widow was elevated to the peerage, May 28, 1801, as 
 Baroness Abercromby of Aboukir and Tullibody, with remainder to the heirs- 
 male of the deceased general ; and, on the recommendation of his majesty, the 
 House of Commons, without one dissentient voice, granted an annuity of two 
 thousand pounds to Lady Abercromby, and the next two succeeding male heirs 
 of the body of Sir Ralph Abercromby, to whom the title of Baron Abercromby 
 should descend. The House of Commons, farther, sensible of the great merits 
 of this distinguished British commander, voted a monument to his memory, at 
 the public expense, which was subsequently erected in St Paul's cathedral. 
 
 ABER'NETHY, JOHN*, an eminent writer on physiology. The birth and 
 parentage of this gentleman were so obscure, that it is impossible to say with 
 certainty whether he was a native of Ireland or of Scotland. It is even affirmed 
 that he was himself ignorant of the country of his birth. Upon the supposition 
 that he was born in Scotland, his name is introduced in the present work. The 
 date of his birth is given loosely as 1703-64. His parents having brought him in 
 his infancy to London, he commenced his education at a day-school in Lothbury, 
 where he acquired the elements of classical literature. Having afterwards been 
 bound apprentice to Mr Charles Blick, surgeon to Ft Bartholomew's Hospital, 
 lie had the advantage of attending that noble institution, where he eagerly seized 
 every opportunity of making himself practically acquainted with his profession. 
 He also had the advantage of attending the lectures of Mr John Hunter, at the 
 time when that gentleman was commencing the development of those great 
 discoveries which have made his name so famous. The curiosity which those 
 discoveries excited in the public at large, was felt in an uncommon degree by 
 Mr Abernethy, whose assiduity and ardour as a pupil attracted the notice of the 
 lecturer, and rendered the latter his friend for life. 
 
 While as yet a very young practitioner, his reputation procured for Mr 
 Abernethy the situation of assistant-surgeon at St Bartholomew's, and he soon 
 after commenced a course of lectures in the hospital, which, though not very 
 successful at first, became in time the most frequented of any in London, so as 
 to lay the foundation of a medical school of the highest reputation in connection 
 with this institution. On the death of Sir Charles Blick, his former master, 
 Mr Abernethy, now considered as the best teacher of anatomy, physiology, and 
 surgery in the metropolis, was elected surgeon to the hospital. 
 
 The first publications of Mr Abernethy were a few Physiological Essays, and 
 one on Lumbar Abscess, which, with some additions, formed his first volume, 
 published 1793-97, in 8vo, under the title of "Surgical and Physiological 
 
 1 Thefollowing panegyric upon Sir Ralph in another character, was written before his 
 death: "As a country gentleman, ever attentive to all within the circle of his movement, 
 he stands high in the estimation of his neighbours and dependents; and when his military 
 glory shall have fallen into oblivion, it will be gratefully remembered that he was the friend 
 of the destitute poor, the patron of useful knowledge, and the promoter of education among 
 the meanest of his cottagers: as an instance it may be mentioned, that in the village of 
 Tullibody, on his paternal estate, a reading school, under his immediate inspection, was 
 established many years back." Campbell's Journey through Scotland, 4to, 1802, vol. ii.
 
 14 JOHN ABEKNETiiV. 
 
 Essays." These were characterized by the same strong sense, and plain and 
 forcible illustration, which marked everything that flowed from his tongue and 
 pen till the end of his life. In 1804 appeared another volume, entitled, "Sur- 
 gical Observations, containing a classification of tumours, with cases to illustrate 
 the history of each species ; an account of Diseases," &c. ; and, in 180G, " Sur- 
 gical Observations, Part Second, containing an account of Disorders of the 
 Health in general, and of the digestive organs in particular, which accompany 
 local diseases, and obstruct their cure." The fame of these treatises soon spread, 
 not only throughout England, but over the continent of Europe ; and the 
 French surgeons, especially, did homage to the masterly spirit they evinced. 
 Bold and successful operations, practical and lucid descriptions, original and 
 comprehensive views, all combined to enhance the great reputation of the 
 author, and to elevate the character of the national school of which he was so 
 bright an ornament. 
 
 In 1814, Mr Abernethy received what might be considered as the highest 
 honour which his profession had to bestow, in being appointed anatomical lec- 
 turer to the Royal College of Surgeons. An anecdote illustrative of his sound 
 integrity is told in reference to this era of his life. A fellow of the college 
 having remarked to him, that now they should have something new, Mr Aber- 
 nethy seriously asked him what he meant. " Why," said the other, "of course 
 you will brush up the lectures which you have been so long delivering at St 
 Bartholomew's Hospital, and let us have them in an improved form." " Do 
 you take me for a fool or a knave ? " rejoined Mr Abernethy, " I have always 
 given the students at the Hospital that to which they are entitled the best 
 produce of my mind. If I could have made my lectures to them better, I would 
 instantly have made them so. I will give the College of Surgeons precisely 
 the same lectures, down to the smallest details." In the year of this honourable 
 appointment, he published, "An Inquiry into the Probability and Rationality 
 of Mr Hunter's Theory of Life ; being the subject of the two first lectures 
 delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of London." The aim of these 
 lectures was to elucidate the doctrine previously laid down by Mr Hunter, that 
 " life, in general, is some principle of activity added by the will of Omnipotence 
 to organized structure, an immaterial soul being superadded, in man, to the 
 structure and vitality which he possesses in common with other animals." 
 Of this work, it is generally allowed that the intentions are better than the 
 philosophy. 
 
 Previously to this period, Mr Abernethy had published other treatises besides 
 those already named. One of the most remarkable was, " Surgical Observa- 
 tions on the Constitutional Origin and Treatment of Local Diseases, and on 
 Aneurism," 8vo, 1809. His memorable cases of tying the iliac artery for 
 aneurism are detailed in this volume ; cases which may almost be said to fonn 
 an era in adventurous surgical experiment. Mr Abernethy also wrote works 
 on "Diseases resembling Syphilis, and on Diseases of the Urethra;" "On 
 Injuries of the Head, and Miscellaneous Subjects ;" and another volume of 
 Physiological Essays. He was likewise the author of the anatomical and 
 physiological articles in Rees's Cyclopedia, previous to the article " Canal." 
 Among his various accomplishments, must be ranked a considerable acquaintance 
 with chemistry ; and one of his numerous honours is the having, in company 
 with Mr Howard, discovered fulminating mercury. 
 
 Besides his business as a lecturer, Mr Abernethy enjoyed a vast and lucrative
 
 JOHN ABERNETHY, 15 
 
 i 
 
 practice as a surgeon. His manner in both capacities was marked by many 
 eccentricities, but particularly in the latter. He could not endure the tedious 
 and confused narratives which patients are apt to lay before a consulting surgeon, 
 and, in checking these, was not apt to regard much the rules of good-breeding. 
 Considerable risks were thus encountered for the sake of his advice ; but this 
 was generally so excellent, that those who required it were seldom afraid to 
 hazard the slight offence to their feelings with which it was liable to be accom- 
 panied. Many anecdotes of Mr Abernethy's rencounters with his patients are 
 preserved in the profession. The two following are given in Sir James Eyre's 
 recent work, " The Stomach and its Difficulties :" " A very talkative lady, 
 who had wearied the temper of Mr Abernethy, which was at all times impatient 
 of gabble, was told by him, the first moment that he could get a chance of 
 speaking, to be good enough to put out her tongue. * Now, pray, madam,' said 
 he, playfully, ''keep it out/ The hint was taken. He rarely met with his 
 match, but on one occasion he fairly owned that he had. He was sent for to 
 an innkeeper, who had had a quarrel with his wife, and who had scored his 
 face with her nails, so that the poor man was bleeding, and much disfigured. 
 Mr Abernethy considered this an opportunity not to be lost for admonishing 
 the offender, and said, ' Madam, are you not ashamed of yourself to treat your 
 husband thus ; the husband, who is the head of all, your head, madam, in fact ?' 
 ' Well, doctor,' fiercely retorted the virago, ' and may I not scratch my own 
 head?' Upon this her friendly adviser, after giving directions for the benefit 
 of the patient, turned upon his heel, and confessed himself beaten for once." 
 But abruptness and rudeness were not his only eccentricities. He carried prac- 
 tical benevolence to a pitch as far from the common line as any of his other 
 peculiarities. Where poverty and disease prevented patients from waiting upon 
 him in his own house, he was frequently known, not only to visit them con- 
 stantly, and at inconvenient distances, without fee or reward, but generously 
 to supply them from his own purse with what their wants required. Perhaps 
 the most striking, out of the numerous anecdotes which have been related of 
 him, in illustration of his eccentricities, is one descriptive of his courtship, or 
 rather of his no-courtship. " While attending a lady for several weeks, he 
 observed those admirable qualifications in her daughter, which he truly esteemed 
 to be calculated to make the marriage state happy. Accordingly, on a Saturday, 
 when taking leave of his patient, he addressed her to the following purport : 
 'You are now so well that I need not see you after Monday next, when I shall 
 come and pay you my farewell visit. But, in the meantime, I wish you and 
 your daughter seriously to consider the proposal I am now about to make. It 
 is abrupt and unceremonious, I am aware ; but the excessive occupation of my 
 time, by my professional duties, affords me no leisure to accomplish what I 
 desire by the more ordinary course of attention and solicitation. My annual 
 
 receipts amount to , and I can settle on my wife; my character ia 
 
 generally known to the public, so that you may readily ascertain what it is. 
 I have seen in your daughter a tender and affectionate child, an assiduous and 
 careful nurse, and a gentle and ladylike member of a family ; such a person 
 must be all that a husband could covet, and I offer my hand and fortune for her 
 acceptance. On Monday, when I call, I shall expect your determination ; for 
 I really have not time for the routine of courtship.' In this humour the lady 
 was wooed and won, and the union proved fortunate in every respect. A hap- 
 pier couple never existed."
 
 16 ALEXANDER ADAM. 
 
 After a life of great activity, and which proved of much immediate and 
 remote service to mankind, the subject of this memoir expired, at Eafield, on 
 the 20th of April, 1831. 
 
 ADAM, ALEXANDER, an eminent grammarian and writer on Roman antiqui- 
 ties, was born at Coats of Burgie, in the parish of Rafford, and county of Moray, 
 about the month of June, 1741. His father, John Adam, rented one of those 
 small farms which were formerly so common in the north of Scotland. In his 
 earlier years, like many children of his own class, and even of a class higher 
 removed above poverty, he occasionally tended his father's cattle. Being des- 
 tined by his parents, poor as they were, for a learned profession, he was kept at 
 the parish school till he was thought fit to come forward as a bursar, at the 
 university of Aberdeen. He made this attempt, but failed, and was requested 
 by the judges to go back and study for another year at school. This incident 
 only stimulated him to fresh exertions. He was prevented, however, from 
 renewing his attempt at Aberdeen, by the representations of the Rev. Mr Wat- 
 son, a minister at Edinburgh, and a relation of his mother, who induced him to 
 try his fortune in the metropolis. He removed thither early in the year 175U; 
 but, it appears, without any assured means of supporting himself during the 
 progress of his studies. For a considerable time, while attending the classes at 
 the college, the only means of subsistence he enjoyed, consisted of the small sum 
 of one guinea per quarter, which he derived from Mr Alan Macconochie, (after- 
 wards Lord Meadowbank), for assisting him in the capacity of a tutor. The 
 details of his system of life at this period, as given by his biographer Mr Hen- 
 derson, are painfully interesting. " He lodged in a small room at Restalrig, iu 
 the north-eastern suburbs ; and for this accommodation he paid fourpence a- week. 
 All his meals, except dinner, uniformly consisted of oat-meal made into porridge, 
 together with small beer, of which he only allowed himself half a bottle at a 
 time. When he wished to dine, he purchased a penny loaf at the nearest baker's 
 shop ; and, if the day was fair, he would despatch his meal in a walk to the 
 Meadows or Hope Park, which ia adjoining to the southern part of the city ; 
 but if the weather was foul, he had recourse to some long and lonely stair, which 
 he would climb, eating his dinner at every step. By this means all expense for 
 cookery was avoided, and he wasted neither coal nor candles ; for, when he was 
 chill, he used to run till his blood began to glow, and his evening studies were 
 always prosecuted under the roof of some one or other of his companions." 
 There are many instances, we believe, among Scottish students, of the most 
 rigid self-denial, crowned at length by splendid success ; but there is certainly 
 no case known in which the self-denial was so chastened, and the triumph so 
 grand, as that of Dr Adam. In 1761, when he was exactly twenty, he stood a 
 trial for the situation of head teacher in George Watson's Hospital, Edinburgh, 
 and was successful. In this place he is said to have continued about three 
 years ; during which, lie was anxiously engaged in cultivating an intimacy with 
 the classics reading, with great care, and in a critical manner, the works of 
 Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Cicero, and Livy. His views were now 
 directed towards the church, and he was on the eve of being licensed as a 
 preacher of the gospel, when suddenly a prospect opened before him of becoming 
 assistant, with the hope of being eventually the successor, of Mr Matheson. 
 rector of the High School. This appointment he obtained, and in 1771 the 
 increased infirmities of Mr Matheson threw the whole of this charge into tho 
 hands of Mr Adam.
 
 . Loll 
 
 FROM THE ORIGINAL IN THE HIGH SCHOOL . EDINBURGH. 

 
 ALEXANDER ADAM. 17 
 
 The time when he assumed tiiis respectable office was very fortunate. Every 
 department of knowledge in Scotland was at this period adorned by higher names 
 than had ever before graced it ; and hence the office of Master in the principal 
 elementary school of the country presented to a man of superior qualifications 
 ft fair opportunity of distinguishing himself. This opportunity was not lost 
 upon Mr Adam. He devoted himself with singular assiduity to his duties ; 
 and, under his auspices, the school gradually increased in numbers and reputa- 
 tion. Soon after his appointment, he began to compose a series of works to 
 facilitate the study of the Latin language. His Rudiments of Latin and English 
 Grammar were published in 1772, and, though composed in a style which 
 appeared to the generality of teachers as a dreadful schism and heresy, met with 
 the approbation of a discerning few, whose praise was sufficient to overbalance 
 the censure of the multitude. His offence consisted in the novel attempt to 
 teach the grammatical rules of Latin in English prose, instead of Latin prose 
 or verse, which latter had been the time-honoured fashion of the schools both of 
 England and Scotland, since the days of the Reformation. T.he dariiug innovator 
 was assailed with a storm of abuse by numerous individuals, more especially by 
 those of his own profession. 
 
 Among those who took an active part in condemning his work, Dr Gilbert 
 Stuart was very conspicuous. This extraordinary litterateur was a relation of 
 Ruddiman; and, as an additional incentive to his hostility, conceived that Adam 
 had gained the rectorship of the High School more by interest than by merit. 
 He accordingly filled the periodical works of the day with ridicule and abuse 
 directed against the unfortunate grammar. Amongst other pasquinades, appeared 
 an account, in Latin, of a Roman funeral, in which that work was personified 
 as the dead body, while the chief mourner was meant to represent Mr Adam, 
 sorrowing for the untimely fate of his best-beloved child. The other persons 
 officiating are introduced under the technical terms in use among the ancient 
 Romans ; and, to heighten the ridicule, and give it aid from local circumstances, 
 the ingenious satirist placed in front of the mourners, a poor lunatic of the name 
 of Duff, well known in Edinburgh at the time for his punctual attendance at 
 the head of all funeral processions. While his work was still the subject of 
 censure, the ingenious author was partly compensated for all his sufferings by 
 a degree of LL.D., which was conferred upon him by the College of Edinburgh, 
 in 1780. Some years after, the grammar began gradually to make its way in 
 schools, and finally he had the satisfaction of seeing it adopted in his own 
 seminary. Among the great names which at an early period had sanctioned it 
 with their approbation, are those of Lord Kames, Bishop Lowth, and Dr Vin- 
 cent, Master of St Paul's school. 
 
 The next work of Dr Adam is entitled, A Summary of Geography and His- 
 tory, but the date of the first edition is not mentioned by his biographer. In 
 1791, he published his excellent compendium of Roman Antiquities, and in 
 1800 his Classical Biography ; for the copyright of the former he received 
 600, and for that of the latter 300. Dr Adam's last, and perhaps his most 
 laborious work, was his Latin Dictionary, published in 1806. Towards the 
 beginning, his illustrations are brief, but, as he proceeds, they gradually become 
 more copious. It was his intention to add an English-and-Latin part, and to 
 enlarge the other to a considerable extent. In this favourite plan he had made 
 some progress at the time of his death. 
 
 On the 13th of December, 1809, Dr Adam was seized in the High School with
 
 18 ROBERT ADAM. 
 
 an alarming indisposition, which had all the appearance of apoplexy. Having 
 been conducted home, he was put to bed, and enjoyed a sound sleep, which 
 appeared to have arrested the progress of the disease, for he was afterwards able 
 to walk about his room. The apoplectic symptoms, however, returned in a 
 few days, and he fell into a state of stupor. His last words marked the gradual 
 darkening of the ray of life and intellect beneath this mortal disorder. He said, 
 " It grows dark, boys you may go " his mind evidently wandering at that 
 moment to the scene where he had spent the better part of his life. This twi- 
 light soou settled down into the night of death : he expired early in the morn- 
 ing of the 18th December, 1809. The death of the amiable and excellent Dr 
 Adam operated, among his numerous friends and admirers, like a shock of elec- 
 tricity. Men of all ages and denominations were loud in lamenting an event 
 which had bereaved them of a common benefactor. The effect of the general 
 feeling was a resolution to honour him with what is a very rare circumstance 
 in Scotland, a public funeral. 
 
 The life of Dr Adam proves, had any proof been wanting, the possibility of 
 rising to distinction in this country from any grade of life, and through what- 
 soever intervening difficulties. In 1758 and 1759 he was a student living at the 
 inconceivably humble rate of four guineas a-year ; in ten years thereafter, he had 
 qualified himself for, and attained, a situation which, in Scotland, is an object 
 of ambition to men of considerable literary rank. The principal features of his 
 character were, unshaken independence and integrity, ardour in the cause of 
 public liberty, the utmost purity of manners and singleness of heart, and a most 
 indefatigable power of application to the severest studies. " His external appear- 
 ance was that of a scholar who dressed neatly for his own sake, but who had 
 never incommoded himself with fashion in the cut of his coat, or in the regula- 
 tion of his gait. Upon the street he often appeared in a studious attitude, and 
 in winter always walked with his hands crossed, and thrust into his sleeves. 
 His features were regular and manly, and he was above the middle size. In his 
 well-formed proportions, and in his firm regular pace, there appeared the marks 
 of habitual temperance. He must have been generally attractive in his early 
 days, and, in his old age, his manners and conversation enhanced the value and 
 interest of every qualification. When he addressed his scholars, when he com- 
 mended excellence, or when he was seated at his own fireside with a friend on 
 whom he could rely, it was delightful to be near him ; and no man could leave 
 his company without declaring that he loved Dr Adam." 
 
 ADAM, ROBERT, an eminent architect, was born at Edinburgh in the year 
 1728. His father, William Adam, of Mary burgh, in the county of Fife, also 
 distinguished himself as an architect ; Hopetoun House, and the Royal Infir- 
 mary at Edinburgh, are specimens of his abilities. Robert, the second son, 
 inherited his father's taste, and lived in a time more favourable to its develop- 
 ment. He was educated in the university of Edinburgh, where he enjoyed the 
 kind attentions of Robertson, Smith, and Ferguson; all of whom were his father's 
 friends. As he advanced in life, he was on friendly and intimate terms with 
 Archibald Duke of Argyle, Sir Charles Tovvnshend, and the Earl of Mansfield. 
 About the year 1754, with a view to improve his knowledge of architecture, he 
 travelled on the continent, and resided three years in Italy, where he surveyed 
 the magnificent specimens of Roman architecture ; the buildings of the ancients, 
 in his opinion, being the proper school of the architectural student. But while 
 he beheld with much pleasure the remains of the public buildings of the Romans,
 
 ROBERT ADAM. 19 
 
 he regretted to perceive that hardly a vestige of their private houses or villas 
 was anywhere to be found. In tracing the progress of Roman architecture, he 
 had remarked that it had declined previous to the age of Dioclesian ; but he was 
 also convinced that the liberality and munificence of that emperor had revivedj 
 during his reign, a better taste, and had formed artists who were capable of imi- 
 tating the more elegant styles of the preceding ages. He had seen this remark- 
 ably exemplified in the public baths at Rome, which were erected by Dioclesian. 
 The interest which he felt in this particular branch of Roman remains, and his 
 anxiety to behold a good specimen of the private buildings of this wonderful 
 people, induced him to undertake a voyage to Spalatro in Dalmatia, to visit and 
 examine the palace of Dioclesian, where, after his resignation of the empire, in 
 305, that emperor spent the last nine years of his life. He sailed from Venice 
 in 1754, accompanied by two experienced draughtsmen, and M. Clerisseau, a 
 French antiquary and artist. On their arrival at Spalatro, they found that the 
 palace had not suffered less from dilapidations by the inhabitants, to procure 
 materials for building, than from the injuries of time; and that, in many places, 
 the very foundations of the ancient structures were covered with modern houses. 
 When they began their labours, the vigilant jealousy of the government was 
 alarmed, and they were soon interrupted ; for suspecting their object was to 
 view and make plans of the fortifications, the governor issued a peremptory 
 order, commanding them to desist. It was only through the influence and 
 mediation of General Graeme, the conimander-in-chief of the Venetian forces 
 (probably a Scotsman), that they were at length permitted to resume their 
 labours; and in five weeks they finished plans and views of the remaining frag- 
 ments, from which they afterwards executed perfect designs of the whole build- 
 ing. Mr Adam soon after returned to England, and speedily rose to professional 
 eminence. In 1762, he was appointed architect to their majesties, and in the 
 year following he published, in one volume large folio, " Ruins of the Palace 
 of the emperor Dioclesian at Spalatro, in Dalmatia." This splendid work con- 
 tains seventy-one plates, besides letter-press descriptions. He had at this time 
 been elected a member of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies, and in 1768 
 he was elected to represent Kinross-shire in Parliament ; which was probably 
 owing to the local influence of his family. A seat in the House of Commons 
 being incompatible with employment under the crown, he now resigned his 
 office as architect to their majesties ; but continued to prosecute his professional 
 career with increasing reputation, being much employed by the English nobility 
 and gentry in constructing new and embellishing ancient mansions. In the 
 year 1773, in conjunction with his brother, James Adam, who also rose to 
 considerable reputation as an architect, he commenced " The Works in Archi- 
 tecture of R. and J. Adam," which before 1776 had reached a fourth number, 
 r,nd was a work of equal splendour with the one above referred to. The four 
 numbers contain, among other productions, Sion House, Caen Wood, Luton 
 Park House, the Gateway of the Admiralty, and the General Register House 
 at Edinburgh ; all of which have been admired for elegant design and correct 
 taste ; though the present age, in its rage for a severe simplicity, might desire the 
 absence of certain minute ornaments, with which the Adams were accustomed 
 to fill up vacant spaces. Before this period, the two brothers had reared in 
 London that splendid monument of their taste, the Adelphi ; which, however, 
 was too extensive a speculation to be profitable. They were obliged, in 1774, 
 to obtain an act of parliament to dispose of the houses by way of lottery. The
 
 20 HENRY ADAM SON. 
 
 chief Scottish designs of Adam, besides the Register Office, were the new addi- 
 tions to the University of Edinburgh, and the Infirmary of Glasgow. " We 
 have also seen and admired," says a biographer, "elegant designs executed by 
 Mr Adam, which were intended for the South Bridge and South Bridge Street 
 of Edinburgh ; and which, if they had been adopted, would have added much 
 to the decoration of that part of the town. But they were considered unsuit- 
 able to the taste or economy of the times, and were therefore rejected. Strange 
 incongruities," continues the same writer, " appear in some buildings which 
 have been erected from designs by Mr Adam. But of these it must be observed, 
 that they have been altered or mutilated in execution, according to the conve- 
 nience or taste of the owner ; and it is well known that a slight deviation changes 
 the character and mars the effect of the general design. A lady of rank was 
 furnished by Mr Adam with the design of a house ; but on examining the build- 
 ing after it was erected, he was astonished to find it out of all proportion. On 
 inquiring the cause, he was informed that the pediment he had designed was 
 too small to admit a piece of new sculpture which represented the arms of the 
 family, and, by the date which it bore, incontestably proved its antiquity. It 
 was therefore absolutely necessary to enlarge the dimensions of the pediment 
 to receive this ancient badge of family honour, and sacrifice the beauty and 
 proportion of the whole building. We have seen a large public building which 
 was also designed by Mr Adam ; but when it was erected, the length was cur- 
 tailed oi the space of two windows, while the other parts remained according to 
 the original plan. It now appears a heavy unsightly pile, instead of exhibiting 
 that elegance of proportion and correctness of style which the faithful execu- 
 tion of Mr Adam's design would have probably given it. To the last period of 
 his life, Mr Adam displayed the same vigour of genius and refinement of taste ; 
 for in the space of one year immediately preceding his death, he designed eight 
 great public works, besides twenty-five private buildings, so various in style, 
 and beautiful in composition, that they have been allowed by the best judges to 
 be sufficient of themselves to establish his fame as an unrivalled artist." Mr 
 Adam died on the 3d of March, 1792, by the bursting of a blood-vessel, in the 
 sixty-fourth year of his age, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. It remains 
 only to be said that, while his works commanded the admiration of the public, 
 his natural suavity of manners, joined to his excellent moral character, had 
 made a deep impression upon the circle of his own private friends. His brother 
 James, who has been referred to as associated with him in many of his works, 
 died October 20, 1794. 
 
 ADAMSON, HENRY, a poet of the seventeenth century, and probably a rela- 
 tive of the subject of the following article, was the sou of James Adamson, who 
 was dean of guild in Perth, anno 1600, when the Gowrie conspiracy took place 
 in that city. The poet was educated for the pulpit, and appears to have made 
 considerable progress in classical studies, as he wrote Latin poetry above medio- 
 crity. He enjoyed the friendship and esteem of a large circle of the eminent 
 men of that age, particularly Drummond of Hawthornden, who induced him, 
 in 1638, to publish a poem entitled, "Mirthful Musings for the death of Mi- 
 Gall ;" being in fact a versified history of his native town, full of quaint alle- 
 gorical allusions suitable to the taste of that age. A new edition of this curious 
 poem, whicli had become exceedingly rare, was published in 1774, with illus- 
 trative notes by Mr James Cant. The ingenious author died in 1C39, the year 
 after the publication of his poem.
 
 PATRICK ADAMSON. 21 
 
 _A DAMSON, PATRICK, Archbishop of St Andrews. This prelate, whose 
 name occupies so remarkable a place in the history of the Scottish Reformation, 
 was born of humble parents, in the town of Perth, in the year 1543. Such is 
 the date assigned; but we think it maybe safely carried two or three years 
 farther back, as we find his name in the roll of the first General Assembly held 
 by the reformed church of Scotland, in 1560, as one of those persons belonging 
 to St Andrews who were fit for ministering and teaching ; while, only two 
 years after, we find him minister of Ceres, in Fifeshire, with a commission to 
 plant churches from Dee to Etham. Great as were the emergencies of the 
 infant kirk at this time from the want of ministers, it is scarcely to be thought 
 that it would have appointed to such important charges a youth who had not 
 yet attained the age of twenty. Previous to this period he had studied at the 
 university of St Andrews, where it is likely he was distinguished by those talents 
 and literary acquirements that subsequently brought him into such notice, and, 
 after having gone through the usual course, he graduated as Master of Arts. 
 His name at this period was Patrick Consteane, or Constance, or Constantine, 
 for in all these forms it is written indifferently ; but how it afterwards passed 
 into Adamson we have no means of ascertaining. At the close of his career at 
 college, he opened a school in Fife, and soon obtained the notice and patronage 
 of James M'Gill of Rankeillor, one of the judges of the Court of Session, 
 who possessed considerable political influence. He had not long been minis- 
 ter of Ceres, when we find him impatient to quit his charge ; and accord- 
 ingly, in 1564, he applied to the General Assembly for leave "to pass to other 
 countries for a time, to acquire increase of knowledge," but was inhibited to 
 leave his charge without the Assembly's license. That license, however, he 
 seems at length to have obtained, and probably, also, before the meeting of the 
 Assembly in the following year, when they published such stringent decisions 
 against those ministers who abandon their spiritual charges. Patrick Con- 
 stance, or, as we shall henceforth call him, Adamson, now appointed tutor of 
 the son of M'Gill of Rankeillor, passed over with his young charge, who was 
 destined for the study of the civil law, to Paris, at that time the chief school of 
 the distinguished jurisconsults of Europe. 
 
 Adamson had not been long in Paris when such adventures befel him as 
 might well make him sigh for the lowly obscurity of Ceres. In the course of 
 events that had occurred in Scotland, during his absence, were the marriage of 
 Queen Mary and Henry Darnley, and the birth of their infant, afterwards 
 James VI. ; and Adamson, who at this time was more of a courtier than a 
 politician, and more of a poet than either, immediately composed a triumphant 
 "carmen" on the event, entitled, Serenissimi et nobilissimi Scotice, Angliae, 
 Fran dee, et Hibernice Principis, Henrici Stuarti lllustrissimi Herois, ac Marias 
 Repince amplissinuje Filii, Genethliacum. The very title was a startling one, both 
 to France and England, the great political questions of which countries it at once 
 prejudged, by giving them the Scottish queen for their lawful, indisputable 
 sovereign. Had this poem, which was published a few days after the event, 
 been produced in England, its author would scarcely have escaped an awkward 
 I examination before the Star Chamber ; but as it was, he was within the reach 
 ' of Catherine de M^dicis, to the full as jealous of her authority as Elizabeth 
 herself, and far more merciless in exercising it. Adamson was therefore re- 
 warded for his Latin poetry by a six months' imprisonment, which perhaps 
 would have been succeeded by a worse infliction, had it not been for the media-
 
 22 PATRICK ADAM SON. 
 
 tion of Mary herself, backed by that of some of her chief nobles. It did not at 
 that time suit the policy of France to break with Scotland, and the poet was 
 set at liberty. Having thus had a sufficient sojourn in Paris, Adamson repaired 
 with his pupil to Bourges, where both entered themselves as students of law, 
 a science which the Scottish ministers of the day frequently added to that of 
 theology. Even here, however, he was not long allowed to remain in safety. 
 The massacre of St. Bartholomew that foul national blot of France, and 
 anomaly of modern history burst out with the suddenness of a tornado across 
 a tranquil sky ; and, amidst the ruin that followed, no Protestant, over the 
 whole extent of France, could be assured of his life for a single hour. Adamson 
 had his full share of the danger, and narrowly escaped its worst, by finding 
 shelter in a lowly hostelry ; the master of which was afterwards flung from the 
 top of his own house, and killed on the pavement below, for having given 
 shelter to heretics. While immured in this dreary confinement, that continued 
 for seven months, and which he fitly termed his sepulchre, Adamson appears 
 to have consoled himself with Latin poetry upon themes suited to his condi- 
 tion ; one attempt of this nature being the tragedy of Herod, and the other a 
 version of the book of Job. We may notice here, that he had not been lost 
 sight of during this protracted residence in France, by his brethren, or the 
 church at home ; and that, in the year previous to the massacre, the General 
 Assembly had once and again desired him to return, and resume his ministry. 
 But to this earnest request he, in the first instance, craved leisure for careful 
 deliberation, and after, sent a full answer, evidently in the negative, as he did 
 not see fit to comply. But the perils in which he was afterwards involved, and 
 the long confinement he endured, had probably brought him to a more submis- 
 sive, or at least a safer mode of thinking; for, as soon as he was able to emerge, 
 one of the first uses which he made of his liberty was to make preparations 
 for returning home, and resuming those ministerial labours which he had good 
 cause to regret he ever had abandoned. 
 
 Oh the return of Patrick Adamson to Scotland, he seems to have been favour- 
 ably received by his brethren, notwithstanding his previous recusancy. His 
 reception, indeed, could scarcely have been otherwise than cordial, as he had so 
 lately been all but a martyr for Protestantism in the midst of a terrible perse- 
 cution. His return was at a critical period; for the archbishopric of St 
 Andrews was at that time vacant, and, notwithstanding the Presbyterian doc- 
 trine of parity, which had been laid down as a fundamental principle of the 
 Scottish church, the chief prelatic offices were still continued, through the 
 overbearing influence of those nobles who now directed the government of the 
 country. But it was from no love of Episcopacy in the abstract that these 
 magnates continued such charges, obnoxious though they were to the church 
 and the people at large, but that they might derive from them a profitable 
 revenue, as lay proprietors of the livings. In this way the Earl of Morton had 
 acquired a claim to the revenues of the archbishopric of St Andrews, and only 
 needed some ecclesiastic who could wear the title, and discharge its duties, for 
 a small per-centage of the benefice. It was a degrading position for a church- 
 man, and yet there were too many who were willing to occupy it, either from 
 a vain-glorious love of the empty name, or an ambitious hope of converting it 
 into a substantial reality. Among these aspirants for the primacy of Scotland, 
 Patrick Adamson was suspected to be one ; and it was thought that he expected 
 to succeed through the influence of his patron, M'Gill of Rankeillor. These
 
 PATRICK ADAMSON. 23 
 
 surmises, his subsequent conduct but too well justified. But Morton had 
 already made his election in favour of John Douglas, who was inducted into 
 the office, notwithstanding the earnest remonstrances of John Knox. The con- 
 duct of Adamson on this occasion was long after remembered when he would 
 have wished it to be forgot. The week after the induction, and when the 
 greatest concourse of people was expected, he ascended the pulpit and delivered 
 a vehement and sarcastic sermon against the Episcopal office as then exercised in 
 Scotland. " There are three sorts of bishops," he said ; " My lord Bishop, my 
 lord's Bishop, and the Lord's Bishop. My lord Bishop was in the papistry ; 
 my lord's Bishop is now, when my lord gets the benefice, and the bishop serves 
 for 'nothing but to make his title sure; and the Lord's Bishop is the true 
 minister of the gospel." He saw that, for the present at least, he could not be 
 primate of St Andrews, and therefore he turned his attention to the more humble 
 offices of the church. And there, indeed, whatever could satisfy the wishes of 
 a simple presbyter was within his reach ; for he was not only in general esteem 
 among his brethren, but highly and justly valued for his scholarship, in conse- 
 quence of his catechism of Calvin in Latin heroic verse, which he had written 
 in France, and was about to publish in Scotland with the approbation of the 
 General Assembly. He now announced his willingness to resume the duties of 
 the ministry ; but his intimation was coupled with a request that had some- 
 what of a secular and selfish appearance. It was, that a pension which had 
 been granted to him by the late regent out of the teinds of the parsonage of 
 Glasgow, should be secured to him ; and that the procurators of the Assembly 
 should be commissioned to aid him to that effect. His request was granted, 
 and he once more became a minister. The town of Paisley was his sphere of 
 duty, according to the appointment of the Assembly. In addition to this, he 
 was subsequently appointed commissioner of Galloway, an office which resembled 
 that of a bishop as to its duties, but divested of all its pre-eminence and emolu- 
 ment. Some of the best men of the kirk had undertaken this thankless office 
 with alacrity, and discharged its duties with diligence ; but such was not the 
 case with Patrick Adamson ; and when his remissness as a commissioner wa? 
 complained of to the General Assembly, he acknowledged the justice of the 
 accusation, but pleaded in excuse, that no stipend was attached to the office. 
 
 Of the labours of Adamson while minister of Paisley, no record has been pre- 
 served. His time there, however, was brief, as a new sphere was opened to his 
 ambition. The great subject of anxiety at this period in the church, was the 
 construction of the Book of Policy, otherwise called the Second Book of Disci- 
 pline, and procuring its ratification by the government ; but the chief obstacle 
 in the way was the Earl of Morton, now regent, whose principal aim, besides 
 enriching himself with the ecclesiastical revenues, was to bring the two churches 
 of England and Scotland into as close a conformity as possible, in order to facili- 
 tate the future union of the two kingdoms under the reign of his young master, 
 James VI. Here it is that we find Adamson busy. He became an active 
 negotiator for the Book of Policy, and while he managed to secure the confi- 
 dence < .f the leading men in the church, he ingratiated himself into the favour of 
 the regent ; so that when the latter chose him for his chaplain, the brethren seem 
 to have hoped that the accomplishment of their purpose would be facilitated by 
 having such an advocate at court. But never were ecclesiastics more thoroughly 
 disappointed in their hopes from such a quarter. The archbishopric of St 
 Andrews had again become vacant, and Morton nominated Adamson to the
 
 24: PATRICK ADAMSON. 
 
 see ; who, on receiving the appointment, began even already to show th;it hu 
 would hold it independently of the authority of the church, by refusing to 
 (submit to the usual trial and examination of the Assembly. In this he persisted, 
 and entered office against the acts and ordinances of the Assembly provided for 
 such occasions. While chaplain to the regent, he had been wont, while preach- 
 ing, and giving his glosses upon texts of Scripture, to say, " The prophet would 
 mean this " a phrase so usual with him on such occasions, that his hearers 
 could not help noticing it. At length, when he became primate of Scotland, 
 Captain Montgomery, one of the regent's officers, exclaimed, with dry humour, 
 " I never knew what the prophet meant till now !" As Adamson's entering 
 into the archbishopric was such an act of contravention to the authority of 
 the church, the Assembly, at one of its meetings in 1577, resolved to institute 
 proceedings against the offender. But even this formidable danger he was able 
 to avert for the time with his wonted craft. He professed the utmost humility, 
 and offered to lay down his office at the feet of the Assembly, and be ordered 
 at their pleasure, but represented how desirable it would be to postpone all such 
 proceedings until the Book of Policy had been finished, and ratified by the 
 regent. The matter was thus reduced to a mere question of time, and his 
 suggestion prevailed. 
 
 The great subject now at issue was the Book of Ecclesiastical Policy, the 
 Magna Charta of the Church of Scotland, upon the passing of which its rights 
 and liberties as a national church were at stake. It was, as might have been 
 expected, completely Presbyterian in its discipline, and subversive of that epis- 
 copal rule which the court was labouring to establish. Among these enact- 
 ments, it was decreed, that no bishop should be designated by his title, but his 
 own name, as a brother, seeing he belonged to a church that has but one Lord, 
 even Christ that no bishops should thenceforth be appointed in it ; and that 
 no minister should accept the office on pain of deprivation. Against such con- 
 clusions it is not wonderful that Adamson demurred. But as himself and the 
 bishop of Aberdeen constituted the entire minority in the Assembly, his oppo- 
 sition went' no farther than to procrastinate any final conclusion. But the 
 Policy was at length concluded, and ready to be presented to the government, 
 and for this, Adamson had reserved his master stroke. The book was to be 
 subscribed by every member individually, but this form the archbishop opposed. 
 " Nay," he said, " we have an honest man, our clerk, to subscribe for all, and 
 it would derogate from his faithfulness and estimation if we should all severally 
 subscribe." The difference appeared so trivial, that the brethren assented to 
 the proposal, although some of them seem to have entertained a lurking sus- 
 picion that all was not right ; so that Mr Andrew Hay, minister of Renfrew, 
 could not help exclaiming, " Well, if any man comes against this, or denies it 
 hereafter, he is not honest." He soon showed at whom his suspicions pointed, 
 by stepping up to Adamsou, and saying to him in the presence of three or four 
 by-standers, "There is my hand, Mr Patrick ; if you come against this here- 
 after, consenting now so thoroughly to it, I will call you a knave, were it never 
 bo publicly." The other accepted the challenge, and thus the matter ended 
 lor the present. The Book of Policy was to be presented to the Lords of 
 Articles for ratification on the part of the government ; and strangely enough, 
 Adamsou was commissioned to present it. Morton and the lords asked him if 
 he had given his assent to these enactments ; to which he answered that he had 
 not, and that he had refused to subscribe to them. Here was a loop-hole of
 
 PATRICK ADAMSON. 25 
 
 escape for the council : the Archbishop of St. Andrews had withheld his assent, 
 and they could do no less than follow the example. The Book was rejected, 
 and the ministers were left to divine the cause of the refusal. But Andrew 
 Ilay, on inquiring of several members of council, who told him the particulars, 
 and laid the whole blame of the refusal on Adamson, soon saw that he had a 
 pledge to redeem ; and on the archbishop passing by at that instant, he griped 
 him by the hand, looked him angrily in the face, and exclaimed, in presence of 
 the others, " O knave, knave, I will crown thee the knave of all knaves !" It is 
 enough to add here, that the Book of Policy, after having been delayed three 
 years longer, was in 1581 thoroughly ratified and ordained in every point, and 
 ordered to be registered in the books of the Assembly. As for Adamson, we 
 find him employed during this interval in preaching in St Andrews, lecturing 
 in the college, and attending the meetings of the General Assembly, but with 
 no greater authority than that of the ordinary brethren. But symptoms even 
 already had occurred to show, that the court favour upon which he was willing 
 to build, was but a sandy foundation, for his powerful patron, the earl of Mor- 
 ton, had been brought to the block. He forthwith prepared himself, therefore, 
 to recognize the authority of the kirk in the doctrine of bishops, to which he 
 had hitherto been opposed, and even gave his subscription to the articles of the 
 Book of Policy, which he had hitherto withheld. This was in St Andrews, 
 before the celebrated Andrew Melville, and a party of his friends, who were 
 assembled with him. But all this was insufficient : he must also secure the 
 countenance of the party in power, whatever for the time it might be ; and for 
 this purpose he passed over to Edinburgh, and took his seat in the Convention 
 of Estates. Here, however, his reception was so little to his liking, that he 
 found he must side wholly with the kirk. He therefore addressed himself to 
 the ministers of Edinburgh, with professions which his subsequent conduct 
 showed to be downright hypocrisy. He told them that he had come over to 
 the court in the spirit of Balaam, on purpose to curse the kirk, and do evil ; 
 but that God had so wrought with him, that his heart was wholly changed, so 
 that he had advocated and voted in the church's behalf and that henceforth 
 he would show further and further fruits of his conversion and good meaning. 
 This self-abasing comparison of himself to Balaam must have staggered the 
 unfavourable suspicions of the most sceptical : at all events, it did so with the 
 apostolic John Durie, who rejoiced over the primate's conversion, and wrote a 
 flattering account of it to James Melville. The latter, in consequence, visited 
 Adamson upon his return, and told him the tidings he had received, for which 
 he heartily thanked God, and offered the archbishop the right hand of Christian 
 fellowship. The other, still continuing his penitent grimace, described the 
 change that had passed upon him at great length, which he attributed to the 
 working of the Spirit within him. Perhaps he overacted his part, for Melville 
 only observed in reply, " Well, that Spirit is an upright, holy, and constant 
 Spirit, and will more and more manifest itself in effects ; but it is a fearful thing 
 to lie against him 1" 
 
 It was indeed full time for the Archbishop of St Andrews not only to recover 
 his lost credit with the kirk, but the community at large. He was generally 
 accused of the vices of intemperance and gluttony; he was noted as an unfaith- 
 ful paymaster, so that he stood upon the score of most of the shopkeepers in the 
 town ; and what was still worse, he was accused of consorting with witches, 
 and availing himself of their unlawful power ! We of the nineteenth century
 
 2G 
 
 PATRICK ADAMSON. 
 
 can laugh at such a charge, and imagine it sufficient not only to disprove itself, 
 but weaken all the other charges brought against him. But in the sixteenth 
 century it was no such laughing matter; for there were not only silly women 
 in abundance to proclaim themselves witches, but wise men to believe them. 
 Even the pulpits of England as well as Scotland resounded with sermons against 
 witchcraft; and a learned prelate, while preaching before Elizabeth, assured her 
 Majesty, that the many people who were dyinjr daily, in spite of all the aid of 
 leechcraft, were thus brought to their end by spells and incantations. While 
 this was the prevalent belief, a person having recourse to such agency was 
 wilfully and deliberately seeking help from the devil, and seeking it where he 
 thought it could best be found. Now, Adamson, among his other offences, had 
 fallen into this most odious and criminal predicament. He was afflicted with 
 a painful disease, which he called a " foedity ;" and being unable to obtain relief 
 from the regular practitioners, he had recourse to the witches of Fife, and 
 among others, to a notable woman, who pretended to have learned the art of 
 healing from a physician who had appeared to her after he was dead and buried ! 
 This wretched creature, on being apprehended and convicted of sorcery, or what 
 she meant to be such, was sentenced to suffer death, as she would have been in 
 any other country of Europe, and was given in charge to the Archbishop for 
 execution. But the woman made her escape, and this, it was supposed she did, 
 through Adamson 's connivance. After this statement, it needs scarcely be won- 
 dered at, that foremost in the accusations both from the pulpit and in church 
 courts, the crime of seeking aid from Satan should have been specially urged 
 against him. The man who will presumptuously attempt "to call spirits from 
 the vasty deep," incurs the guilt of sorcery whether they come or not. 
 
 While such was the evil plight to which the archbishop was reduced, and 
 ont of which he was trying to struggle as he best could, the condition of public 
 affairs was scarcely more promising for his interests. In the Assembly held in 
 April, 1.582, he had seen Robert Montgomery, Archbishop of Glasgow, who 
 was his constant ally in every Episcopal movement, arraigned at their bar, 
 reduced to the most humbling confessions, and dismissed with the fear of depo- 
 sition hanging over him. In the same year, the Raid of Ruthven had occurred, 
 by which the royal power was coerced, and presbytery established in greater 
 authority than ever. Dismayed by these ominous symptoms, Adamson with- 
 drew from public notice to his castle of St Andrews, where he kept himself 
 " like a tod in his hole,'' giving out that his painful " focdity " was the cause of 
 his retirement. But at length the sky began to brighten, and the primate to 
 venture forth after a whole year of concealment. The king emancipated him- 
 self from his nobles of the Raid, and came to St Andrews, upon which the 
 archbishop, flinging off his sickness likeaworn-out cloak, resumed his abandoned 
 pulpit with royalty for an auditor, and preached such sermons as were well 
 
 > The preacher was no other than the learned Bishop Jewel. " Witches and sorcerers 
 within these last few years," he said, "are marvellously increased within your Grace's 
 realm. These eyes have seen most evident and manifest marks of their wickedness. Your 
 Grace's subjects pine away even unto the death : their colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, 
 their speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft. Wherefore your poor subjects' most 
 humble petition to your Highness is, that the laws touching such malefactors may be put 
 m due execution. For the shoal of them is great, their doing horrible, their malice into- 
 lerable, their examples most miserable: and I pray God they never practise further than 
 upon the nbject."
 
 PATRICK ADAMSON. 27 
 
 fitted to ingratiate himself into the favour of the young sovereign. They were 
 furious declamations against the lords of the Raid, against the ministers of the 
 kirk by whom they had been countenanced, and against all their proceedings 
 by which the headlong will of James had been reduced within wholesome 
 limits; and these, too, were delivered in such fashion, as, we are informed by 
 James Melvill, " that he who often professed from the pulpit before that he 
 had not the spirit of application, got the gift of application by inspiration of 
 such a spirit as never spoke in the scriptures of God." Among the other effects 
 of the Raid of Ruthven, was the banishment of the king's unworthy favourites, 
 the Earl of Arran, and the Duke of Lennox, the former from the royal presence, 
 and the latter from the country ; and Lennox took his exile so much to heart, 
 that he died soon after he had arrived in France, while James continued to 
 bewail his loss. Here then was a favourable theme for the archbishop. The 
 chief offence alleged against Lennox was, that though outwardly a Protestant, 
 he had not only lived, but even died a Papist ; and from this stigma it was 
 Adamson's main effort to clear the memory of the departed. He therefore 
 boldly asserted, in his sermon, that Lennox had died a good Protestant, and in 
 proof of this he exhibited in the pulpit a scroll, which he called the Duke's 
 testament. It happened unluckily for the preacher, however, that an honest 
 merchant woman, who sat near the pulpit, looked narrowly at this important 
 document, and saw with astonishment that it was an account of her own, which 
 she had sent to the archbishop for a debt of some four or five years' standing, 
 but which, like other reckonings of the kind, he had left unpaid ! 
 
 Adamson s loyalty was soon rewarded, and in a way that best accorded with 
 his wishes. He was to be employed as ambassador or envoy from the king to 
 the court of London. What was the ostensible object of his mission does not 
 appear ; but its real purport was, the suppression of Presbyterianism.in Scot- 
 land, and the establishment of such a form of Episcopacy in its stead, as might 
 make the union of the two countries more complete, when James should become 
 king of both. But in such an office the messenger behoved to go wisely and 
 warily to work, as Elizabeth was apt to take fire at every movement that pointed 
 to a succession in her throne. Another serious difficulty interposed in the very 
 threshold of the archbishop's departure. He had already been charged before 
 the presbytery of St Andrews, as corrupt both in life and doctrine : the trial 
 was removed to the synod, and was finally remitted to the General Assembly, 
 at whose bar he must justify himself, or be deposed for non-appearance ; and 
 he thus felt himself between the horns of a dilemma in which his compearance 
 or absence might be equally fatal. If, however, he could only get the trial 
 delayed until he had accomplished his mission, he might then brave it, or quash 
 it with impunity. He therefore called sickness to his aid, and pretended that 
 he was going to the wells of Spa, in Germany, for the recovery of his health ; 
 and this was nothing more than reasonable, even though he should take London 
 by the way. Forth therefore he went, unhindered and unsuspected ; and, if there 
 is any truth in " The Legend of the Lymmar's Life," a satirical poem, written 
 by Robert Semple, the archbishop's conduct during this embassy was anything 
 but creditable to his employers. His chief aim, indeed, seems to have been to 
 replenish his extenuated purse ; and, provided this was accomplished, he was 
 by no means scrupulous about the means. Even horses, books, and gowns 
 came into his permanent possession under the name of loans. His approach to 
 the palace for his first, and, as it turned out, his last audience, was equally
 
 28 PATRICK ADAMSON. 
 
 nnseemly, for he advanced to the hallowed walls of the virgin Queen with n3 
 little lastidiousness, as if he had been about to enter the dingy habitation of 
 some Scottish baron in one of the closes of the Canongate, so that a porter, 
 who espied him from the gate, rushed out and rebuked his indecorum with iv 
 cudgel. But, amidst all his Scapin-like tricks in the English metropolis, from 
 which he seems to have derived for the time a comfortable revenue, Adamson 
 was not unmindful of the real object of his journey, which he pursued with u 
 diligence worthy of a better cause. He endeavoured to enlist the prejudices of 
 the Queen against the ministers of Scotland, and such of the nobility as favoured 
 them ; he consulted with the bishops upon the best means of conforming the 
 Scottish to the English church ; and, aware of the purpose of his own court to 
 banish or silence the best of the clergy, he wished them to send learned and 
 able ministers to supply the pulpits of those who were to be displaced. But, 
 not content with this, he endeavoured to bring the kirk of Scotland into dis- 
 credit with the foreign Reformed churches of France, Geneva, and Zurich, by 
 sending to them a list of garbled or distorted passages, as propositions extracted 
 from the Scottish confession, and craving their opinion as to their soundness. 
 It was a crafty device, and might have been attended with much mischief, had 
 it not been that an antidote to the bane was at this timo in England, in the 
 person of Mr Andrew Melville, a more accomplished scholar, as well as a more 
 able and eloquent writer, than Adamson himself. He drew up a true statement 
 of the subjects propounded, and sent them to the foreign churches, by which 
 the archbishop's design was speedily frustrated. But the work of mere eccle- 
 siastical diplomacy does not seem to have been sufficient for the restless and 
 scheming mind of Adamson, so that he was suspected of intriguing with the 
 French and Spanish ambassadors, and connecting himself with the plot of 
 Throckmorton, the object of which was the liberation of Mary, and the restora- 
 tion of Popery. It was a strange period of plots and conspiracies, where Pro- 
 testant, Papist, and Puritan, priest and layman, foreigner and Englishman, were 
 often mingled together as in a seething and bubbling cauldron, lor the concoction 
 of a charm by which a cure for every public evil was to be effected. It was 
 immediately on the detection of this Throckmorton conspiracy, and the appre- 
 hension of its author, that the archbishop secretly withdrew from England and 
 returned home, after having been employed fully six months in these, and other 
 euch devices, in London. 
 
 While Adamson had thus been occupied in England, in the establishment of 
 Episcopacy, the government at home had not been idle ; and the worthless Earl 
 of Arran, who, since the suppression of the Raid of Ruthven, had returned to 
 court, and acquired a greater ascendancy over the weak mind of James than 
 ever, proceeded to put his plan in execution of silencing, imprisoning, and 
 banishing the best and most distinguished of the Scottish clergy. It was thus 
 that the flocks were to be brought to helplessness, and a new order of shepherds 
 introduced. The list of the persecuted was a large one ; but among the most 
 illustrious of these were some of the most distinguished lights of the Scottish 
 Re/ormation, such as Andrew Melville, John Davidson, Walter Balcanquhal, 
 and James Lawson. Of these we can only particularize the last, as his closing 
 scene was but too intimately connected with the history of Patrick Adamson. 
 Lawson had been the friend and fellow-labourer of Knox, whom he succeeded 
 u} minister of Edinburgh ; and in this important charge, while he was closely 
 connected with all the principal ecclesiastical movements of the period, he was
 
 PATRICK ADAMSON. 29 
 
 distinguished by his gentleness, self-denial, and piety. But these were the very 
 Qualities that now marked him out as a victim ; and the imperious Arran did 
 not hesitate to threaten that, though his head were as big as a hay-stack, he 
 would make it fly from his shoulders. Lawson knew that his life was aimed 
 :it, and, like several of his brethren thus circumstanced, he fled to England, and 
 took up his residence at London, in one of the lanes leading from Cheapside. 
 But the uncongenial climate, and, above all, the detection of many of his flock 
 during his absence, so heavily afflicted him, that he fell into a disease, of which 
 he died in little more than a month. Upon his death-bed, the English who 
 visited him were edified with his pious remarks, which they carefully treasured 
 up for their families and acquaintances ; and his last prayers were for mercy to 
 those who would neither enter the kingdom of God themselves, nor suffer others 
 to enter therein. And will it be believed that Patrick Adamson, the man for 
 whom in especial he had so prayed, conceived the idea of perverting such a 
 death-bed to his own political purposes? But so it was. He sat down with 
 the pen of a ready writer, and composed an elaborate testament in Lawson's 
 I name, in which the dying man was made to abjure all his Presbyterian princt- 
 1 pies, to grieve over them as deadly sins, to recommend the government of the 
 church by bishops, and enjoin implicit obedience to the king's authority. It 
 was indeed a bold exploit in literary forgery ; but, at this period and afterwards, 
 when the pen outran the activity of the press, and communities were so separ- 
 ated, it was easy to make a fraud of this kind, where the locality was transferred 
 to London, to pass current in the streets of Edinburgh. There is no doubt that 
 thus the archbishop had calculated; but, like many very cunning people, he, 
 in this instance, betrayed himself by his over-scrupulous dexterity, and wove 
 the web so finely, that in many places it was quite transparent. Thus, not 
 content with making Lawson recant all the principles of his well-spent life 
 with a hurry that was inconceivable, and laud Episcopal rule with an unction 
 and earnestness which the Archbishop of Canterbury himself could not have 
 surpassad, he also made him, in exhorting his old co-presbyters, to vent a 
 malignity of sentiment, and drolling bitterness of satire, such as, whether living 
 or dying, Lawson could not and would not have used. But it fortunately hap- 
 pened that proof still stronger than inferential evidence was at hand, to convict 
 this impudent forgery; for Lawson himself had written his last testament, 
 which was witnessed with the honoured names of Andrew Melville, James 
 Carmichael, John Davidson, and Walter Balcanquhal. 
 
 After his return from England, Adamson did not lie idle ; he zealously joined 
 the king and Arran in their persecution of the best adherents of the kirk, 
 under which, not only the principal ministers, but also the chief of the nobility, 
 were fugitives in England. His pen also was soon in requisition for a more 
 dignified work, at least, than that of blackening the memory of a departed 
 brother; it was to advocate, defend, and justify certain obnoxious measures of 
 James and his favourite, that had passed through the parliament in 1584, and 
 were generally unpopular, both on account of their anti-presbyterian spirit in 
 religion, and their despotic tendencies in civil rule. This task Adamson accom- 
 plished, and with such plausibility and ingenuity, that his apology was not 
 only in high favour with the king, but widely popular in England, so that it 
 was inserted in the appendix of Holinshed's History as a true picture of the 
 religious state of Scotland. But this was not his only reward. Although he 
 was still a suspended presbyter, with his trial by the General Assembly hanging
 
 SO PATRICK ADAilSOX. 
 
 over him, and accounted a very Julian the Apostate by his former brethren, 
 yet he was now to be confirmed in his primacy, with all the high rights and 
 immunities that could be comprised within the office. This was announced by 
 a royal letter, under the great seal, and, as such, was indignantly termed by the 
 ministers the King's Bull, "giving and granting to his well-beloved clerk and 
 orator, Patrick, archbishop of St Andrews, power, authority, and jurisdiction 
 to exercise the same archbishopric by himself, his commissioners, and deputies, 
 in all matters ecclesiastical, within the diocese of St Andrews, and sheiiffdoms 
 which have been heretofore annexed thereto." In this way he would be able 
 to sit as presiding moderator in that Assembly where he should have stood as 
 a culprit, and silence the charges which he could not have answered. But this, 
 his culminating point, was also that of his downfall. The banished lords, who 
 had withdrawn themselves to England, now took counsel upon the oppressed 
 state of their country, and resolved to redress it after the old Scottish fashion. 
 They therefore approached the border, where they could communicate with 
 their allies, and appoint musters of their retainers ; and at length, all being in 
 readiness, Angus, Mar, Glammis, and the Hamiltons entered Scotland, and 
 rapidly marched to Stirling, at the head of eight thousand armed men, to reason 
 with their misguided sovereign. He soon found himself, like many of his 
 ancestors, the pupil of Force and Necessity, and was compelled to yield to their 
 stern remonstrances ; while Arran was again, and for the last time, banished 
 into that obscurity from which he should never have been summoned. 
 
 The return of the exiled lords, and the banishment of Arran from court, 
 produced a breathing interval to the kirk ; and the ministers who had been 
 dispersed, warded, or silenced, were enabled to resume their charges unques- 
 tioned. It was now time, therefore, to redress the evils that had been inflicted 
 upon the church, and these too by members of its own body, during the last 
 two years of trial, if its polity and discipline were to be something more than 
 an empty name. It was a stern duty, as Adamson was soon to feel. He had 
 laboured for the eversion of the kirk, and the persecution of its ministers, under 
 an unconstitutional authority against which he had protested and subscribed ; 
 and for all this he must answer before the court to which the assize of such 
 delinquencies pertained. The synod of St Andrews, which had been closed 
 during the persecution, was to be re-opened, and their first work was to be the 
 trial of their own archbishop, whom their laws recognized as a simple presbyter, 
 and nothing more. This solemn meeting was therefore convoked in April, 1586, 
 to which a great concourse assembled ; and thither also came the archbishop, 
 " with a great pontificality and big countenance," for he boasted that he was in 
 his own city, and possessed of the king's favour, and therefore needed to fear 
 uo one. He also placed himself close by the preacher, who was Mr James 
 Melville, as if determined to outbrave the whole assembly. The discourse was 
 a vindication of the polity of the church, and a rehearsal of the wrongs it had 
 suffered ; and then, "coming in particular," says Melville himself, " to our own 
 kirk of Scotland, I turned to the bishop, sitting at my elbow, and directing my 
 speech to him personally, I recounted to him, shortly, his life, actions, and pro- 
 ceedings against the kirk, taking the assembly there to witness, and his own con- 
 fecience before God, if he was not an evident proof and example of that doctrine ; 
 whom, being a minister of the kirk, the Dragon had so stung with the poison 
 and venom of avarice and ambition, that, swelling exorbitantly out of measure, 
 tlireateaed the wreck and destruction of the whole body, unless he were time-
 
 PATRICK ADAMSON. 31 
 
 ouSiy and with courage cut off." To this formidable appeal, the archbishop 
 endeavoured to answer, hut it was only with frivolous objections, and threats 
 of the king's displeasure, while his courage was so utterly gone that he could 
 scarcely sit, far less stand on his feet. But the business commenced, the pro- 
 cess was entered into, and Adamson left the meeting. He was invited to return, 
 but he sent for answer that the synod was no judge to him, but he to it. He 
 not only persisted in refusing to appear, hut sent such answers to the charges 
 against him as only aggravated the offence. Nothing remained but to inflict 
 upon htm the final sentence of the church, which was done accordingly. After 
 enumerating his offences, it thus concluded : " Therefore, and for divers other 
 notorious slanders whereof he was to be accused, and refused to underly any 
 lawful trial, the assembly, in the fear of God, and in the name of Christ Jesus, 
 moved by zeal to the glory of God, and purging of His kirk, ordains the said 
 sentence of excommunication instantly to be put into execution in the face of 
 the assembly ; and, by the mouth of Mr Andrew Hunter, minister at Carnobie, 
 at command and appointment of the assembly, declares him to be one of those 
 whom Christ commandeth to be holden by all and every one of the faithful as 
 an ethnic or publican." 
 
 The doom so long suspended hid thus fallen at last ; but still the primate would 
 not yield. He rallied himself for a desperate counter-movement, and penned, 
 by his own sole authority, a sentence of excommunication against the two 
 Melvilles, and some of his principal accusers in the synod, which he sent by n 
 boy, accompanied by two of his jackmen ; but when this strange and most 
 informal missive was read in the church, the audience were as little moved by 
 it, as if he had excommunicated the stones of the building. He also sent a 
 complaint against these proceedings to the king, with an appeal from the 
 authority of the synod to his majesty, the estates, and the privy council. On 
 the arrival of Sabbath, he prepared for a decisive effort, by preaching in the 
 church in spite of the sentence. But just when he was about to ascend the 
 pulpit, a mischievous rumour reached his ear, thit several gentlemen and 
 citizens had assembled in the New College, to take him out of the pulpit, and 
 hang him; and terrified with the tidings, he not only called his friends and 
 jackmen to the rescue, but fled from the church, and took refuge in the steeple. 
 And yet, the whole cause of the stir was nothing more than the assembling of 
 a few gentlemen and citizens in the New College, to attend the preaching of 
 Andrew Melville, instead of that of an excommunicated man! The archbishop's 
 friends followed him to the steeple, to assure him of his safety ; but so desperate 
 was his fear, that they could scarcely drag him out by force. While he was 
 half-led, half-carried down the High Street, and through the north gate towards 
 his castle, an unlucky stray hare, terrified at the coming din, suddenly started 
 up, and fled before them. Even this incident could impart some gravity to the 
 scene. It was a popular belief at that time in Scotland that a witch, when 
 pursued, usually assumed the form of a hare, more effectually to ensure her 
 escape ; and the appearance of the poor animal at such a time and place, made 
 the people declare that it was no other than the prelate's witch, abandoning her 
 master, to make good her own safety. 
 
 We have already stated that Adamson appealed against the sentence of 
 excommunication, to the authority of the king. In this singular appeal, he 
 declaimed with great learning and marvellous plausibility about the right of 
 royalty to interpose against ecclesiastical, as well as civil tyranny ; and as he had
 
 32 PATRICK ADAMSON. 
 
 already made out, as he thought, his own case to be one of undue ecclesiastical 
 oppression on the part of his enemies, the conclusion was plain, that the kin-jr 
 could lawfully release him from the spiritual sentence. He wound up his 
 reasoning with the following supposition, to which, he well knew, James would 
 not be insensible : "Beseeching your majesty to consider and weigh with your 
 Highness' self, nobility, and council, how dangerous a thing it is to put such a 
 sword in such men's hands, or to suffer them to usurp further than their duty ; 
 whereby it may come to pass, that as rashly and unorderly they have pretendedly 
 excommunicated the first man of your majesty's parliament (albeit unworthy), so 
 there rests nothing of their next attempt to do the same to your majesty's self." 
 The king's pride was roused at such a thought, as well as his kingcraft for the 
 restoration of Episcopacy, now at a stand through the jeopardy of his archbishop ; 
 and therefore he arrogantly required the ministers to rescind their sentence, 
 threatening them with the deprivation of their rights and stipends in the event 
 of a refusal. The General Assembly met in May the same year, when these 
 conditions were proposed, and the members were in sore strait how to act in 
 such a dilemma; for most of the restored lords, after being replaced in their 
 possessions, had left the church to shift for itself. At length, a medium course 
 was adopted by the Assembly, and that, too, only by a small majority. It was, 
 that the archbishop " should be holden and repute in the same case and con- 
 dition that he was in before the holding of the Synod of St Andrews, without 
 prejudice, decerning, or judging anything of the proceedings, process, or sentence 
 of the said synod." It was a strange decision, by which Adamson was allowed 
 to teach, preach, and exercise his clerical functions, excommunicated though 
 he still was ; while the pulpits, by royal decree, were not only to be patent to 
 his entrance, but the students of St Andrews were commanded to attend his 
 lectures in the Old College as heretofore. This violence, as might be expected, 
 produced counter-violence, so that libels were thrown not only into the arch- 
 bishop's chamber, but the pulpits in which he officiated, threatening him with 
 death for his intrusion. And as if all this had not been enough, he added to 
 his further disqualifications, byinability to payhis debts, in consequence of which 
 he was, according to the practice of the Scottish law, denounced a rebel, and 
 put to the horn. This case was brought before the Assembly of June, 1587, 
 because many people had demurred to attend his ministrations, while he laboured 
 under such degrading disabilities. The Assembly, however, decided that theso 
 were of a civil, rather than an ecclesiastical character, and referred them to the 
 kin? for adjustment. 
 
 In the very same year and month, while Adamson was in this miserable 
 plight an excommunicated minister and an outlawed prelate the first man 
 in the parliament, and yet a denounced rebel because he could not pay his 
 debts a gleam of royal sunshine fell upon him, which was destined to be the 
 last. The celebrated Du Bartes visited Scotland ; and James, delighted with the 
 arrival of so distinguished a scholar and poet, received him with princely dis- 
 tinction, and entertained him as his guest. While they were in Fife, the king 
 was desirous that Du Bartes should see the two most accomplished scholars in 
 Scotland and these were incontestibly to be found at St Andrews, in Andrew 
 Melville and Patrick Adamson. Thither accordingly the royal cortege repaired ; 
 and the first notice which Melville had of the visit was from the king himself, 
 who bluntly told him that he had come with the illustrious foreigner, to have 
 n lesson from him in his class-room. Startled by such a brief warning, Melville
 
 WD HID AGO 
 
 .FROM A PAIHTING BY HIMSELF IK THE POSSESSION OF M?FORBK. 

 
 PATRICK ADAMSON. 33 
 
 would have excused himself, outhe plea that he had already delivered his ordi- 
 nary lecture in the forenoon. " That is all one," said the king ; " I must have 
 a lesson, and be you here within an hour for that effect." In less than an hour, 
 the professor was in readiness ; the distinguished visitors and the students were 
 assembled; and Melville commenced such a lecture, as made the king wish him- 
 self once more among the deer in Falkland. It was an eloquent extemporane- 
 ous ovation, in which he vindicated Christ's right of sovereignty over his own 
 chinch, and refuted and exposed the acts of parliament that had been lately 
 enacted subversive of the kirk's authority. James went home in no very 
 pleasant mood, and remained in a fume the whole evening. On the next morn- 
 ing it was Adamson's turn, who was not likely to trespass in the same fashion. 
 During the interval, he had prepared a " tightened-up abridgment" of his 
 previous year's lectures, in which he attempted to vindicate the royal supremacy 
 in ecclesiastical affairs, and justify the steps that had been taken for that pur- 
 pose. Andrew Melville, who attended as an auditor, took notes of the arch- 
 bishop's arguments; and without further study, caused the college bell to be 
 rung after a short interval, to announce a new lecture. The king, who had not 
 yet digested the lesson of yesterday, sent a warning to Melville to be moderate, 
 otherwise he would discharge him ; to which the other replied, that his majesty's 
 ear had already been abused by Adamson's errors and untruths, which he could 
 not allow to pass unquestioned, unless his breath were stopped by death itself 
 but that still, he should be careful to behave himself most moderately and 
 reverendly to his majesty in all respects. The king was satisfied with this 
 assurance, and repaired to the class-room, where Adamson was also in attend- 
 ance ; and he craved and obtained the royal permission to reply, should any 
 thing be alleged against his doctrine. The two strong champions were now 
 standing front to front in the lists and never had king of Scotland so delighted 
 in the hurtling together of man and horse, and the shivering of spears, as did 
 James in the prospect of an intellectual tournament, where dexterous syllo- 
 gisms and home-thrust arguments were the only blows in circulation. But 
 here, Melville changed his tactics, in a way that would have puzzled the 
 most experienced master of fence. He had no longer a controversy with Epis- 
 copacy, but with Popery, the great common enemy of Protestantism at large ; 
 and thus secure of the sympathy of his audience, he extracted from the works 
 of the Popish authors the strongest arguments they had adduced in defence of 
 their system, for the purpose of refuting them. But these arguments were the 
 very same which Adamson had used in the forenoon, in favour of the spiritual 
 government of kings and bishops ! There, however, they stood among the 
 ranks of the uncircumcised ; and as such, they were attacked with an amount 
 of scripture and learning, and a force and fervour of eloquence, as completely 
 swept them off the field. It was now the archbishop's turn to bestir himself, 
 but he was dumb dumb as the bench he sat upon. At last, the king advanced 
 to the rescue ; and after making several logical distiuguos, upon which he 
 harangued for some time, he ended by commanding the students to reverence 
 and obey his archbishop. When James departed, Du Bartes stayed behind a 
 whole hour, conversing with Andrew Melville, after which, he mounted his 
 horse, and rejoined his majesty. The king wished to know the opinion of the 
 foreigner upon the two men they had heard ; to which Du Bartes replied, That 
 they were both learned men, but that the prelate's lectures were conned and 
 prepared, whij.e Melville had a great and ready store of all kinds of learning 
 i. E
 
 PATRICK ADAMSON. 
 
 within him ; and that his spirit and courage were far above the other. In this 
 correct estimate James completely agreed. 
 
 From this period, the life of Adamson was but a brief and mournful record. 
 After his late discomfiture, he became weary of teaching in the college, and 
 seems to have remitted it in a great measure to his successful rival. The minis- 
 trations of the pulpit could not console him, as the audiences either avoided him 
 as an excommunicated man, or tarried and listened as to the voice of an intruder. 
 Fresh complaints were made against him in the church courts, of having col- 
 lated unworthy persons to benefices within his diocese. And, to crown all, he 
 finally lost the favour and protection of the king, whom he had served only too 
 well but who was now weary of an archbishop buried under debt and disgrace, 
 and whose season of working seemed well nigh over. Broken in health as well 
 as in spirit, it might have been thought that James would at least have suffered 
 such a faithful servant to depart in peace ; but as if his own ungrateful hand, 
 and no other, ought to deal the final blow, he alienated from him whatever of 
 the revenues of his diocese he was still permitted to enjoy, and bestowed them 
 upon the young Duke of Lennox, the son of his early favourite. In 151)1, 
 Adamson was dying a heart-broken man, and unable to procure for himself and 
 his family even the common necessaries of life. But besides hollow friends, lie 
 had generous enemies, and these last came forward in the hour of his extremity. 
 Such especially were the two Melvilles, whom he had persecuted in the season 
 of his ascendancy, but who now supported him for several months, at their own 
 expense. At last, he was reduced to such miserable shifts, that he entreated a 
 charitable collection to be made for him among the brethren in the town of St 
 Andrews ; and as an inducement, he offered to repair to the pulpit, and there 
 make open confession of his offences. This, indeed, his sickness prevented him 
 from accomplishing ; but he rendered an equivalent, in a distinct " Recanta- 
 tion," which he subscribed, and sent to the synod of St Andrews. Besides thus 
 showing how little he had cared for Episcopacy, and how much he had used it 
 for his own aggrandizement, he evinced the force of his early and long-concealed 
 convictions in favour of Presbyterianism, by the remorse which he now felt at 
 the thought of his excommunication, and his earnestness to be absolved from 
 the sentence ; and to this effect he sent a supplication to the presbytery of St 
 Andrews. They deputed two of the brethren, one of whom was James Mel- 
 ville, to examine him, and, if they judged fit, to release him. As soon as the 
 dying man saw Melville, he rose up in bed, plucked the night-cap from his 
 head, and exclaimed, " Forgive, forgive me, for God's sake, good Mr James, for 
 I have offended and done wrong to you many ways ! " Melville spoke to him 
 of his sin against Christ and his church, exhorted him to repentance, with the 
 assurance of mercy from God if he repented, and forgave him with all his heart. 
 His excommunication was then spoken of, and he was asked if he acknowledged 
 its lawfulness. To this, his emphatic reply, which he repeated again and again, 
 was, " Loose me, for Christ's sake !" His state and petition were fully reported 
 to the presbytery, and he was forthwith absolved. Even yet, as appears from 
 his " Recantation," he had hoped to struggle through this his last illness ; and 
 he professed in it his earnest desire and purpose to commence a better life, and 
 repair the evils he had inflicted upon religion and the church. But his new- 
 born sincerity was not to be thus tried, and he died in the lowest depths of hia 
 humiliation and repentance. His character is thus strongly and briefly summed 
 up by James Melville, who knew him well, and witnessed his career from it*
 
 SAINT AIDAN. 
 
 height to its mournful termination : " This man had many great gifts, but espe- 
 cially excelled in the tongue and pen ; and yet, for abusing of the same against 
 Christ, all use of both the one and the other was taken from him, when he was 
 in greatest misery, and had most need of them. In the latter end of his life, his 
 nearest friends were no comfort to him, and his supposed greatest enemies, to 
 whom indeed he offered greatest occasion of enmity, were his only friends, and 
 recompenced good for evil, especially my uncle Andrew, but found small tokens 
 of any spiritual comfort in him, which chiefly he would have wished to have 
 seen at his end. Thus God delivered his kirk of a most dangerous enemy, who, 
 if he had been endowed with a common civil piece of honesty in his dealing and 
 conversation, he had more means to have wrought mischief in a kirk or coun- 
 try, than any I have known or heard of in our island." 
 
 As will be surmised from the foregoing account, Patrick Adamson was both 
 an able and a voluminous writer ; but most of his productions were merely 
 written for the day, and have passed away with the occasions in which they 
 originated. Some of them he never purposed to acknowledge, while others 
 remained unpublished in manuscript. Most of these he confessed and regretted 
 in his " Recantation," declaring, that if it should please God to restore his health, 
 he would change his style, " as Cajetanus did at the Council of Trent." His 
 principal writings were collected and published, in one quarto volume, by Thomas 
 Volusenus (Wilson) in 1619 ; but notwithstanding their undoubted excellence, 
 it may be questioned if they are now at all known beyond the library of the 
 antiquary. It appears, that on becoming minister of Paisley, Adamson married 
 the daughter of a lawyer, who survived him, and by whom he had a family ; 
 but all record of them has passed away, so that he may be said to have been the 
 last, as he was the first of his race. The precise date of his death has not been 
 mentioned ; but it was in the latter part of the year 1591. Such was the career 
 and end of the great antagonist and rival of Andrew Melville. 
 
 AIDAN, SAINT, Bishop of Lindisfarne in the seventh century, was originally 
 a monk in the island of lona, and afterwards became a missionary in England. 
 To understand aright the history and labours of this self-devoted Christian 
 missionary, it is necessary to glance at the condition of England, and especially 
 of Northumbria, at the commencement of his ministry. England had been but 
 lately converted to Christianity, through the labours of Augustin and forty 
 monks, who had been sent to Britain, for that purpose, by Pope Gregory the 
 Great. The conversion of the seven kingdoms of the heptarchy, into which 
 England was divided by the Saxon conquerors, had been effected with unex- 
 ampled rapidity, but through the simplest agency. The monks, in the first 
 instance, addressed themselves to the sovereign of the state ; and when he 
 renounced his heathen errors, and submitted to baptism, his people implicitly 
 followed the example. But such sudden and wholesale conversions were 
 extremely precarious ; and it sometimes happened that, when the king apos- 
 tatized or died, the people returned to their former worship of Thor and Odin 
 as promptly as they had forsaken it. Such was especially the case in North* 
 umbria, the largest kingdom of the heptarchy, and the scene of Aidan's labours. 
 Edwin, the best and most illustrious sovereign of his day, after a life of strange 
 peril and adventure, had won his hereditary Northumbrian crown, and been 
 converted to Christianity by the Italian missionary Paulinus ; and, on becoming 
 a Christian, the happiest change was soon perceptible among his hitherto un- 
 tamable subjects. They received their sovereign's creed without murmur or
 
 SAINT AIPVX. 
 
 debate; "and in this time," says the old chronicler Fahyan, "was so great 
 pence in the kingdom of Edwin, that a woman might have gone from one town 
 to another without grief or noyaunce; and, for the refreshing of way-goers, 
 this Edwin ordained, at clear wells, cups, or dishes of hrass or iron, to be fas- 
 tened to posts standing by the said wells' sides ; and no man was so hardy as 
 to take away those cups, he kept so good justice." In short, he seems to have 
 been the Alfred of an earlier and ruder period. But, in the height of his power 
 and usefulness, the terrible Penda, king of Mercia, and great champion of the 
 ancient paganism, came against him in arms, and Edwin was defeated and slain 
 in a great battle, fought at Hatfield or Heathfield, near the river Trent. The 
 consequence was, that the Northumbrian's relapsed into their former barbarism 
 so rapidly, that every trace of Christianity would soon have been effaced from 
 among them, had it not been that Oswald, the nephew of Edwin, came forward 
 to vindicate the liberties of his falling country. This brave young prince, who 
 headed the Christian cause against the Pagan, advanced to give battle to Cad- 
 wallader, king of North Wales, in whom his people had found the most relent- 
 less of their enemies. The Christian army which Oswald headed was very 
 small, while that of Cadwallader was numerous, and its king was an able 
 leader and successful conqueror. Aware of the disparity, and conscious of their 
 own weakness, Oswald and his soldiers knelt in prayer, and humbly committed 
 themselves to the God of the Christians, after which they assailed the enemy 
 with full confidence, near Hexham. The Welsh were completely routed, their 
 king was slain, and the victorious prince was received as king by the two united 
 states of Deira and Bernicia. 
 
 The piety of Oswald attributed this signal success to the aid of the true God, 
 whom he had invoked ; and the first movement of his reign was to arrest the 
 growing heathenism of his people, and recal them to the Christian faith. For 
 this purpose he applied, however, not to the Italian monks, as his uncle had 
 done, but to the Culdees of lona; among whom he had been sheltered in his 
 early youth, during the disasters of his family, and by whom he had been care- 
 fully educated. The message was gladly received by the Culdee brethren, and 
 Connan, a learned monk of their order, was forthwith sent to Northunihria. 
 But the savage manners of the people appalled him, their inability to compre- 
 hend his instructions disgusted him, so that, despairing of their conversion, he 
 speedily returned home. While he was giving an account of his mission, and 
 describing the Northumbrians as a race of impracticable savages, a voice of 
 rebuke was suddenly heard in the assembly : " Brother, it seems to me that 
 your want of success was owing to a want of condescension to your hearers. 
 You should first have fed them with milk, according to the apostolic rule, until 
 they were fitted to receive stronger food." All eyes were turned upon the 
 speaker, who was Aidan. It was unanimously agreed by the assembly that he 
 was the fittest person to attempt the conversion of the Northumbrians, and, on 
 the charge being proposed to him, he cordially agreed. He arrived in England 
 A.P. 634, and repaired to the court of king Oswald. And now a missionary 
 work commenced in the Northumbrian kingdom such as missionary annals can 
 seldom parallel, for both king and monk went hand in hand in the duty. Aidan, 
 being a Celt, was either wholly ignorant of the Saxon language of his hearers 
 or imperfectly acquainted with it; but, when he preached, Oswald was ready 
 to interpret his addresses. The happiest results attended these joint labours. 
 The ancient idolatry was utterly thrown aside, and Christianity established
 
 SAINT AIDAN. 37 
 
 over Deira and Bernicia. Still further to confirm this change, Aidan prevailed 
 upon the king to transfer the episcopal see from York to Lindisfarne, or Holy 
 Island, a bleak peninsula upon the coast of Northumberland, which probably 
 the Culdee preferred from its resemblance to his own beloved lona; and here, 
 accordingly, a monastery was erected, which Aidan supplied with monks from 
 his own country. It is to be observed, also, that the form of Christianity thus 
 established in Northumbria was different from that which the Italian priests 
 had established over the rest of England. It was according to the primitive 
 institutes of Saint Columba, and therefore essentially presbyterian in its form 
 nnd discipline. Aidan, although he succeeded to the metropolitan rule of the 
 extensive archbishopric of York, was contented to continue a simple presbyter, 
 and nothing moi'e. He held no intercourse with the Roman pontiff, and ac- 
 knowledged no superiority of episcopal authority. He repudiated those showy 
 ceremonies and artificial forms which were so congenial to the Italian character, 
 and which the foreign priests had been so careful to introduce into England. 
 And, above all, instead of paying homage to tradition, as an authority indepen- 
 dent of the Word, he would receive nothing as a religious rule save that which 
 was contained in the sacred writings. Such was the religion of the Culdees; 
 ind in this form it was introduced into Northumbria by Aidan and Oswald, 
 fvho were both of them Culdees. But even if these important peculiarities hail 
 been left undisturbed by the Western church, that aimed at universal conformity 
 and universal rule, there were certain trivialities belonging to the Culdeeism of 
 Northumberland that, sooner or later, was sure to provoke the hostility of the 
 rest of England. The priests of the order of Columba shaved their foreheads 
 in the form of a half-moon, after the Eastern, fashion, instead of having the 
 Western tonsure, that was meant to represent a crown of thorns. Their season 
 also of keeping Easter was according to the Asiatic calculation, and not that of 
 the West. These were peculiarities which ever}' eye could detect at once, and 
 were therefore sufficient matters for controversy among a simple people, whose 
 views could penetrate no further; and, accordingly, the Easter and tonsure 
 controversy became, in a few years after, the great subject of religious debate in 
 England, by which the Culdees were expelled from the country. These dis- 
 turbances, however, did not occur until both king and monk had entered into 
 their rest. 
 
 After the death of Oswald, who was slain in battle, the kingdom of North- 
 umbria was once more parted into two sovereignties, those of Deira and Ber- 
 nicia ; in the former of which Oswin was appointed king, and, in the latter, 
 Oswio. It was, however a peaceful conjunction; and Aidan still continued, as 
 before, to preside over the church of Northumberland. The character of Oswin 
 appears to have fully resembled that of his amiable predecessor, and the bishop 
 of Lindisfarne seems to have loved him with a still higher affection than even 
 that which he bore for Oswald. Amidst the obscurity of that remote period, 
 and the shadowy character of its actors, Bede tells us a touching story, in which 
 the simple manners of the times, as well as the intercourse between the king 
 and the bishop, are brought out in strong relief. Oswin had once presented to 
 Aidan a fine horse. It happened that one day, as the Culdee was riding forth, 
 he met a poor man, who asked of him an alms, and Aidan, having no money, 
 bestowed on him the horse and its rich trappings. The king, on hearing of 
 this, was displeased, and could not refrain from expressing his resentment when 
 Aidan next dined with him. " Why were you so lavish of my favour," ho
 
 38 WILLIAM AIRMAN. 
 
 said, "as to give away my pad to a beggar? If you must needs mount him on 
 horseback, could you not have given him one of less value? Or, if he wanted 
 any other relief, you might have supplied him otherwise, and not have parted 
 so easily with my gift." "You have not carefully considered this matter," 
 replied Aidan, " for otherwise you could not set a greater value on the son of a 
 mare, than on a son of God." In this way the affair ended for the present. 
 Not long after, when the king returned from hunting, he saw the bishop, and, 
 remembering what had lately occurred, he laid aside his sword, threw himself 
 at the good man's feet, and asked his forgiveness for the rude words he had 
 uttered. Aidan, grieved to see the king in this posture, immediately raised 
 him, and declared that the whole matter was forgot. After this interview, 
 however, Aidan was observed to be very sad ; and, on being asked the cause by 
 ?ome of his monks, he burst into tears, and replied, " How can I be otherwise 
 than afflicted? I foresee that Oswin's life will be short, for never have I beheld 
 a prince so humble. His temper is too heavenly to dwell long among us, and, 
 truly, the nation does not deserve the blessing of such a ruler." This mournful 
 prediction was soon after accomplished by the death of Os win, who was assas- 
 sinated in August, 651 ; and Aidan took the matter so deeply to heart, that he 
 died a fortnight after. 
 
 Such is the little that we know of Saint Aidan, the apostle of Northumber- 
 land, and bishop of Lindisfarne. That he was great and good, and that he 
 accomplished much, is evident from the old chronicles, and especially from the 
 history of venerable Bede, from whom the foregoing account has been chiefly 
 gathered. The Venerable has also added to his account three miracles per- 
 formed by Aidan, one of which occurred after his death; but with these it is 
 unnecessary to trouble the modern reader. It is more agreeable to turn to his 
 character, as drawn by Bede himself, who lived during the close of the same 
 century, and knew Aidan well, not only from the testimony of his apostolic 
 labours, but the reports of the old men, who had heard his words, and witnessed 
 his doings: " These things I have written," he says, " touching the person and 
 actions of the man aforesaid, praising in his actions what is praiseworthy, and 
 committing it to posterity for the behoof of those who read ; to wit, his concern 
 for peace and charity, for abstinence and humility ; his utter freedom from 
 wrath and avarice, from pride and vain-glory ; his readiness alike to obey and 
 teach the Divine commands ; his diligence in reading and watching; his true 
 sacerdotal authority in checking the proud and powerful, and, at the same 
 time, his tenderness in comforting the afflicted, and relieving or defending the 
 poor. To say all in few words, as far as we have been informed by those whc 
 personally knew him, he took care to omit no part of his duty, but, to the 
 utmost of his power, performed everything commanded in the writings of the 
 evangelists, apostles, and prophets." 
 
 AIKMAN, WILLIAM, a painter, of considerable merit, of the last century, 
 was born, in Aberdeenshire, October 24, 1682. His father was William Aikman 
 of Cairney, a man of eminence at the Scottish bar, who educated his son to follow 
 his own profession. But a predilection for the fine arts, and a love of poetry, 
 which gained him the friendship of Ramsay and Thomson, induced the youth to 
 give up studying for the law, and turn his attention to painting. Having pro- 
 secuted his studies in painting for a time at home under Sir John Medina, and 
 also in England, he resolved to visit Italy, that he might complete his education 
 as an artist, and form his taste, by an examination of the classic models of anti-
 
 WILLIAM AIOTAN. 39 
 
 quity ; and accordingly, in 1707, having sold his paternal estate near Arbroath, 
 that he might leave home untrammelled, he went to Rome, where, during a 
 period of three years, he put himself under the tuition of the best masters. He 
 afterwards visited Constantinople and Smyrna, where the gentlemen of the Eng- 
 lish factory wished him to engage in the Turkey trade ; an overture which he 
 declined ; and returning to Rome, he there renewed his studies for a time. In 
 1712, he revisited his native country, and commenced practising his profession ; 
 but, though his works were admired by the discerning few, he did not meet with 
 adequate encouragement, the public being too poor at that time to purchase ela- 
 borate works of art, and the taste for such works being then too imperfectly 
 formed. At this period he formed an intimacy with Allan Ramsay, whose por- 
 trait he afterwards painted. John, Duke of Argyle, who equally admired the 
 artist and esteemed the man, regretting that such talents should be lost, at length 
 prevailed upon Aikman, in 1723, to move with all his family to London. There, 
 under the auspices of his distinguished friend, he associated with the most emi- 
 nent British painters of the age, particularly Sir Godfrey Kneller, whose studies 
 and dispositions of mind were congenial with his own. The duke also recom- 
 mended him to many people of the first rank, particularly the Earl of Bur- 
 lington, so well known for his taste in architecture; and he was thus able 
 to be of much service to Thomson, who came to London soon after himself, as a 
 literary adventurer. He introduced the poet of " The Seasons" to the brilliant 
 literary circle of the day Pope, Swift, Gay, Arbuthnot, &c. and, what was 
 perhaps of more immediate service, to Sir Robert Walpole, who aimed at being 
 thought a friend to men of genius. Among the more intimate friends of Aik- 
 man, was William Somerville, author of " The Chase," from whom he received 
 an elegant tribute of the muse, on his painting a full-length portrait of the poet 
 in the decline of life, carrying him back, by the assistance of another portrait, 
 to his youthful days. This poem was never published in any edition of Soiner- 
 ville's works. Aikman painted, for the Earl of Burlington, a large picture of 
 the royal family of England ; all the younger branches being in the middle 
 compartment, on a very large canvas, and on one hand a full-length portrait of 
 Queen Caroline; the picture of the king (George II.) that king who never 
 could endure " boetry or bainting," as he styled the two arts in his broken Eng- 
 lish intended for the opposite side, was never finished, owing to the death of 
 the artist. This was perhaps the last picture brought towards a close by Aikman, 
 and it is allowed to have been in his best style ; it came into the possession of the 
 Duke of Devonshire by a marriage alliance with the Burlington family. Some of 
 his earlier works are in the possession of the Argyle and Hamilton families in 
 Scotland ; his more mature and mellow productions are chiefly to be found in 
 England, and a large portion at Blickling, in Norfolk, the seat of the Earl of 
 Buckinghamshire ; these are chiefly portraits of noblemen, ladies, and gentlemen, 
 friends of the earl. He died June 4, 1731, at his house, in Leicester Fields, and, 
 by his own desire, his body was taken to Scotland for interment ; his only son, 
 John (by his wife Marion Lawson, daughter of Mr Lawson, of Cairnmuir, in 
 Peeblesshire), whose death immediately preceded his own, was buried in the same 
 grave with him, in the Grey friars' churchyard, Edinburgh. A monument was 
 erected over the remains of Mr Aikman, with the following epitaph by Mallet, 
 which has been long since obliterated : 
 
 Dear to the good and wise, dispraised by none. 
 Here sleep in peace the father and the son.
 
 40 WILLIAM A1KMAN. 
 
 By v'rtue as by nature close allied 
 
 The painter's genius, but without the pride. 
 
 Worth unambitious, wit afraid to shine, * 
 
 Honour's clear light, and friendship's warmth divine. 
 
 The son, fair-rising, knew too short a date; 
 
 But O how more severe the parent's fate! 
 
 He saw him torn untimely from his side, 
 
 i'elt all a lather's anguish wept, and died. 
 
 The following verses, in which Thomson bewails him with all the warmth of 
 grateful friendship, are only partially printed in that poet's works : 
 
 O could I draw, my friend, thy genuine min I, 
 
 Just as the living forms by thee designed! 
 
 Of Raphael's figures none should fairer shine, 
 
 Nor Titian's colours longer last than thine. 
 
 A mind n wisdom old, in lenience young, 
 
 1'roiu fervid truth, whence every virtue sprung ; 
 
 Where all was real, modest, plain, sincere; 
 
 Worth above show, and goodness unsevere. 
 
 Viewed round and round, as lucid diamonds shov/, 
 
 Still, as you turn them, a revolving glow : 
 
 So did his mind reflect with secret ray, 
 
 In various virtues, Heaven's eternal day. 
 
 Whether in high discourse it soared sublime 
 
 And sprung impatient o'er the bounds of time, 
 
 Or wandering nature o'er with raptured eye, 
 
 Adored the hand that turned yon azure sky : 
 
 Whether to social joy he bent his thought, 
 
 And the right poise that mingling passions sought, 
 
 Gay c nveree blest, or, in the thoughtful grove, 
 
 Hid the heart open every source of love : 
 
 In varying lights, still set before our eyes 
 
 The just, the good, the social, and the wise. 
 
 For such a death who can, who would refuse, 
 
 The friend a tear, a verse the mournful muse? 
 
 Yet pay we must acknowledgment to Heaven, 
 
 Though snatch'd so soon, that AIRMAN e'er was given. 
 
 Grateful from nature's banquet let us rise, 
 
 Nor leave the banquet with reluctant eyes : 
 
 A friend, when dead, is but removed from sight, 
 
 Su k in the lustre of eternal light ; 
 
 And, when the parting storms of life are o'er, 
 
 May yet rejoin us on a happier shore. 
 
 As those we love decay, we die in part ; 
 
 String after string is severed from the heart ; 
 
 Till loosened life at last but breathing clay 
 
 Without one pang is glad to fall away. 
 
 Unhappy he who latest feels the blow, 
 
 Whose eyes have wept o'er every friend laid low; 
 
 Dragged lingering on from partial death to death, 
 
 And, dying, all he can resign is breath. 
 
 In his style of painting, Aikman seems to have aimed at imitating nature in 
 her most simple forms ; his lights are soft, his shades mellow, and his colouring 
 mild and harmonious. His touch has neither the force nor the harshness of 
 Rubens ; nor does he, like Reynolds, adorn his portraits with the elegance of 
 adventitious graces. His compositions are distinguished by a placid tranquillity,
 
 WILLIAM AITON. ALEXANDER ALES OB ALESSE. 41 
 
 rather than a striking brilliancy of effect ; and his portraits may be more readily 
 mistaken for those of Kneller than for the works of any other eminent artist. 
 
 AITON, WILLIAM, an eminent horticulturist and botanist, was born, in 1731, 
 at a village in the neighbourhood of Hamilton. Having been regularly bred to 
 the profession of a gardener, as it was and still is practised by numbers of his 
 countrymen, with a union of manual skill and scientific knowledge, he removed 
 to England in 1754, and, in the year following, obtained the notice of the cele- 
 brated Philip Miller, then superintendent of the physic garden at Chelsea, who 
 employed him for some time as an assistant. The instructions which he received 
 from that eminent gardener laid the foundation, it is said, of his future fortune. 
 His industry and abilities were so conspicuous, that, in 1759, he was pointed 
 out to the Princess- Do wager of Wales as a fit person to manage the botanical 
 garden at Kew. His professional talents also procured him the notice of Sir 
 Joseph Banks, and a friendship commenced which subsisted between them for 
 life. Dr Solander and Dr Dryander were also among the number of his friends. 
 The encouragement of botanical studies was a distinguished feature of the reign 
 of George III., who, soon after his accession, determined to render Kew a 
 repository of all the vegetable riches of the world. Specimens were accordingly 
 procured from every quarter of the globe, and placed under the care of Mr 
 Aiton, who showed a surprising degree of skill in their arrangement. Under 
 his superintendence, a variety of improvements took place in the plan and edi- 
 fices of Kew gardens, till they attained an undoubted eminence over every other 
 botanical institution. In 1783, on a vacancy occurring in the superintendence 
 of the pleasure gardens at Kew, Mr Aiton received the appointment from 
 George III., but was, at the same time, permitted to retain his more important 
 office. His labours proved that the king's favours were not ill bestowed ; for, in 
 1789, he published an elaborate description of the plants at Kew, under the 
 title, " Hortus Kewensis," 3 vols. 8vo, with a number of plates. In this pro- 
 duction, Mr Aiton gave an account of no fewer than 5600 foreign plants, which 
 had been introduced from time to time into the English gardens; and so highly 
 was the work esteemed, that the whole impression was sold within two years. 
 A second and improved edition was published by his son, William Townsend 
 Aiton, in 1810. After a life of singular activity and usefulness, distinguished, 
 moreover, by all the domestic Virtues, Mr Aiton died on the 1st of February, 
 1793, of a schirrus in the liver, in the 63d year of his age.' He lies buried in 
 the churchyard at Kew, near the graves of his distinguished friends, Zoffany, 
 Meyer, and Gainsborough. He was succeeded by his son, Mr William Town- 
 send Aiton, who was no less esteemed by George III. than his father had been, 
 and who, for fifty years, ably superintended the botanical department at Kew, 
 besides taking charge of the extensive pleasure-grounds, and being employed in 
 the improvement of the other royal gardens. In 1841, he retired from office, 
 when Sir William Jackson Hooker was appointed director of the botanic gardens. 
 Mr Aiton died at Kew, in 1849, aged 84. 
 
 ALES or ALESSE, ALEXANDER, a celebrated theologian of the sixteenth 
 century, was born at Edinburgh, April 23d, 1500. He is first found in the 
 situation of a canon in the cathedral of St Andrews, where he distinguished 
 himself by entering into the fashionable controversy of the day against Luther. 
 His zeal for the Roman Catholic religion was staggered by the martyrdom of 
 Patrick Hamilton ; but it is not probable that his doubts would have been car- 
 ried further, if he had not suffered persecution for the slight degree of scepticism
 
 42 WILLIAM ALEXANDER. 
 
 ;ilremly manifested. Being obliged to fly from St Andrews, he retired to Ger- 
 many, where he became a thorough convert to the Protestant doctrines. The 
 Reformation in England induced Ales to go to London, in 1535, where he was 
 highly esteemed by Cranmer, Latimer, and Cromwell, who were at that time 
 in favour with the king. Henry regarded him also with favour, and used to 
 call him "his scholar." Upon the fall of Cromwell, he was obliged to return 
 to Germany, where the Elector of Brandenburg appointed him professor of 
 divinity at Frankfort-upon-the-Oder, in 1540. As a reformer, Ales did not 
 always maintain the most orthodox doctrines; hence he was obliged, in 1542 
 to fly from his chair at Frankfort, and betake himself to Leipsic. He spent the 
 remainder of hia life in that city, as professor of divinity, and died in 1565. 
 His works are: l,"De necessitate et merito Bonorum Operuin, disputatio 
 proposita in celebri academia Leipsica, ad 29 Nov. 16GO." 2, " Commentarii in 
 evangelium Joannis, et in utramque epistolam ad Timotheum." 3, " Expositio 
 in Psalmos Davidis." 4, " De Justificatione, contra Oscandrum." 5, " De 
 Sancta Trinitate, cum confutatione erroris Valentini." 6, " llesponsio ad trigintu 
 et duos articulos theologorurn Lovaniensium." The fifth in this list is the most 
 favourable specimen of his abilities. 
 
 ALEXANDER, WILLIAM, an eminent nobleman, statesman, and poet of the 
 reign of James VI. and Charles I. The original rank of this personage was that 
 of a small lauded proprietor or laird ; but he was elevated, by dint of his various 
 accomplishments, and through the favour of the two sovereigns above-mentioned, 
 to the rank of an earl. His family, which possessed the small estate of Menstrie, 
 near Stirling, is said to have derived the name Alexander from the prenomen of 
 their ancestor, Alexander Macdonald, a highlander, who had been settled in this 
 property by the Earl of Argyle, whose residence of Castle Campbell is in the 
 neighbourhood. "William Alexander is supposed to have first seen the light in 
 1680. Nature having obviously marked him for a higher destiny than that to 
 which he was born, he received from his friends the best education which the 
 time and place could afford, and, at a very early age, he accompanied the young 
 Earl of Argyle upon his foreign travels, in the capacity of tutor. Previous to 
 this period, when only fifteen years of age, he had been smit with the charms of 
 some country beauty, " the cynosure of neighbouring eyes ;" on his return from 
 the continent, his passion was found to have suffered no abatement. He spent 
 some time in rural retirement, and wrote no fewer than a hundred sonnets, as a 
 ventilation to the fervours of his breast ; but all his poetry was in vain, so far as 
 the lady was concerned. She thought of matrimony, while he thought of love ; 
 and accordingly, on being solicited by a more aged suitor, in other respects eli- 
 gible, did not scruple to accept his hand. The poet took a more sensible way 
 of consoling himself for this disappointment than might have been expected; 
 he married another lady, the daughter and heiress of Sir William Erskine. 1 1 is 
 century of sonnets was published in London in 1604, under the title of " Aurora, 
 containing the First Fancies of the Author's Youth, by W. Alexander, of Men- 
 strie." From the situation of Alexander's estate, near the residence of the king 
 at Stirling, and in a vale which his majesty frequented for the pleasure of hawk- 
 ing, he had early been introduced to royal notice ; and, accordingly, it appeal's 
 that, when James removed to London, in 1603, the poet did not remain long 
 behind, but soon became a dependent upon the English court. It is honourable 
 to Alexander that in this situation he did not, like most court poets of that age, 
 employ his pen in the adulation of majesty ; his works breathe a very different
 
 WILLIAM ALEXANDER. 43 
 
 strain. Having st'.tdied deeply the ancient philosophers and poets, he descanted 
 on the vanity of grandeur, the value of truth, the abuse of power, and the burthen 
 of riches. His moralizings assumed the strange shape of tragedies compositions 
 not at all designed for the stage, but intended simply to embody the sentiments 
 which arose in his mind upon such subjects as those we have mentioned. His 
 first tragedy was grounded upon the story of Darius, and appeared at Edinburgh 
 in 1(503. He afterwards republished it at London, in 1607, along with similar 
 compositions upon the stories of Alexander, Croesus, and Caesar, under the title 
 of " Monarchick Tragedies, by William Alexander, gentleman of the Princes' 
 Privy Chamber." It would thus appear that he had now obtained a place in the 
 household of Prince Henry ; to whom he had previously addressed a poem or 
 par?enesis, designed to show how the happiness of a sovereign depends upon 
 his choosing such councillors as can throw off private grudges, regard public con- 
 cerns, and will not, to betray their seats, become pensioners. This poem, of 
 vhich no copy of the original edition is known to exist, except one in the Uni- 
 versity library at Edinburgh, was, after the death of Henry, addressed to Prince 
 Charles, who then became heir-apparent ; an economy in poetical, not to speak 
 of court business, which cannot be sufficiently admired. He was, in 1613, ap- 
 pointed one of the gentlemen ushers of the presence to this unfortunate prince. 
 
 King James is said to have been a warm admirer of the poems of Alexander, to 
 have honoured him with his conversation, and called him " my philosophical poet" 
 He was now aspiring to the still more honourable character of a divine poet, for 
 in 1614, appeared at Edinburgh, his Largest and perhaps his mrst meritorious 
 prodtiction, entitled, " Doomsday, or the Great Day of Judgment," which has been 
 several times reprinted. 
 
 Hitherto the career of Alexander had been chiefly that of a poet : it was 
 henceforth entirely that of a courtier. Advanced to the .age of thirty-five, the 
 pure and amiable temperament of the poet gave way before the calculating and 
 mercenary views of the politician ; and the future years of his life are therefore 
 less agreeable in recital than those which are past. In 1614, he was knighted 
 by king James, and appointed to the situation of master of requests. In 1621, 
 the king gave him a grant by his royal deed of the province of Nova Scotia, 
 which as yet had not been colonized. Alexander designed at first to establish 
 settlers upon this new country, and, as an inducement to the purchase of land, it 
 was proposed that the king should confer, upon all who paid a hundred and fifty 
 pounds for six thousand acres, the honour of a knight baronetcy. Owing to the 
 perplexed politics of the last years of king James, he did not get this scheme car- 
 ried into effect, but Charles had no sooner acceded than he resolved upon giving il 
 his support. Alexander, in 1625, published a pamphlet, entitled, "An Encour- 
 agement to Colonies," the object of which was to state the progress already made, 
 to recommend the scheme to the nation, and to invite adventurers. It is also 
 supposed that he had a hand in " A Brief Relation of the Discovery and Planta- 
 tion of New England, and of sundry accidents therein occurring from the year 
 1607 to this present 1622: together with the state thereof as it now standeth, 
 the general form of government intended, and the division of the whole territory 
 into counties, baronies, &c." King Charles, who probably considered the scheme 
 in a two-fold light, as a means of establishing a new colony, and of remunerating 
 an old servant at the expense of others, conferred upon Sir William Alexander 
 the rank of Lieutenant of New Scotland, and founded the necessary order 
 of knights baronets of the same territory. The number of these baronets was 
 not to exceed a hundred and fifty, and it was ordained that the title should 
 be hereditary that they should take precedence of all ordinary knights and 
 lairds, and of all other gentlemen, except Sir William Alexander, and that they
 
 44 WILLIAM ALEXANDER. 
 
 ^ioitl.1 have place in all his majestj's and his successors 1 armies, near and about 
 the royal standard for the defenre thereof, with other honourable distinctions of 
 precedency, to them, their wives, and heirs. The ceremony of infeftment or sea- 
 sine was decreed to take place on the Castle-hill of Edinburgh, the earth and 
 stone of which were held, by a fiction, to represent the component particles 
 of certain baronies and lordships on the other side of the Atlantic. For the 
 amusement of the reader, we shall give an account of the equivocal mode of pro- 
 cedure adopted in this scheme, and of its shameful conclusion, from the fantastic 
 pen of Sir Thomas Urqiihart. " It did not satisfy him," says Sir Thomas, in re- 
 ference to Alexander, (Discovery of a most Exquisite Jewel, &c., bvo, I(i5'2,) 
 ' to have a laurel from the Muses, and be esteemed a king among poets, but be 
 must also be king of some new-found land ; and, like another Alexander, in- 
 deed, searching after new worlds, have the sovereignty of Nova Scotia ! He was 
 born a poet, and aimed to be a king ; therefore he would have his royal title 
 from king James, who was born a king, and aimed to be a poet. Had be 
 stopped there, it had been well; but the flame of his honour must have some oil 
 therewith to nourish it; like another Arthur he must have his knights, though 
 nothing limited to so small a number ; for how many soever, who could have 
 looked but for one day like gentlemen, and given him but one hundred and 
 fifty pounds sterling (without any need of a key for opening the gate to ente 
 through the temple of virtue, which, in former times, was the only way to hon 
 our,) they had a scale from him whereby to ascend unto the platforms of virtue ; 
 .vhich they treading under their feet, did slight the ordinary passages, and to 
 take the more sudden possession of the temple of honour, went upon obscure by- 
 paths of their own, towards some secret angiports and dark postern doors, which were 
 so narrow that few of them could get in, until they had left all their gallantry behind 
 them : Yet such being their resolution, that in they would and be worshipful upon 
 any terms; they misregarded all formerly used steps of promotion, accounting 
 them but unnecessary; and most rudely pushing into the very sanctuary, they 
 immediately hung out the orange colours," the colour of the ribbon by which the 
 order was suspended, " to testify their conquest of the honour of knight baronet. 
 f heir king nevertheless, not to stain his royal dignity, or to seem to merit the impu- 
 tation of selling honour to his subjects, did, for their money, give them land, and 
 that in so ample a measure, that every one of his knight baronets had, for his hun- 
 dred and fifty pounds sterling, heritably disposed to him six thousand good and suffi- 
 cient acres of Nova Scotia ground; which being at the rate of but sixpence an 
 aci-vj, and not to be thought very dear; considering how prettily, in the respec- 
 tive parchments of disposition, they were bounded and designed ; fruitful corn- 
 fields, watered with pleasant rivers, running along most excellent and spacious 
 meadows ; nor did there want abundance of oaken groves, in the midst of very 
 fertile plains, or if it wanted anything it was the scrivener's or writer's fault, for 
 he " [Alexander] " gave orders, as soon as he received the three thousand Scots 
 marks, that there should be no defect of quantity, or quality, in measure or good- 
 ness of land, and here ami there most delicious gardens and orchards ; with 
 whatever else could, in matter of delightful ground, best content their fancies ; as 
 if they had made purchase among them of the Elysian fields or Mahomet'* para- 
 dise; and although there should have happened a thousand acres more to be put into 
 the charter, or writing of disposition, than was agreed upon at fir.4, he cared not ; 
 hulf a piece to the clerk was able to make him dispense with that But at List 
 when he had enrolled three hundred knights, who for their hundred and fifty 
 pieces each had purchased among them several millions of New Caledonian acres, 
 confirmed to them and theirs for ever, under the great seal, the affixing whereof 
 was to cost each of them but thirty pieces more ; finding that the society was not
 
 WILLIAM ALEXANDER. 45 
 
 likely to become any more numerous, and thai the ancient gentry of Scotland 
 esteemed such a whimsical dignity to be a disparagement, rather than any addi- 
 tion to their former honour ; he bethought himself of a course more profitable to 
 himself and the future establishment of his own state ; in prosecuting whereoi 
 without the advice of his knights, who represented both houses of parliament, 
 clergy and all, like an absolute king indeed, he disposed heritably to the French 
 for a matter of five or six thousand pounds English money, both the dominion 
 and property of the whole country of that kingdom of Nova Scotia ; leaving the 
 new baronets to search for land amongst the Seleites in the moon, or turn 
 knights of the sun ; so dearly have they bought their orange ribband, which, all 
 things considered, is, and will be, more honourable to them, or their posterity, 
 than it is or hath been profitable to either." It thus appears that Alexan* 
 der's Nova Scotian scheme, whatever might have been originally contemplated, 
 degenerated at last into a mere means of raising money by the sale of titles ; a 
 system too much practised in the English reign of James VI., and which gained, 
 as it deserved, the contempt of all honourable minds. The territory of Nova 
 Scotia afterwards fell into the hands of the French, who affected to believe 
 that they had acquired a right to it by a treaty entered into with the king of 
 Great Britain, in 1632, in which the country of Acadia was ceded to them. In 
 the treaty of peace transacted between the two countries, in 1763, it was success- 
 fully asserted by the British government that Nova Scotia was totally distinct 
 from Acadia, and accordingly the territory reverted to Britain, along with Can- 
 ada. The country, however, having become the property of other individuals 
 during the usurpation of the French, it appears that the Nova Scotia baronets 
 have very slight prospects of ever regaining the lands to which their titles were 
 originally attached. 
 
 In 1(526, Sir William Alexander, was, by the favour of Charles I., made secre- 
 tary of state for Scotland; an office to which the salary of <lOO a-year, being 
 that of a good mercantile clerk in the present day, was then attached. In 1630, 
 by the further favour of his sovereign, he was raised to the peerage under the 
 title of viscount Stirling; and in 1633, at the coronation of king Charles in 
 Holyrood chapel, he was pi-omoted to the rank of an earl under the same title. He 
 held the office of secretary during fifteen years, and gained the credit of being a 
 moderate statesman in the midst of many violent political scenes. It does not ap- 
 pear, however, that he was a popular character. Such esteem as he might have 
 gained by his poetry, seems to have been lost in consequence of the arts by which 
 his sovereign endeavoured to give him riches. A permission which he acquired, 
 probably in his character of lieutenant of Nova Scotia, to coin base money, be- 
 came a grievance to the community, and procured him much obloquy. He had 
 erected a splendid mansion at Stirling out of his ill-acquired gains, and affixed 
 upon its front his armorial bearings, with the motto "Per Mare, per Terras." 
 Ibis was parodied, as we are informed by the sarcastic Scott of Scotstarvet. into 
 " Per metre, per turners," in allusion to the sources of his wealth, the people be- 
 lieving that the royal favour had a reference to his lordship's poetry, while tur- 
 ners, or black farthings, as they were otherwise called, had been one of the 
 shapes in which this favour was expressed. The house still remains, a monument 
 of the taste of the poet. 
 
 The earl of Stirling, in 1637, published a complete edition of his poetical 
 works, under the general title of " Recreations with the Muses." The work con- 
 tained his four "Monarchick Tragedies," his "Doomsday," the " Paraenesis to 
 Prince Henry," and " Jonathan, an Heroick Poem Intended, the first book," 
 the whole revised and very much improved by the author. He died in 1640, leav- 
 ing three sons and two daughters, whose posterity was supposed to have been com-
 
 46 ALEXANDER I. 
 
 pleti-ly extinct, till a claimant appeared i 1830, as descended from one of the 
 younger brunches of t!ie family, and who has assumed tli;- titles of Stirling and 
 Devon. Considered as a poet, Alexander is intitled to considerable praise. " His 
 style is certainly neither pure nor correct, which may perhaps be attributed to 
 his long familiarity with the Scottish language ; but his versification is in gene- 
 ral much superior to that of his contemporaries, and approaches nearer to the 
 elegance of modern times than could have been expected from one who wrote so 
 much. There are innumerable beauties scattered over the whole of his works, 
 but particularly in his songs and sonnets ; the former are a species of irregular 
 odes, in which the sentiment, occasionally partaking of the quaintness of his age, 
 is more frequently new and forcibly expressed. The powers of mind displayed 
 in his Doomsdtiy and Paraenesis are very considerable, although we are frequently 
 able to trace the allusions and imagery to the language of holy writ ; and he ap- 
 pears to have been less inspired by the sublimity than by the awful importance of 
 his subject to rational beings. A habit of moralizing pervades all his writing's ; 
 but in the ' Doomsday' he .appears deeply impressed with his subject, and more 
 anxious to persuade the heart than to delight the imagination." Johnson and 
 Chalmers* English Poets, edit. 1810, voL v. 
 
 The Earl of Stirling was employed in his latter years in the task of revising 
 the version of the Psalms prepared by king James, which duty was imposed upon 
 him by the royal paraphrast himself. In a letter to his friend, Drummond of 
 i lawthornden, 2Sth of April, 1620, Alexander sajs, "Brother, I received your 
 List letter, with the psalm you sent, which I thin]-, very well done : I had done 
 the same long before it came ; but he [king James] prefers his own to all else ; 
 though, perchance when you see it, you will think it the worst of ihe three. No 
 man must meddle with that subject, and therefore 1 advise you to take no more 
 pains therein." In consideration of the pains which the Earl had bestowed upon 
 this subject. Charles I., on the 2Sth of December, 1627, granted a license to his 
 lordship, to print the late king's version of the Psalms exclusively for thirty-one 
 years. The first edition appeared at Oxford, in 1631. The king endeavoured 
 to enforce the use of his father's version alone throughout his dominions ; and, 
 if he had been successful, the privilege would have been a source of immense 
 profit to the Earl of Stirling. But the royal wishes were resisted by the Scot- 
 tish church, and were not very respectfully obeyed any where else: and the 
 breaking out of the civil war soon after rendered the privilege entirely useless. ' 
 
 ALEXANDER I., surnamed Acer, or the Fierce, king of Scots from 1106 to 
 1124, was the fifth son of Malcolm III. by his wife Margaret of England. 
 Lord Hailes conjectures that his name was bestowed in honour of Pope Alexan- 
 der II. ; a circumstance worthy of attention, as it was the means of introducing 
 the most common and familiar Christian name in Scotland. The date of Alex^ 
 ander's birth is not known ; but as his four elder brothers were all under age in 
 1093, at the death of their father, he must have been in the bloom of life at his 
 accession to the throne. He succeeded his brother Edgar, January 8, 1106-7, 
 and immediately after married Sybilla, the natural daughter of Henry I. of 
 England, who had married his sister Matlldis, or Maud. Such an alliance was 
 not then considered dishonourable. Alexander was active in enforcing obedi - 
 ence to his dominion, and in suppressing the bands of rebels or robbers with 
 which the northern parts of the kingdom were infested ; but the chief events of 
 his reign relate to the efforts made by the English church to assert a supremacy 
 over that of Scotland. These efforts were resisted by the king of Scots with 
 
 % ' ' The rorpe of the Earl of Stirling was deposited in a leaden coffin in the family -aisle 
 in the church of Stirling, above ground, and remained entire for upwards of a hundred 
 years Paragraph from an old newsjKijier.
 
 ALEXANDER II. ALEXANDER 111. 47 
 
 steady perseverance, and ultimate success, notwithstanding that the Pope counte- 
 nanced the claims of the English prelates. It fs to be presumed that this spirit 
 would have incited the Scottish monarch to maintain the independency of his 
 kingdom, had it ever been called in question during his reign. Alexander died 
 April 27, 1124, after a reign of seventeen years and three months. As he left 
 no issue, ha was succeeded by his next and last-surviving brother David, so memo- 
 rable for his bounty to the church. Alexander was also a pious monarch. Al- 
 dred, in his genealogy of the English kings, says of him, that " he was humble 
 and courteous to the clergy, but, to the rest of his subjects, terrible beyond mea- 
 sure ; high-spirited, always endeavouring to compass things beyond his power ; 
 not ignorant of letters ; zealous in establishing churches, collecting relics, and 
 providing vestments and books for the clergy ; liberal even to profusion, and 
 taking delight in the offices of charity to the poor." His donations to the 
 church were very considerable. He made a large grant of lands to the church 
 of St Andrews, increased the revenue of the monastery of Dunfermline, which 
 his parents had founded, established a colony of canons regular at home, and 
 built a monastery on Inch-colm in the Firth of Forth, in gratitude for having 
 been preserved from a tempest on that island. 
 
 ALEXANDER II., the only legitimate son of king William, surnamed the 
 Lion, was born in 119 8. He succeeded his father, December 4, 1214, in his 
 seventeenth year, and was crowned next day at Scone. Alexander II. is cha- 
 racterised by Fordun as a pious, just, and brave king as the shield of the 
 church, the safe-guard of the people, and the friend of the miserable. He es- 
 poused the cause of the English barons against king John, which led to mutual 
 depredations between the two sovereigns ; but on the accession of Henry III. to 
 the crown of England, peace was restored; and in 1221, the friendly inter- 
 course of the two nations was established by the marriage of the king of Scot- 
 land to Joan, eldest sister of the king of England. This princess died in 1238, 
 without issue ; and in the following year Alexander married Mary de Couci, the 
 scion of a French house, which, in its motto, disclaimed royalty, and rested for 
 distinction on its own merits : 
 
 Je suis ni roi, ni prince aussi 
 Je suis le seigneur de Couci. 
 
 During the life of Joan, the British monarchs came to no open rupture, their 
 friendly intimacy being only occasionally interrupted by Henry discovering a 
 disposition to revive the claim of homage from the king of Scotland, which had 
 been given up by Richard I., and by Alexander insisting on his claim to the 
 three northern counties of England ; but shortly after the death of Joan, na- 
 tional jealousies broke out, and in 1244, both princes raised armies and prepared 
 for war. By the mediation, however, of several English barons, hostilities were 
 prevented, and a peace concluded. Much of Alexander's reign was occupied in 
 suppressing insurrections of the Celtic inhabitants of Scotland. He died A.D 
 1249, in one of the islands of the Hebrides, while engaged in subjecting Angus, 
 the Lord of Argyle, who refused his homage to the Scottish sovereign. He left 
 by his second wife one son, who is the subject of the following article. 
 
 ALEXANDER III., born at Roxburgh, September 4, 1241, succeeded his 
 father in the eighth year of his age. He was knighted and crowned only five 
 j days after his father's death a precipitation adopted to prevent the interference 
 of the king of England. When only a year old, Alexander had been betrothed 
 to Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry ILL, a princess of his own age ; and in 
 1251, their nuptials were celebrated at York with great pomp. On the ground
 
 48 ALEXANDER III. 
 
 of this union, Henry interested himself in the affairs of Scotland, and the young 
 prince was a frequent visitor at the court of his father-in-law. The Englisl' 
 monarch, taking advantage of Alexander's youth and other circumstances, endea- 
 voured to prevail upon him to do homage for his crown and kingdom of Scot- 
 land ; hut the young king, with a fortitude and prudence beyond his years, 
 and which gave promise of his future decision, resisted the requisition, saying 
 that lie could not treat of affairs of state without the advice of his parliament. 
 During Alexander's minority, the country was divided into factions, and various 
 struggles for ascendancy took place ; but the administration was latterly com- 
 mitted to fifteen of the leading chiefs or barons. Alexander had reached the 
 twenty-second year of his age, when his kingdom was invaded by one of tho 
 most formidable armaments that had ever sailed from Norway- llaco, king of 
 that country, with a fleet of one hundred and sixty ships, freighted with many 
 thousand northern warriors, who carried terror to almost aJl the shores of Em-ope 
 sailed towards Scotland in the summer of 12(J3, and after making himself mastei 
 of the islands of Arran and Bute, arrived in the bay of Largs, near the mouth of 
 the Clyde, and endeavoured to effect a landing. Here a Scottish army, under 
 Alexander, assembled to resist the invasion ; and here, on the 2d of October, 
 after a fierce and bloody contest, the Norwegians were repulsed with great loss. 
 A storm arising, completed the dissipation or destruction of their fleet. Haco 
 escaped with difficidty through the strait between Sky and the mainland, since 
 called Kyle Hacken, and reaching the Orkneys, died there, as is said, of a broken 
 heart By this defeat, all the islands of the western sea, including that of Man, 
 but excepting those of Orkney and Shetland, submitted to Alexander. 
 
 From this period to the death of Alexander, Scotland enjoyed tranquillity 
 only disturbed by the pretensions of the pope and the encroachments of the 
 clergy, both of which Alexander was successful in resisting. Religious crusades 
 were at this time the rage over Em-ope, and Scotland did not escape the infec- 
 tion, as many of her bravest barons perished in Palestine. In 1274, Alexander 
 attended the coronation of his brother-in-law, Edward I., at Westminster, and 
 after the custom of the times did homage for the lands which he held of him in 
 England. Six months after this, Margaret queen of Scotland died, leaving one 
 daughter and two sons Margaret, Alexander, and David. David died unmar- 
 ried in 1281. Margaret was married in 1282, to Eric king of Norway, and 
 died in the following year, after giving birth to an infant daughter, who re- 
 ceived her own name. Alexander was married in 1283 to the daughter of Guy 
 earl of Flanders, and died in the following year without issue. Thus, in the 
 course of a few years, was the unhappy king of Scotland deprived of his wife 
 and all his children the only remaining descendant of his body being the 
 Maiden of Norway, as she is called in Scottish history, an infant grandchild re- 
 siding in a foreign land. In 1235, Alexander, to provide against the evils of 
 a disputed succession, at the request of his nobility, married Joletta, daughter of 
 the Count de Dreux ; but shortly after his marriage, in riding .along a precipi- 
 tous road between Bruntisland and Kinghorn, his horse fell over a rock, and the 
 unfortunate monarch was killed. Ibis event took place on the 16th of March, 
 1286, in the 45th year of his age and 37th of his reign. 
 
 With Alexander III. terminated a race of kings, who, from the accession of 
 Malcolm Cean-Mohr, had distinguished themselves by their activity in the ad- 
 ministration of justice, and their courage in maintaining the rights and indepen- 
 dence of their country against a powerful and too often an insidious foe. Few 
 annals of a rude people, indeed, can present a more remarkable series of patrioiic 
 monarchs than those with whom Scotland was blessed from the middle of the ele- 
 venth to the close of the thirteenth century, whether we consider their wisdom
 
 DAVID ALLAN. 
 
 and impartiality as legislators, their prudence as politicians, or their bravery ,o* 
 warriors, for Malcolm the Maiden and the terms upon which William the Lion 
 effected his release from captivity must only be considered as exceptions to the 
 general excellence of their conduct But with the death of Alexander III., the 
 peace and prosperity of the country was broken up; and much as lie was la- 
 mented by the people, and gloomy as were their forebodings on his decease, no 
 anticipation could exceed the real calamities in which the country was involved 
 by his unhappy and untimely end. 
 
 ALLAN, DAVID, a painter of great merit, was born at Alloa, February 13th, 
 174-1. He was the son of Mr David Allan, shore-master at that small port The 
 mother of Allan, whose maiden name was Gullan, brought him prematurely into 
 the world, and died a few days after his birth. The young painter had so small 
 a mouth that no nurse could be found in the place fitted to give him suck : at 
 length, one being heard of, who lived at the distance of some miles, he was 
 packed up in a basket amidst cotton, arid sent off under the charge of a man 
 who carried him on horseback, the journey being rendered additionally danwer- 
 ous by a deep snow. The horse happened to stumble, the man fell off, and the 
 tiny wretch was ejected from the basket into the snow, receiving as he fell a 
 severe cut upon his head. Such were the circumstances under which Mr David 
 Allan commenced the business of existence. 
 
 Even after having experienced the tender cares of his nurse, misfortune con- 
 linued to harass him. In the autumn of 1745, when he must have been about 
 eighteen months old, a battery was erected at Alloa, to defend the passage of 
 the Forth against the attempts of Prince Charles's army. While the men were 
 firing the cannon for experiment, the maid entrusted with the charge of young 
 Allan ran across the open space in front, at the moment when they were dis- 
 charged, and he only escaped death by a hair-breadth. 
 
 His genius for designing was first developed by accident. Being con- 
 fined at home with a burnt foot, his father one day said to him, " You idle little 
 rogue, you are kept from school doing nothing ! come, here is a bit of chalk, draw 
 something with it upon the floor." He took the chalk, and began to delineate 
 figures of houses, animals, and other familiar objects; in all of which he succeed- 
 ed so well that the chalk was seldom afterwards out of his hand. AVhen he was 
 about ten years of age, his pedagogue happened to exercise his authority over 
 some of the boys in a rather ludicrous m.inner : Allan immediately drew a cari- 
 cature of the transaction upon a slate, and handed it about for the amusement of 
 his companions. The master of the ferule, an old vain conceited person, who used 
 to strut about the school dressed in a tartan night-cap and long tartan gown, got 
 j hold of the picture, and right soon detected that he himself was the most con- 
 | spicuous and the most ridiculous figure. The satire was so keen, and the laugh 
 which it excited sunk so deep, that the object of it was not satisfied till he had 
 made a complaint to old Allan, and had the boy taken from his school. When 
 questioned by his father how he had the effrontery to ins'ilt his master, by repre- 
 senting him so ridiculously on his slate, his answer was, " I only made it like 
 him, and it was all for fun !" 
 
 The father observed the decided genius of his son, and had the good sense to 
 offer it no resistance. At this time, the establishment of the 31essrs Foulis' aca- 
 demy of Arts at Glasgow was making some noise in the country. Allan, there- 
 fore, resolved to apprentice his son to those gentlemen upon the terms given out 
 in thoir prospectus of the institution. On the 25th of February, 1755, when 
 exactly eleven years of age, the young draughtsman was bound apprentice to the 
 Messrs Foulis for seven years, to attend their painting academy in the univer- 
 sity of Glasgow. In Newhnll house there is a sketch in oil, done by him, repre
 
 50 DAVID ALLAN. 
 
 reining tlie inside of the academy, with an exact portrait of Robert Foulis in the 
 act of criticising a large picture, and giving instructions to his principal painter 
 about it, 
 
 In the year 1764, some of his performances attracted the notice of lord Cath- 
 cart, whose seat, Shaw Park, was situated in Clackmannanshire near Alloa. 
 La<lv Cathcart introduced him to the notice of lady Frances Erskine, daughter 
 of the insurgent earl of Mar, and mother of the gentleman to whom the peerage 
 was restored in 1824; as also to lady Charlotte Erskine, to Mrs Abercromby ot 
 Tullibody, mother of Sir Ralph, and to some other personages of distinction in 
 the neighbourhood of his birth-place. By the associated purses of these kind pa- 
 trons, Allan was enabled to go to Italy, where he studied with unremitting appli- 
 cation for eleven years. During his residence there, lady Cathcart used to write 
 to him with all the care and affection of a mother. In 1773, while living at 
 Home, he gained the prize medal given by the academy of St Luke for the best 
 specimen of historical composition ; being the only Scotchman who had ever 
 readied that honour, besides Mr Gavin Hamilton. 
 
 After his return in 1777, Allan resided for about two years in London; but, 
 falling into a bad state of health, he was ordered home to Scotland for a change of 
 air. Soon after his arrival in Edinburgh, he was appointed successor to Runci- 
 man (deceased), as master and director of the academy established by the Board of 
 Trustees for Manufactures and Improvements, for the purpose of diffusing a 
 knowledge of the principles of the fine arts and elegance of design, in the vari- 
 ous manufactures and works which required to be figured and ornamented ; a 
 charge for which he was peculiarly well qualified, by the extensive knowledge 
 lie possessed of every branch of the art. He retained the situation till his death. 
 
 Allan was much admired for his talents in composition, the truth with which 
 he delineated nature, and the characteristic humour which distinguished his pic- 
 tures, drawings, and etchings. There are several engravings from his pictures, 
 as, " The Origin of Painting, or the Corinthian maid drawing the shadow of her 
 lover," and four in aqua-tinta by Paul Sandby, from drawings made by Allan 
 when at Rome, representing the sports during the carnival. Several of the 
 figures were portraits of persons well known to the English who visited Rome be- 
 tween 1770 and 1780. There is one caricature by Allan, which is well known 
 to Scottish collectors: it represents the interior of a church or meeting-house at 
 Dunfermline, at the moment when an imprudent couple are rebuked by the cler- 
 gyman. There is a drollery about the whole of this performance that never fails 
 to anwse. The alliance of his genius to that of our national poets led Allan, in 
 1788, to publish an edition of the Gentle Shepherd, with characteristic drawings. 
 He also published a collection of the most humorous of the old Scottish songs, 
 each illustrated by a characteristic etching. At his death, which happened on 
 the 6th of August, 1796, he left a series of drawings designed for the poems of 
 Burns, in an equally graphic and humorous style. There is one property which 
 runs through all the designs of Allan, and by which his productions may be distin- 
 guished at the most casual glance : this is a peculiar elegance of form which he 
 always gives to the limbs of his litres elegance to such a degree, that, in many 
 cases, it may be pronounced out of nature. 
 
 Allan, by his wife, whom he married in 1788, left one son, bearing his own 
 name, and who was sent out as a cadet to India, and one daughter named Barbara. 
 In person, our Scottish Hogarth, as he was called, had nothing attractive. The 
 misfortunes attending his entrance into the world were such as nothing in after 
 life could repair. " His figure was a bad resemblance of his humorous precursor 
 of the English metropolis. He was under the middle size ; of a slender, feeble 
 make; with a long, sharp, lean, white, coarse face, much pitted by the small-pox.
 
 CHARLES ALSTON, M.D. 51 
 
 and fair hair. His large prominent eyes, of a light colour, were weak, near- 
 sighted, and not very animated. His nose was long and high, his mouth wide, 
 and both ill-shaped. His whole exterior to strangers appeared unengaging, tri- 
 flinjf, and mean ; and his deportment was timid and obsequious. The pre- 
 judices naturally excited by these disadvantages at introduction, were, how- 
 ever, dispelled on acquaintance; and, as he became easy and pleased, gra- 
 dually yielded to agreeable sensations ; till they insensibly vanished, and at last, 
 were not only overlooked, but, from the effect of contrast, even heightened the at- 
 tractions by which they were so unexpectedly followed. When in company he 
 esteemed, and which suited his taste, as restraint wore off, his eye imperceptibly 
 became active, bright, and penetrating ; his manner and address quick, lively, and 
 interesting always kind, polite, and respectful ; his conversation open and gay, 
 humorous without satire, and playfully replete with benevolence, observation, and 
 anecdote." Brown's edition of the Gentle S/iepherd, 1808. 
 
 'Ihe author who thus forcibly delineates his external appearance, gives the fol- 
 lowing character of his genius. " As a painter, at least in his own country, he 
 neither excelled in drawing, composition, colouring, nor effect Like Hogarth, 
 too, beauty, grace, and grandeur, of individual outline and form, or of style, con- 
 stitute no pnrt of his merit. He was no Corregio, Raphael, or Michael Angelo. 
 He painted portraits as well as Hogarth, below the middle size ; but they are void 
 of all charms of elegance, and of the cb.ro-obscuro, and are recommended by no- 
 thing but a strong homely resemblance. As an artist and a man of genius, hia 
 characteristic talent lay in expression, in the imitation of nature with truth 
 nnd humour, especially in the representation of ludicrous scenes in low life. His 
 eye was ever on the watch for every eccentric figure, every motley group, or ridi- 
 culous incident, out of which his pencil or his needle could draw innocent enter- 
 tainment and mirth." 
 
 ALSTON, CHARLES, M.D. an eminent botanist, v, as born in 16 83, in Lanarkshire, 
 and spent his early years at Hamilton palace, under the patronage of the duchess 
 of Hamilton. Her grace wished him to study the law, but he preferred botany 
 and medicine, and accordingly, in 1716, set out for Leyden, where those sciences 
 were at that time taught by the illustrious Boerhaave. Here he found a great 
 number of young Scotsmen engaged in the same pursuit, and all inspired with an 
 uncommon degree of enthusiam in their studies, which they had caught from 
 their master. Alston, after taking his degree as doctor of physic, returned to his 
 native country, and began to practise in Edinburgh. He obtained the sinecure 
 office of king's botanist, through the influence of the duke of Hamilton, heritable 
 keeper of Holyrood-house, to which the garden was attached. This garden he 
 enriched by large collections which he had made in Holland, where botanical 
 science was then more highly cultivated than in any other country in Europe. 
 In 1720, notwithstanding that a botanical class was taught in the college by 
 professor of eminence named Preston, he began a course of lectures in the king's 
 garden. Preston, at length waxing old, Alston was, in 1738, chosen to succeed 
 him, as professor of botany and materia medica united. He was exceedingly 
 laborious in his duties as a professor, giving a course on botany every summer, 
 and one on materia medica every winter ; and never sparing any pains which 
 lie thorght could be conducive to the progress of his pupils. The celebrated 
 Dr Fothergili, in liis character of Dr Russell, bears ample testimony to the assi- 
 duity of Dr Alston, who had been his master : and describes in glowing language 
 the benefit which those who attended him had the means of reaping, his caution 
 in speculation, and how laborious he was in experiment For the assistance of 
 his pupils, he published, about 1740, a list of the officinal plants cultivated in th 
 Edinburgh medical garden. Of Linnzeus's system, which was first promulgated in
 
 52 KOBERT ALVES ADAM ANDERSON. 
 
 1736, Dr Alston, like many other philosophers of his day, was a s;eady opponent. 
 He published a paper against it, on the sexes of plants, in the first volume of " Physi. 
 -al and Literary Essays, ' a miscellany which was commenced at Edinburgh, in 
 17.M. The controversy which took place at that period amongst naturalists has 
 now lost all its interest, seeing that the method of Linmeus, alter serving a useful 
 purpose, has been superseded by the natural system, to the foundation of which 
 LimiM'iis in no small degree contributed, but which it was left to Jussieu und De 
 Candolle to mature. Dr Alston also contributed some articles to an Edinburgh 
 miscellany entitled "Medical Essays;" the most important is one on opium. In 
 1753. he published an introduction to Dr Patrick Blair's Index Materice Mcdicce, 
 a work which resembled his own index in a considerable degree. This in- 
 troduction was a separate work, and was entitled, Tyrocinium Botanicum 
 Edinburqeme. Dr Alston, as the contemporary of the first Monro, and professor 
 of a kindred branch of science, was by no means unworthy of either his time 
 or his place. He must be considered as one of those who have contributed 
 to the exaltation of the college of Edinburgh, as a school of medical science. 
 He died on the 22nd of November, 1760, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. 
 
 ALVES, ROBERT, a poet and miscellaneous writer, born at Elgin, in 1745, took 
 his degrees in philosophy at Aberdeen, where he enjoyed the friendship ot Dr Beattie, 
 and afterwards, though designed for the church, settled as parish schoolmaster of 
 Deskford. From this place he removed, in 1773, to Banff, whence he migrated in 
 1779, to Edinburgh, on account of a disappointment in love. In Edinburgh he 
 subsisted by teaching such private persons as chose to employ him, in the Greek, 
 Roman, French, and Italian classics ; like a true poet, he was not greatly solicitous 
 about the means of subsistence. Mr Creech, in 1782, published a volume of mis- 
 cellaneous poems by Alves; in 1789, appeared another, under the title of "Edin- 
 burgh, a Poem, in two parts, and the Weeping Bard, in sixteen cantos." In 1784, 
 Alves commenced a laborious work entitled, "Sketches of a History of Literature," 
 which was in the press when he died, January 1st, 1794, and was utter wards 
 published by Dr Alexander Chapman, at whose press it was printed for the 
 intended benefit of the author. This work contains lives and characters of the most 
 eminent writers in different languages, ancient and modern, with critical remarks on 
 their works, together with several literary essays; though miserably inaccurate in every 
 particular, it shows an extensive acquaintance with ancient and modern learning. 
 After his death was published, in 1801, " the Banks of Esk," and other poems, a small 
 12mo. vol. In a vigorously written preface he repels the aspersions and ridicule 
 cast upon Scotland and Scotsmen, by many English literary men of the period, 
 especially Churchill, Wilks, Junius, and Johnson ; and in the introductory canto to 
 " the Banks of Esk," he retaliates on them with great cleverness and vivacity. 
 
 ANDERSON, ADAM, author of the largest British compilation upon commercial 
 history, was a native of Scotland, born about the year lb'92. Having removed to 
 London, he was for forty years a clerk in the South Sea house, and at length 
 was appointed chief clerk of the Stock and New Annuities in that establishment, 
 in which situation he continued till his death. He was appointed one of the 
 trustees for establishing the colony of Georgia, by charter dated June 9th, 5 Geo. 
 II. He wag also one of the court of assistants of the Scots Corporation in Lon- 
 don. In 1762, he published his work, entitled, "A Historical and Chronologi- 
 cal Deduction of the Origin of Commerce, from the earliest accounts to the pre- 
 sent time; containing a history of the large commercial interests of the British 
 Empire," &c. Lond. 2 vols. folio. The elaborate character of this work, says 
 much for the industry of the author. It was subsequently improved in a new edi- 
 tion by David Macpherson, 4 vols. quarto; and a manual abridgement ot the
 
 ALEXANDER ANDERSON. 
 
 53 
 
 work may still be considered a want in our literature. Mr Anderson died soon 
 after lie had Driven it to the world, January 10th, 1765, at the a>-e of' seventy-three. 
 
 ANDERSON, ALEXANDER, a very eminent mathematician, born at Aberdeen, 
 near the close of the sixteenth century. How or where he acquired his mathe- 
 matical education is not known; he probably studied belles lettres and philoso- 
 phy in his native university. He comes into notice at Paris, early in the seven- 
 teenth century, as a private teacher or professor of mathematics. In that city, 
 between the years 1612 and 1819, he published or edited various geometrical 
 and algebraical tracts, which are conspicuous for their ingenuity and elegance. 
 It is doubtful whether he was ever acquainted with the famous Vieta, Master of 
 Requests at Paris, who died in 1603.; but his pure taste and skill in mathemati- 
 cal investigation pointed him out to the executors of that illustrious man, who 
 had found leisure, in the intervals of a laborious profession, to cultivate and 
 extend the ancient geometry, and by adopting a system of general symbols, to lay 
 the foundation, and begin the superstructure, of algebraical science, as the person 
 most proper for revising and publishing his valuable manuscripts. Anderson, how- 
 ever, did not confine himself to the duty of a mere editor; he enriched the text with 
 learned comments, and gave neat demonsti-ations of those propositions which had 
 been left imperfect. He afterwards produced a specimen of the application of 
 geometrical analysis, which is distinguished by its clearness and classic elegance. 
 
 The works of this eminent person amount to six thin quarto volumes, now very 
 scarce. These are, 1. Supplementum Apollonii Redivivi: sive analysis pro- 
 blematis hactenus desiderati ad Apollonii Pergaei doctrinam irt^i vtvatuv a 
 Marino Ghetaldo Patritio Regiisino hujusque non ita pridem institutam, &c. 
 Paris, 1612, 4to. This tract refers to the problem of inclinations, by which, in 
 certain cases, the application of the curve called the conchoid is superseded. 
 2. AmoAoy/a : Pro Zetetico Apollonian! problematis a se jam pridem edito in 
 siipplemento Apollonii Redivivi. Being an addition to the former work. Paris, 
 1615, 4to. 3. The edition of the works of Vieta. Paris, 1615, 4to. 
 4. Ad Angularum Sectionem Analytica Theoremata xctSohixuTipet, &c. Paris, 
 1615, 4to. 5. Vindiciae Archimedis, &c. Paris, 1616, 4to. 6. Alexandri An- 
 dersoni Scoti Exercitationum Mathematicarum Decas Prima, &c. Paris, 1619, 4to. 
 All these pieces, of this excellent geometrician, are replete with the finest spe- 
 cimens of pure geometrical exercises that have ever perhaps been produced by 
 any authors, ancient or modern. Besides these, literary history is not aware of 
 any other publications by Anderson, though probably there may have been others. 
 Indeed, from the last piece it fully appears that he had at least written, if not 
 published, another, viz. A Treatise on the Mensuration of Solids, perhaps with a 
 reference to gauging; as in several problems, where he critically examines the 
 treatise of Kepler on cask-gauging, he often refers to his own work on stereo- 
 metry. 
 
 This eminent person was cousin-genuan to Mr David Anderson of Finshaugh, 
 a gentleman who also possessed a singular turn for mathematical knowledge, and 
 who could apply his acquirements to so many useful purposes that he was popu- 
 larly known at Aberdeen by the name of Davie Do-a'-things. He acquired pro- 
 digious local fame by removing a large rock, which had formerly obstructed the 
 entrance to the harbour of Aberdeen. Mathematical genius seems to have been 
 in some degree inherent in the whole family; for, through a daughter of Mr Da- 
 vid Anderson, it reached the celebrated James Gregory, inventor of the reflecting 
 telescope, who was the son of that lady, and is said to have received, from her, 
 the elements of mathematical knowledge. From the same lady was descended 
 the late Dr Reid of Glasgow, who was not less eminent for his acquaintance with 
 the mathematics, than for his metaphysical writings.
 
 54 JAMES ANDERSON. 
 
 ANDERSON, JAMES, an eminent antiquary, was the son of the Rev. Patrick 
 Anderson, who had been ejected for non-conformity at the Restoration, and after- 
 wards suffered imprisonment in the Bass, for preaching in a conventicle at Edin- 
 burgh. The subject of this memoir, whose brother, Adam, has already been 
 commemorated, was born, August 5th, 1662, and in 1677, is found studying 
 philosophy in the university of Edinburgh, where, after finishing a scholastic edu- 
 cation, he obtained the degree of Master of Arts, on the 27th of May, 1680. 
 He chose the law for his profession, and, after serving an apprenticeship under 
 Sir Hugh Paterson of Bannockburn, was admitted a member of the society of 
 writers to the signet in 169 1. In this branch of the legal profession, the study of 
 written antiquities in some measure forces .itself upon the practitioner; and it 
 appears that Anderson, though a diligent and able man of business, became in 
 time too fond of the accessory employment to Qare much for the principal A 
 circumstance which occurred in 1704, decided his fate by tempting him into the 
 Held of antiquarian controversy. The question of the union of the two countries 
 was then very keenly agitated on the one side with much jealous assertion of 
 the national independency and on the other, with not only a contempt for the 
 boasts of the Scots, but a revival of the old claims of England for a superiority 
 or paramouncy over their country. A lawyer named Attwood, in 1704, pub- 
 lished a pamphlet in which all the exploded pretensions of Edward I. were 
 brought prominently into view, and a direct dominion in the cro\vn of England 
 asserted over that of Scotland. For this work, Mr Anderson, though altogether 
 unknown to Mr Attwood, was cited as an evidence and eye-witness, to vouch some 
 of the most important original charters and grants by the kings of Scotland, 
 which Attwood maintained were in favour of the point he Laboured to establish. 
 3Ir Anderson, in consequence of such an appeal, thought himself bound in duty 
 to his country, to publish what he knew of the matter, .and to vindicate some of 
 the best of the Scottish kings, who were accused by Attwood of a base and vo- 
 luntary surrender of their sovereignty. Accordingly, in 1705, he published " An 
 Essay, showing that the crown of Scotland is imperial and independent," Edin- 
 burgh, 8vo. which was so acceptable to his country, that, besides a reward, thanks 
 were voted to him by parliament, to be delivered by the lord Chancellor, in pre- 
 sence of her Majesty's high Commissioner and the Estates; at the same time that 
 Att wood's book, like others of the same nature, was ordered to be burnt at the 
 cross of Edinburgh by the hands of the common hangman. Mr Anderson's pub- 
 lication is now of little value, except for the charters attached to it in the shape 
 of an appendix. 
 
 This a'lair was the crisis of Anderson's fate in life. He had, in the course of 
 his researches for the essay, collected a large mass of national papers; the study 
 of charters was just then beginning to be appreciated by antiquaries; the enthu- 
 siam of the nation was favourable, for the moment, to any undertaking which 
 would show the ancient respectability of its separate system of government. Un- 
 der all these circumstances, Anderson found it easy to secure the patronage of the 
 Scottish estates towards a design for engraving and publishing a series of fac- 
 similes of the royal charters, previous to the reign of James I., and of seals, me- 
 dals, and coins, from the earliest to the present time. In November, 1706, he 
 had a parliamentary grant of three hundred pounds towards this object He then 
 proceeded vigorously with the work, and in March, 1707, had not only expend- 
 ed the three hundred pounds granted by parliament, but five hundred and ninety 
 pounds besides, which he had drawn from his own funds. A committee reported 
 the facts; and the estates, while they approved of his conduct, recommended to 
 the Queen to bestow upon him an additional contribution of one thousand and 
 fifty pounds sterling. Another parliamentary act of *grace and one of the very
 
 JAMES ANDERSON, D.D. 55 
 
 last proceedings of the Scottish estates was to recommend him to the Queen 
 " as a person meriting her gracious favour, in conferring any office or trust upon 
 him, as her Majesty in her royal wisdom, shall think fit." 
 
 Quite intoxicated with this success, Anderson now gave up his profession, and, 
 resolving to devote himself entirely to the national service as an antiquary, re- 
 moved to London, in order to superintend the progress of his work. Ihe event 
 only added another proof to what is already abundantly clear that scarcely any 
 prospects in the precarious fields of literature, ought to tempt a man altogether to 
 resign a professional means of subsistence. r lhe money voted by the expiring 
 parliament is said to have never been paid; the British senate perhaps consider 
 ing itself not the proper heir of the Scottish estates. Apparently in lieu of 
 money, he was favoured, in 1715, with the appointment of post-master general 
 for Scotland ; but of this he was deprived in little more than two years. What 
 progress he now made with his great work is not very clearly known. He is 
 found, in 171 8, advertising that those who might wish to encourage it " could see 
 specimens at his house, above the pest-office in Edinburgh." As the expense of 
 engraving must have borne hard upon his diminished resources, he would appear 
 to have digressed for some years into an employment of a kindred nature, at- 
 tended with greater facilities of publication. In 1727, he published the two first 
 volumes of his well known " Collections relating to the History of Man', Queen 
 of Scotland" Edinburgh, 4to, which was speedily completed by the addition of 
 two other volumes. This work contains a large mass of valuable original docu- 
 ments connected with the Marian controversy; but George Chalmers, who went 
 over the same ground, insinuates that there is too much reason to suspect his ho- 
 nesty as a transcriber. If the prejudices of the two men are fairly balanced 
 against the reputations which they respectively bear as antiquaries, we must ac- 
 knowledge that the charge may not be altogether groundless. 
 
 Anderson died in 1728 of a stroke of apoplexy, leaving his great work unfin- 
 ished. The plates were sold, in 1729, by auction, at 530, and it was not till 
 1737 that the work appeared, under the title of " Selectus Diplomatum et Nu- 
 mismatum Scotia? Thesaurus," the whole being under the care of the celebrated 
 Thomas Ruddiman, who added a most elaborate preface. 
 
 ANDERSON, JAMES, D.D. author of a large and usefid work, entitled, " Royal 
 Genealogies," was the brother of Adam Anderson, author of the Commercial 
 History. He was for many years minister of the Scots presbyterian church in 
 Swallow-street, Piccadilly, and was well known among the people of that persua- 
 sion in London, by the nick-name of Bishop Anderson. He was a learned but 
 imprudent man, and lost a considerable part of his property from too deep dab- 
 bling in the South-Sea scheme. His great work a an author was, " Royal 
 Genealogies, or the Genealogical Tables of Emperors, Kings, and Princes, from 
 Adam(!) to these Times," London, folio, 1732. The compilation of this huge 
 work, in which he was aided by many eminent personages, whose families enter- 
 ed into its plan, cost him, according to his own account, the labour of seven 
 years. It is certainly the completes! work of the kind in existence, though with 
 no pretensions to discrimination. The author says very frankly in his preface, 
 that, " He has avoided all terms and expressions that may give offence to any nation 
 or family, to any person or party ; having nothing to do with the national con- 
 troversies of historians, nor with the ecclesiastical and religious debates of theolo- 
 gians, nor with the politics of statesmen, nor with the private jangles of the cri- 
 tics in a work of this kind, but only with facts and plain truth : so that he has 
 let every nation enjoy its own faith; and if any find fault, he hopes they will 
 readily excuse him, not having designed to offend them, and is willing to make 
 satisfaction, if he lives to publish a second edition." Dr Anderson also wrotw
 
 JAMES ANDERSOT. 
 
 *The Constitutions of the Free ^Masons," being the chaplain of that hotly in 
 London. The dates of this worthy man's birth and death are not aswrtaiued. 
 He lived in a house opposite to St James's church, Piccadilly. 
 
 ANDERSON, JAMES, an agricidtur.il and miscellaneous writer of great 
 merit, was the son of a fanner at Hermiston, in the county of Midlothian, where 
 he was born in the year 173!). His father dying when he was very yo<ng, ho 
 was educated hy his guardian to occupy the farm, which accordingly lie be^;m to 
 manage at the early age of fifteen. It may be supposed that he could not have 
 been intrusted with so important a charge, if he had not already manifested 
 symptoms of superior character and intellect ; much less, without such qualifica- 
 tions, could he have discharged it, as he is said to have done, with the approba- 
 tion of all who had occasion to observe his operations. In ivading somo agri- 
 cultural works, to qualify himself for his duties, he had observed that it would be 
 of advantage to study chemistry: he accordingly attended the lectures given in 
 the university of Edinburgh by Dr Cullen, who, although surprised that one so 
 yo-i'ig should have formed this resolution, had soon reason to admire his pupil's 
 laudable curiosity and good sense, and liberally afforded him every encourage- 
 ment in his power. To chemistry he added the study of certain collateral 
 branches of science; so that, when he entered upon his farm, he was not only 
 able to keep up with his more aged and experienced neighbours, but adopted a 
 number of improvements, suggested by scientific knowledge and native good 
 sense, which were speedily found to be of a most profitable nature. Among his 
 improvements was the introduction of the small two-horse plough, which, since 
 then, has so completely banished the lumbering engine fonnerly drawn by a 
 string of cattle. Nor did the necessary business of his farm preclude all advance- 
 ment in knowledge. He still prosecuted his studies with great eagerness, and 
 soon contrived to amass an immense stock of information upon almost all sub- 
 jects. 
 
 His first attempts in literature appeared in the shape of Essays on Planting, 
 in Huddiman's Weekly Magazine for 1771. In 1777, having previously removed 
 to a large farm in Aberdeenshire, he published these essays in a separate volume. 
 In 177(5, appeared his Essay on Chimneys, in which the principle afterwards 
 icted on in the patent Bath stove was first explained. In the same year with his 
 rolume on Planting, appeared various pamphlets connected with rural economy, 
 all of which were more or less calculated to gratify the increasing desire of his 
 countrymen for scientific knowledge upon such familiar subjects. The fame of 
 these works procured him a very extensive acquaintance with persons of emi- 
 nence, who wished to profit by the remarks of so able a practical farmer; and 
 in 1780, the University of Aberdeen acknowledged his merit by conferring upon 
 him the degree of LL.D. 
 
 Anderson had been married in 1 7 lift; and a desire of educating a very nu- 
 merous family, together with certain considerations as to the enjoyment of literary 
 society, induced him, in 1783, to remove to Edinburgh, leaving the management 
 of his farm to persons properly qualified A tract which he had written on the 
 subject of the Fisheries, though not printed, attracted the attention of the go- 
 vernment, and he was requested in 1784 to undertake a tour of the western coast 
 of Scotland, for the purpose of obtaining information on this important subject. 
 He readily acquiesced, and performed the task to the high satisfaction of his 
 employers, who, however, never offered him any remuneration. The result ol 
 his labours appeared in I7S5, as " An Account of the present state of the He- 
 brides and Western Coasts of Scotland ; being the substance of a report to the; 
 Lords of the Treasury." 
 
 Passing over some minor works of Dr Anderson, we must make honourable
 
 JA.MES ANDERSON. 57 
 
 mention of a literary and scientific miscellany whi ;h he commenced in 1791, 
 under tlu title of the Bee. This work was published in weekly numbers at six- 
 pence, ai:d, by its delightful intermixture of useful information with lighter 
 matters of the belles lettres, was eminently calculated for the improvement of the 
 young. It was occasionally embellished with portraits, views, and draughts 01 
 scientific objects in, it is true, a very homely style, but still not much inferior 
 to the taste of the age, and certainly fitted to give the work an increased merit 
 in the eyes of its juvenile purchasers. The work ran from the 22nd of December, 
 1790, to the 21st of January, 1794, when it was at length reluctantly abandoned' 
 as the ingenious editor informs us, not on account of any failure in its circula- 
 tion, for that was considerable enough to yield a large apparent profit, but be- 
 cause such a large proportion of the subscribers were remiss In their payments as 
 to induce an absolute loss to the conductor. The cessation of such a meritorious 
 little publication was the more to be regretted, as Anderson had only been able, 
 towards its close, to bring the assistance of his numerous and distant correspon- 
 dents into full play. The numbers published form eighteen volumes duodecimo, 
 and throughout the whole of that space, we believe there does not occur one line 
 which can be considered reprehensible for its moral e.Tect. 
 
 Among other papers in the Bee was a series of Essays on the Political Progress 
 of Britain. Though only written in what would now be considered a liberal 
 strain, they appeared in the eyes of the sheriff' as calculated to have an injurious 
 tendency at that inflamed period; and the learned Doctor was accordingly sum- 
 moned to give up the name of the author. This Anderson refused, from peculiar 
 notions as to literary secrecy ; he desired to be himself considered as the author. 
 After a second and a third application, he still refused; and when the prin .era 
 were sent for, and similarly interrogated, he charged them in the face of the 
 magistrates,, to preserve his secret. All this was the more singular, as his own 
 principles were known to be eminently loyal Respect for his talents and character 
 induced the magistrates to let the matter drop. The real author, a worthless 
 person named Callender, being afterwards about to quit his country for America, 
 waited upon the authorities, and insinuated that the papers were written by lord 
 (jardenstone, a man to whom he owed many obligations. Immediately on hear- 
 ing of this infamous conduct, Anderson came forward, and refuted the charge by 
 avowing Callander himself to be the real author. The whole of this affair reflects 
 great credit upon the character of Dr Anderson. 
 
 About the year 1797, this ingenious person removed with his family to Lon- 
 don, where he undertook various works connected with his favourite study of 
 agriculture. For several years he wrote tbe articles on this subject in the Monthly 
 Review; and from 1799 to 1802, he conducted a separate miscellany under the 
 title of " Recreations in Agriculture," which was only discontinued on account 01 
 sime obstructions incident to such a mode of publication. From the last men- 
 tioned date, he devoted himself almost entirely to the relaxation which advanced 
 years and severe studies had rendered necessary, and particularly to the cultiva- 
 tion of his garden, which became a miniature of all his past labours. In 1801, 
 he married a se<x)nd wife, who survived him. He died on the 1 5th of October, 
 1808, at the age of sixty-nine. 
 
 In his younger days, Dr Anderson was remarkably handsome in his person, of 
 middle stature, and robust make. Extremely moderate in his living, the country 
 exercise animated his cheek with the glow of health ; but the overstrained exer- 
 tion of his mental pottvrs afterwards s'.iook his constitution, and hurried him into 
 old age, lie was a mm of independent mind; and in the relative duties of 
 husband and father, exhibited a prudential care, mixed with affection, which 
 commanded the admiration of his friends. Of Dr Anderson's abilities, his works
 
 58 JOHN ANDERSON, M.A. 
 
 exhibit so many proofs that tliey may be appealed to with perfect confidence. 
 Although a voluminous writer, there is no subject connected with his favourite 
 pursuit, on which he lias not tin-own new light. But his knowledge was not con 
 fined to one science. He exhibited, to give only one instance, very oonaderabk 
 powers of research, when in 1773, he published, in the first edition of the Ency- 
 clopedia Britannira, an article under the head Monsoon. In this he clearly 
 predicted the restdt of captain Cook's first voyage ; namely, that there did not 
 exist, nor ever would be found, any continent or large island in the southern 
 hemisphere except New Holland alone ; and this was completely verified on 
 captain Cook's return seven months afterwards. Upon the whole, though the 
 name of Dr Anderson is associated with no scientific or literary triumphs of great 
 splendour, his exertions, by their eminent and uniform usefulness, have g-iven him 
 very considerable claims to respect. A minute specification of his works is to be 
 found in the Scots Magazine for 1 809. 
 
 ANDERSON, JOHN, M.A. an eminent Presbyterian clergyman of last century, 
 grandfather of Professor Anderson, the subject of the next article. Of his early 
 history very little is known, except that he received a university education, and took 
 liis degree in arts. He was afterwards preceptor to the great John Duke of Argyle, 
 and he mentions in his letters upon the Overtures concerning Kirk Sessions and 
 Presbyteries, that he had resided in Edinburgh far twenty-tire years in early life. 
 He seems also to have taught a school, and he is upbraided by " Curat Calder.' 1 
 with having been "an old pedantic dominie, teaching haec data." It was not, how- 
 ever, till after his settlement as minister of Dumbarton, that he became known as 
 Author. The earliest of his productions that has been discovered is entitled, " A 
 Dialogue between a Curat and a Countreyman concerning the English Service, 
 or Common-Prayer Book of England," which was printed in quarto at Glasgow, 
 about 1710. The question relative to the form of prayer used in Scotland, im- 
 mediately after the Reformation, was at this time keenly canvassed by the Scottish 
 Episcopalians and Presbyterians, and the clergy of the former persuasion had very 
 shortly before introduced the liturgy into their church service. (Carstares' State 
 Papers.) Mr, afterwards Bishop, Sage endeavoured in his " Fundamental Charter 
 of Presbytery Examined," to show that the English liturgy had been used in Scot- 
 land for at least seven years after the establishment of the Protestant religion. In 
 this he was opposed by Mr Anderson, who adduced many arguments to prove that 
 it was not the English liturgy that is spoken of by the Scottish historians, but that 
 used by the English church at Geneva. Soon afterwards Anderson published a 
 "Second Dialogue," (dated 1 7 11) in which, says he, "there is hardly any thing 
 of importance which is not said in the very words of the writers of the other 
 side," and in which South, Beveridge, Hammond, and Burnet are the Curates 
 whose sentiments are opposed. " A Letter from a Countreyman to a Curat," 
 followed the dialogues, and received several answers, of which we shall only 
 mention one, written by Robert Calder, an Episcopalian clergyman, the friend 
 of Dr Archibald Pitcairn, and printed in his " Miscellany Numbers relat- 
 ing to the controversies about the Book of Common Prayer," &c. folio, 1713. 
 To this attack Anderson replied in a pamphlet entitled " Curat Calder Whipt." 
 He soon after published " A Sermon preached in the church of Ayr at the open- 
 ing of the Synod, on Tuesday the first of April, 1712," printed at the desire oi 
 the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr, (quarto, price sixpence,) and in 1714, the work 
 by which he is best known appeared. It has for its title, " A Defence of the 
 Church Government, Faith, Worship, and Spirit of the Presbyterians, in answer 
 to a book entitled an Apology for Mr Thomas Rhind," &c. 4to, and is dedicated 
 to Archibald Earl of Islay. About the beginning of the year 1717, Anderson 
 informs us, " the people of Glasgow were pleased to move that I should be called 
 to be one of the ministers of that place." (Letter to Stewart of Pardovan, p. 1 .^
 
 JOHN ANDERSON, M.A. 59 
 
 but tha proceedings relative to this transaction strikingly illustrate the truth of 
 \V od row's remark in a letter to Dr Cotton Mather. 1 " We are biting and de- 
 vouring one another," says the venerable historian, " and like to be consumed one 
 of another. In our neighbouring city of Glasgow, where since the Revolution, 
 unity and harmony, and consequently vital religion flourished, now heat, and 
 strife, and every evil work abound. The university is split and broken. Hie 
 magistrates and ministers are at present in no good terms." The same author 
 gives us some additional information relative to Mr Anderson's case in a letter 
 to the Rev. James Hart, one of the ministers of Edinburgh in 1 7 1 8.* " Our Synod 
 last week," says he, "had the Presbytery of Glasgow's reference of Mr Anderson's 
 call before them ; the ministers' reasons of dissent and the town's answers were 
 read, and the ministers' answers to them read, viva voce. The advice given at 
 the close of the last Synod when the house was thin (to fall from Mr Anderson) 
 was disliked by the Synod now when full, and it was agreed not to be recorded. 
 The vote came to be stated, concur with the call, and transmit it to the Presby- 
 tery of Dumbarton, or refer to the Assembly ; and it earned, concur 63, refer 
 4 1 ; whereon the ministers and four or five of the Presbytery appealed to the 
 Assembly, and gave in a complaint verbally against Mr Anderson, which the 
 Synod obliged them to bring in in write, signed, to-morrow." Mr Anderson was, 
 however, at length settled in Glasgow in 1720, although it appears from 
 M' Ore's History that the North-West Church to which he was appointed was not 
 founded till 1721, nor finished for "a year or two thereafter." It would be 
 difficult to explain Anderson's motives in coming to Glasgow, his colleagues 
 were disgusted at a letter addressed by him to Walter Stewart of Pardovan, which 
 was published in 1717, and contained some severe remarks upon them, and he 
 says, in a strain of bitter irony, " I confess I was under a great temptation of 
 being eager for a settlement in Glasgow, for what minister would not be fond of 
 a lesser stipend and a double charge !" 3 Nor was he more fortunate in his first 
 appearance in his new parish, for he had, according to M'Ure, a kind, of conse- 
 cration sermon, which disgusted " the stricter, or more bigotted sort of the peo- 
 ple." In the same year in which he was appointed one of the ministers ol 
 Glasgow, " Mr Anderson's Letters upon the Overtures concerning Kirk Sessions 
 and Presbyteries" appeared in 12mo. Of this topic he says, " I must needs con- 
 fess that it is the most melancholy subject I ever wrote upon. There was plea- 
 sure as well as duty in contending with our prelatic adversaries ; but alas ! 
 
 In civil war, to lose or gain 's the same, 
 
 To gain 's no glory, and (o lose a shame." 
 
 These letters extend to six, and although now little known, as they refer merely 
 to an ephemeral subject, contain some curious historical information, and not ; 
 little satire. Mr Anderson did not long survive his call to Glasgow, the date 
 of his death has not been ascertained, but his successor was appointed in 1723. 
 His controversial writings are full of valuable historical information, and show 
 him to have been thoroughly versed in theological literature, but it cannot be too 
 much regretted that he so far indulged in intemperate language. We have not 
 alluded to some of his smaller pamphlets, which refer merely to subjects of a 
 temporary or local nature. 
 
 Upon the family tomb-stone, erected by the will of Professor Anderson, over the 
 grave of his grandfather, upon the front of the North-West Church, Glasgow, 
 was inscribed the following memorial of Mr Anderson : " Near this place ly 
 the remains of the Rev. John Anderson, who was preceptor to the famous John 
 Juke of Ariryle and Greenwich, and minister of the gospel in Dumbarton in the 
 
 1 Wodrow's History, new edition, vol. 1. p. xxv. 
 * History, voi. 1. p. xxii. 3 Letters on the Overtures, p. 67.
 
 60 
 
 JOHN ANDERSON, F.R.S. 
 
 beginning of the eighteenth century, and in tin's church in the year 1720. He w;is 
 the author of 'The Defence of the Church-government, Faith, Worship, and Spirit 
 of the Presbyterians,' and of several other ecclesiastical and political tracts. As a pious 
 minister and an eloquent preacher, a defender of civil and religious liberty, and n 
 man of wit and learning, he was much esteemed ; he lived in the reign of Charlo* 
 II., James II., William" III., Anne, and George I. Such times, and such a man, 
 forget not, reader, uhile thy country, liberty, and religion are dear to thee." 
 
 ANDERSON, JOHN, F. B. S. professor of natural philosophy in the university 
 of Glasgow, and founder of the eminently useful institution, bearing his name, in 
 that city, was born in the parish of Roseneath in Dumbartonshire, in the year 
 172<>. He was the eldest son of the reverend James Anderson, minister of 
 Roseneath, who was, in his turn, the eldest son of the reverend John Anderson, 
 preceptor to John Duke of Argyle, afterwards minister of the gospel at Dum- 
 barton, and whose memoir is given in the preceding article. The subject 
 of this memoir, having the misfortune to lose his father in early life, was 
 educated by his aunt Mrs Turner, widow of one of the ministers of the Hih 
 church of Stirling. While residing at this town, where he received the rudi- 
 ments of learning, he appeared as an officer in the burgher corps raised in 
 February, 1740, to defend it against the forces of the young Chevalier. His 
 conduct on this occasion was worthy of his distinguished ancestor, from whose 
 example he appears to have derived that attachment to the principles of civil 
 and religious liberty, which marked his character through life. The carabine and 
 other arms which he carried on the walls of Stirling are preserved in the museum 
 connected with his institution at Glasgow. He received the more advanced part of 
 his education at the college of Glasgow, where, in 1756, he was appointed to be 
 professor of oriental languages, being then in the thirtieth year of his age. 
 
 It was not in this sphere that Mr Anderson was destined to shine with great- 
 est lustre. His mind had a decided bent towards the exact sciences, and to the 
 illustration of the arts with which they are connected. His translation, there- 
 fore, to the chair of natural philosophy, which took place in 17(30, was an event 
 highly agreeable to him, and also most fortunate for the world. While he too3s 
 an early opportunity after this event, to fulfil an important private duty, by re- 
 paying his aunt for the expenses of his education, he entered upon the business 
 of his class with an enthusiastic ardour of application, which we may safely pro- 
 nounce to have been without example in any Scottish university. Not contented 
 with the ordinary duty of delivering a course of lectures though he performed 
 that duty in a manner alone sufficient to obtain distinction he was indefatig- 
 able in studying and exemplifying the application of science to mechanical 
 practice ; visiting, for this purpose, the workshops of arti/ans in the town, and 
 receiving, in return for the scientific doctrine which he had to communicate, a full 
 equivalent of experimental knowledge. The most estimable characteristic of profes- 
 sor Anderson, was a liberal and diffusive benevolence in regard to the instruction 
 of his race. Under the inspiration of this feeling, which was in that age more 
 rare, and therefore more meritorious than it is at present, he instituted, in ad- 
 dition to his usual class, which was strictly mathematical, one for the working 
 classes, and others whose pursuits did not enable them to conform to the pre- 
 scribed routine of academical study, illustrating his precepts by experiments, so 
 as to render it in the highest degree attractive. He continued to teach this 
 anti-toga class, as he called it, twice every week, during the session, to the end 
 of his life ; and it would not be easy to estimate the aggregate of good which he 
 thus rendered to his fellow-creatures. As an instance of the liberal good sense 
 by which he was governed in his eminently useful scheme, it is related that, a 
 mechanic having complained to bis assistant, that he had scarcely time, after leaving
 
 
 ::AL IN ANPEH^ON'S ITNIVERSITY. GLASGOW 
 
 BLA-CKIE i SON. 3LA.SaOW. EDINBURGH fcLONBON
 
 JOHN ANDERSOX, F.R.S. 61 
 
 his work, to cluinge liis dress before coining to the class, and having suggested 
 the propriety of the operatives being allowed to attend without such change, 
 Mr Anderson, being apprized of the wish so expressed, at once acceded lo it. 
 His was a mind too strongly bent on mere usefulness, to regard empty form. 
 Yet, as a lecturer, lie is allowed to have himself exhibited a surpassing elegance 
 of manner. His style was easy and graceful, his command of language unlimit- 
 ed, and the skill and success with which his manifold experiments were perform- 
 ed, could not be surpassed. He excited the interest, and attracted the attention 
 of his pupils, by the numerous and appropriate anecdotes with which he illustrat- 
 ed and enlivened his lectures. Enthusiastic in his profession, his whole ambi- 
 tion and happiness consisted in making himself useful to mankind, by the dis- 
 semination of useful knowledge ; and nothing afforded him purer pleasure than 
 hearing that any of his pupils had distinguished themselves in the world. The 
 only distinct work which he published in connection with his favourite science, 
 was a valuable one, entitled, " Institutes of Physics," which appeared in 1786, 
 and went through five editiors during the next ten years. 
 
 /t the commencement of those political changes in France, which ended in 
 such unhappy results, Mr Anderson, as might have been predicated from his ar- 
 dently liberal and enlightened character, was among those who sympathized 
 most warmly with the proceedings of the emancipated people. Previous to th.nt 
 period, he had prosecuted a taste for the military art, and invented a species of 
 gun, the recoil of which was stopped by the condensation of common air, within 
 the body of the carriage. Having in vain endeavoured to attract the attention 
 of the British government to this invention, he went to Paris, in 1791, carrying 
 with him a model, which he presented to the national Convention. The govern- 
 ing party in France at once perceived the benefit which would be derived from 
 this invention, and ordered Mr Anderson's model to be hung up in their hall, 
 with the following inscription over it " THE GIFT OF SCIENCE TO LIBERTY." 
 Whilst he was in France, he got a six-pounder made from his model, with which 
 he made numerous experiments in the neighbourhood of Paris, at which the 
 famous Paul Jones, amongst others, was present; and who gave his decided 
 approbation of the gun, as likely to prove highly useful in landing troops from 
 boats, or firing from the round tops or poops of ships of war. Mr Anderson, at 
 this period, took a keen interest in the transactions which passed before his 
 eyes. He was present when Louis XVI. was brought back from Varennes ; 
 and on the 1 4th of July, on the top of the altar of liberty, and in the presence 
 of half a million of Frenchmen, he sang Te Deum with the bishop of Paris, 
 when the king took the oath to the Constitution, amen being said to the cere- 
 mony by the discharge of five hundred pieces of artillery. As the Emperor of 
 Germany had drawn a military cordon around the frontiers of France, to prevent 
 the introduction of French newspapers into Germany, he suggested the expe- 
 dient of making small balloons of paper, varnished with boiled oil, and filled 
 with inflammable air, to which newspapers and manifestoes might be tied. This 
 was accordingly practised, and when the wind was favourable for Germany, they 
 were sent off, and descending in that country, were, with their appendages, pick- 
 ed up by the people. They carried a small flag or streamer, of which the fol- 
 lowing is a translation : 
 
 O'er hills and dales, and lines of hostile troops, I float majestic, 
 Bearing the laws of God and Nature to oppressed men, 
 And bidding them with arms their rights maintain." 
 
 Mr. Anderson died. January 13th, 1796, in the 70th year of his a?e. and the 41st 
 year of his professorship, directing, by his will, dated May 7th, 1795. that
 
 62 ROBERT ANDERSON, M.D. 
 
 of his effects, of every kind, should be devoted to the establishment of an educational 
 institution in Glasgow, to be denominated Anderson's University, for the use of the 
 unacademical classes ; so that, even while he was consigned to the silent dust, he 
 might still, by means of his honourably acquired wealth, prove of service to those 
 whom he had benefited so much, during his own life, by personal exertion. His 
 will was carried into effect on the 9th of June following, by the magistrates granting 
 a charter of incorporation to the proposed institution. According to the design ol 
 the founder, there were to be four colleges for arts, medicine, law, and theology 
 besides an initiatory school. Each college was to consist of nine professors, the 
 senior professor being the president or dean. As the funds, however, were inadequate 
 to the plan, it was at first, commenced with only a single course of lectures on 
 natural philosophy and chemistry, by Dr Thomas Garnett, well known for his 
 numerous scientific and medical works, and also for his " Tour through the Highlands 
 and part of the Western Isles of Scotland." This course was attended for the first 
 year by nearly a thousand persons of both sexes. In 1798, a professor of mathe- 
 matics and geography was appointed. The splendid apparatus and library of the 
 founder, which were valued at L.3000, added greatly to the advantages of the infant 
 institution. In 1*799, Dr Garnett, being appointed professor in the Royal Institution 
 at London, was succeeded by the eminent Dr Birbeck, who, in addition to the 
 branches taught by his predecessor, introduced a familiar system of philosophical and 
 mechanical information to five hundred operative mechanics, free of all expense, thus 
 giving rise to Mechanics' Institutions. The Andersonian institution was placed, by 
 the will of the founder, under the inspection and control of the Lord Provost, ami 
 many other honourable persons, as ordinary visitors, and under the more immediate 
 superintendence of eighty-one trustees, who are elected by ballot, and remain in 
 office for life. Since the first establishment of the University, as it may very pro- 
 perly be called, it has gradually been extended, nearer and nearer to the original 
 design of the founder. There are now [1852] fifteen professors, who deliver lec- 
 tures on surgery, institutes of medicine, chemistry, practical chemistry, midwifery, 
 practice of medicine, anatomy, materia medica, pharmacy, and dietetics, medical 
 jurisprudence and police, mathematics, natural philosophy, botany, logic, geography, 
 modern languages, English literature, drawing, and painting, <tc. The institution 
 now possesses handsome and commodious buildings, which belong to the corporation, 
 and, among other additions to its means of cultivating and illustrating science, is an 
 extensive museum of natural history and antiquities. Anderson's University must 
 be considered a wonderful example of the amount of good which one man, of no very 
 great material resources, may do tor his kind. The private fortune of one professor 
 in the original college of Glasgow has here been found sufficient to produce a new 
 fount of learning, not unworthy to rank with the old, and of very great practical 
 utility to the public. 
 
 A posthumous woik of professor Anderson, entitled, "Observations on Roman 
 Antiquities between the Forth and Clyde," appeared in 1804. 
 
 ANDERSON, ROBERT, M.D. the biographer of Smollett and Johnson, was born 
 on 7th of January, 1750, the son of a feuar in the rural village of Carnwath in 
 Lanarkshire. He received the earlier part of his education in his native place, and 
 in the adjacent village of Libberton ; was subsequently placed tinder the tuition of 
 Mr Robert Thomson, master of the grammar-school of Lanark ; and finally studied 
 in the university of Edinburgh, where he commenced attendance upon the divinity 
 class, with the view of becoming a clergyman. lie took the degree of M.D. at St. 
 Andrews in 1778. In his early years, when pursuing his studies at Carnwath, he 
 could find but one congenial mind in the whole of that rural district ; this was an 
 unfortunate youth, named James Graeme, the son of a neighbour, who, after exhibit-
 
 ROBERT ANDERSON, M.D. 6? 
 
 ing considerable powers as a poet, died in bis twenty-second year, and whose 
 reliques were afterwards included by Dr . nderson, moie perhaps through the influ- 
 ence of friendship, than deliberate taste, in his edition of the British poets. Dr 
 Anderson first entered into practice, as surgeon to the Dispensary of Bamborougli 
 Castle in Northumberland ; he afterwards removed to Alnwick, where he married 
 I Miss Gray, daughter or Mr John Gray, a relation or the noble family of that name* 
 The declining state of his wile's health, which rendered a change of air necessary, 
 induced him, in 1784, to remove to Edinburgh, where he ever afterwards resided. 
 He had here the misfortune to lose his amiable partner, who sank under a consump- 
 tion, leaving him with three infant daughters. Dr Anderson having secured a small 
 independence, practised no more after this period, but engaged in such literary 
 avocations as he felt to be agreeable to his taste, and became the centre of an agree- 
 able coterie, in which the talents of many a youth of genius were for the first time 
 brought into notice. About the year 17'J3, he began to prepare his edition of the 
 British Poets, which forms thirteen volumes, large octavo, and appeared between 
 the years 1705 and 1807. To the works of each poet is piefixed a biographical 
 memoir by Dr Anderson In 1793, he married for his second wife, Miss Dale, 
 daughter of Mr David Dale, schoolmaster in East Lothian. A collection of the 
 works of Smollett, by Dr Anderson, with a memoir prefixed, has gone through eight 
 editions. To the last edition is affixed a highly characteristic likeness of the editor. 
 The memoir has been published repeatedly in a distinct shape, and is a very respect- 
 able production. Dr Anderson also published a " Life of Dr Samuel Johnson, with 
 critical observations on his works," which has passed through several editions. For 
 several years before the end of the eighteenth century, Dr Anderson was editor of 
 the Edinburgh Magazine, a rival of the Scots Magazine, more varied and lively in 
 its details, and which afforded him an opportunity of bringing forward the produc- 
 tions of his young friends. This work commenced in the year 1784, and at the end 
 of 1803, was incorporated with the Scots Magazine : it was much indebted to its 
 proprietor, James Sibbald, editor of the Chronicle of Scottish Poetry, to Lord Hailes, 
 and other eminent literary characters. Among the publications which Dr Anderson 
 gave to the world, must be included his edition of " The Works of John Moore, 
 M.D., with Memoirs of his Life and Writings;" Edinburgh, 1820, 7 vols. 8vo; and 
 an edition of the poems of Robert Blair; Edinburgh, 1826, 12mo. The great inci- 
 dent of Dr Anderson's literary life was his connection with the commencement 
 of the career of Thomas Campbell. When Campbell first visited "Edinburgh in 
 1797, being then in his twentieth year, he gained the friendship of Dr Anderson, 
 who, on being shown a copy of elegiac verses, written by him two years before, 
 when an obscure tutor in Mull, predicted his great success as a poet. It was 
 through Dr Anderson, in 1708, that Campbell was introduced to the circle of his 
 distinguished literary associates in Edinburgh ; and he it was who encouraged him 
 by his friendly advice, and assisted him by his critical acumen, in the publication of 
 his celebrated poem, " the Pleasures of ! ope," for the high character of which he 
 had, previously to its appearance, pledged his word to the public. In acknow- 
 ledgment of his friendship, the grateful poet dedicated his work to Dr Anderson. 
 During the later years of his life, this venerable author, though he indulged as 
 much as ever in literary society, gave no work to the public. 
 
 As a literary critic, Dr Anderson was distinguished by a warm sensibility to the 
 beauties of poetry, and by extreme candour. His character as a man was marked 
 by perfect probity in all his dealings, and unshaken constancy in friendship. His 
 manner was lively and bustling ; and from his long-continued acquaintance with the 
 literary world, he possessed an unrivalled fund of that species of gossip and anecdote 
 which gives so much pleasure in Boswell's Life of Johnson.
 
 (54 WALTER ANDERSON, D.D. 
 
 Dr Anderson died of dropsy in the cLest, February 20, 1S30, in his eighty-first 
 year. 
 
 ANDERSON, WALTER, D.D. The era of this gentleman's birth is unknown ; 
 he died at an advanced age, July, 1800, after having been minister of the parish 
 of Chirnside for fifty years, lie is a remarkable specimen of that class of au- 
 thors, who, without the least power of entertaining or instructing their fellow- 
 creatures, yet persist in writing and publishing books, which nobody ever reads, 
 and still, like the man crazed by the lottery, expect that the next, and the next, 
 and the next will be attended with success. Perhaps Anderson's cacoet/ies scri- 
 bendi received its first impulse from the following ludicrous circumstance. His 
 parish comprehending the house of Xinewells, he was often entertained there. 
 in company with the brother of the proprietor the celebrated David Hume 
 The conversation having turned one day on the successes of Mr Hume as an au- 
 thor, Anderson said, " Mr David, I dare say other people might write books 
 too ; but you clever fellows have taken up all the good subjects. \\ hen I look 
 about me, I cannot find one unoccupied." Hume, who liked a joke upon an tin- 
 suspecting clergyman, said, " what would you think, Mr Anderson, of a history 
 of Crcesus, king of Lydia ? that has never yet been written." Mr Anderson 
 was delighted with the idea, and, in short, " upon that hint he wrote." In 1755 
 was published, "The History of Croesus, king of Lydia, in four parts; contain- 
 ing observations on the ancient notion of destiny, or dreams, on the origin and 
 credit of the oracles, and the principles upon which their oracles were defended 
 against any attack." What is perhaps the best part of the jest, the work was 
 honoured with the following serio-burlesque notice in the Edinburgh Review, 
 then just started by Hume, Smith, Carlyle, and other wits the article being 
 written, we have no doubt, by the very man who incited the unhappy author to 
 his task : 
 
 " Croesus king of Lydia is a prince whom we never expected to have met 
 with, as the hero of a serious history. Mankind seem at last to feel the neces- 
 sity of contracting rather than enlarging that period of history, which ought to 
 be the object of their study and attention. If this sentiment be just, how unfor- 
 tunate and ill-timed is our author's attempt to recall from oblivion the name and 
 adventures of a monarch of such distant and dubious fame. He himself seems 
 aware of this objection to his work ; and it is but just to hear what he can plead 
 in his own defence. ' The enthusiastic principles of ages long past, and the 
 artificial devices then used to work upon the passions of men, may appear to 
 some a subject of history not enough interesting in these times. But if the 
 most essential part of knowledge, derived from history, be that of mankind, it 
 surely cannot well be learned, without thoroughly considering the various senti- 
 ments and opinions embraced by them in different ages of the world. Our views 
 of human nature must be partial and confined, if they be only directed to some 
 of its late and present appearances. By carrying our thoughts back into ancient 
 times, we may see reason for abating much of the amazement or dislike which 
 is apt to arise in our minds, when we read the religious or political violences 
 marked out in modern history.' 
 
 " If the reader shall sustain this apology for the subject, (which we by no 
 means require him to do,) we can assure him that he will find our author neither 
 destitute of skill in composition, nor a stranger to propriety and neatness of Ian- 
 guage. He has treated his subjects with abundance of erudition, and by his man 
 ner of relating it, renders an old tale somewhat tolerable. 
 
 "We cannot, however, imagine our readers to be so much interested in the 
 Lydian monarch, as to make it necessary for us to enter into any detail of his 
 actions. We approve of our author's choice of Herodotus rather than Xeno-
 
 WALTER ANDERSON, D.D. 65 
 
 phon ; * * but at the same time, our author's history has derived, from He- 
 rodotus, an air and character which will appear uncouth to a modern reader ; 
 oracles, dreams, prodigies, miraculous interpositions of the gcds, and no less 
 miraculous instances of credulity and folly among men, are the objects perpetu- 
 ally before him. The rage of reading novels, which has spread so wonderfully 
 over Britain, may perhaps have accustomed the public ear to such improbabili- 
 ties. To all true lovers of the marvellous, we therefore recommend our author's 
 hero. His adventures, though related in a better style, are as far removed from 
 truth, and very near as much connected with instruction, as most of those which 
 of late years have been so diligently studied by a great part of the nation. 
 
 " We conclude this article with an admonition to the author. In any future 
 performance, we advise him either to venture into the region of pure fiction, or 
 to confine himself within the precincts of real history. In the former, by his 
 talents for composition, he may become an agreeable writer ; in the latter his 
 industry may render him an instructive one." 
 
 It happens that the work thus noticed in the second number of the Edinburgh 
 Review, was also the subject of a critique in the second number of the Critical 
 Review, which had then been just started in London by Smollett. The article 
 in the latter work bears such evident marks of the pen of the distinguished 
 editor, and refei's to such an extraordinary work, that we shall make no apology 
 for the following extracts. 
 
 After remarking that the volume has been chiefly compiled from the episodes 
 of Herodotus, that it exhibits a miserable flatness of style, and that all the facts 
 scattered throughout its two hundred and thirty-five pages might have been 
 related in three or four, the critic proceeds to say " we are apt to believe that 
 this is the first essay of some young historian, who has been more intent upon 
 forming his style and displaying his learning, than careful in digesting his plan, 
 and combining his materials ; the subject is too meagre to afford nourishment to 
 the fancy or understanding ; and one might as well attempt to build a first-rate 
 man of war from the wreck of a fishing-boat, as to compose a regular history 
 from such a scanty parcel of detached observations. The compiler has been 
 aware of this deficiency, and has filled up his blank paper with unnecessary ar- 
 gument, and a legion of eternal truths, by way of illustration. What could be 
 more unnecessary, for example, than a detail of reasons for doubting the divinity 
 or dasraoniacism of the ancient oracles? who believes, at this time of day, that 
 they were either inspired by the deity, or influenced by the devil ? What can 
 be more superfluous than a minute commentary and investigation of the absurdi- 
 ties in the plea of the priestess, when sha was taxed with falsehood and equivo- 
 cation ? But we beg the author's pardon ; he wrote for readers that dwell 
 beyond the Tweed, who have not yet renounced all commerce with those familiar 
 spirits, which are so totally discarded from this part of the island. There is 
 still a race of soothsayers in the Highlands, derived, if we may believe some 
 curious antiquaries, from the Druids and Bards, that were set apart for the wor- 
 ship of Apollo. The author of the history now before us, may, for ought we 
 know, be one of these venerable seers; though we rather take him to be a 
 Presbyterian teacher, who has been used to expound apothegms that need no 
 explanation." 
 
 The history of Cropsus king of Lydia, one of the most curious productions 
 recognised in the history of literary mania, is now extremely rare not by any 
 means from the absorbing appreciation of the public, but rather, apparently, from 
 the very limited extent of its first circulation. 
 
 The worthy author, though perhaps daunted a little by the reception of liis 
 tirstjattempt, in time recovered the full tone of his literary ambition; and he
 
 WALTER ANDERSON, D.TX 
 
 next attempted a work of much larger compass, Mliirh appeared in 1769. 
 in two quarto volumes, under the title of " The History of France during 
 the reigns of Francis II. and Charles IX., to which is prefixed a Review 
 of the General History of the Monarchy from its origin to that period." 
 The success of this work was much like that of its predecessor ; yet in 1775 
 the author published a continuation in one volume, under the title, " The 
 History of France, from the commencement of the reign of Henry III., 
 and the rise of the Catholic League, to the peace of Worms and the estab- 
 lishment of the famous edict of Nantes in the reign of Henry IV." In 1783, 
 appeared two further volumes, embracing the history from the commence- 
 ment of the reign of Louis XIII. to the general peace of Munster. But these 
 continuous efforts were not drawn forth by the encouragement of the public ; 
 they were solely owing to the desperate caccetfies of the worthy writer, which 
 would take no hint from the world no refusal from fame. It is said that he 
 was solely enabled to support the expense of his unrequited labour by a set of 
 houses belonging to himself in Dunse, (too appropriate locality!) one of which 
 was sold for every successive quarto, till at last something like a street of good 
 habitable tenements in that thriving town was converted into a row of unreadable 
 volumes in his library. " Dr Anderson," says the Gentleman's Magazine, " displays 
 none of the essential qualities of historic writing, no research into the secret 
 springs of action, no discriuri nation of character, and no industry in accumulating 
 and examining authorities. Even as a compiler he is guided only by one set 
 of materials which he found in the French writers, and may therefore be con- 
 sulted by the English reader, as a collection of their opinions, while he is highly 
 censurable in not having recourse to original papers and documents respecting 
 the affairs of his own country. His style is uniformly tame, and defaced by col- 
 loquial barbarisms." 
 
 In a literary history of this deplorable character, it is gratifying to find that 
 one effort was at length judged worthy of some praise. This Mas a work subse- 
 quent to the above, entitled, " The Philosophy of Ancient Greece investigated, in 
 its origin and progress, to the eras of its greatest celebrity, in the Ionian, Italic, 
 and Athenian schools, with remarks on the delineated system of their founders." 
 His principle in this work, according to the authority just quoted, appears to 
 have been to supply the deficiencies in Mr Stanley's work, and to give place to 
 remarks upon the meaning employed by the most eminent Grecian philosophers, 
 in support of their physical, theological, and moral systems; and to give a fuller 
 and more connected display of their theories and arguments, and to relieve the 
 frigidity of their bare details by interspersing observations." In this work he 
 displays much learning, and is in general both accurate and perspicuous, although 
 he is still deficient in the graces of style. v Perhaps it would have been more 
 successful had it not appeared at the same time Avith Dr Enfield's excellent abridg- 
 ment of Bmcker's History of Philosophy. 
 
 One of the last attempts of Dr Anderson was a pamphlet against the principles 
 of the French Revolution. This being not only written in his usual heavy style. 
 but adverse to the popular sentiments, met with so little sale, that it could scarcely 
 be said to have been ever published. However, the doctor was not discouraged; 
 adopting rather the maxim, " contra audenlior ito," he wrote a ponderous addi- 
 tion or appendix to the work, which he brought with him to Edinburgh, in order 
 to put it to the press. Calling first upon his friend Principal Robertson, he re- 
 lated the whole design, uhich, as might be expected, elicited the mirthful surprise 
 of the venerable historian. " Really," said Dr Robertson, " this is the maddest 
 of all your schemes what ! a small pamphlet is found heavy, and you propose 
 to lighten it by making it ten times heavier! Never was such madness heard
 
 WILLIAM ANNAN'D. ALEXANDER ARBUTHNOT. 67 
 
 of!" " Why, why," answered Dr Anderson, " did you never see a kite raised by 
 boys?" "I have," answered the principal. "Then, you must have remarked 
 that, when you try to raise the kite by itself, there is no getting it up : but only 
 add a long string of papers to its tail, and up it goes like a laverock!" The 
 reverend principal was completely overcome by this argument, which scarcely 
 left him breath to reply, so heartily did he laugh at the ingenuity of the resolute 
 author. However, we believe, he eventually dissuaded Dr Anderson from his 
 design. 
 
 ANNAND, WILLIAM, an episcopal divine of the reign of Charles II., was the son 
 of William Annand, minister of Ayr, where he was born in 1633. His father, 
 having read the service-book at Glasgow in 1637, was attacked by the women o! 
 that place on the streets, and with some difficulty escaped a tragical fate. He 
 was obliged soon after to fly from Scotland, on account of his adherence to the 
 royal cause. Young Annand became, in 1651, a student at University College, 
 Oxford, and soon gave token of his being inspired with the same predilections 
 as his father. Though placed under a presbyterian tutor, he took every oppor- 
 tunity of healing the episcopal divines, who preached clandestinely in and around 
 Oxford. In 1656, being then bachelor of arts, he received holy orders from the 
 hands of Dr Thomas Fulwar, bishop of Ardfort or Kerry in Ireland, and was 
 appointed preacher at Weston on the Green, near Becister in Oxfordshire. In 
 this situation, and another to which he was preferred in Bedfordshire, he distin- 
 guished himself by his preaching. Immediately after the Restoration, he pub- 
 lished two treatises in favour of the episcopal style of worship, which seem to 
 have procured him high patronage, as he was now appointed chaplain to the 
 earl of Middleton, the king's commissioner to the Scottish Estates. Returning 
 to Scotland with this nobleman, he became minister successively of the Tolbooth 
 and of the Tron Churches. As an episcopal clergyman, he must have no doubt 
 been exceedingly unpopular in his own country ; but there can be no doubt thai 
 both his ministrations and his writings were highly creditable to him, the latter 
 displaying much learning. In 1676, the king appointed him to be dean of 
 Edinburgh, and in 1685 he began to act as professor of divinity at St Andrews. 
 On the 30th of June, 1685, he attended the Earl of Argyle, by order of the 
 government, at his execution, and in his prayer on the scaffold, had the liberality 
 to lament the fall of that nobleman " as one of the pillars of the church," 
 an expression which is said to have given great offence to his superiors. 
 After a life of piety and goodness, he died in 1689, lamenting with his latest 
 breath, and with tears in his eyes, the overthrow of that church which he had 
 excited himself so much to defend and establish. He said, he never had thought 
 to outlive the church of Scotland, but he hoped that others would live to see it 
 restored. 
 
 ARBUTHNOT, ALEXANDER, an eminent divine of the reign of James VI., son 
 of the laird of Arbuthnot, was born in the year 1538. Having studied languages 
 and philosophy in the University of Aberdeen, and civil law under the famous 
 Cujacius at Bourges in France, he took ecclesiastical orders, and became in his 
 own country a zealous supporter of the Reformation. The period of his entrance 
 into life was 15G3, when queen Mary was in possession of the kingdom. His 
 eminent abilities and acquirements pointed him out, young as he was, as a lead- 
 ing man in the church, and accordingly he took a prominent part in several 
 general assemblies. In that of 1568, he was appointed by his brethren to ex- 
 amine a work entitled " The Fall of the Roman Church," which was objected to 
 because it styled the king the head of the church. The result of his delibera- 
 tions was an order to Bassandyne, the printer, not to print any more books till 
 he had expunged this passage, and also taken away a le\td song which he had
 
 3 JOHN ARBUTHMOT, iM.D. 
 
 published at the end of an edition of the 1'salms. The assembly also ordered 
 that henceforth no book should be published till licensed by their commission. 
 " Thus," it has been remarked, " the reformed clergy, who owed their emancipa- 
 tion to the right of private judgment, with strange inconsistency obstructed the 
 progress of free inquiry by taking upon themselves the regulation of the press." 
 
 Arbuthnot was soon after appointed minister of the parishes of Arbuthnot and 
 Logie-Buchan, and in 1569 he became Principal of the University of Aberdeen. 
 He was a member of the General Assembly held at St Andi-ews in 1572, in 
 which strenuous opposition was made to a scheme of church-government, called 
 the " Book of Policy," which was invented by certain statesmen, at the he.id of 
 whom was the iiegent Morton, to restore the old titles of the church, and by 
 means of titular incumbents, retain all the temporalities among themselves. In 
 the General Assemblies held at Edinburgh in 1573 and 1577, Arbuthnot was 
 chosen Moderator ; and he appears to have been constantly employed, on the 
 part of the church, in the commission for conducting the- troublesome and tedious 
 contest with the Regency concerning the plan of ecclesiastical government to be 
 adopted in Scotland. This commission, under the name of the Congregation, at 
 length absorbed so much power, that the Assembly was left little to do but to 
 approve its resolutions. The part which Arbuthnot took in these affairs gave 
 offence to James VI.. and the offence was increased by the publication of I'uch- 
 unan's History, of which Arbuthnot was the editor. It was therefore resolved to 
 restrain him by an oppressive act of arbitrary power; and a royal order was 
 issued, forbidding him to absent himself from his college at Aberdeen. The 
 clergy, who saw that the design of this order was to deprive them of the benefit 
 of Arbuthnot's services, remonstrated : the king, however, remained inflexible, 
 and the clergy submitted. This persecution probably affected Arbuthnot's health 
 and spirits: for, the next year, 1583, he fell into a gradual decline and died. 
 Arbuthnot appears to have possessed much good sense and moderation, and to 
 have been well qualified for public business. His knowledge was various and 
 extensive ; he was a patron of learning ; and at the same time that he was active 
 in promoting the interests of the Reformed church, he contributed to the revival 
 of a taste for literature in Scotland. The only prose production which he has 
 left, is a learned and elegant Latin work, entitled " Oratior.es de Origine et 
 Oignitate Juris," [Orations on the Origin and Dignity of the Law,] which wae 
 printed in 4to at Edinburgh in 1572. For some specimens of vernacular 
 poetry, supposed to be his composition, we may refer to Irving's Lives of the 
 Scottish Poets, and M' trie's Life of Andrew Melville. His character has received 
 a listing eulogy, in the shape of an epitaph, from the pen of his friend Melville. 
 Se~- Delitias 1'oetarum Scotorum, ii. p. 120. 
 
 ARBUTHNOT, JOHN M. D. one of the constellation of wits in the reign of 
 queen Anne, and the mosi learned man of the whole brdy, was the son of a 
 Scottish clergyman, who bore a near relationship to the noble family of this 
 name and title. He was born at Arbuthnot in Kincardineshire, soon after the 
 Restoration, and received his education at the University of Aberdeen, where he 
 took the degree of M.D. The father of Arbuthnot was one of those members of 
 the church of Scotland, who, not being able to comply with the presbyterian sys- 
 tem introduced at the Revolution, were obliged to resign their chnrees. He 
 retired to a small estate, which he possessed by inheritance ; while his sons, find- 
 ing their prospects blighted in their own country, were under the necessity of 
 going abroad to seek their fortune. John carried his jacobitism, his talents, and 
 his knowledge of physic, to London, where he at first subsisted as a teacher of 
 mathematics. His first literary effort bore a reference to this science : it waa an 
 " Examination of Dr Woodward's Account of the Deluge," a work which had
 
 JOHN ABBUTHNOT, M.D. 69 
 
 been published in 1095, and which, in Dr Arbuthnot's estimation, was irrecon- 
 cilable with ji:st philosophical reasoning upon, mathematical principles. Ihis 
 publication, which appeared in 1697, laid the foundation of the author's literary 
 reputation, which not long after received a large and deserved increase by his 
 " Essay on the usefulness of Mathematical Learning." The favour which he ac- 
 quired by these publications, as well as by his agreeable manners and learned 
 conversation, by degrees introduced him into practice as a physician. Being at 
 Epsom, when 1 rince George of Denmark was suddenly taken ill, he was called 
 in, and had the good fortune to effect a cure. The Prince immediately became 
 his patron, and, in 1709, he was appointed fourth physician in ordinary to the 
 queen, (prince George's royal consort,) in which situation he continued till her 
 majesty's death in 1714. In 1704, Dr Arbuthnot had been elected a member 
 of the Royal Society, in consequence of his communicating to that body a most 
 ingenious paper en the equality of the numbers of the sexes ; a fact which he 
 proved by tables of births from 1629, and from which he deduced the reasonable 
 inference that polygamy is a violation of the laws of nature. In 1710, he was 
 elected a mem; er of the Koyal College of Physicians. 
 
 This was the happy period of Dr Arbuthnot's life. Tory principles and tory 
 ministers were now triumphant ; he was in enjcyment of a high reputation, of a 
 lucrative practice, and a most honourable preferment. He also lived in constant 
 intercourse with a set of literary men, almost the greatest who had ever flourished 
 in England, and all of whom were of his own way of thinking in regard to poli- 
 tics. This circle included Pope, Swift, Gray, and Prior. In 1714, he engaged 
 with Pope and Swift, in a design to write a satire on the abuse of human learn- 
 ing in every branch, which was to have been executed in the humorous manner 
 of Gen-antes, the original inventor of this species of satire, under the history of 
 feigned adventures. But the prosecution of this design was prevented by the 
 queen's death, which lost Arbuthnot his situation, and proved a death-blow to all 
 the politH%il friends of the associated wits. In the dejection which befell them, 
 they never went farther than an essay, chiefly written by Arbuthnot, under the 
 title of the First Book of the Memoirs of Maitinus Scriblerus. " Polite letters," 
 says Warburton in his edition of Pope's works, " never lost more than in the de- 
 feat of this scheme ; in the execution of which, each of this illustrious triumvirate 
 would have found exercise for his own particular talents ; besides constant em- 
 ployment for those which they all had in common. Dr Arbuthnot was skilled 
 in every thing which related to science ; Mr Pope was a master in the fine arts; 
 and Dr Swift excelled in a knowledge of the world. \Vit they had in equal 
 measure ; and this so large, that no age perhaps ever produced three men to 
 whom Nature had more bountifully bestowed it, or Art had brought it to higher 
 perfection." We are told by the same writer that the Travels of Gulliver and 
 the Memoirs of a Parish Clerk were at first intended as a branch of the Memoirs 
 of Scriblerus. In opposition to what Warbuiton says of the design, we may pre- 
 sent what Johnson says of the execution. " These memoirs," says the doctor, in 
 his life of Pope, " extend only to the first psrt of a work projected in concert 
 by Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot Their purpose was to censure the abuses of 
 taming by a fictitious life of an infatuated scholar. They were dispersed ; the 
 design never was completed ; and Warburton laments its miscarriage, as an event 
 very disastrous to polite letters. If the whole may be estimated by this specimen, 
 which seems to be the production of Arbuthnot. with a few touches by 1 ope, the 
 want of more will not be much lamented ; ftr the follies which the writer ridi- 
 cules are so little practised, that they are not known ; nor can the satire be un- 
 derstood but by the learned. He raises phai toms of absurdity, and then drives 
 theiu away. He cures diseases that were never felt. For this reason, this join!
 
 70 JOHN ARBUTHNOT, M.T). 
 
 production of three great writers has never attained any notice from mankind." 
 \Vith the opinion of Or Johnson we entirely coincide, so far as the Scriblerus is 
 concerned ; but we think that Arbuthnot was unfortunate in the part of the de- 
 sign which he selected, and that, in satirising more palpable follies, he might 
 have been more successful. The success of Swift, in ridiculing' mankind in gene- 
 ral in his (iulliver is surely a sufficient reason, if no other existed, for the lamen- 
 tation of Warburton. 
 
 At the death of the Queen, when it pleased the new government to change all 
 the attendants of the court, the immortal suffered with the mortal ; Arbuthnot, 
 displaced from his apartments at St James's, took a house in Dover-street, remark- 
 ing philosophically to Swift, that he " hoped still to be able to keep a little habita- 
 tion warm in town." His circumstances were never so prosperous or agreeable 
 after this period. With the world at large, success makes merit and the want 
 of it the reverse and it is perhaps impossible for human nature to think so high- 
 ly of a man who has been improperly deprived of some external mark of distinc- 
 tion and honour, as of him who wears it without so much desert. The wit, left 
 to his own resources, and with a rising family to support, seems to have now lived 
 in some little embarrassment. 
 
 In 1717, Arbuthnot, along with Pope, gave assistance to Gay, in a farce enti- 
 tled, " Three Hours after Marriage," which, strange to say, was condemned the first 
 night. A rival wit wrote upon this subject : 
 
 " Such were the wags who boldly did adventure 
 To club a farce by tripartite adventure ; 
 But let them share their dividend of praise, 
 And wear their own fool's cap instead of hays." 
 
 The failure is easily explained, and the explanation partly involves Arbuth- 
 not's character as a literary wit. The satire of the principal character was too 
 confined, too extravagant, and too unintelligible to a general auditory, to meet 
 with success on the stage. It would thus appear that Arbuthnot, like many other 
 similar men, had too refined a style of wit in his writings not that broad, open, 
 palpable humour which flashes at once upon the conceptions of all men, but 
 something too rich and rare to be generally appreciated. His learning led his 
 mind to objects not generally understood or known ; and, therefore, when he 
 wrote, he was apt to excite the sympathies of only a very limited class. 
 
 In 1722, Dr Arbuthnot found it necessary for his health to indulge in a visit 
 to Bath. He was accompanied on this occasion by a brother, who was a banker 
 at Paris, and whose extraordinary character called forth the following striking 
 description from Pope: "The spirit of philanthropy, so long dead to our world, 
 seems revived in him : he is a philosopher all fire ; so warmly, nay so wildly, 
 in the right, that he forces all others about him to be so too, and draws them 
 into his own vortex. He is a star that looks as if it were all on fire, but is all 
 benignity, all gentle and beneficial influence. If there be other men in the 
 world that would serve a friend, yet he is the only one, I believe, that could make 
 even an enemy serve a friend." About this time, the Doctor thus described him- 
 self in a letter to Swift: " As for your humble servant, with a great stone in hia 
 right kidney, and a family of men and women to provide for, he is as cheerful 
 in public affairs as ever." 
 
 Arbuthnot. in 1723, was chosen second censor of the Royal College of Physi- 
 cians; in 1727, he was made an Elect, and had the honour to pronounce the Har- 
 veian oration for the year. In 1727, also appeared his great and learned work 
 entitled, " Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures, explained and exem- 
 plified in several Dissertations." He continued to practice physic with good re- 
 putation, and diverted his leisure hours by writing 1 papers of wit and humour.
 
 JOHN ARBUTHNOT, M.D. 
 
 71 
 
 Among these may be mentioned one, which appeared in 1731, in the shape of 
 an epitaph upon the infamous colonel Charteris, and which we shall present in 
 this place as perhaps the most favourable specimen of Dr Arbuthnot's peculiar 
 vein of talent : 
 
 " Here continueth to rot the body of Francis Charteris, who, with an inflexi- 
 ble constancy, and inimitable uniformity of life, persisted, in spite of age and in- 
 firmities, in the practice of every human vice; excepting prodigality and hypo- 
 crisy; his insatiable avarice exempted him from the first, his matchless impudence 
 from the second. Nor was he more singular in the undeviating pravity of his 
 manners, than successful in accumulating wealth ; for, without trade or profession, 
 without trust of public money, and without bribe-worthy service, he acquired, or 
 more properly created, a ministerial estate. He was the only person of his time, 
 who could cheat with the mask of honesty, retain his primeval meanness when 
 possessed of ten thousand a year, and, having daily deserved the gibbet for what 
 he did, was at last condemned to it for what he could not do. -Oh! indignant 
 reader! Think not his life useless to mankind! Providence connived at his exe- 
 crable designs, to give to after ages a conspicuous proof and example of how small 
 estimation is exorbitant wealth in the sight of God, by his bestowing it on the 
 most unworthy of all mortals."' 
 
 Arbuthnot, about this time, wrote a very entertaining paper on the " Alterca- 
 tions or Scolding of the Ancients." In 1732, he contributed towards detecting 
 and punisliing the scandalous frauds and abuses that had been carried on under 
 the specious name of " The Charitable Corporation." In the same year, he pub- 
 lished his " Treatise on the Nature and Choice of Aliments," which was followed, 
 in 1733, by his " Essay on the Effects of Air on Human Bodies." He is thought 
 to have been led to these subjects by the consideration of his own case ; an astli- 
 uia, which, gradually increasing with his years, became at length desperate and 
 incurable. A little before his last publication, he had met with a severe domestic 
 affliction in the loss of his son, Charles, " whose life," he says in a letter to 
 Swift, " if it had so pleased God, he would willingly have redeemed with his 
 own." He now retired, in a state of great debility to Hampstead ; from whence, 
 in a letter to Pope, July 17th, 1734, he gives the following philosophic, and we 
 may add, touching, account of his condition : 
 
 "I have little doubt of your concern for me. nor of that of the lady you men- 
 tion. I have nothing to repay my friends with at present, but prayers and good 
 wishes. I have the satisfaction to find that I am as officiously served by my 
 friends, as he that has thousands to leave in legacies ; besides the assurance of 
 their sincerity. God Almighty had made my distress as easy as a thing of that 
 nature can be. I have found some relief, at least sometimes, from the air of this 
 place. My nights are bad, but many poor creatures have worse. 
 
 a constant attention to the vices, wants, and follies of mankind, he acquired an immense 
 fortune. * * * * * He was twice condemned for rapes and par- 
 
 doned, but the last time not without imprisonment in Newgate, and large confiscations. He 
 died in Scotland, in 1731, ased 62. The populace, at his funeral, raised a great not^alrnost 
 tore the body out of the coffin, and cast dead dogs, &c. in*o the grave along wit! 
 may add, that the mourners had to defend themselves from the mob with their swords. Aft 
 Traditions of Edinburgh. One remarkable feature of Charteris' character is not generally 
 known: thou 2 h a bully and a coward, he had his fighting days; he would sutler himself to 
 be kicked for Refusing a challenge one day, and the next would accept another and kill liJ,--
 
 72 JOHN ARBUTIINOT, M.D. 
 
 "As for you, my good friend, I think, since our first acquaintance, there have 
 not been any of those little suspicions or jealousies that often affect the sincerest 
 friendships ; I am sure not on my side. I must be so sincere as to own, that, 
 though I could not help valuing you for those talents which the world prizes, 
 yet they were not the foundation of my friendship ; they were quite of another 
 sort ; nor shall I at present offend you by enumerating them ; and I make it my 
 last request, that you will continue that noble disdain and abhorrence of vice, 
 which you seem naturally endowed with, but still with a due regard to your own 
 safety ; and study more to reform than to chastise, though the one cannot be 
 effected without the other. 
 
 " Lord Bathurst I have always honoured, for every good quality that a person 
 of his rank ought to have : pray, give my respects and kindest wishes to the fami- 
 ly. My venison stomach is gone, but I have those about me, and often with me, 
 who will be very glad of his pi'esent. If it is left at any house, it will be trans- 
 mitted safe to me. 
 
 " A recovery in my case, and at my age, is impossible ; the kindest wish of my 
 friends is euthanasia. Living or dying, I shall always be, Yours, &c." 
 
 In a letter about the same time to Swift, he says he came to Hampstead, not for 
 life, but for ease. That he had gained in a slight degree from riding ; but he was 
 " not in circumstances to live an idle country life ;" and he expected a return of 
 the disorder in full force on his return in winter to London. He adds, " I am 
 at present in the case of a man that was almost in harbour, but was again blown 
 back to sea ; who has a reasonable hope of going to a good place, and an 
 absolute certainty of leaving a very bad one. Not that I have any particulai 
 disgust at the world, for I have as great comfort in my own family, and from 
 the kindness of my friends, as any man ; but the world in the main displeaseth 
 me ; and I have too true a presentiment of calamities that are like to befall my 
 country. However, if I should have the happiness to see you before I die, you 
 will find that I enjoy the comforts of life with my usual cheerfulness. * * * 
 My family give you their love and service. The great loss I sustained in one of 
 them gave me my first shock ; and the trouble I have with the rest, to bring them 
 to a good temper, to bear the loss of a father who loves them, and whom they 
 love, is really a most sensible affliction to me. 1 am afraid, my dear friend, we 
 shall never see one another more in this world. I shall, to the last moment, pre- 
 serve my love and esteem for you, being well assured that you will never leave 
 the paths of virtue and honour for all that is in the world. This world is not 
 worth the least deviation from that way," &c. In surh a strain did this truly 
 good man discourse of his own certain and immediate death, which accordingly 
 took place, February, 1735, in his house, Cork-street, Burlington Gardens, to 
 which he had returned from Hampstead at the approach of winter. 
 
 Arbuthnnt's character was given by his friend Swift in one dash : " He has 
 more wit than we all have, and more humanity thnn wit." " Arlmthnot," says 
 Dr Johnson in his life of Pope, " wns a man of great comprehension, skil- 
 ful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with nnrient literature, 
 and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active imagination ; 
 a scholar with great brilliancy of wit ; a wit, who, in the crowd of life, retained 
 and discovered a noble ardour of religious zeal." Lord Orrery has thus entered 
 more minutely into his character. " Although he was justly celebrated for wit 
 and learning, there was an excellence in his character more ;: mi able than all his 
 other qualifications, 1 mean the excellence of his heart. He has shown himself 
 equal to any of his contemporaries in wit and vivacity, and he was superior to 
 most men in acts of humanity and benevolence. His very sarcasms are the sa- 
 tirical strokes of good nature : they are like slaps in the fnce, given in jest, the
 
 JOHN ARBDTHNOT, M.D. 73 
 
 effects of which may raise blushes, but no blackness will appear after the blow. 
 He laughs as jovially as an attendant upon Bacchus, but continues as sober and 
 considerate as a disciple of Socrates. He is seldom serious except in his attacks 
 upon vice ; and then his spirit rises with a manly strength, and a noble indig- 
 nation. His epitaph upon Charteris (allowing one small alteration, the word 
 permitted, instead of connived at,) is a complete and a masterly composition in 
 its kind. No man exceeded him in the moral duties of life ; a merit still more 
 to his honour, as the ambitious powers of wit and genius are seldom submissive 
 enough to confine themselves within the limitations of morality. In his letter 
 to Mr Pope, written as it were upon his death-bed, he discovers sudh a noble 
 fortitude of mind at the approach of his dissolution, as could be inspired only by 
 a clear conscience, and the calm retrospect of an uninterrupted series of virtue. 
 The Dean [Swift] laments the loss of him with a pathetic sincerity. ' The deaths 
 of Mr Gay and Doctor,' says he to Mr Pope, ' have been terrible wounds near 
 my heart. Their living would have been a great comfort to me, although I 
 should never have seen them : like a sum of money in a bank, from which I 
 should receive at least annual interest, as I do from you, and have done from 
 Lord Bolingbroke.'" 
 
 The wit, to which Swift's was only allowed the second place, was accompanied 
 by a guileless heart, and the most perfect simplicity of character. It is related 
 of its possessor, that he used to write a humorous account of almost every remarka- 
 ble event which fell under his observation, in a folio book, which lay in his par- 
 lour ; but so careless was he about his writings after he was done with them, that, 
 while he was writing towards one end of this work, he would permit his children 
 to tear out the leaves from the other, for their paper kites. This carelessness 
 has prevented many of the works of Dr Arbuthnot from being preserved, and no 
 correct list has ever been given. A publication in two volumes, 8vo, at Glasgow, 
 in 1751, professing to be his " Miscellaneous Works," was said by his son to con- 
 sist chiefly of the compositions of other people. He was so much in the habit of 
 writing occasional pieces anonymously, that many fugitive articles were erro- 
 neously attributed to him : he was at first supposed to be the author of Robinson 
 Crusoe. He scarcely ever spoke of his writings, or seemed to take the least in- 
 terest in them. He was also somewhat indolent Swift said of him, that he 
 seemed at first sight to have no fault, but that he could not walk. In addition 
 to this, he had too much simplicity and worth to profit by the expedients of life : 
 in Swift's words, 
 
 * He knew his art, but not his trade." 
 
 Swift also must be considered as insinuating a certain levity of feeling, with all 
 his goodness, when he says, in anticipation of his own death, 
 
 " Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay 
 A week, and Arbuthnot a day !'' 
 
 though the habitual cheerfulness of his disposition may have been all that the poet 
 had in his eye. The only other work ascertained as Arbuthnot's, besides those 
 mentioned, is the celebrated History of John Bull, a political allegory, which lias 
 had many imitations, but no equal. He also attempted poetry, though without 
 any particular effort. A philosophical poem of his composition, entitled, 
 " rN.Q0I 2EATTON," [Know Yourself] is printed in Dodsley's Miscellanies. 
 He left a son, George, who was an executor in Pope's will, and who died in the 
 enjoyment of a lucrative situation in the Exchequer office towards the end of 
 the last century ; and a daughter, Anne, who was honoured with a legacy by 
 Pope. His second son, Charles, who died before himself, had been educated in 
 Christ church college, Oxford, and entered into holy orders. 
 L K
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG, M.D. 
 
 ARMSTRONG, JOHN, M.D. author of the well-known poem, entitled, " The 
 Art of Preserving Health," was born, about 1709, in the parish of Cnstleton, 
 Roxburghshire, where his father and brother were successively ministers. He 
 might almost be styled a poet by right of birth-place, for the parish of Castleton 
 is simply the region of Liddesdale, so renowned for its heroic lays, the 
 records of deeds performed by the border rievers, among whom the family 
 of the poet bore a distinguished rank. The rude and predatory character 
 of this district had, however, passed away before the commencement of the 
 eighteenth century; and young Armstrong, though his lullabies were no doubt 
 those fine* old ballads which have since been published by Sir Walter Scott, 
 seems to have drawn from them but little of his inspiration. It was as yet 
 the fashion to look upon legendary verses as only fit for nurses and children ; 
 and nothing was thought worthy of the term poetry, unless it were presented in 
 trim artificial language, after the manner of some distinguished classic writer. 
 It is therefore by no means surprising, that Armstrong, though born and cradled 
 in a land full of beautiful traditionary poetry, looked upon it all, after he had 
 become an educated man, as only Doric trash, and found his Tempe in the bowel's 
 of Twickenham instead of the lonely heaths of Liddesdale. 
 
 The only allusion to his native scene is to be found in the following passage 
 of "The Art of Preserving Health;" a warm and elegant apostrophe, and no 
 doubt testifying his affectionate recollection of 
 
 --- the school-boy spot, 
 
 We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot, 
 
 brit still deficient in characteristic painting, and unpardonably so in its total si- 
 lence as to the romantic history of the country, and its spirit-stirring ballads. 
 
 But if the breathless chase o'er hill and d;ile 
 
 Exceed your strength, a sport of less fatigue, 
 
 Not less delightful, the prolific stream 
 
 Affords. The chrystal rivulet that o'er 
 
 A stony channel rolls its rapid surge, 
 
 Swarms with the silver fry. Such, through the bounds 
 
 Of pastoral Stafford, runs the brawling Trent ; 
 
 Such Eden, sprung from Cumbrian mountains, such 
 
 The Esk o'erhung with woods : and such the stream, 
 
 On whose Arcadian banks I first drew air, 
 
 Liddal, till now, except in Doric lays 
 
 Tuned to her murmurs by her lovu-sick swains, 
 
 Unknown in song: though not a purer stream, 
 
 Through woods more flowery, more romantic groves, 
 
 Rolls toward the western main. Hail, sacred Hood ! 
 
 May still thy hospitable swains be blest 
 
 In rural innocence; thy mountains still 
 
 Teem with the fleecy race; thy tuneful woods 
 
 For ever flourish ; and thy vales look gay 
 
 With painted meadows, and the golden grain! 
 
 Oft with thy blooming sons, when life was ne*v, 
 
 Sportive and petulant, and charmed with toys, 
 
 In thy transparent eddies have I laved : 
 
 Oft traced with patient steps thy fairy banks, 
 
 With the well-imitated fly to hook 
 
 The eager trout, and with the slender line 
 
 And yielding rod solicit to the shore 
 
 The struggling panting prey ; while vernal clouds 
 
 And tepid gales obscured the ruffled pool, 
 
 And from the deeps called forth the wanton swarms.
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG, M.1X 75 
 
 How different would have been the allusions of a Leyden or a Scott to the 
 land of Jock o' the Side and Hobbie Noble ! 
 
 Armstrong was educated for the medical profession at the university of Edin- 
 burgh, under the elder Monro. In 1732, he took his degrees as M. D. with 
 much reputation, the subject of his treatise being Tabes Purulenta. He had 
 ere this period addicted himself to the composition of verses. We are inform- 
 ed, that, to relieve the tedium of a winter spent in " a wild romantic country " 
 probably Liddesdale he wrote what he intended for an imitation of Shak- 
 speare, but which turned out to resemble rather the poem of " Winter," then 
 just published by Thomson. The bard of the Seasons, hearing of this composi- 
 tion, which so strangely and so accidentally resembled his own, procured a sight 
 of it by means of a mutual friend, and, being much pleased with it, brought it 
 under the notice of Mr David Mallet, Mr Aaron Hill, and Dr Young, all of 
 whom joined with him in thinking it a work of genius. Mallet even requested 
 the consent of the author to its publication, and undertook that duty, though 
 he afterwards gave up the design. 
 
 Armstrong was probably led by this flattering circumstance to try his fortune 
 in London, where his countrymen Thomson and Mallet had already gained 
 literary distinction. In 1735, he is found publishing, in that capital, a humor- 
 ous attack upon empirics, in the manner of Lucian, entitled, " An Essay for 
 abridging the study of physic, to which is added, A Dialogue betwixt Hygeia, 
 Mercury, and Pluto, relating to the Practice of Physic, as it is managed by a 
 certain illustrious Society ; and an Epistle from Usbeck the Persian to Joshua 
 Ward, Esq." The essay, besides its sarcastic i-emarks on quacks and quackery, 
 contains many allusions to the neglect of medical education among the practis- 
 ing apothecaries ; but the author had exhausted his wit in it, and the dialogue 
 and epistle are consequently flat and insipid. In 1737, he published a serious 
 professional piece, styled, " A Synopsis of the History and Cure of the Venereal 
 Disease," 8vo., inscribed in an ingenious dedication to Dr Alexander Stuart, as 
 to " a pei-son who had an indisputable right to judge severely of the perform- 
 ance presented to him." He probably designed the work as an introduction to 
 practice in this branch of the medical profession ; but it was unfortunately followed 
 by his poem, entitled, "The (Economy of Love," which, though said to have been 
 designed as merely a burlesque upon certain didactic writers, was justly condemn- 
 ed for its warm and alluring pictures, and its tendency to inflame the passions 
 of youth. It appears by one of the " Cases of Literary Property," that Andrew 
 Millar, the bookseller, paid fifty pounds for the copy-right of this poem ; a sum 
 ill-gained, for the work greatly diminished the reputation of the author. After 
 t had passed through many editions, he published one, in 1768, in which 
 /he youthful luxuriances that had given offence to better minds were carefully 
 pruned. 
 
 In 1744, Dr Armstrong made some amends for this indiscretion, by publish- 
 ing " The Art of Preserving Health," a didactic poem in blank verse, extending 
 through four books, each of which contains a particular branch of the subject. 
 This very meritorious work raised his reputation to a height which his subsequent 
 efforts scarcely sustained. It is written in a taste which would not now be con- 
 sidered very pure, or elegant ; but yet, when the subject and the age are con- 
 sidered, there is amazingly little to be condemned. Dr Warton has justly 
 remarked the refined terms in which the poet, at the end of his third book, has 
 described an English plague of the fifteenth century, entitled, " The Sweating 
 Sickness." " There is a classical correctness and closeness of style in this poem," 
 says Dr Warton, " that are truly admirable, and the subject is raised and adorned 
 by numberless poetical images." Dr Mackenzie, in his History of Health, b
 
 76 JOHN ARMSTRONG, M.D. 
 
 stowed similar praises on this poem, which was indeed every where read and 
 admired. 
 
 In 1741, Armstrong solicited the patronage of Dr Birch, to be appointed 
 physician to the fleet, then about to sail for the West Indies ; but he does not 
 seem to have obtained the object of his desire. In 1746, when established in 
 reputation by his Art of Preserving Health, he was appointed one of the physi- 
 cians to the hospital for lame and sick soldiers behind Buckingham house. In 
 1751, he published his poem on "Benevolence," in folio, a production which 
 seems to have come from the heart, and contains sentiments which could have 
 been expressed with equal ardour only by one who felt them. His " Taste, an 
 epistle to a young critic," 1753, 4to, is a lively and spirited imitation of Pope, 
 and the first production in which Armstrong began to view men and manners 
 with a splenetic eye. 
 
 His next work was less meritorious. It was entitled " Sketches or Essays on 
 various subjects," and appeared under the fictitious name of Lancelot Temple, 
 Esq. The critical examinators of Dr Armstrong's merits allow to this work the 
 credit of exhibiting much humour and knowledge of the world, but find it de- 
 formed by a perpetual flow of affectation, a struggle to say smart things, and, 
 above all, a disgusting repetition of vulgar oaths and exclamations forms of ex- 
 prcssien to which the poet, it seems, was also much addicted in conversation. In 
 some of these sketches, Armstrong is said to have had assistance from the noto- 
 rious John Wilkes, with whom he lived in habits of intimacy ; but it is certain 
 that the contributions of this gentleman cannot have been great, as the work is 
 much inferior to the literary style of the demagogue of Aylesbury, who, \> hat- 
 ever might be his moral failings, is allowed to have had a chaste classical taste, 
 and a pure vein of humour. 
 
 Armstrong had sufficient professional interest in 1760, to obtain the ap- 
 pointment of physician to the army in Germany. From that country he wrote 
 "Day, a poem," addressed as an Epistle to John Willies, Esq. This lively 
 piece, which professes to embody an account of all the proper indulgences, moral 
 and physical, of twenty-four hours, was, it is said, published in an imperfect 
 shape, by some clandestine editor. It was never added to the collected works of 
 Dr Armstrong, till Dr Anderson admitted it into his edition of the British Poets. 
 After the peace of 1763, Dr Armstrong returned to London, and resumed his 
 practice, but with no eager desire of increasing the moderate competency he now 
 enjoyed. He continued after this period rather to amuse than to exert himself 
 in literary productions, chiefly spending his time in the society of men of wit 
 and taste like himself. In 1771, he made a tour into France and Italy, in 
 company with the celebrated Fuseli, who survived him for nearly fifty years, and 
 always spoke highly of Dr Armstrong's amiable character. In Italy lie took a 
 tender farewell of his friend Smollett, to whom he Wcis much attached, and who 
 died soon after. On returning home, he published an account of his travels, 
 under the name of Lancelot Temple. 
 
 The latter years of Dr Armstrong's life were embittered by one of those quar- 
 rels which, arising between persons formerly much attached, are at once the most 
 envenomed, and the most productive of uneasiness to the parties. In his poem 
 of Day, he had asked, among other things, 
 
 " What crazy scribbler reigns the present vrit ?" 
 
 which the poet Churchill very properly took to himself, and resented in the fol- 
 lowing passage in his poem of " The Journey :" 
 
 Let them with Armstrong, taking leave of sense, 
 Read musty lectures on Benevolence ;
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG, M.D. 77 
 
 Or con the pages of his gaping Day, 1 
 
 Where all his former fame was thrown away, 
 
 Where all but barren labour was forgot, 
 
 And the vain stiffness of a lettered Scot; 
 
 Let them with Armstrong pass the term of light, 
 
 But not one hour of darkness ; when the night 
 
 Suspends this mortal coil, when memory wakes, 
 
 When for our past misdoings conscience takes 
 
 A deep revenge, when by reflection led 
 
 She draws his curtains, and looks comfort dead, 
 
 Let every muse be gone ; in vain he turns, 
 
 And tries to pray for sleep ; an JEtna burns, 
 
 A more than ./Etna in his coward breast, 
 
 And guilt, with vengeance armed, forbids to rest; 
 
 Though soft as plumage from young Zephyr's wing 
 
 His couch seems hard, and no relief can bring; 
 
 Ingratitude hath planted daggers there, 
 
 No good man can deserve, no brave man bear. 
 
 We have no hesitation in saying that this severe satire was not justified either by 
 the offence which called it forth, or by the circumstances on which it was found- 
 ed. Wilkes, the associate of Churchill, had lent money to Armstrong on some 
 occasion of peculiar distress. When the attacks of Wilkes upon Scotland led to 
 animosities between the two friends, it was not to be expected that the recollec- 
 tion of a former obligation was necessarily to tie up the natural feelings of Dr 
 Armstrong, and induce him to submit rather to the certain charge of meanness of 
 spirit, than the possible imputation of ingratitude. Neither could Wilkes have fairly 
 expected that the natural course of the quarrel was to be stayed by such a sub- 
 mission on the part of his former friend. It would have been equally mean for 
 the obliged party to have tendered, and for the obliging party to have accepted such 
 a submission. There can be no doubt, therefore, that Dr Armstrong, in giving 
 way to resentment against Wilkes, was chargeable, properly, with no blame ex- 
 cept that of giving way to resentment ; and if it is to be supposed, from the 
 character of the poet in respect of irritability, that the resentment would have 
 taken place whether there had been a debt of kindness standing undischarged 
 between the parties or not, we cannot really see how this contingent circumstance 
 can enhance his offence. 
 
 There is unfortunately too great reason to suppose, that, if the obligation tend- 
 ed to increase the blame of either party, it was that of Wilkes, who, from almost 
 incontestable evidence, appears to have made a most ungenerous use of the ad- 
 vantage he had acquired over his former friend. Not only must he bear a por- 
 tion of the guilt of Churchill's satire, which could have only been written as a 
 transcript of his feelings, and with his sanction, but he stands almost certainly 
 guilty of a still more direct and scurrilous attack upon Dr Armstrong, which ap- 
 peared in a much more insidious form. This was a series of articles in the well 
 known Public Advertiser, commencing with a letter signed Dies, which appeared 
 to proceed from an enemy of the patriot, but, in the opinion of Dr Armstrong, 
 was written by the patriot himself: 
 
 " He [Wilkes]," says this writer, " always took more delight in exposing his 
 friends than in hurting his enemies. I am assured that a very worthy and in- 
 genious friend of this impostor trusted him with a jeu d'esprit of a poem, incor- 
 rect indeed, but which bore every mark of a true, though ungoverned genius. 
 This poem, rough as it was, he earned to A. Millar, late bookseller in the Strand, 
 
 1 This poem was full of large hiatus supplied by asterisks.
 
 78 JOHN ARMSTRONG, M.D. 
 
 and published it in his friend's name, without his knowledge. This is a fact, 
 Mr Printer; therefore, I think, Mr W. should let alone Scotch writers." 
 
 Occasion was taken in the next day's publication to give a refutation of this 
 pretended attack, in the following terms : 
 
 " Your correspondent, Sir, is pleased to appeal to a dead bookseller, I appeal 
 to the living author, now in London. lie desired the poem might be published: 
 it was written for the public eye : he directed the bookseller to call on Mr AV. 
 for the copy. The bookseller produced his credentials, under the author's own 
 hand, upon which Mr W. gave him the manuscript of the poem. It was after- 
 wards published in the kindest way for the author's reputation, as a Fragment. 
 I believe he will not choose to restore the passages, which were omitted in the 
 first edition of 1760. When he does, the kindness, and perhaps the judgment 
 of the editor will appear, I am told, in a very strong and favourable light. The 
 poem was not published till the bookseller had received a second positive order 
 for that purpose, from the author, after several objections to the publication had 
 been transmitted to him in Germany, and amendments made by himself. It was 
 a favourite child not without merit, although scarcely so much as the fond father 
 imagined. Mr Churchill wrote the four following lines on that poem, which 
 were never forgiven. They are in the Journey. 
 
 ' Or con the pages of his gaping Day, 
 
 Where all his former fame was thrown away, 
 
 Where all but barren labour was forgot, 
 
 And the vain stiffness of a letler'd Scot.' TRUTH." 
 
 A week after, a letter signed "Nox," in the same tone with that signed 
 " TRUTH," appeared in the Public Advertiser. It is impossible to doubt that Mi 
 Wilkes was at the bottom of the whole plot, and either wrote the letters himseli 
 or employed his friend Churchill to do so. 2 
 
 2 This more particularly appears from the report of a conversation which took place on 
 the 7th of April, between Dr Armstrong and Mr Wilkes, which appears to have been 
 noted down on the same day by the latter, and was published in the Gentleman's Maga- 
 zine, for 1792, thirteen years after the death of Dr Armstrong. 
 
 The incensed poet entered his former friend's lodgings, in Prince's Court, and, without 
 the least ceremonial or compliment, commenced the follow ing dialogue which, as a curious 
 piece of literary history, we have given entire : 
 
 Dr Armstrong. Did you, Sir, write the letters in the Public Advertiser? . 
 
 Mr Wilkes. What letters do you mean, Doctor? There are many letters almost every 
 day in the Public Advertiser. 
 
 Dr A. Sir, 1 mean the three letters about me, and Day, Day, Sir. 
 
 Mr W. You may ask the printer, Mr Woodfall. rie has my orders to name me 
 whenever he thinks it proper, as the author of every thing I write in his paper. 
 
 Dr. A. I believe you wrote all those letters. 
 
 Mr. W. What all three, Doctor ? 1 am very roughly treated in one of them, in the first 
 signed Dies. 
 
 Dr. A. I believe you wrote that to bring on the controversy. I am almost sure of it. 
 
 Mr. W. 1 hope you are truly informed in other things. I know better than to abuse 
 myself in that manner, and I pity the author of such wretched stuff. 
 
 Dr A. Did you write the other letters, Sir? 
 
 Mr W. The proper person to inquire of, is Mr Woodfall. I will not answer interroga- 
 tories. My time would pass in a strange manner, if I was to answer every question which 
 any gentleman chose to put to me about anonymous letters. 
 
 Dr A. Whoever has abused me, Sir, is a villain ; and your endeavours, Sir, to set Scot- 
 land and England together are very bad. 
 
 most ready to answer the call. 
 
 Dr A. D n Lord Bute! It had been better for Scotland he had never been born. 
 
 He has done us infinite mischief. 
 
 Mr W. And its too; but 1 suppose we are not met for a dish of politics? 
 
 Dr A. No ; but 1 wish there had been no union. I am sure England is the gainer by it 
 
 Mr W. I will not make an essay on the advantages and disadvantages of the union.
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG, M.D. 79 
 
 Armstrong died at his house in Russel Street, Covent Garden, September 7, 
 1779, in consequence of an accidental contusion in his thigh, received while 
 getting into a carriage. He was found, to the surprise of the world, to have 
 saved the sum of 2000 out of Jiis moderate income, which for many years had 
 consisted of nothing more than his half-pay. 
 
 Dr Armstrong was much beloved and respected by his friends for his gentle 
 and amiable dispositions, as Avell as his extensive knowledge and abilities ; but 
 a kind of morbid sensibility preyed upon his temper, and a languid listlessness 
 too frequently interrupted his intellectual efforts. With Thomson's Castle of 
 
 Dr A. I hate politics ; but I have been ill used by you, Dr Wilkes, on the occasion. 
 Mr W . On the contrary, Doctor, I was the injured friend. 
 
 Dr A. I thought you for many years the most amiable friend in the world, and loved 
 your company the most; but you distinguished yourself by grossly abusing my country 
 men in the Isorth Briton although I never read much of that paper. 
 
 Mr W. You passed your time, I am satisfied, much better. Who told you, Doctor, what 
 particular numbers 1 wrote ? It is droll, but the bitterest of these papers, which was attri- 
 buted to me, was a description of Scotland, first printed in the last century, on Charles I.'s 
 return from thence in 1683. Were you ever, Doctor, personally attacked by me ? Were 
 you not, although a Scotsman, at the very time of the North Briton, complimented by me, 
 in conjunction with Churchill, in the best thing I wrote, the mock ' Dedication to Morti- 
 mer? 
 
 Dr A. To be praised along with such a writer, I think an abuse. 
 Mr W. The world thinks far otherwise of that wonderful genius Churchill; but you, 
 Doctor, have sacrificed private friendship at the altar of politics. After many years of mu- 
 tual intercourse of good offices, you broke every tie of friendship with me on no pretence 
 but a suspicion, for you did not ask for proof, of my having abused your country, that coun- 
 try I have for years together heard you inveigh against, in the bitterest terms, for Hotlines: 
 and nationality. 
 
 Dr A. 1 only did it in joke, Sir; you did it with bitterness; but it was my country. 
 Mr W. No man has abused England so much as Shakspeare, or France so much as 
 Voltaire; yet they remain the favourites of two great nations, conscious of their own supe- 
 riority. Were you, Doctor, attacked by me in any one instance? Was not the most 
 friendly correspondence carried on with you the whole time, till you broke it off by a letter, 
 in 1763, in which you declared to me, that you could not with honour associate with one 
 vho had distinguished himself by abusing your country, and that you remained with all due 
 sincerity 'f I remember that was the strange phrase. 
 Dr A. You never answered that letter, Sir. 
 
 Mr W. What answer could I give you, Doctor ? You had put a period to the inter- 
 course between us. 1 still continued to our common friends to sptak of you in terms of 
 respect, while you were grossly abusing me. You said to Bcswell, Millar, and others, " 1 
 hope there is a hell, that Wilkes may lie in it" 
 
 Dr A. In a passion I might say so. People do not often speak their minds in a passion. 
 Mr W. 1 thought they generally did, Doctor ! 
 
 Dr A. 1 was thoroughly provoked, although I still acknowledge my great pecuniary 
 obligations to you although, 1 dare say, 1 would have got the money elsewhere. 
 
 Mr W. 1 was always happy to render you every service in my power; and I little ima- 
 gined a liberal mind, like yours, could have been worked up by designing men to write me 
 such a letter in answer to an affectionate one I sent you, in the prospect of jour return. 
 
 Dr A. 1 was happier with you than any man in the world for a great many years, and 
 complimented you not a little in the Day, and you did not write to me for a year and a half 
 after that. 
 
 Mr W. Your memory does not serve you faithfully, Doctor. In three or four months 
 at farthest, you had two or three letters from me together, on your return to the head-quar- 
 ters of the army. I am abused in Dies for that publication, and the manner, both of which 
 yuu approved. 
 Dr A. 1 did so. 
 
 Mr W. 1 was abused at first, I am told, in the manuscript of Diet, for having sold the 
 copv, and put the money in my pocket ; but that charge was suppressed in the printed letter. 
 Dr A. 1 know nothing of that, and will do you justice. 
 
 Mr W. Will you call upon Mr D , our common friend, your countryman, and ask 
 
 him what he thinks of your conduct to me, if it has not been wholly unjustifiable? 
 Dr A. Have I your leave to ask Mr Woodfall in your name about ihe letters ? 
 Mr W. I have already told you, Doctor, what directions he has fn ni me. Take four- 
 and-twenty hours to consider what you have to do, and let me know th.' i . suiu 
 Dr A. 1 am sorry to have taken up so much of your time, Sir. 
 Mr W. It stands in no need of an apology, Doctor. 1 am glad to see you. Good mor- 
 
 ow - 
 
 N. B. These minutes were taken down the same afternoon, and sent to a fnend.
 
 80 HUGO ARNOT. 
 
 Indolence he is appropriately connected, both as a figure in the piece and as a 
 contributor to the verse. The following is his portraiture : 
 
 With him was sometimes joined in silent walk, 
 
 (Profoundly silent for they never spoke) 
 One shyer still, who quite detested talk; 
 
 Oft stung by spleen, at once away he broke. 
 To groves of pine, and broad o'ershtidowing oak, 
 
 There, inly thrilled, he wandered all alone, 
 And on himself his pensive fury wroke : 
 
 He never uttered word, save, when first shone 
 The glittering star of eve " Thank heaven ! the day is done ! " 
 
 His contributions consist of four stanzas descriptive of the diseases to which the 
 votaries of indolence finally become martyrs. 
 
 The rank of Dr Armstrong as a poet is fixed by his Art of Preserving Health, 
 which is allowed to be among the best didactic poems in the language. It is 
 true, this species of poetry was never considered among the highest, nor has it 
 been able to retain its place among the tastes of a modern and more refined age. 
 Armstrong, however, in having improved upon a mode of composition fashionable 
 in his own time, must still be allowed considerable praise. " His style," accord- 
 ing to the judgment of Dr Aikin, " is distinguished by its simplicity by a free 
 use of words which owe their strength to their plainness by the rejection of 
 ambitious ornaments, and a near approach to common phraseology. His sen- 
 tences are generally short and easy ; his sense clear and obvious. The full 
 extent of his conceptions is taken in at the first glance ; and there are no lofty 
 mysteries to be unravelled by a repeated perusaL What keeps his language 
 from being prosaic, is the vigour of his sentiments. He thinks boldly, feels 
 strongly, and therefore expresses himself poetically. When the subject sinks, 
 his style sinks with it ; but he has for the most part excluded topics incapable 
 either of vivid description, or of the oratory of sentiment He had from nature 
 a musical ear, whence his lines are scarcely ever harsh, though apparently with- 
 out much study to render them smooth. On the whole, it may not be too mucli 
 to assert, that no writer in blank verse can be found more free from stiffness and 
 affectation, more energetic without harshness, and more dignified without 
 formality." 
 
 ARNOT, HUGO, a historical and antiquarian writer of the eighteenth century, 
 was the son of a merchant and ship-proprietor at Leith, where he was born, 
 December 8th, 1749. His name originally was Pollock, which he changed in 
 early life for Arnot, on falling heir, through his mother, to the estate of Balcor- 
 mo in Fife. As " Hugo Arnot of Balcormo, Esq.," he is entered as a member 
 of the Faculty of Advocates, December 5, 1772, when just about to complete his 
 twenty-third year. Previous to this period, he had had the misfortune to lose his 
 father. Another evil which befell him in early life was a settled asthma, the 
 result of a severe cold which he caught in his fifteenth year. As this disorder 
 was always aggravated by exertion of any kind, it became a serious obstruction 
 to his progress at the bar : some of his pleadings, nevertheless, were much ad- 
 mired, and obtained for him the applause of the bencli. Perhaps it was this 
 interruption of his professional career which caused him to turn his attention to 
 literature. In 1779, appeared his " History of Edinburgh," 1 vol., 4to. a work 
 of much research, and greatly superior in a literary point of view to the gene- 
 rality of local works. The style of the historical part is elegant and epigram- 
 matic, with a vein of causticity highly characteristic of the author. From this 
 elaborate work the author is said to have only realized a few pounds of profit ; 
 a piratical impression, at less than half the price, was published almost simul-
 
 HUGO ARNOT. 81 
 
 taneously at Dublin, and, being shipped over to Scotland in great quantities, 
 completely threw the author's edition out of the market A bookseller's second 
 edition, as it is called, appeared after the author's death, being simply the re- 
 mainder of the former stock, embellished with plates, and enlarged by some 
 additions from the pen of the publisher, Mr Creech. Another edition was pub- 
 lished in 8vo, in 1817. Mr Arnot seems to hare now lived on terms of literary 
 equality with those distinguished literary and professional characters who were 
 his fellow-townsmen and contemporaries. He did not, however, for some years 
 publish any other considerable or acknowledged work. He devoted his mind 
 chiefly to local subjects, and sent forth numerous pamphlets and newspaper 
 essays, which had a considerable effect in accelerating or promoting the erec- 
 tion of various public works. The exertions of a man of his public spirit and 
 enlarged mind, at a time when the capital of Scotland was undergoing such a 
 thorough renovation and improvement, must have been of material service to the 
 community, both of that and of all succeeding ages. Such they were acknow- 
 ledged to be by the magistrates, who bestowed upon him the freedom of the city. 
 We are told that Mr Arnot, by means of his influence in local matters, was able 
 to retard the erection of the South Bridge of Edinburgh for ten years not 
 that he objected to such an obvious improvement on its own account, but only 
 in so far as the magistrates could devise no other method for defraying the ex- 
 pense than by a tax upon carters ; a mode of liquidating it, which Mr Arnot 
 thought grossly oppressive, as it fell in the first place upon the poor. He also 
 was the means of preventing for several years the formation of the present splen- 
 did road between Edinburgh and Leith, on account of the proposed plan (which 
 was afterwards unhappily carried into effect,) of defraying the expense by a toll ; 
 being convinced, from what he knew of local authorities, that, if such an exac- 
 tion were once established, it would always, on some pretext or other, be kept up. 
 In 1 7 85, Mr Arnot published " A Collection of Celebrated Criminal Trials in Scot- 
 land, with Historical and Critical Remarks," 1 voL 4to.; a work of perhaps even 
 greater research than his history of Edinburgh, and written in the same acutely 
 metaphysical and epigrammatic style. In the front of this volume appears a 
 large list of subscribers, embracing almost all the eminent and considerable per- 
 sons in Scotland, with many of those in England, and testifying of course to the 
 literary and personal respectability of Mr Arnot This work appeared without 
 a publisher's name, probably for some reason connected with the following cir- 
 cumstance. Owing perhaps to the unwillingness of the author to allow a suffi- 
 cient profit to the booksellers, the whole body of that trade in Edinburgh refus- 
 ed to let the subscription papers and prospectuses hang in their shops ; for which 
 reason the author announced, by means of an advertisement in the newspapers, 
 that these articles might be seen in the coffee-houses. Mr Arnot received the 
 sum of six hundred pounds for the copies sold of this work, from which he would 
 have to pay the expenses of printing a thin quarto : it thus happened that what 
 was rather the least Laborious of his two works, was the most profitable. Mr 
 Arnot only survived the publication of his Criminal Trials about a twelvemonth. 
 The asthma had ever since his fifteenth year been making rapid advances upon 
 him, and his person was now reduced almost to a shadow. While still young, 
 he carried all the marks of age, and accordingly the traditionary recollections of 
 the historian of Edinburgh always point to a man in the extreme of life. Poi 
 haps nothing could indicate more expressively the miserable state to which Mr 
 Arnot was reduced by this disease, than his own halt-ludicrous, half-pathetic ex- 
 clamation, on being annoyed by the bawling of a man selling sand on the 
 streets : " The rascal !" cried the unfortunate invalid, " he spends as much 
 breath in a minute as would serve me for a month !" Among the portraits and
 
 82 HUGO ARNOT. 
 
 caricatures of the well known John Kay, may be found several faithful, though 
 somewhat exaggerated, memorials of the emaciated person of Hugo Arnot. As 
 a natural constitutional result of this disease, he was exceedingly nervous, and 
 liable to be discomposed by the slightest annoyances : on the other hand, he 
 possessed such ardour and intrepidity of mind, that in youth he once rode on a 
 spirited horse to the end of the pier of Leitli, while the waves were dashing over 
 it, and every beholder expected to see him washed immediately into the sea ! 
 On another occasion, having excited some hostility by a political pamphlet, and 
 being summoned by an anonymous foe to appear at a particular hour in a lonely 
 part of the King's Park, in order to fight, he went and waited four hours on the 
 spot, thus perilling his life in what might have been the ambuscade of a deadly 
 enemy. By means of the same fortitude of character, he beheld the gradual 
 approach of death with all the calmness of a Stoic philosopher. The magistrates 
 of Leith had acknowledged some of his public services, by the ominous compli- 
 ment of a piece of ground in their church-yard; and it was the recreation of 
 the last weeks of Mr Arnot's life to go every day to observe the progress made 
 by the workmen in preparing this place for his own reception. It is related 
 that he even expressed considerable anxiety lest his demise should take place 
 before the melancholy work should be completed. He died, November 20th, 
 1786, when on the point of completing his 37th year; that age so fatal to men 
 of genius that it may almost be styled their climacteric. He was interred in 
 .he tomb fitted up by himself at South Leith. Besides his historical and local 
 works, he had published, in 1777, a fanciful metaphysical treatise, entitled, 
 "Nothing," which was originally a paper read before a well-known debating- 
 club styled the Speculative Society; being probably suggested to him by the 
 poem of the Earl of Rochester on the equally impalpable subject of Silence. 
 If any disagreeable reflection can rest on Mr Aruot's memory for the free scope lie 
 has given to his mind in this little essay a freedom sanctioned, if not excused, 
 by the taste of the age he must be held to have made all the amends in his 
 power by the propriety of his deportment in later life ; when he entered hear- 
 tily and regularly into the observances of the Scottish episcopal communion, to 
 which he originally belonged. If Mr Arnot was any thing decidedly in poli- 
 tics, he was a Jacobite, to which party he belonged by descent and by religion, 
 and also perhaps by virtue of his own peculiar turn of mind. In modern poli- 
 tics, he was quite independent, judging all men and all measures by no other 
 standard than their respective merits. In his professional character, he was 
 animated by a chivalrous sentiment of honour worthy of all admiration. He 
 was so little of a casuist, that he would never undertake a case, unless he wore 
 perfectly self-satisfied as to its justice and legality. He had often occasion to 
 refuse employment which fell beneath his own standard of honesty, though it 
 might have been profitable, and attended by not the slightest shade of disgrace. 
 On a case being once brought before him, of the merits of which he had an ex- 
 ceedingly bad opinion, he said to the intending litigant, in a serious manner, 
 " Pray, what do you suppose me to be ?" " Why," answered the client, " I un- 
 derstand you to be a lawyer." " I thought, Sir," said Arnot sternly, " you took 
 me for a scoundrel" The litigant, though he perhaps thought that the major in- 
 cluded the minor proposition, withdrew abashed. Mr Arnot left eight children, all 
 rery young ; and the talent of the family appears to have revived in a new genera- 
 tion, viz., in the person of his grandson, Dr David Boswell Reid, whose " Elements 
 of Chemistry " has taken its place amongst the most useful treatises on the science, and 
 wbo was selected by Government, on account of bis practical skill, to plan and super- 
 intend the ventilation of the new houses of parliament, in the prosecution of which 
 object he has for several ypars been conducting the most costly and prolonged, if 
 not the most successful, experiment of the kind ever made.
 
 SIR ROBERT AYTON. 83 
 
 AYTON, (Sra) ROBERT, an eminent poet at the court of James VI., was a 
 younger son of Andrew Ayton of Kinaldie, in Fife, and was born in the year 
 1570. From the Registers of St Andrews University, it appears that he was 
 incorporated or enrolled as a student in St Leonard's College, December 3, 
 1584, and took his master's degree, after the usual course of study, in the year 
 1588. Subsequently to this, he resided for some time in France; whence, in 
 1603, he addressed an elegant panegyric in Latin verse, to king James, on his 
 accession to the crown of England, which was printed at Paris the same year ; 
 and this panegyric had, no doubt, some influence in securing to the author the 
 favour of that monarch, by whom he was successively appointed one of the gen- 
 tlemen of the bed-chamber, and private secretary to his queen, Anne of Denmark, 
 besides receiving the honour of knighthood. He was, at a later period of his 
 life, honoured with the appointment of secretary to Henrietta Maria, queen 
 of Charles I. It is recorded on Ayton's funeral monument, as a distinction, that 
 he had been sent to Germany as ambassador to the Emperor, with a work pub- 
 lished by king James, which is supposed to have been his Apology for the Oath 
 of Allegiance. If this conjecture be correct, it must have been m 1609, when 
 his majesty acknowledged a work published anonymously three years before, and 
 inscribed it to all the crowned heads of Europe. During Ayton's residence 
 abroad, as well as at the court of England, he lived in intimacy with, and se- 
 cured the esteem of the most eminent persons of his time. " He was acquainted," 
 says Aubrey, " with all the wits of his time in England ; he was a great acquain- 
 tance of Mr Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, whom Mr Hobbes told me he made 
 use of, together with Ben Jonson, for an Aristarchus, when he made his Epistle 
 dedicatory, for his translation of Thucydides." To this information, we may 
 add, as a proof of this respect on the part of Ben Jonson, that, in his conversa- 
 tions with Drummond of Hawthornden, he said, "Sir Robert Ayton loved him 
 (Jonson) dearly." 
 
 Sir Robert Ayton died at London, in March, 1637-8, in the 68th year of his 
 age. He lies buried in the south aisle of the choir of Westminster Abbey, at 
 the corner of King Henry the Fifth's Chapel, under a handsome monument of 
 black marble, erected by his nephew, David Ayton of Kinaldie ; having his bust 
 in brass gilt, which has been preserved, while that of Henry, the hero of Agin- 
 court, (said to have been of a more precious metal,) has long since disappeared. 
 The following is a copy of the inscription : 
 
 M. S. 
 
 Clarissimi omnigenaq. virtute et eruditione, praesertim Poesi ornatissimi equitis 
 Domini Robert! Aitoni, ex antiqua et illustri gente Aitona, ad Castrum KLunadinum 
 apud Scotos, oriundi, qui a Serenissimo R. Jacobo in Cubicula Interiora admissus, in 
 Germaniam ad Imperatorem, Imperiiq. Principes cum libello Regio, Regiae au- 
 thoritatis vindice, Legatus, ac primium Annue, demum Mariae, serenissimis Britaimia- 
 rum Reginis ab epistolis, consiliis et libellis supplicibus, nee non Xenodochio S" 
 Catherine pnefectus. Anima Creatoris Reddita, hie depositis mortalibus exuviis se- 
 
 cundum Redemptoris adventum expectat. 
 
 Carolum linquens, repetit Parentem 
 
 Et valedicens Marise revisit 
 Annam et Aulai decus, alto Olympi 
 
 Mutat Honore. 
 
 Obiit Ccelebs in Regio Albaula Hoc devoti gratiq. animi 
 
 Non sine maximo Honore omnium Testimonium optimo Patruo 
 
 Luctu et Mcerore, ^tat. suae LXVIII. Jo. Aitonus M L P. 
 
 Salut Humance M.DCXXXVIII. 
 
 MUSARUM DECUS HIC, PxTRIAEQ. AtJLAEQ. DoMIQUB 
 ET FORIS EXEMPLAR SED NON IMITABILE HONESTI.
 
 84 
 
 SIR ROBERT AYTON. 
 
 The poems of Sir Robert Ayton, for the first time published together in the 
 Miscellany of the Bannatyne Club, (from which we derive these particulars of 
 the poet's life,) are few in number, but of great merit. He composed no Scottish 
 poems, at least none that have come down to our times. He wrote in English, 
 and was, indeed, one of the first of our countrymen who composed in that lan- 
 guage with any degree of elegance or purity. It is unfortunate that the most 
 of his poems are complimentary verses to the illustrious individuals with whom 
 he was acquainted, and of course characterised only by a strain of conceited and 
 extravagant flattery. Those, however, upon general topics, are conceived in a 
 refined and tender strain of fancy, that reminds us more of the fairy strains of 
 Herrick than any thing else. John Aubrey remarks, " that Sir Robert was 
 one of the best poets of his time," and adds the more important testimony 
 that " 3Ir John Dryden has seen verses of his, some of the best of that age, 
 printed with some other verses." According to Dempster, Ayton was also a 
 writer of verses in Greek and French, as well as in English and Latin. Several 
 of his Latin poems are preserved in the work called, " Delitiae Poetanun Scoto- 
 rum," which was printed in his lifetime (1637) at Amsterdam. 
 
 One poem by Ayton, entitled, " Inconstancy Reproved," and commencing 
 with the words, " I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair," was esteemed by Burns 
 worthy of being paraphrased into the native dialect of the author ; a process cer- 
 tainly of a very curious nature, as it might have rather been expected that the 
 poet of the eighteenth should have refined upon the poet of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. It may be safely avowed that the modern poet has not improved upon his 
 predecessor. Perhaps the reader will be less familiar with the following equally 
 beautiful poems by Sir Robert Ayton, than with " Inconstancy Reproved," 
 which, after all, is not ascertained to be his. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 What me ns this strangeness now of late, 
 
 Since time must truth approve? 
 This distance may consist with state 
 It cannot stand with love. 
 
 'Tis either cunning or distrust, 
 
 That may such ways allow ; 
 The first is base, the last unjust; 
 
 Let neither blemish you. 
 
 For if you mean to draw me on, 
 
 There needs not half this art ; 
 And if you mean to have me gone, 
 
 You overact your part. 
 
 If kindness cross your wished content, 
 
 Dismiss me with a frown, 
 I'll give you all the love that's spent, 
 
 The rest shall be my own. 
 
 ON WOMAN'S INCONSTANCY. 
 
 I loved thee once, I'll love no more, 
 Thine be the grief as is the blame ; 
 Thou art not what thou wast before. 
 What reason I should be the samel 
 He thai can love unloved again, 
 Hath better store of love than brain : 
 God send me love my debts to pay, 
 While unthrifts fool their love away.
 
 SIR ROBERT AYTON. 85 
 
 Nothing could have my love o'erthrown, 
 
 If thou hadst still continued mine : 
 Tea, if thou hadst remain'd thy own, 
 I might perchance have yet been thine. 
 But thou thy freedom did recall, 
 That if thou might elsewhere enthral; 
 And then how could 1 but disdain 
 A captive's captive to remain ? 
 
 When new desires had conquered thee, 
 
 And changed the object of thy will, 
 It had been lethargy in me, 
 Not constancy to love thee still. 
 Yea, it had been a sin to ga 
 And prostitute affection so 
 Since we are taught no prayers to say 
 To such as must to others pray. 
 
 Yet do thou glory in thy choice, 
 
 Thy choice of his good fortune boast ; 
 HI neither grieve nor yet rejoice, 
 To see him gain what 1 have lost : 
 
 The height of my disdain shall be, 
 To laugh at him, to blush for thee ; 
 To love thee still, but go no more, 
 A begging to a beggar's door. 
 
 THE ANSWER, 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR, AT THE KING'S MAJESTY'S COMMAND. 
 Thou that loved once, now loves no more, 
 For fear to show more love than brain ; 
 With heresy unhatch'd before, 
 A postasy thou dost maintain. 
 
 Can he have either brain or love 
 That dost inconstancy approve? 
 A choice well made no change admits, 
 All changes argue after-wits. 
 
 Say that she had not been the same, 
 Should thou therefore another be ? 
 What thou in her as vice did blame, 
 Can thou take virtue's name in thee? 
 No, thou in this her captive was, 
 And made thee ready by her glass ; 
 Example led revenge astray, 
 When true love should have kept the way. 
 
 True love has no reflecting end, 
 The object good sets it at rest, 
 And noble breasts will freely lend, 
 Without expecting interest. 
 
 'Tis merchants' love, 'tis trade for gain, 
 To barter love for love again : 
 Tis usury, yea, worse than this, 
 For self-idolatry it is. 
 
 Then let her choice be what it will, 
 
 Let constancy be thy revenge ; 
 If thou retribute good for ill, / 
 
 Both grief and shame shall check her change,
 
 86 ROBERT BAILLIE. 
 
 Thus may'st thou laugh when thou shall see 
 
 Remorse reclaim her home to thee ; 
 And where thou begg'st of her before, 
 She now sits begging at thy door. 
 
 We submit that such elegant sentiments as these, expressed in such elegant 
 language, are an honour to their author, to his age, and country. 
 
 B 
 
 BAILLIE, ROBERT, one of the most eminent, and perhaps the most moderate, 
 of all the Scottish presbyterian clergy during the time of the civil war, was born 
 at Glasgow, in 1599. His father, Thomas Baillie, citizen, was descended from the 
 Baillies of Lamington ; his mother, Helen Gibson, was of the family of Gibson of 
 Durie ; both of which stocks are distinguished in presbyterian history. Having 
 studied divinity in his native university, Mr Baillie, in 1622, received episcopal 
 orders from Archbishop Law, of Glasgow, and became tutor to the son of the Earl of 
 Eglintoune, by whom he was presented to the parish church of Kilwinning. In 
 1626 he was admitted a regent at the college of Glasgow, and, on taking his 
 chair, delivered an inaugural oration, De Mente Agente, About this period he ap- 
 pears to have prosecuted the study of the oriental languages, in which he is al- 
 lowed to have attained no mean proficiency. For some years he lived in terms of 
 the strictest intimacy with the noble and pious family of Eglintoune, as also with 
 his ordinary, Archbishop Law, with whom lie kept up an epistolary correspon- 
 dence. Baillie was not only educated and ordained as an episcopalian, but he 
 had imbibed from principal Cameron of Glasgow, the doctrine of passive resist- 
 ance. He appears, however, to have been brought over to opposite riews during 
 the interval between 1630 and J636, which he employed in discussing with his 
 fellow-clergymen the doctrines of Arminianism, and the new ecclesiastical regu- 
 lations introduced into the Scottish church by Archbishop Laud. Hence, in the 
 year 1636, being desired by Archbishop Law to preach at Edinburgh in favour 
 of the Canon and Service-books, he positively refused; writing, however, a re- 
 spectful apology to his lordship. Endeared to the resisting party by this con- 
 duct, he was chosen to represent the presbytery of Irvine in the General Assem- 
 bly of 1638, by which the royal power was braved in the name of the whole 
 nation, and episcopacy formally dissolved. In this meeting, Baillie is said to 
 have behaved with great moderation ; a term, however, which must be under- 
 stood as only comparative, for the expressions used in his letter regarding the 
 matters condemned, are not what would now be considered moderate. In the 
 ensuing year, when it w ( is found necessary to vindicate the proceedings of the 
 Glasgow Assembly with the sword, Baillie entered heartily into the views of his 
 countrymen. He accompanied the army to Dunse Law, in the capacity of 
 preacher to the Earl of Eglintoune's regiment ; and he it was, who has handed 
 down the well known description of that extraordinary camp. " It would have 
 done you good," he remarks in one of his letters, " to have cast your eyes athort 
 our brave and rich hills, as oft as I did, with great contentment and joy ; for 
 I was there among the rest, being chosen preacher by the gentlemen of our 
 shire, who came late with Lord Eglintoune. I furnished to half a dozen of good 
 fellows, muskets and pikes, and to my boy a broad sword. I carried myself, as 
 the fashion was, a sword, and a couple of Dutch pistols at my saddle ; but I pro- 
 mise, for the offence of no man, except a robber in the way ; for it was our 
 part alone to pray and preach for the encouragement of our countrymen, which 
 I did to my power most chearfully." (Letters, vol. 5. p. 174.) He afterwards 
 states, " Our soldiers grew in experience of anus, in courage, and favour, daily
 
 ROBERT BAILLIE. 87 
 
 Every one encouraged another. The sight of their nobles, and their beloved 
 pastors, daily raised their hearts. The good sermons and prayers, morning and 
 evening, under the roof of heaven, to which their drums did call them for bells ; 
 the remonstrance very freq-ient of the goodness of their cause ; of their conduct 
 hitherto, by a hand clearly divine ; also Leslie's skill, and prudence, and for- 
 tune, made them as resolute for battle as could be wished. We were feared 
 that emulation among our nobles might have done harm, when they should be met 
 in the field; but such was the wisdom and authority of that old, little, crooked 
 soldier, that all, with an incredible submission, from the beginning to the end, 
 gave over themselves to be guided by him, as if he had been great Solyman. 
 Had you lent your ear in the morning, or especially at even, and heard in the 
 tents the sound of some singing psalms, some praying, and some reading Scrip- 
 t'Jre, ye would have been refreshed. True, there was swearing, and cursing, and 
 bra\vling, in some quarters, whereat we were grieved ; but we hoped, if our camp 
 had been a little settled, to have gotten some way for these misorders ; for all of 
 any fashion did regret, and all promised to do their best endeavours for helping 
 all abuses. For myself, I never found my mind in better temper than it was aD 
 that time since I came from home, till my head was again homeward ; for I was 
 as a man who had taken my leave from the world, and was resolved to die in 
 that service without return." This expedition ended in a treaty between the 
 Scottish leaders and their sovereign, in terms of which hostilities ceased for a few 
 months. On the renewal of the insurrectionary war next year, Baillie accom- 
 panied the Scottish army on its march into England, and became the chronicler 
 of its transactions. Towards the end of the year 1640, he was selected by the 
 Scottish leaders as a proper person to go to London, along with other commis- 
 sioners, to prepare charges against Archbishop Laud, for his innovations upon 
 the Scottish church, which were alleged to have been the origin of the war. Ke 
 had, in April, before the expedition, pubBshed a pamphlet, entitled, " Laden- 
 si urn AfToxo > .Tx0/o7j : the Canterburian's Self-conviction ; or an Evident Demon- 
 stration of the avowed Arminianisme, Pcperie. and Tyrannic of that Faction, by 
 their own confessions," which perhaps pointed him out as fit to take a lead in 
 the prosecution of the great Ajitichrist of Scottish presbytery. Of this and al- 
 most all the other proceedings of his public life, he has left a minute account in 
 his letters and journals, which are preserved entire in the archives of the church 
 of Scotland, and in the university of Glasgow, and of which excerpts were pub- 
 lished in 2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1775. These reliques of Mr Baillie form val- 
 uable materials of history. Not long after his return to his native country, in 
 1642, he was appointed joint professor of divinity at Glasgow, along with Mr 
 David Dickson, an equally distinguished, but less moderate divine. It affords 
 some proof of the estimation in which he was now held, that he had the choice 
 of this appointment in all the four universities of Scotland. He performed his 
 duties from this period till the restoration, and at the same time attended all the 
 General Assemblies as a member, except during an interval in 1643-6, when he 
 was absent as a delegate to the Westminster assembly of divines. In this latter 
 capacity, he conducted himself in an unobtrusive manner, but fully concurred in the 
 principles and views of the more prominent men. It is observable from his let- 
 ters, that, with the pardonable earnestness of his age and party, he looked upon 
 toleration as a thing fatal to religion, and strenuously asserted the divine right 
 of the presbyterian church to be established in complete ascendancy and power 
 as a substitute for the church of England. From 1646 to 1649, he discharged 
 his ordinary duties as a theological teacher, without taking a leading part in 
 public affairs. But in the latter year, he was chosen by the church, as the fit- 
 test person to carry its homage to king Charles II. at the Hague, and to invite
 
 88 ROBERT BAILLIE. 
 
 that youthful monarch to assume the government in Scotland, under the limita- 
 tions and stipulations of the covenant. This duty he executed with a degree of 
 dignity and propriety, which could have been expected from no member of his 
 church, but one, who, like him had spent several years in conducting high diplo- 
 matic affairs in England. Indeed, Mr Baillie appears in every transaction of 
 his life, to have been an accomplished man of the world; and yet retaining, along 
 with habits of expediency, the most perfect sincerity in his religious views. 
 When the necessary introduction of the malignants into the king's service, caused 
 a strong division in the church, in 1651, Baillie, as might have been expected 
 frcm his character and former history, sided with the yielding or Resolutionist 
 party, and soon became its principal leader. On this account he, and many other 
 sincere men, were charged by the Protesting and less worldly party, with a declen- 
 sion from the high principles of the covenant ; a charge to which he, at least, 
 certainly was not liable. After the Restoration, though made Principal of his 
 college through court patronage, he scrupulously refused to accept a bishopric, 
 and did not hesitate to express his dissatisfaction with the re-introduction ol 
 episcopacy. His health now declining, he was visited by the new-made arch- 
 bishop, to whom he thus freely expressed himself: " Mr Andrew," said he, " I 
 will not now call you my lord. King Charles would have made me one of these 
 lords ; but I do not find in the New Testament that Christ has any lords in his 
 house." He considered this form of -religion and ecclesiastical government as 
 " inconsistent with Scripture, contrary to pure and primitive antiquity, and dia- 
 metrically opposed to the true interest of the country." lie died, July, 1662, 
 in the 63d year of his age. 
 
 Mr Baillie, besides his Letters and Journals, and a variety of controversi.-u 
 pamphlets, suitable to the spirit of the times, was the author or a respectable 
 and learned work, entitled, " Opus Historicum et Chronologicum," which was 
 published in folio at Amsterdam. He was a man of extensive learning under- 
 stood no fewer than thirteen languages, among which weie Hebrew, Chaldee, 
 Syriac, Samaritan, Arabic, and Ethiopic, and wrote Latin with almost Augus- 
 tan elegance. He left a large family : one of his daughters, becoming the wife 
 of Walkinshaw of Barrowfield, was, by a strange chance, the ancestress of IMiss 
 Clementina Walkinshaw, well known from her connexion with the history of 
 Prince Charles Stuart and also grandmother to the celebrated Henry Home, 
 bettor known under the judicial designation of Lord Kames. 
 
 BAILLIE, ROBERT, of Jerviswood, an eminent patriot of the reign of Charles 
 II., was the son of George Baillie of St John's kirk in Lanarkshire, cadet of the 
 ancient family of Baillie of Lamington, who appears to have purchased the estate 
 of Jerviswood, also in Lanarkshire, in the reign of Charles 1., from a family of 
 the name of Livingstone. It is stated by the jr.cobite, Robert Mylne, in the 
 publication called " Fountainhall's Notes," that the first circumstance wlu'ch 
 alienated the mind of Robert Baillie from the government, was his marrying a 
 daughter of Sir Archibald Johnston of Warristoun, who, having borne a conspi- 
 cuous part in the civil war from its beginning, was executed after the Restora- 
 tion. Wliatever be the truth of this allegation, Baillie appears before the year 
 1676, to have been otherwise allied to the non-conformist party. 
 
 The incident which first brought him forward into view as a subject of perse- 
 cution, was one of those interferences in behalf of natural justice, where all wiige 
 of consequences is overborne by the exigency of the occasion. During the 
 misgovernment of the Duke of Lauderdale, a wretched profligate of the naire of 
 Carstairs had bargained with Archbishop Sharpe to undertake the business o< 
 an informer upon an uncommonly large scale, having a troop of other informers 
 under him, and enjoying a certain reward for each individual whom he could
 
 J. Story. 
 
 Of JERV1B"WOOD. 
 
 1-AINTS3J IK 1600, IN 'EM 

 
 ROBERT BAIHIE. g9 
 
 detect at the conventicles, besides a share of the fines imposed upon them. It 
 may be supposed that an individual who could permit himself to enter upon a 
 profession of this kind, would not be very scrupulous as to the guilt of the per- 
 sons whom he sought to make his prey. He accordingly appears to have, at 
 least in one noted instance, pounced upon an individual who was perfectly in- 
 nocent This was the Rev. Mr Kirkton, a non-conformist minister it is true, 
 but one who had been cautious to keep strictly within the verge of the law. 
 Kirkton was the brother-in-law of 31r Baillie of Jerviswood, by his marriage to 
 the sister of that gentleman, and he is eminent in Scottish literary history for a 
 memoir of the church during his own times, which was of great service in manu- 
 script to the historian Wodrow, and was at length published in 1817. One day 
 in June, 1676, as Mr Kirkton was walking along the High Street of Edinburgh. 
 Carstairs, whose person he did not know, accosted him in a very civil manner, 
 and expressed a desire to speak with him in private. Mr Kirkton, suspecting 
 no evil, followed Contain to a very mean-looking house, near the common 
 prison. Carstairs, who had no warrant to apprehend or detain Mr Kirkton, 
 went out to get one, locking the door upon his victim. 1 The unfortunate cler- 
 gyman then perceived that he was in some danger, and prevaile<l upon a person 
 in the house to go to seek his brother-in-law, JVIr Baillie, and apprise him of his 
 situation. Carstairs, having in vain endeavoured to get the requisite number of 
 privy-councillors to sign a warrant, now came back, resolved, it appears, to try 
 at least if he could not force some money from Mr Kirkton for his release. Just 
 as they were about to confer upon this subject, Mr Baillie came to the door, 
 with several other persons, and called to Carstairs to open. Kirkton, hearing 
 the voices of friends, took courage, and desired his captor either to set him free, 
 or to show a warrant for his detention. Carstairs, instead of doing either, drew 
 a pocket pistol, and Kirkton found it necessary, for his own safety, to enter into 
 a personal struggle, and endeavour to secure the weapon of his antagonist The 
 gentlemen without, hearing a struggle, and cries of murder, burst open the door, 
 and found Carstairs sitting upon Mr Kirkton, on the floor. Baillie drew hia 
 sword, and commanded the poltroon to come off, asking him at the same time if 
 he had any warrant for apprehending Mr Kirkton. Carstairs said he had a 
 warrant for conducting him to prison, but he utterly refused to show it, though 
 Mr Baillie said that, if he saw any warrant against his friend, he would assist 
 in carrying it into execution. The wretch still persisting in saying he had a 
 wan-ant, but was not bound to show it, Mr Baillie left the place, with Mr Kirk- 
 ton and other friends, having offered no violence whatever to Carstairs, but only 
 threatened to sue him for unlawful invasion of his brother-in-law's person. 
 
 It might have been expected from even a government so lost to all honour 
 and justice as that which now prevailed in Scotland, that it would have had at 
 least the good sense to overlook this unhappy accident to one of its tools. On 
 the contrary, it was resolved to brave the popular feeling of right, by listening 
 to the complaints of Carstairs. Through the influence of Archbishop Sharpe, 
 who said that, if Carstairs was not countenanced, no one would be procured 
 apprehend fanatics afterwards, a majority of the council agreed to proseci 
 Baillie, Kirkton, and the other persons concerned. For this purpose, an ante- 
 dated wan-ant was furnished to Carstairs, signed by nine of the councillors. J 
 Marquis of Atholl told Bishop Burnet, that he had been one of the nine whc 
 lent their names to this infamous document The whole case was t 
 made out to be a tumult against the government ; Baillie was fined in six tl 
 sand merks, (.318 sterling) 2 and his friends in smaller sums, and 
 prisoned till they should render payment 
 
 l Burnet Wod row's account is slightly different. 
 
 * Wodrow says 500 sterling, new edit. v. Z. p. ^H. M
 
 90 ROBERT BA1LL1E. 
 
 This award was so opposite, in every particular, to the principles of truth, 
 honour, and justice, that, even if not directed against individuals connected \\ith 
 the popular cause, it could not have failed to excite general indignation. It 
 appears that a respectable minority of the council itself was strongly opposed to 
 the decision, and took care to let it be known at court Mr Baillie was there- 
 fore released at the end of four months, in consideration of payment of one half 
 of his fine to the creature Carstairs. Lord llalton, however, who was at this 
 time a kind of pro-regent under his brother Lauderdale, had interest to obtain 
 the dismissal of bis opponents from the council, namely, the Duke of Hamilton, 
 the Earls of Morton, Dumfries, and Kincardine, and the Lords Ccchrane and 
 Primrose, whom he branded, for their conduct on this occasion, as enemies to 
 the church and favourers of conventicles. 
 
 After this period, nothing is known of 3Ir Baillie till the year 1683, when 
 he is found taking a prominent share in a scheme of emigration, agitated by a 
 number of Scottish gentlemen, who saw no refuge but this from the tyranny of 
 the government. These gentlemen entered into a negotiation with the paten- 
 tees of South Carolina, for permission to convey themselves thither, along with 
 their families and dependents. While thus engaged, Mr Baillie was induced, 
 along with several of his friends, to enter into correspondence and counsel with 
 the heads of the Puritan party in England, who were now forming an extensive 
 plan of insurrection, for the purpose of obtaining a change of measures in the 
 government, though with no ulterior view. Under the pretext of the American 
 expedition, Lord Melville, Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree, Mr Baillie, and three 
 others, were invited and repaired to London, to consult with the Duke of 31011- 
 month, Sydney, liussell, and the rest of that party. This scheme was never pro- 
 perly matured ; indeed, it never was any thing but a matter of talk, and had 
 ceased to be even that, when a minor plot for assassinating the king, to which 
 only a small number of the party were privy, burst prematurely, and involved 
 several of the chiefs, who were totally ignorant of it, in destruction. Sydney 
 and Russell suffered for this crime, of which they were innocent; and Baillie 
 and several other gentlemen were seized and sent down to be tried in Scotland. 
 
 The subsequent judicial proceedings were characterised by the usual violence 
 and illegality of the time. He endured a long confinement, during which he 
 was treated very harshly, and not permitted to have the society of his lady, 
 though she ottered to go into irons, as an assurance against any attempt at faci- 
 litating his escape. An attempt was made to procure sufficient proof of guili 
 from the confessions wrought out of his nephew-in-law, the Earl of Tarras (who 
 had been first married to the elder sister of the Duchess of Monmouth) ; but, 
 this being found insufficient, his prosecutors were at last obliged to adopt the 
 unlawful expedient, too common in those distracted times, of putting him to a 
 purgative oath. An accusation was sent to him, not in the form of an indictment, 
 nor grounded on any law, but on a letter of the king, in which he was charged 
 with a conspiracy to raise rebellion, and a concern in the Hyehouse Plot. He 
 was told that, if he would not clear himself of these charges by his oath, he 
 should be held as guilty, though not as in a criminal court, but only as before 
 the council, who had no power to award a higher sentence than fine and im- 
 prisonment. As he utterly refused to yield to such a demand, he was fined by 
 
 * Mr Kose, in his Observations on Mr Fox's History, relates that the hope of a pardon 
 being held out to him, on condition of his giving information respecting some friends sup- 
 posed to be engaged with him, his answer was, ' They who can make such a proposal to me 
 neither know me nor my country;'' an expression of which the latter part is amply justified 
 by fact, for, as Lord John Russell has justly observed, in his Memoirs of Lord" William 
 Russt-ll, " It is to the honour of Scotland, thai [on this occasion] no witnesses came forward 
 voluntarily, to accuse their associates, as had been dune in England.''
 
 ROBERT BAILUE. 91 
 
 the council in .6,000, being about the value of his whole estates. It was then 
 supposed that the prosecution would cease, and that he would escape with the 
 doom of a captive. For several months he continued shut up in a loathsome 
 prison, which had such an effect upon his health that he was brought almost to 
 the last extremity. Vet " all the while," to use the words of Bishop Burnet, 3 
 " he seemed so composed, and even so cheerful, that his behaviour looked like a 
 reviving- of the spirit of the noblest of the old Greeks or Romans, or rather of 
 the primitive Christians, and first martyrs in those last days of the church." At 
 length, on the 23rd of December, 1684, he was brought before the court of 
 justiciary. He was now so weak as to be obliged to appear at the bar in his 
 nia'ht-gown, and take frequent applications of cordials, which were supplied to 
 him by his sister, the wife of Mr Ker of Graden. The only evidence that could 
 be produced was the confessions forced from his friends by torture, one of 
 whom, the Rev. Mr Carstairs, afterwards the distinguished Principal of the 
 Edinburgh University, had only emitted a declaration, on an express promise 
 that no use was to be made of it Mr Baillie solemnly denied having been 
 accessary to any conspiracy against the king's life, or being unfavourably dis- 
 posed to monarchical government. He complained that his friends had been 
 forced to bring forth untrue representations against him. Indeed, there can be 
 no doubt that the whole extent of his offence was a desire to procure some ame- 
 lioration of the measures, and not any change of the members of the govern- 
 ment ; we say desire, because it never conld be proved that a single step had 
 been taken in the matter, nor is there the least probability that it would have 
 ever been heard of, but for the trials of several innocent persons. 
 
 A cavalier and contemporary writer has alleged that Mr Baillie conducted 
 himself on his trial in a very haughty and scornful manner, " very huffy and 
 proud," is the expression used but this probably is only the colour given by a 
 political enemy to the Roman dignity, which Burnet saw in his behaviour. Af- 
 ter the evidence had been adduced, and when the Lord Advocate had ended his 
 charge, the following remarkable dialogue took place between him and that offi- 
 cer : 
 
 " My lord, I think it very strange that yon charge me with such abominable 
 things ; you may remember that when you came to me in person, you told me 
 that such things were laid to my charge, but that you did not believe them. 
 How then, my lord, did you come to lay such a stain upon me with so much vio- 
 lence? Are you now convinced in your conscience that I am more guilty than 
 before ? You may remember what passed betwixt us in prison." 
 
 The whole audience fixed their eyes upon the advocate, who appeared in no 
 small confusion, and said. 
 
 " Jerviswood, I own what you say. My thoughts there were as a private 
 man ; but what I say here is by special direction of the privy council. And," 
 pointing to Sir William Paterson, clerk, " he knows my orders." 
 
 " Well," said Baillie, " if your lordship have one conscience for yourself, and 
 another for the council, I pray God forgive you ; I do. My lords," he added, 
 " I trouble your lordships no further," 
 
 The assize was empannelled at midnight, and sat till nine in the morning of 
 the succeeding day, when a verdict of guilty was returned against Mr Baillie, 
 and he was sentenced to be executed that afternoon, at the cross, and his limbs 
 to be afterwards exhibited on the jails of four different Scottish towns. The 
 reason for such precipitation was the fear of his judges that a natural death 
 would disappoint the wishes of the government, which called imperatively at this 
 
 3 Bumet, being the nephew of Sir Arcliibald Johnstone, was cousin by marriage to Mr 
 Baillie.
 
 92 MATTHEW BAILL1E, M.D. 
 
 moment for a public example to terrify its opponents. Baillie only said, " My 
 lords, the time is short, the sentence is sharp, but I thank my God who hath 
 made me as fit to die as you are to live." On returning to the prison he ex- 
 perienced what Wodrow describes as " a wonderful rapture of joy, from the 
 assurance he had, that in a few hours he should be inconceivably happy." 
 
 Mr Baillie was attended to the scaffold by his faithful and affectionate sister. 
 He had prepared an address to the people ; but knowing that he might be pre- 
 vented from delivering it, he had previously given it to his friends in writing. 
 It is said that the government afterwards offered to give up his body for burial, 
 if his friends would agree to suppress this document. '1 hey appear to have re- 
 jected the proposition. The unfortunate gentleman was so weak that he requir- 
 ed to be assisted in mounting the ladder : he betrayed, however, no symptom of 
 moral weakness. Just before being consigned to his fate, he said, in the self- 
 accusing spirit of true excellence, " My faint zeal for the protestant religion has 
 brought me to this end." His sister-in-law, with the stern virtue of her family, 
 waited to the last. 2 
 
 " Thus," says Bishop Burnet, " a learned and worthy gentleman, after twenty 
 months' hai-d usage, was brought to death, in a way so full in all the steps of it 
 of the spirit and practice of the courts of Inquisition, that one is tempted to 
 think that the methods taken in it were suggested by one well studied, if not 
 practised, in them. The only excuse that ever was pretended for this infamous 
 prosecution was, that they were sure he was guilty ; and that the whole secret of 
 the negotiation between the two kingdoms was intrusted to him ; and that, since 
 he would not discover it, all methods might be taken to destroy him. Not con- 
 sidering what a precedent they made on this occasion, by which, if they were 
 once possessed of an ill opinion of a man, they were to spare neither artifice nor 
 violence, but to hunt him down by any means." 
 
 Dr Owen has testified in a strong manner to the great abilities of the Scottish 
 Sydney. Writing to a Scottish friend, he said, "You have truly men of great 
 spirits among you ; there is, for a gentleman, Mr Baillie of Jerviswood, a person 
 of the greatest abilities I ever almost met with." 
 
 Mr Baillie's family was completely ruined by his forfeiture. He left a son, 
 George Baillie, who, after his execution, was obliged to take refuge in Holland, 
 whence he afterwards returned with the Prince of Orange, by whom he was re- 
 stored to his estates. The wife of this gentleman was Miss Grizel Hume, daugh- 
 ter of Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth, a fellow-patriot of Mr Robert Baillie. The 
 occasion of their meeting was very remarkable. Miss Grizel, when "a very young- 
 girl, was sent by her father from the country, to endeavour to convey a letter to 
 Mr Baillie in prison, and bring back what intelligence she could. She succeed- 
 ed in this difficult enterprise ; and having at the same time met with Mr Baillie's 
 son, the intimacy and friendship was formed, which was afterwards completed 
 by their marriage. 
 
 BAIL/LIE, MATTHEW, M,D. a distinguished modern physician and anatomist, was 
 the son of the Rev. James Baillie, D.I). Professor of Divinity in the University 
 of Glasgow. He was born October 27, 1761, in the manse of Shotts, of which 
 parish his father was then minister. The father of Dr Matthew Baillie was sup- 
 posed to be descended from the family of Baillie of Jerviswood, so noted in the his- 
 tory of Scottish freedom; his mother was a sister of the two celebrated anatomists, 
 Dr William and Mr John Hunter; and one of his two sisters was Miss Joanna 
 
 2 " The Lady Graden, with a more than masculine courage, attended him on the scaffold 
 till he was quartered, and went with the hangman and saw his quarters sodden, oyled, &c." 
 FountainlmWs Notes, 117, 118. It is scarcely possible for an individual accustomed tc 
 the feelings of modern society to believe such a statement.
 
 MATTHEW BAILLIE, M.D. 93 
 
 Baillie, the late well known and amiable authoress of " Plays on the Passions." 
 After receiving the rudiments of his education under his father's immediate sti. 
 perintendence, he began his academical course in 1773, in the University of 
 Glasgow, where he distinguished himself so highly as to be transferred, in 1778, 
 npon Snell's foundation, to Baliol College, Oxford. Here, when he had attained 
 the proper standing, he took his degrees in arts and physic. In 1780, while 
 still keeping his terms at Oxford, he commenced his anatomical studies at Lon- 
 don, under the care of his uncles. He had the great advantage of residing with 
 Dr William Hunter, and, when he became sufficiently advanced in his studies, of 
 being employed to make the necessary preparations for the lectures, to conduct 
 the demonstrations, and to superintend the operations of the students". On the 
 death of Dr Hunter, March 1783, he was found qualified to become the successor 
 of that great man, in conjunction with Mr Cruickshank, who had previously 
 been employed as Dr Hunter's assistant. His uncle appointed him by will to 
 have the use of his splendid collection of anatomical preparations, so long as he 
 should continue an anatomical lecturer, after which it was to be transfeiTcd to 
 Glasgow College. Dr Baillie began to lecture in 1784, and soon acquired 
 the highest reputation as an anatomical teacher. He was himself indefatigable 
 in the business of forming preparations, adding, it is said, no fewer than eleven 
 hundred articles to his uncle's museum. He possessed the valuable talent of 
 making an abstruse and difficult subject plain ; his prelections were remarkable 
 for that lucid order and clearness of expression which proceed from a perfect 
 conception of the subject ; and he never permitted any vanity of display to turn 
 him from his great object of conveying information in the simplest and most 
 intelligible way, and so as to become useful to his pupils. The distinctness of 
 his elocution was also much admired, notwithstanding that he never could alto- 
 gether shake of!" the accent of his native country. In 1795, Dr Baillie embodied 
 the knowledge he possessed through his own observations and those of his uncle, 
 in a small but most valuable work, entitled, " The Morbid Anatomy of some of 
 the most important parts of the Human Body," which was immediately translated 
 into French and German, and extended his name to every land where medical 
 science was cultivated. The publication of this little treatise was, indeed, an 
 era in the history of medical knowledge in this country. It combined all the 
 information formerly scattered through the writings of Bonetus, Lieutaud, and 
 Montagm, besides the immense store of observations made by the ingenious 
 author. The knowledge of the changes produced on the human frame by disease 
 had previously been very imperfect ; but it was now so completely elucidated 
 that, with the assistance of this little volume, any person previously acquainted 
 with morbid symptoms, but unacquainted with the disease, could, upon an exami- 
 nation after death, understand the whole malady. Perhaps no production of 
 the period, ever had so much influence on the study of medicine, or contributed 
 so much to correct unfounded speculations upon the nature of disease, to excite 
 a spirit of observation, and to lead the attention of the student to fact and ex- 
 perience. Along with all its excellencies, it was delightful to observe the 
 extreme modesty and total absence of pretension, with which the author, in the 
 fulness of his immense knowledge, ushered it into the world. 
 
 In 1787, Dr Baillie had been elected physician to St George's Hospital, a 
 situation which afforded him many of those opportunities of observation upon 
 which the success of his work on Morbid Anatomy \vas founded. In 1789, 
 having taken his degree of M.D. at Oxford, he was admitted a candidate at the 
 College of Physicians, and in the following year had the full privileges of fel- 
 lowship conferred upon him. About the same time, he was elected a fellow 
 of the Royal Society, to uhich he had contributed two essays. He served the
 
 MATTHEW BAILLIB, M.D. 
 
 office of censor in the Royal College of Physicians, in 1792 and 1797, and that 
 of commissioner under the act of parliament for the inspection and licensing of 
 mad-houses, in 1794 and 1795. 
 
 In 1799, Dr Baillie relinquished the business of an anatomical lecturer, ami 
 in 1800 resigned his duties as physician to St George's Hospital Partly by 
 the influence of his fame as an anatomist, and partly through the disinterested 
 recommendations of several members of his own profession, he found himself 
 gradually tempted into the less agreeable business of a general physician. He 
 was always resorted to, when more than ordinary scientific precision was re- 
 quired. About the year 1801, when he had attained the mature age of forty, 
 he had become completely absorbed in practice. As a physician, he possessed, 
 in an eminent degree, a facility in distinguishing diseases, one of the most 
 important qualifications in the practice of medicine ; as a want of accuracy in 
 discriminating symptomatic from primary affections leads to the most serious 
 errors; whilst it may be said that, when a disease is once distinctly character- 
 ised, and the peculiarities of the case defined, the cure is half performed. Ha- 
 bits of attentive observation had enabled Dr Baillie to know, with great accuracy, 
 the precise extent of the poweYs of medicine ; indeed, there was no class of 
 cases more likely to fall under his observation than those in which they had 
 been abused ; younger practitioners being apt to cany a particular system of 
 treatment beyond its proper limits ; Dr Baillie's readiness, therefore, in seeing 
 this abuse, rendered his opinions, in many cases, of great value. Yet he \\ns 
 always scrupulously anxious, through the natural benignity of his disposition, to 
 use his knowledge with a delicate regard to the interests of those juniors whose 
 procedure he was called upon to amend. He managed, indeed, this part of his 
 practice with so much delicacy that he was held in the utmost affection and 
 esteem by the younger branches of the profession. 
 
 Dr Baillie was remarkable for forming his judgment of any case before h!m 
 from his own observations exclusively ; carefully guarding himself against any 
 prepossessions from the opinions suggested by others. When he visited a pa- 
 tient, he observed him accurately, he listened to him attentively, he put a few 
 pointed questions and his opinion was formed. Beneath a most natural and 
 unassuming manner, which was the same on all occasions, was concealed an 
 almost intuitive power of perceiving the state of his patient. His mind was 
 always quietly, but eagei'ly directed, to an investigation of the symptoms ; and 
 he had so distinct and systematic a mode of putting questions, that the answers 
 of his patients often presented a connected view of the whole case. On such 
 occasions, he avoided technical and learned phrases ; he affected none of that 
 sentimental tenderness, which is sometimes assumed by a physician with a view 
 to recommend himself to his patient ; but he expressed what he had to say in 
 the simplest and plainest terms; with some pleasantry, if the occasion admitted 
 of it, and with gravity and gentleness, if they were required ; and he left his 
 patient, either encouraged or tranquillized, persuaded that the opinion he had 
 received was sound and honest, whether it was unfavourable or not, and that his 
 physician merited his confidence. In delivering or writing his opinions, he was 
 equally remarkable for unaflected simplicity. His language was sometimes so 
 plain, that his patients have been able to repeat to their other medical atten- 
 dants, every word which he had uttered. In consultation, he gave his opinion 
 concisely, and with a few grounds; those grounds being chiefly facts, rather than 
 arguments, so that little room was left for dispute. If any difference or diffi- 
 culty arose, his example pointed out the way of removing it, by an appeal to 
 other facts, and by a neglect of speculative reasoning. 
 
 In every relation and situation of private life, Dr Baillie was equally to be
 
 MATTHEW BAILLIE, M.D. 95 
 
 admired ; and it must be added, that the same liberal and just ideas which, on 
 all occasions, guided his conduct as an individual, ruled him in his many public 
 duties : he never countenanced any measures which had the appearance of op- 
 pression or hostility towards the members of his profession. Men seldom act, 
 collectively, with the same honour and integrity as they would do individually ; 
 and a member of a public body requires an unusual share of moral courage, who 
 opposes those measures of his associates, which he may not himself approve of; 
 but if there was one qualification more than another, which gave Dr Baillie the 
 public confidence he enjoyed, and raised him to the zenith of professional dis- 
 tinction, it was his inflexible integrity. 
 
 In 1799, Dr Baillie commenced the publication of " A Series of Engravings, 
 to illustrate some parts of Morbid Anatomy." in successive fasciculi, which were 
 completed in 1802. The drawings for this splendid work were done by Mr 
 Clift, the Conservator of the Hunterian Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields ; and 
 they were creditable at once to the taste and liberality of Dr Baillie, and to the 
 state of art in that day. Dr Baillie afterwards published " An Anatomical de- 
 scription of the Gravid Uterus ; " and throughout the whole course of his pro- 
 fessional life, he contributed largely to the transactions and medical collections 
 of the time. When he was at the height of his popularity, he enjoyed a higher in- 
 come than any preceding physician, and which was only inferior to the sum 
 received by one particular contemporary. In one of his busiest years, when he 
 had scarcely time to take a single meal, it is said to have reached 10,000. 
 He was admitted to have the greatest consultation business of his time ; and it 
 was known that he was applied to for medical advice from many distant quarters 
 of the world. From his arduous, and to his mind, often irksome duties, he en- 
 joyed no relaxation for many years, till at length he began to indulge in an 
 annual retirement of a few months to the country. On one of the first of these 
 occasions, he paid a visit to the land of his birth, which, during an absence of 
 thirty years, spent in busy and distracting pursuits, he had never ceased to re- 
 gard with the most tender feelings. The love of country was, indeed, a promi- 
 nent feature in his character ; and he was prepared on this occasion to realize 
 many enjoyments which he had previously contemplated with enthusiasm, in the 
 prospect of once more beholding the land and friends of his youth. The result 
 was far different from his expectations. He found most of his early companions 
 either scattered over the world, in search, as he himself had been, of fortune, or 
 else forgotten in untimely graves ; of those who survived, many were removed 
 beyond his sympathies by that total alteration of feeling which a difference of 
 worldly circumstances so invariably effects in the hearts of early friends, on the 
 side of the depressed party as well as the elevated. 
 
 Dr Baillie was introduced to the favourable notice of the royal family, in con- 
 sequence of his treatment of the duke of Gloucester. Being subsequently joined 
 in consultation with the king's physicians, upon his majesty's own unhappy case, 
 he came more prominently than ever into public view, as in some measure the 
 principal director of the royal treatment The political responsibility of this 
 situation was so very weighty, that, if Dr Baillie had been a man of less firmness 
 of nerve, he could scarcely have maintained himself under it. Such, however, 
 was the public confidence in his inflexible integrity, that, amidst the hopes and 
 fears wliich for a long time agitated the nation, on the subject of the king's 
 health, the opinion of Dr Baillie ever regulated that of the public. On the first 
 vacancy, which occurred in 1810, he was appointed one of the physicians to the 
 king, with the offer of a baronetcy, which, however, his good sense and unas- 
 suming disposition induced him to decline. 
 
 Dr Baillie at length sunk under the weight of his practice, notwithstanding
 
 gg GENERAL SIR DAVID BAIRP. 
 
 that for several years he had taken every possible expedient to shift off his 
 duties to the care of younger aspirants. At the last quarterly meeting of the 
 College of Physicians before his death, when there was a full assemblage of 
 members, in the midst of the affairs for the consideration of which they were 
 called together, Dr Baillie entered the room, emaciated, hectic, and with all 
 the symptoms of approaching dissolution. Such was the effect of his sudden 
 and unexpected appearance, that the public business was suspended, and every 
 one present instantly and spontaneously rose, and remained standing until Dr 
 Bailie had taken his seat; the incident though trivial evinces the affectionate rever- 
 ence with which he was regarded. Besides the natural claim he had upon this body, 
 i'roiu his unapproached anatomical and medical skill, and the extraordinary 
 benignity and worth of his character, he had entitled himself to its peculiar 
 gratitude by leaving to it the whole of his valuable collection of preparations, 
 together with the sum of six hundred pounds to keep it in order. Dr Baillie 
 died on the 23d of September, 1823. 
 
 Dr Bailie had married, 6th May, 1791, Miss Sophia Denman, second daughter of 
 
 Dr Denman of London, a distinguished physician, and sister of Mr., subsequent!? 
 
 Lord Denman and Lord Chief-Justice of England. By her he left one son, to 
 
 whom he devoted his estate of Dantisbourne, in Gloucestershire, and one daughter. 
 
 The sums and effects destined by his will, many of which were given to medical institu- 
 
 tions and public charities, were sworn in the Prerogative Court at less than 80,000. 
 
 Dr Baillie is thus characterised in the Annual Obituary for 1824 "He 
 
 seemed to have an innate goodness of heart, a secret sympathy with the virtuous, 
 
 and to rejoice in their honourable and dignified conduct, as in a thing in which 
 
 he had a personal interest, and as if he felt that his own character was raised by 
 
 it, as well as human nature ennobled. He censured warmly what he disapproved 
 
 m a strong attachment to what is right, not to display his superiority to others 
 
 to give vent to any asperity of temper; at the same time he was indulgent to 
 
 ulings ; his kindness to others leading him on many occasions to overlook what 
 
 > to himself; and even in his List illness he paid gratuitous professional 
 
 ts winch were above his strength, and was in danger of suddenly exhausting 
 
 imself by exertions for others. His liberal disposition was well known to ail 
 mtedwUh public subscriptions; the great extent to which it showed itself 
 n private benefactions is known only to those who were nearly connected with 
 him, and perhaps was fully known only to himself." 
 
 der^in ' I?* Rlght f " n Urable ' GenCTal SiF > DAVm ' a ^"guMied comman- 
 ds dun. g the wars of the French Revolution, was the second surviving son of 
 
 ES.%J ^3" hClr> by settlement . f W- ^cond cousin Sir John Uaird, of 
 wbyth, Bart. He entered the army, December 16, 1772, as an ensign in the 
 
 in I/? J T ^V^" 5 "' at Gibra1 ^ April 1773, and returned toBritain 
 afJrltV H , avin S been Footed to a lieutenancy in 1778, he immediately 
 
 Irl H -^\Tr ny ^ the 73ld - S re ^ ment then J" st raised by Lord 
 Macleod, w.th which he sailed for India, and arrived at Madras, January 1 7^0 
 
 Ins young regiment was here at once ushered into the trying and hazardous 
 scenes ot the war against Hyder Ally, whom the English company had pTokS 
 
 In iulvT 7 e 80 whil th falth lnt a ^ that " hreate " e <* to overwhelm It 
 o Iv L 1 Ann ? mpany> eXdU5iye f ^ Macleod's regiment, had 
 
 of iVo 000 n! r" 1 T T' HydCr bUrSt int the Caraatic 3S a" "my 
 f 100 00 men, disc.plined and commanded by French officers, and laid siege 
 
 fel M Capltal I * ^ " ative Prince friendl y to *e British. Sir 
 Bctor Munro, commander-in-chief of the Company's troops, set out to reliev 
 
 25th >, 0f A T St ' ^^^ t0 be j ^ ed 0" the 30t i ;\^ a re i 1 a 1 r ge 
 then m the northern circars under Colonel Baillie. On learning thi!
 
 GENERAL SIR DAVID BAIRD. 97 
 
 movement, Hyder left Arcot, and threw himself in the way of Colonel Baillie. 
 In order to favour, if possible, the approach of this officer, Sir Hector Munro, 
 on the 5th of September, changed his position a little, and advanced two miles 
 on the Trepassore road, which brought him within a short distance from the 
 enemy. Hyder then detached his brother-in-law, Meer Saib, with 8,000 horse, 
 to attack Colonel Baillie, and afterwards an additional force of 6,000 infantry, 
 18,000 cavalry, and 12 pieces of cannon, under, his son, the celebrated Tippoo. 
 He at the same time made demonstrations on his front, to keep up the attention 
 of Sir Hector and the main army. Baillie, though commanding no more than 
 2,000 Sepoys and a few European companies, gained a complete victory over 
 the immense force sent against him, but at the same time sent word to Sir 
 Hector, that, unless provision were made for accomplishing a junction, he must 
 certainly be cut off. The commander-in-chief held a council of war, when it 
 was determined at all hazards to send a reinforcement, for the purpose of achiev- 
 ing the relief of this gallant officer. A small force was selected, consisting 
 principally of the grenadier and infantry companies of Lord Macleod's regiment, 
 which, having received strict injunctions as to the necessity of a secret and ex 
 peditious inarch, set off to wards Colonel Baillie's position, under the command 
 of Colonel Fletcher and Captain Baird. Hyder Ally had secret intelligence of 
 this movement, and sent a detachment to cut it off; but Colonel Fletcher and 
 Captain Baird, having fortunately conceived some suspicion of their guides, sud- 
 denly altered their line of march, and were thereby enabled to gain their point. 
 Hyder was determined that Colonel Baillie, with his friends, should not advance 
 so safely to the main army. He therefore, with the most consummate ability, 
 and under his own personal inspection, prepared an ambuscade at a particular 
 pass through which they would have to march. This part of the road, he had 
 occupied and enfiladed with several batteries of cannon, behind which lay large 
 bodiesof his best foot, while he himself, with almost his whole force, was read) 
 to support the attack. While these real dispositions were made, a cloud of irre- 
 gular cavalry was employed in several motions on the side of Conjeveram, in 
 order to divert the attention of the English camp. 
 
 The morning of the 10th of September had scarcely dawned, when the silent 
 and expectant enemy perceived Colonel Baillie's little army advancing into the 
 very toils planted to receive it. The ambuscade reserved their fire with admi- 
 rable coolness and self-command, till the unhappy English were in the midst of 
 them. The army marched in column. On a sudden, while in a narrow defile, 
 a battery of twelve guns poured a storm of grape-shot into their right flank 
 The English faced about; another battery immediately opened on their rear. 
 They had no alternative, therefore, but to advance; other batteries met them here 
 likewise, and in less than half an hour, 57 pieces of cannon were so brought to 
 bear on them as to penetrate into every part of the British line. By seven 
 o'clock in the morning, the enemy poured down upon them in thousands, and 
 every Englishman in the army was engaged. Captain Baird, at the head of his 
 grenadiers, fought with the greatest heroism. Surrounded and attacked on all 
 sides by 25,000 cavalry, by 30 regiments of Sepoy infantry, besides Hyder 
 Ally's European corps, and a numerous artillery playing upon them from all 
 quarters within grape-shot distance, yet this heroic column stood firm and un- 
 daunted, alternately facing their enemies on every side of attack. The French 
 officers in Hyder's camp beheld the scene with astonishment, which was increased, 
 when, in the midst of all this tumult and extreme peril, they saw the Briti 
 grenadiers performing their evolutions with as much precision, coolness, and 
 steadiness, as if under the eyes of a commander on a parade. 
 i Colonels Baillie and Fletcher, and N Captain Baird, had only ten pieces of
 
 98 GENERAL SIR DAVID BAIRD. 
 
 cannon ; brt th => were so excellently served, that they made great havoc 
 nmongst the enemy. At length, after a dubious contest of three hours, (from six 
 in the morning till nine,) victory began to declare for the English; the flower 
 of the 31ysore cavalry, after many bloody repulses, were at length entirely de- 
 feated with great slaughter, and the right Ming, composed of Hyder's best forces, 
 was thrown into disorder, and began to give way. Hyder himself was about to 
 give the orders for retreat, and the i renth officer who directed the artillery 
 began to draw it offl 
 
 At this moment of exultation and triumph, when British valour was just about 
 to reap that safety which it had so well fought for, thei'e occurred an unlucky 
 accident, which entirely altered the fortune of the day. The tumbrils contain- 
 ing the ammunition suddenly blew up, with two dreadful explosions, in the 
 centre of the British line. The whole face of their column was laid open, and 
 their artillery overturned and destroyed. 1 he destruction of men was great, but 
 the total loss of their ammunition was still more fatal to the survivors. Tippoo 
 Saib, a worthy son of his martial father, instantly saw and seized the moment of 
 advantage, and, without waiting for orders, fell with the utmost rapidity, at the 
 head of the Mogul and Carnatic horse, into the broken square, which had not 
 yet time in any degree to recover its form and order. This attack by the ene- 
 my's cavalry being immediately seconded by the French corps, and by the first 
 line of infantry, determined at once the fr.te of our unfortunate army. After 
 successive prodigies of valour, the brave Sepoys were almost to a man cut to 
 pieces. 
 
 Colonels Baillie and Fletcher made one more desperate effort ; they rallied 
 the Europeans, and, under the fire of the whole artillery of the enemy, gained a 
 little eminence and formed themselves into a square. In this fonn, did this 
 invincible band, though totally without ammunition, the officers fighting only 
 with their swords, and the soldiers with their bare bayonets, resist and repulse 
 the enemy in thirteen different attacks ; until, at length, incapable of withstand- 
 ing the successive torrents of fresh troops which were continually pouring upon 
 them, they were fairly borne down and trampled upon, many of them still con- 
 tinuing to fight under the very legs of the horses and elephants. 
 
 Out of about 4,000 Sepoys and 800 Europeans who had commenced this 
 engagement, only about 200 of the latter survived. Colonel Fletcher was among 
 the slain, and Captain Baird had wounds in four places. When he and Colonel 
 Baillie, with other captive officers, were taken before Hyder Ally, the latter 
 gentleman said to the barbarous chief, " Your son will inform you, that you owe 
 the victory to our disaster, rather than to our defeat." Hyder angrily ordered 
 them from his presence, and commanded them instantly to prison. The slaugh- 
 ter among the Mysore troops was very great, amounting, it is said, to three 
 times the whole British army. When Sir Hector Munroe 1'arned the unlnppy 
 fate of his detachment, he found it necessary to retreat to Madras. 
 
 Captain Baird, with the officers, remained in a dungeon in one of Hyder's 
 forts for three days and a half; he was chained by the leg to another prisoner, 
 as much of the slaughter in Hyder's army was attributed to the grenadiers. At 
 length, in July 1784, he was released, and joined his regiment at Arcot In 
 1787, he removed with his regiment (now styled the 71st) to Bombay, and re- 
 turned to Madras next year. On the 5th of June 1789, he received the majo- 
 rity of the 71st, and in October obtained leave of absence, and returned to 
 Britain. In 1791, he returned as lieutenant-colonel of the 71st, and joined the 
 army under the marquis Cornwallis. As commander of a brigade of Sepoys, he 
 was present at the attack of a number of Droogs, or hill-forts, and at the siege 
 of Seringapatam, in 1791 and 1792; and likewise at the storming of Tippoo
 
 GENERAL SIR DAVID BAIRD. 99 
 
 Sultaun's lines and camps in the island of Seringapatam. In 1793, he com- 
 inanded a brigade of Europeans, and was present at the siege of Pondicherry. 
 He received a colonelcy in 1795. In October 1797, he embarked at Ma- 
 dras with his regiment for Europe; iu December, when he arrived at the 
 Cape of Good Hope, he was appointed Brigadier-general, and placed on that 
 staff; in command of a brigade. June 18, 1798, he was appointed Major-gene- 
 ral, and returned to the staff in India. In January 1799, he arrived at Madras, 
 in command of two regiments of foot, together with the drafts of the 28th dra- 
 goons. 3Iay 4, he commanded the storming party at that distinguished action, the 
 assault of Seringapatam ; when, in requital of his brilliant services, he was pre- 
 sented by the army, through the Commander-in-chief, with the state sword of 
 Tippoo Sultaun, and also with a dress-sword from the field-officei-s serving under 
 his immediate command at the assault. 
 
 The eminent merit of Brigadier-general Baird was now fully known and 
 acknowledged by the government at home. He was therefore, in 1800, ap- 
 pointed to the command of an expedition against Batavia, but which was after- 
 wards sent to Egypt. He landed at Coseir in June, crossed the desert, and, 
 embarking on the Nile, descended to Grand Cairo ; whence he set out for Alex- 
 andria, which he reached a few days before it surrendered to General Hutchison. 
 Next year he led the Egyptian Indian army overland to India, where he was 
 concerned in various military transactions. His services, however, being soon 
 after superseded by Sir Arthur Wellesley (afterwards the illustrious protector of 
 Europe), he sailed for Britain with his staff, March 1803, and after a tedious 
 voyage, during which he was taken prisoner by a French privateer, but after- 
 wards retaken, he arrived in England in November. 
 
 Sir David Baird was received at the British court with great distinction. In 
 December, he received the royal permission to wear the Turkish order of the 
 Crescent. In June, 1 804, he received the honour of knighthood ; and on the 
 1 8th of August following became a knight companion of the Bath. With the 
 increased rank of Lieutenant-general, he commanded an expedition which sailed 
 in October 1805, for the Cape of Good Hope. Landing there, January 6, 1806, 
 he attacked and beat the Dutch army, and on the 18th received the surrender 
 of the colony. Being recalled, he arrived in Britain, April 1807, and was 
 shifted from the colonelcy of the 54th, which he had held for some years, to 
 that of the 24th, and placed on the foreign staff under General Lord Cathcart. 
 He commanded a division at the siege of Copenhagen, where he was twice 
 slightly wounded ; and returned with the army in November. 
 
 After a short period of service in Ireland, Sir David sailed in command of an 
 annament of 10,000 men for Corunna, where he arrived in November 1808, 
 and formed a junction with the army under General Sir John Moore. He com- 
 iii anded the first division of that army, and in the battle of Corunna, January 
 I 6, 1809, he lost his left arm. 
 
 By the death of Sir John Moore in this action, Sir David succeeded to the 
 chief command, and had the honour of communicating intelligence of the victory 
 to government. On this occasion, he received for the fourth time in his Jife 
 the thanks of parliament, and, April 13, was created a baronet, with very hon- 
 ourable armorial bearings allusive to the transactions of his life. After tins 
 period, he never asrain appeared in active service. In 1810, he married 
 Preston Campbell, of Ferntower and Lochlane, Perthshire, by whom he left no 
 issue. In 1814, he was promoted to the rank of General, and in 1S19 became 
 governor of Kinsale in Ireland, and in 1827, of Fort George in the north of 
 Scotland. This brave veteran died at 'an advanced age, August 18, 1829, at 
 his seat of Ferntower in Perthshire. His lady, who survived him till 1847, erected
 
 100 WALTER BALCANQUEL, D.D. 
 
 a monument to his memory on the top of a romantic hill, named, Tom-na- 
 cliaistel, (/. e. the hill of the castle,) in the neighbourhood of Ferntower. 
 
 BALCANQUEL, WALTER, D.D. an eminent divine of the seventeenth century, 
 was the son of the Hev. Walter Balcanquel, who was a minister of Bdinbwgb for 
 forty-three years, and died in August, 1 (i 1 6. Dr Walter Balcanquel was born 
 at Edinburgh. It has been supposed that he was himself a minister of Edin- 
 burgh ; but probably the writer who makes this statement only mistakes him for 
 his father, who bore the same name. He entered a bachelor of divinity at Pem- 
 broke Hall, Oxford, where, September 8th, 1611, lie was admitted a fellow. 
 He appears to have enjoyed the patronage and friendship of Ling James, and 
 his first preferment was to be one of the royal chaplains. In 1(>17, he became 
 Waster of the Savoy in the Strand, London ; which office, however, he soon after 
 resigned in favour of Mark Antony de Dominis, archbishop of Spalatro, who 
 came to England on account of religion, and became a candidate for the king's 
 favour. Iii 1618, Dr Balcanquel was sent to the celebrated synod of Dort, as 
 v one of the representatives of the church of Scotland. He has given an account 
 of a considerable part of the proceedings of this grand religious council, in a 
 series of letters to Sir Dudley Carleton, which are to be found in " The Golden 
 Remains of the ever memorable Mr John Hales of Eaton, 4to. 1673." In 
 1621, the Archbishop of Spalatro having resigned the mastership of the Savoy, 
 Dr Balcanquel was re-appointed; and on the 12th of March, 1624, being then 
 doctor of divinity, he was installed Dean of Rochester. George Heriot, at his 
 death, February 12th, 1624, ordained Dr Balcanquel to be one of the three 
 executors of his last will, and to take the principal charge of the establishment 
 of his hospital at Edinburgh. Probably, the experience which he had already 
 acquired in the management of the Savoy Hospital might be the chief cause of 
 his being selected for this important duty. Heriot appointed Dr Balcanquel, by 
 hL> will, " to repair, with all the convenience he can, after my decease, to the town 
 of Edinburgh," in order to conclude with the magistrates about the business of 
 the hospital ; allowing him, for his pains, in addition to the sum of one hundred 
 merks, which he enjoyed as an ordinary executor, one hundred pounds sterling, 
 payable by two equal instalments the first three months after the decease of the 
 testator, and the second at the completion of the hospital 
 
 Dr Balcanquel is entitled to no small commendation for the able manner in 
 which he discharged this great and onerous trust. The Statutes, which, in terms 
 of the testator's will, were drawn up by him, are dated 1627, and do great 
 credit to his sagacity and practical good sense. 1 
 
 They conclude with the following adjuration to the magistrates and olergy of Edinburgh, 
 who were designed in all time coming to be the managers of the hospital ; 'a piece of com- 
 position, calculated, we should think, by its extraordinary solemnity and ini press! veness, to 
 have all the effect which could be expected, from couuecuug the obligations of the trustees with 
 the sanctions of religion : 
 
 * And now, finally, 1, the unworthy servant of God, Walter B:ilcaviquel, the composer of 
 these Statutes, do operate and charge the consciences of you, the Lord Provost. Magistrates, 
 and Ministry, and Cuuiicil of the city of Edinburgh, and of all those who shall be your suc- 
 cessors, unto the second coming of the Son of (jod, and that by the bowels of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, who one day will come to judge the quick and the dead, and take a particular 
 account of every one of you, for this particular stewardship, wherewith you are trusted ; by 
 the zeal and honour of our reformed religion, which by this pious work of the founder, is 
 illustrated and vindicated from the calumnies of the adversaries to our holy profession, by that 
 pious respect which you, his fellow-citizens, ought to carry to the pious memory and last will 
 of the religious founder, your worthy citizen, George Heriot. And, lastly, for the clearing 
 if your own consciences, and your own particular accounts in the great day of the Lord, let 
 none of you, who read these presents, nor your successors, who in after ages shall come to 
 read them, offer to frustrate the pious Founder of his holy intention, either by taking, direct- 
 ly or indirectly, from this hospital, any thing which he, in his piety, hath devoted unto it, 
 \>t by altering it, or bestowing it upon any other use, though you shall conceive it to be far
 
 ALEXANDER BALFOUR. 101 
 
 Dr Balcanquel's next appearance in the public concerns of his native country, 
 was of a less happy character. In 1638, when Charles 1. sent down the Mar- 
 quis of Hamilton to Scotland, to treat with the Covenanters, the Dean of Roches, 
 ter accompanied his grace in the capacity of chaplain. What was his external 
 behaviour on this occasion, we do not know; but it was afterwards surmised by 
 the Covenanters, that he had been deputed by Archbishop Laud, as a spy, at 
 once upon the Marquis, who was suspected of moderation, and the people with 
 whom he was dealing. It is asserted by Sir James Balfour, in his " Memorialls 
 of State," that Dr Balcanquel also communicated intelligence of all that happened 
 In Scotland, to Signor George Con, the Pope's legate, " as some of his inter- 
 cepted letters can beare recorde." Early in the ensuing year, was published an 
 apologetical narrative of the court-proceedings, under the title of " His Majes- 
 ties Large Declaration, concerning the Late Tumults in Scotland," which, by 
 universal and apparently uncontradicted report, was ascribed to the pen of Dr 
 BalcanqueL While this work was received by the friends of the king as a 
 triumphant vindication of his attempts upon the purity of the Scottish churcli, 
 it only excited new indignation in the minds of the outraged people, who soon 
 after appeared in arms at Dunse law, to defend their religious freedom with ibe 
 sword. On the 14th of May, 1C 3 9, at the very time when the armies were 
 about to meet on the borders, Dr Balcanquel, apparently in requital of his exer- 
 tions, was installed Dean of Durham. He had now rendered himself a marked 
 man to the Scottish presbyterians, and accordingly his name is frequently alluded 
 to in their publications as an " incendiary" Under this character he was 
 denounced by the Scottish estates, July 2s), 1641, along with the Earl of Traquair, 
 Sir John Hay, Clerk Register, Sir Robert Spottiswoode, and Maxwell, Bishop 
 of Ross, all of whom were regarded as the principal causes of the war between 
 the kin<>- and his people. In the Canterburian's Self-Conviction, a pamphlet 
 mitten in 1641, by the Rev. Robert Baillie, against Archbishop Laud, he is 
 spoken of in a style of such asperity, as might have convinced him that, in the 
 event of a complete triumph of the presbyterian party, he would share in the 
 proceedings which were now directed against that unhappy prelate. Accordingly, 
 the very next year, when the king could no longer protect his partizans, Dr 
 Balcanquel was forced from his mastership of the Savoy, plundered, sequestered, 
 and obliged to fly from London. Repairing to Oxford, he attached himself to 
 the precarious fortunes of his sovereign, and for several years afterwards, had to 
 shift about from place to place, wherever he could find security for his life. 
 At length, having taken refuge in Chirk Castle, Denbighshire, he died there 
 in a very cold season, on Christmas day, 1645. He was buried next day in 
 the parish church of Chirk, where some years after a splendid monument was 
 erected to his memory by a neighbouring royalist, Sir Thomas Middleton of 
 Chirk Castle. 
 
 BALFOUR, ALEXANDER, an esteemed miscellaneous writer, was born M 
 1st, 1767, in the parish of Monikie, Forfarshire. His parents belonged to the 
 
 Ik-ing fully assured of your goodly rare and zealous }*^ u t ^&^ 
 Father, and the Holy Ghost, three Persons, but one undivided . Essence of 1 
 for allother their blessings, so in particular for the great chanty < 
 ligious founder, be ascribed, as is most due, all praise, honour, and glory, fit 
 
 iTis alleged, by traditionary report, that the taste of Dr Balc ^"^ ta^^fflSJf f" ' 
 SSfo^n1^ 0f ofoSenW wSch ifX-vS 'in TCe whidows of the building 
 
 >.i..,ni^ii hriwp.vwr nffart.\nf onlv the details, an
 
 102 ALEXANDER BALFOUR. 
 
 humbler rural class. His education was very limited, and he was apprenticed at an 
 early age to a weaver. His first attempts at composition were made when he was 
 twelve years of age. At a somewhat maturer age he contributed verses to a newspaper 
 named the "British Chronicle," to Dr Anderson's "Bee," and to several provincial 
 miscellanies. At twenty-six he became clerk to a manufacturing house in Arbroatb, 
 and married in the following year. From the Arbroath establishment, in which he 
 had for several years been a partner, he removed, in 1814, to Trottick near Dundee, 
 where he formed a connection with a branch of an extensive London bouse. In' the 
 ensuing year, so memorable for calamity in the commercial world, the house in which 
 lie had embarked his fortune was suddenly involved in bankruptcy. Till some better 
 employment should occur to him, Balfour resorted to the pen, which had never been 
 altogether laid aside in his busiest and most prosperous days, and, in 1819, he produced 
 a novel entitled, "Campbell, or the Scottish Probationer," which was received by 
 the public in a favourable manner. While the work was in progress, he accepted 
 of a dependent situation at Balgonie in Fife, the emoluments of which were barely 
 sufficient to maintain a family consisting of a wife, two sons, and three daughters. 
 He was at length induced to remove to Edinburgh, where, in 1818, he obtained 
 employment as a clerk from Mr Blackwood the publisher. Ilis health suffered from 
 constant confinement to the desk, and in June, 1819, he was obliged to relinquish 
 his employment by a threatened attack of paralysis. For ten years after the month 
 of October, he was unable to set his foot upon the ground, and spent his days in a 
 wheel-chair. He was, nevertheless, enabled to devote himself, with unimpaired 
 energy, to literary labour. He edited, in 1819, the poetical works of his deceased 
 friend, Richard Gall, adding a biographical preface ; and contributed various articles 
 of merit, consisting of tales, sketches, and poems, descriptive of Scottish rural life, 
 to Constable's Edinburgh Magazine, of which he continued one of the chief literary 
 supporters till its close, in 1826. In this magazine appeared the poetical series, 
 entitled, " Characters omitted in Crabbe's Parish Register," which was afterwards 
 published in a separate volume. In 1820, he published a volume, under the title of 
 " Contemplation, and other Poems." In 1823 he began to contribute novels to the 
 so-called Minerva Press, his first work being, " The Foundling of Glenthorn, or the 
 Smuggler's Cave," a tale in three volumes. Amidst the pangs of his disorder, Mr. 
 Balfour continued to enjoy such good geneial health, that he is said to have not 
 been absent from his family breakfast-table more than twelve times during the long 
 period often years. He slept regularly, and generally was able to spend twelve or 
 fourteen hours each day in study and composition. His eyesight was as good, and 
 his intellectual powers continued as vigorous as at any period of his life; hut his 
 feelings were morbidly sensitive, and he had little command over their expression. 
 In the year 1827, through the intervention, it is believed, of Mr. Joseph Hume, M.P., 
 who presented a number of Mr Balfour's works lo the premier, Mr Canning, a treasury 
 donation of one hundred pounds was obtained for this unfortunate son of genius. 
 
 The latest considerable work of Mr Balfour was a novel, entitled, " Highland 
 Mary," in four volumes. It is written with great simplicity and taste, and, as a 
 story, is replete with a mournful pathos. He continued to the last to contribute to 
 the periodical works of the day. 
 
 lie enjoyed his usual health, till the 1st of September, 1829, when an illness 
 commenced that hurried him to the grave. For some days previous to his death, 
 he was deprived of speech, and communicated with his friends by means of an 
 alphabet which he had occasionally used before. He died, September 12th, 1829, 
 in the sixty-third year of his age. A memoir of Balfour was written by the late 
 Mr Moir, of Musselburgh ("Delta"), and prefixed to a posthumous volume of his 
 remains, published under the title of Weeds and Wi/d/.owers.
 
 Silt ANDREW BALFOUR, BART., M.D 103 
 
 BALFOUR, (Sir) ANDREW, Bart. M.D. who first introduced the dissection of the 
 human body into Scotland, and that at a very superstitious period ; who pro- 
 jected the first hospital in the country, for the relief of disease and poverty at 
 the public expense ; who was the founder of the botanic gajrden at Edinburgh, 
 and almost the father of the science in Scotland; who planned the royal 
 college of physicians at Edinburgh ; and bequeathed to the public a museum, 
 which at that time would have been an ornament to any university, or any me- 
 tropolis, was the fifth and youngest son of Sir Michael Balfour of Denmilne in 
 Fife, and was born at that place on the 18th of January, 1630. He prosecuted 
 his studies in the university of St Andrews, where he took his degree of A. M. 
 At this period his education was superintended by his brother Sir James Balfour, 
 the famous antiquary, and lion king at arms to Charles I., who was about thirty 
 years older than himself. At college he first discovered his attachment to botany, 
 which in him is said to have led to the study of physic, instead of being, as it 
 generally is, a handmaid to that art. Quitting the university about the year 
 ido.J, he removed to London, where his medical studies were chiefly directed by 
 the celebrated Harvey, by Sir Theodore Mayerne, the distinguished physician of 
 king James 1., and various other eminent practitioners. He afterwards travelled 
 to Blois in France, and remained there for some time, to see the botanic garden 
 of the Duke of Orleans, which was then the best in Europe, and was kept by his 
 countryman Dr Morison. Here he contracted a warm friendship for that great 
 botanist, which continued unimpaired while they lived. From Blois he went 
 to Paris, where, for a long time, he prosecuted his medical studies with great 
 ardour. He completed his education at the university of Caen, from which he 
 received the degrees of bachelor and doctor of physic, on the 20th of September, 
 1661. 
 
 Returning to London soon afterwards, Dr Balfour was introduced to Charles 
 II., who named him as the most proper person to attend the young earl of Ro- 
 chester on his continental travels. After an absence of four years, he returned 
 with his pupil in 1G67. During their tour he endeavoured, and at that time 
 not without some appearance of success, to recall that abandoned young noble- 
 man to the paths of virtue, and to inspire him with the love of learning. Ro- 
 chester himself often acknowledged, and to Bishop Burnet, in particular, only 
 three days before his death, how much he was bound to love and honour Dr Bal- 
 four, to whom, next to his parents, he thought he owed more than to all the world. 
 
 On returning to his native country, Balfour settled at St Andrews as a physi- 
 cian. " He brought with him," says Dr Walker, in his Essays on Natural His- 
 tory, " the best library, especially in medicine and natural history, that had till 
 then appeared in Scotland ; and not only these, but a perfect knowledge of the 
 languages in which they were written ; likewise many unpublished manuscripts 
 of learned men, a series of antique medals, modern medallions, and pictures and 
 busts, to form the painter and the architect ; the remarkable arms, vestments, and 
 ornaments of foreign countries ; numerous mathematical, philosophical, and sur- 
 gical instruments, which he not only possessed, but used ; with operations in sur- 
 gery, till then unknown in this country ; a complete cabinet with all the simples 
 of the materia medica, and new compositions in pharmacy ; and large collections 
 of the fossils," plants, and animals, not only of the foreign countries he traversed, 
 but of the most distant parts of the world," 
 
 Dr Balfour's merit was too conspicuous to suffer him to remain long at St An- 
 drews. In the year 1670, he removed to Edinburgh, where he immediately 
 came into great practice. Here, among other improvements, he prosecuted the 
 manufacture of paper, and was the means of introducing that valuable art into 
 the country though for many years it remained in a state of complete, or nearly
 
 104 SIR ANDREW BALFOUR, BART., M.D. 
 
 complete dormancy ; the people deriving stationary articles of all kinds from 
 Holland. Adjoining to his house, he had a small botanic garden, which he fur- 
 nished by the seeds he received from his foreign correspondents ; and in this 
 garden he raised many plants which were then first introduced into Scotland. 
 One of his fellow-labourers in this department was Patrick Murray of Livingston, 
 whom he had initiated into the study of natural history. This young gentleman, 
 who enjoyed an ample fortune, formed at his seat in the country a botanic gar- 
 den, containing one thousand species of plants, which at that period was a very 
 large collection. He traversed the whole of France in quest of the plants o 
 that country ; and on his way to Italy, he prematurely died of a fever. Soon 
 after his death, Dr Balfour transferred his collection from Livingston to Edin- 
 bur-h; and with it, joined to his own, he had the merit of laying the foundation 
 of the public botanic garden. The necessary expense of this new institution 
 was at first defrayed by Dr Balfour, Sir Robert Sibbald, and the Faculty of Ad- 
 vocates. But at length the city allotted a piece of ground near Trinity College 
 Church for a public garden, and out of the revenues of the university, allowed a 
 certain sum for its support. As the first keeper of thjs garden, Dr Balfour 
 selected Mr James Sutherland ; who, in 1684, published a work, entitled, Ilor- 
 tus Edinburgensis. [See SUTHERLAND.] The new institution soon became con- 
 siderable : plants and seeds were sent from Mori son at Oxford, Watts at London, 
 Mai-chant at Paris, Herman at Leyden, and Spottiswood at Tangier. From the 
 last were received many African plants, which flourished in this country. 
 
 Such efforts as these, by a native Scotsman, occurring at a time when the at- 
 tention of the country seems to have been almost exclusively devoted to contend- 
 ing systems of church-government, are truly grateful in the contemplation. It 
 is only to be lamented, that the spirit which presided over them, was premature 
 in its appearance; it found no genial field to act upon, and it was soon forgotten 
 in the prevailing distraction of the public mind. Sir Andrew Balfour was the 
 morning-star of science in Scotland, but he might almost b said to have set be- 
 fore the approach of day. 
 
 He was created a baronet by Charles IT., which seems to indicate that, like 
 most men of literary and scientific -character in that age, he maintained a senti- 
 ment of loyalty to the existing dynasty and government, which was fast decaying 
 from the public mind at large. His interest with the ministry, and with the 
 municipality of Edinburgh, seems to have always been considerable, and was uni- 
 formly exerted for the public good, and for the encouragement of merit. 
 
 Upon his settlement in Edinburgh, he had found the medical art taught in a 
 very loose and irregular manner. In order to place it on a more respectable 
 footing, he planned, with Sir Robert Sibbald, the royal college of physicians ; 
 and of that respectable society his brethren elected him the first president. 
 When the college undertook the publication of a Pftarmacopeeia, the whole ar- 
 rangement of the materia medica was committed to his particular care. For 
 such a task he was eminently qualified by his skill in natural history. This per- 
 formance made its appearance in 1(585 ; and, in the opinion of Dr Cullen, it is 
 superior to any Pharmacopoeia of that era. 
 
 Not long before his decesise, his desire to promote the science of medicine in 
 his native country, joined to the universal humanity of his disposition, led him 
 to project the foundation of an hospital in Edinburgh. The institution was at 
 first narrow and confined, but it survived to be expanded into full shape, as the 
 royal infirmary, under the care of George Drummond. Sir Andrew died 
 in 1694, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, after a severe conflict with the 
 gout and other painful disorders ; which afforded him an opportunity of display- 
 ing upon the approach of death ; those virtues and that equanimity, which had
 
 SIR JAMES BALFOUR. 
 
 distinguished him during his life. His person, like his mind and manners, was 
 
 society, 
 
 polite demeanour. A print of him was executed at Paris ; but no copy is known 
 to exist. 
 
 His library and museum were the anxious result of fourteen years of travelling, 
 and between twenty and thirty more of correspondence. For their accommoda- 
 tion, he had built an addition to his house when he had nearly arrived at his for- 
 tieth year; but after the building was completed, he found himself so infirm as 
 to be unable to place them in that order which he intended. After his death, 
 liis library, consisting of about three thousand volumes, besides manuscripts, was 
 sold, we suppose, by public auction. There is a printed catalogue still extant. 
 His museum was deposited in the hall which was, till 1829, occupied as the uni- 
 versity library. There it remained many years, useless and neglected ; some 
 parts of it falling to inevitable decay, and other parts being abstracted. "Yet, 
 even after 1750," says Dr Walker, "it still continued a considerable collection, 
 which I have good reason to remember, as it was the sight of it, about that time, 
 that first inspired me with an attachment to natural history. Soon after that 
 period," to pursue a narrative so deeply disgraceful to the age and the institu- 
 tion referred to, " it was dislodged from the hall where it had been long kept ; 
 was thrown aside, and exposed as lumber ; was further and further dilapidated, 
 and at' length almost completely demolished. In the year 1782, out of its ruiiu 
 and rubbish I extracted many pieces still valuable and useful, and placed them 
 here in the best order I could. These, I hope, may remain long, and be consi- 
 dered as so many precious relics of one of the best and greatest men this country 
 has produced." 
 
 From the account that has been given of Sir Andrew Balfour. every person 
 conversant in natural history or medicine must regret that he never appeared as 
 an author. To his friend, Mr Murray of Livingston, he addressed a series of 
 familiar letters, for the direction of his researches while abroad. These letters, 
 forming the only literary relics of Balfour, were subsequently published by his son, 
 in the year 1700. 
 
 BALFOUR, (Sir) JAMES, an eminent lawyer and public character of the sixteenth 
 century, was a son of Balfour of Monquhanny, in Fife, a very ancient family. In 
 youth, being designed for the church, he made considerable proficiency, not only 
 in ordinary literature, but in the study of divinity and law ; which were all alike 
 necessary in those times for an ecclesiastic, on account of the mixed character 
 which the age admitted to be assumed by such individuals. Balfour, while still 
 a young man, was so unfortunate as to join with the conspirators who, after assas- 
 sinating Cardinal Beaton, held out the castle of St. Andrews against the governor 
 Arran. He seems, however, not to have been a very cordial partizan of the con- 
 spirators. John Knox, in his own vigorous and plain-spoken manner, styled him the 
 Blasphemous Ba'four, on account of his having refused to communicate along with 
 his reforming associates. Balfour shared the fate of his companions in being 
 sent to the French galleys 7 and was confined in the same vessel along with Knor, 
 from which he escaped in 1550, along with the rest, by the tacit permission of the 
 French government. 
 
 2 The following anecdote of Balfour in connexion with Knox-is related by Dr M'Crie. 
 " The galleys returned to Scotland in summer 1548. as near as 1 can collect, and continued 
 for a considerable time on the east coast, to watch for English vessels Kno*s health was 
 now greatly impaired by the severity of his confinement, and he was seized with a tVver, 
 during jWhich his life was despaired of by all in the ship. But even in this state, his forti-
 
 106 
 
 SIU JAMES BALFOUR. 
 
 Balfour seems to have afterwards joined in the proceedings of the Reformers, 
 but only with courtier-like temperance, and without exhibiting much zeal in the 
 Protestant cause. He was preferred to the ecclesiastical appointment of official of 
 Lothian, and afterwards became rector of Fhsk, a parish in 'his native county. 
 In 1563, he was appointed by Queen Mary to be a Lord of Session, the court then 
 being composed partly of churchmen, and partly of laics. In 1564, when the 
 Commissary court was instituted in place of the ecclesiastical tribunal, which had 
 been dissolved at the Reformation, Balfour became one of the four commissaries, 
 with a salary of four hundred merks, while the others had only three hundred. In 
 July, 1565, the Queen extended the further favour of admitting him into her privy 
 council. 
 
 Balfour was one of those servants of the state, who, being advanced rather 01. 
 account of merit than birth, used at all times to give great offence to the Scottish 
 nobility. It seems to have never been supposed by this haughty class, that there- 
 was the least necessity for ingenious or faithful service in the odi -ials employed 
 by majesty : birth and following were the only qualifications allowed by them 
 to be of any value. Accordingly, it is not surprising to and that the same conspi- 
 racy which overthrew the " kinless " adventurer Rizzio, contemplated the destruc- 
 tion of Hulibiir. He was so fortunate, however, as to escape, and even derived 
 some advantage from the event, being promoted to the office of clerk-register, in 
 room of Mr James Macgill, who was concerned in the conspiracy. He was also 
 about this time made a knight, and appointed to be one of the commissioners 
 for revising, correcting, and publishing the ancient laws and statutes of the 
 kingdom. , 
 
 In the beginning of the year 1 53 7, Sir James Balfour was appointed gover- 
 nor of .Edinburgh castle. In this important situation, he naturally became an 
 object of great solicitude to the confederate lords, who, in the ensuing May, com- 
 menced a successful rebellion against Queen Mary. It would appear that Sir 
 James was not now more loyal than many other persons \vlio hail experienced 
 the favour of Mary. He is said to have even been the means of throwing into 
 the hands of the confederates that celebrated box of letters, upon which they en- 
 deavoured to ground the proof of her guilt There can be no doubt that he 
 was at this time in the way of receiving high favours from the Earl of Murray, 
 who was the chief man opposed to the dethroned queen. He was, in September, 
 15o'7, admitted by Murray a lord of his privy council, and made commendator 
 ot the priory of 1'it ten weem ; and in December, a bargain was accomplished, by 
 which he agreed to accept a pension of L.500 and the presidency of the Court 
 of Session, in lieu of the clerk-registry, which 31urray wished to be restored to 
 his friend Macgill. Sir James continued faithful to the party which opposed 
 Queen Mary, till the death of Murray, January, 1569-70, when he was in some 
 measure compelled to revert to the Queen's side, on account of a charge prefer 
 red against him by the succeeding Regent, Lennox, who taxed him with a share 
 in the murder of Darnley. For this accusation no proof was ever adduced, but 
 
 tude of mind rema ned unsubdued, and he comforted his fellow-prisoners with hopes of re- 
 lease, lo their anxious desponding inquiries, natural to men in their situation, ' If he 
 thought they would ever obtain their liberty,' his uniform answer was, God will deliver us 
 to his glory, even in this life.' While they lay on the coast between Dundee and St An- 
 drews, Mr (afterwards Sir) James Bulfour, who was confined in the same ship, desired him 
 to look at the land and see if he knew it Though at that time very sick, he replied, 'Yes 
 I know it well, for I see the steeple of that place where God first opened my mouth in pub- 
 lic to his glory : and I am fully persuaded, how weak sne>er I now appear, that 1 shall not 
 depart this life till that my tongue shall glorify his godly name in the same place.' This 
 sinking reply Sir James repeated In the presence of many witnesses, a number of years 
 before KIWI returned to Sco'land. and when there was very little prospect of his words be- 
 ing veritied." Life of Knot, 1st edit. t >. 53.
 
 SIR JAMES BALFOUR. 107 
 
 even allowing Sir James to have been guilty, it will only add another to the 
 list of great men concerned in the transaction, and show the more clearly how 
 neither learning, rank, official dignity, nor any other ennobling qualification, 
 prevented a man in those days from staining his hands with blood. Balfour 
 outlived Lennox, and was serviceable in bringing about the pacification between 
 the King's and Queen's party, under Morton, in 1573. He wo'.'ld appear to have 
 been encouraged by Morton in the task of revising the laws of the country, which 
 he at length completed in a style allowed at that time to be most masterly. Mor- 
 ton afterwards thought proper to revive the charge brought by lyennox against 
 Sir James, who was consequently obliged to retire to France, where he lived for 
 some years. He returned in 1580, and revenged the persecution of Morton, 
 by producing against him, on his trial, a deed to which he had acceded, in com- 
 mon with others of the Scottish nobility, alleging Bothwell's innocence of the 
 King's murder, and recommending him to the Queen as a husband. Sir Jarae* 
 lied before the 14th of January, 1533-4. 
 
 The Practicks of Scots Law, compiled 'by Sir James Balfour of Pittendreich, 
 president of the Court of Session, continued to be used and consulted in manu- 
 script, both by students and practitioners, till nearly a century after his decease, 
 when it was for the first time supplanted by the Institutes of Lord Stair. Even 
 after that event, it was held as a curious repertory of the old practices of Scottish 
 law, besides fulfilling certain uses not answered by the work of Lord Stair. It 
 k was therefore printed in 1754, by the Rirddimans, along with an accurate bio- 
 graphical preface by Walter Goodnl. The work was of considerable service 
 to Dr Jamieson in his Dictionary of the Scottish language. 
 
 BALFOUR, (SiR) JAMES, an eminent antiquary, herald, and annalist, was 
 born about the close of the sixteenth century. He was the eldest son of a small 
 Fife laird, Michael Balfour of Denmylne, who derived his descent from James, 
 son of Sir John Balfour of Balgarvy, a cadet J of the ancient and honourable 
 house of Balfour of Balfour in Fife. James Balfour, the ancestor of Sir 
 Michael, had obtained the estate of Denmylne from James II., in the four- 
 teenth year of his reign, which corresponds with 1450-1. Michael Balfour, the 
 father of Sir James, and also of Sir Andrew, whose life has been already com- 
 memorated, was, in the words of Sir Robert Sibbald, " equally distinguished for 
 military bravery and civil prudence." He bore the honourable office of Comp- 
 troller of the Scottish Household, in the reign of Charles I., and in 1630 was 
 knighted, at Holyrood house, by George, Viscount Dupplin, Chancellor of Scot- 
 land, under his Majesty's special warrant. This eminent personage was, by 
 Jean Durham, daughter of James Durham of Pitkerrow, the father of five sons, 
 all of whom attained to distinction in public life, besides nine daughters, who 
 all formed honourable alliances, except two, who died unmarried. He lived to 
 see three hundred of his own descendants ; a number which his youngest son, 
 Sir Andrew, lived to see doubled. 
 
 Sir Michael Balfour gave his eldest son an education suitable to the extended 
 capacity which he displayed in his earliest years. This education, of which th 
 fruits are apparent in his taste and writings, was accompanied by a thorough 
 initiation into the duties of religion, as then professed on a presbytenan 
 model The genius of the future antiquary was first exhibited in a turn for 
 poetry, which was a favourite study among the scholars of that period, even 
 where there was no particular aptitude to excel in its composition, but for which 
 
 1 This branch was ennobled in 1607, in the person of Michael Balfour of Balsarvy, win, 
 having served King James in several embassies to the princ.p.i! courts 
 created Lord Balfour of Burleigh This peerage was attainted in consequence ot the CPU- 
 .-en; of its occupant in the civil war of 1715.
 
 108 SIR JAMES BALFOUR. 
 
 Sir James Balfour appears to have had a genuine taste. His juvenile proficiency 
 in versification is thus alluded to by the poet Leoch, or Leochieus, in his &tren<s, 
 published in 1626, of which that entitled Janus is dedicated Generoso Juveni 
 Jacobo Balfourio Kincardio : 
 
 Hunc tu carmhiibus constrictum, Jacobe, Latinis 
 
 Coge tuis numeris, quos Musa Caledonis apta 1 , 
 
 Et natura tibi ; nam tu quoque Scotica Sirun. 
 
 Pauthea nostra tu est ita culm Iseta Britanno, 
 
 Et meliora mea, si quid queat esse, Puella. 
 
 It appears that Balfour, who cultivated Scottish vernacular poetry, had success- 
 fully translated Leech's Latin poem, entitled, PaiU/tea, into that style of verse ; 
 therefore the Latinist says 
 
 Namque ut pulchra satis, minus est mea Panthea rasta ; 
 Quum non pulchra minus, et tua casta mai;is. 
 
 Sir Robert Sibbald informs us that he had seen a volume containing Latin and 
 Scottish poems by Sir James Balfour, which, however, is now lost. In its 
 absence, the taste at least of the youthful antiquary for poetical objects of con- 
 templation, is evinced by the following- letter, extracted from a transcribed col- 
 lection of his epistles in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh. It is addressed 
 io Lord Elcho, but has no date. 
 
 MY LORD, 
 
 Ye aske of my health and quhat I am aboute. I make a returne, by that rill 
 issewing from the ocean of your love, that I am now taken witli the plesur of the 
 fieldes, and delyght als much in my reteired quietnes from out of the city, als your 
 lordship does to find a drag going cole at Cameron, 1 for as that promises you for your 
 pains riches, so does this to me healthful Iioures, and bountiful recreations with the 
 Muses, quhen as I often feid my eiyes with the fruitful usery of my winter labors, 
 much rejoysing that with healthful prosperity, you should remember your poorest 
 freindes. Onley let me pleid for my bypast silence, since I have nothing to wrcatt 
 but foolries, which I presume to be hot harsh musicke for so wyse and weill tuned 
 eares. Howsoever, quhen you are most idle, will ye be bot pleased to overlook this 
 paper, in which, without aney mehtall reservatione, I subscribe myselve, my lord, 
 
 Your lo : most faithful servant. 
 
 Balfour also appears, at an early period of his life, to have cultivated the 
 society of William Drummond of Hawthornden, then by far the highest poetical 
 name in Scotland. Probably, as none of his own pieces have escaped to poste- 
 rity, they were such as to render their loss no matter of regret : he must, however, 
 have possessed the sort of qualification which -,ve have elsewhere''' designated as 
 passive or negative poetry, that is, a keen perception and relish of the compo- 
 itions of others, though perhaps destitute of the active power of creating good 
 poetry himself. This seems to be evidenced by the following letters to Drum 
 mond, which breathe strongly of that ardent affection, which we are apt to en- 
 tertain towards distinguished literary personages whose writings have made a 
 deep impression upon our minds. 
 
 " To HAWTHORNDEN, 
 
 " Sir, That love I beare you hath mened me. with this passing bcarir, to vrentt 
 thesse few lynes, content thus in haist to salut you, in doing quhereof, altho I fulfill 
 not the office of a frind, nevertheless I evedince the constancey of my affection. Yon 
 may therfore returne something to reid : and, if necessity urge, imitat my brevity 
 
 1 A coal field at Cameron, in Fife. 2 See Life of Ueonje Bamiatyne.
 
 SIR JAMES BALFOUR. 109 
 
 altho I be bewitched with the neatness of your pieces, yet, finding- heir in my selve 
 conscious, I daire hardly be bold to crave a quholl sheitt ot you ; howsoever, I will 
 be yours quhill I am JA . BALFOUR.' 
 
 " TO THE SAME, 
 
 " Sir, You desyre of me quholl sheitts, I must confess a symboll of our inteirest 
 iffections. Hot I, conscious of my own imbecility, rather prove a Laconick. No 
 .vounder altho my vaine be stopt, since this longe tyme you have not lanced it, aither 
 ivith the reiding of some of your pieces, or with so much as with a lyne of your hand. 
 Whence, then, is it that you should become such a usurer to him that has not receved 
 so long aney learnid annuity of you. Your starrie Urania, on the wings of a strong 
 wind, flees by us, in every ones handes : quherfor, I intreid you, wold you have me 
 deprived of it ? Have you thought me dead to the Muses, that aither I could nol 
 judge of it, or so dull that I could not praise it. In so doing-, you have diro"-att much 
 from my genius, and daily conversatione. Nevertheless, in despight of your inter- 
 dictione, I have gained a sight of it. I wold conceill my thoughts with silence. I 
 wold be revenged, if the admiratione of your writtings did not breke all sense of 
 injury ; and though you scatter abroad your pieces (yet ceasse not to love me,) I sail 
 enjoy them, though by the bountifull hand of ane other. Faire ye weill." 
 
 The poetical temperament of Sir James, and the courtly grace which generally 
 is, and ever ought to be the accompaniment of that character, is further shown 
 in the following epistle to a lady, which we consider a very elegant specimen of 
 the English prose of the age of Charles I., and, indeed, singularly so, when the 
 native country of the writer is considered : 
 
 " To A LADY FOR A FRIEND, 
 
 "Madam, You must appardone me if, after the remembring- of my best love to 
 you, I should render you hartly thanks for your affectione, since thankes are the best 
 knowen blossomes of the hartes strongest desyres. I never, for my pairt, doubtit of 
 your affectione, bot persuadit myselve that so good a creature could never prove 
 unconstant, and altho the fairest dayes may have some stormy overshadowings, yet I 
 persuade myselve that these proceids not from heavenly thinges, bot from vapors 
 arising from below, and though they-for a tyme conte [ractj the sun's heat, yet make 
 they that heat in the end to be more powerfull. I hope your friends sail have all 
 the contentment that layes in my power to gif them : And, since Malice itselve can 
 not judge of you bot noblie, I wisch that tyme make your affectione als constant, as 
 my harte sail ever prove, and remaine loyall ; and lest I seime to weirey you more 
 than myselve, again I must beg pardone for all my oversights (if you think of aney) 
 wich will be a rare perfectione of goodness in you to forgive freely, and love con- 
 stantly him quhosse greatest happines under heaven is always to leive and die 
 
 " Your trewly affcctionat sen-ant." 
 
 Sir James seems to have spent some of the years subsequent to 1626 in foreign 
 countries, where he is said to have improved himself much by observing the man- 
 ners of nations more polished than that to which he himself belonged, and by 
 forming the acquaintance of eminent literary men. At the close of his conti- 
 nental travels, he spent some time in London, and obtained the friendship of 
 the distinguished antiquary, Sir Robert Cotton, and also of Sir William Segar, 
 Garter King at Arms. He had now turned his attention to the study of herald- 
 ry, and the friendship of these men, which he obtained rather through the 
 intense sympathy produced by a common taste for rare pursuits, than by the 
 recommendations of others, was of material service in the completion of what 
 might be called his professional education. He also contracted a literary ac- 
 quaintance with Roger Dodsworth, and Sir William Dugdale, to whom he com-
 
 J10 SIR JAMES BALFOUR. 
 
 nrmicated several charters and other pieces of information regarding Scottish 
 ecclesiastical antiquities, which they attached to their Monasticon Anglicantim, 
 under the title, Ccenobia Scotica, and which Sir James afterwards expanded 
 into a distinct volume, under the title, Monasticon Scoticum. though, as Bishop 
 Nicholson has remarked, it looked more like an index to such a work than the 
 complete work itself. The friendship of Sir William Segar appears to have been 
 of considerable influence in the direction of Balfour's course of life. He exerted 
 himself to conciliate to his Scottish protege, the respect of the college of heralds ; 
 and his efforts were crowned with such success, that, in 1628, that body pre- 
 sented to Balfour the following honourable diploma : 
 
 " To all and singular to whom thir presents shall come, Greeting : Sir Wil- 
 liam Segar, Sir Richard St George, and Sir John Barroughe, Garter, Clarentius, 
 and Norroy, Kings of Arms ; William Penson, Lancaster; Sir Henry St George, 
 Richmond, etc. According to the laudable custome of nations, not to conceill 
 that honour which is due to verteu and learning, We doe testifie and beare record, 
 that James Balfour, Esq. by and alt our his insicht and knowledge in diverse 
 languages, has also singular good experience and knowledge in all antiquities 
 and ton-nine histories, but especiall in these concerning the illand of Great Bri- 
 tain and Irland ; as also we testifie and does vitness him to be ane expert and 
 graduate herauld, in blazing of cotts and armories, in inventing of crests and 
 supporters, in searching of genealogies and discents, in marshalling of funeralls, 
 triumphs and inaugurations, etc. and in all ceremonies \vhatsoever pertaining to 
 honour or armes. In witnes of the premisses, we above named, kin^fs of armes, 
 heraulds, and pursevants, hes to this our present testificate and approbatione. 
 with the several cotts of our armes, affixed our manual! subscriptions, at our 
 office of armes in the cittie of London, Oct, 3, and Dec. 4, 1823." 
 
 Besides these antiquarian friends, Balfour secured several others of a more 
 courtly complexion, who were natives of his own country. He enjoyed the 
 friendship of Sir Robert Aytoun, the poetical courtier, with whom he afterwards 
 became distantly connected by marriage. He was also on the most familiar 
 terms with another poetical attendant on the elegant court of Charles I. tlu 
 Earl of Stirling. 3 His %hief patron, howaver, was George, Viscount Dupplin^ 
 
 * We quote from his correspondence in the Advocates' Library, the two following letters 
 to this distinguished nobleman : 
 
 To MY LORD VISCOUNT OF STREVKLING, PRINCIPALL SECHETARV- OF SCOTLAND. 
 My Lord, 1 love jrour letters, becausse they bring with them still some matier of glad- 
 ness. 1 he retribution of your innumerable favors to me, are a few naked hues, which, by 
 niMty of your noble mynd, are als much in esteeme with you as riches are to the 
 iii'-i miserable world-mongers. According to your Lordship's command, I have, by my 
 letters, humbly randred tlianks to the Kingis Majestic, my master, altho ordnardlv .laved 
 in homely russet!, yet doubled with the best tissew, and full of the strong desires of ane 
 r.ltnt anertione, quhilks, at the reiding. yourgoodnes will extend one word of unanimity 
 th me and sympathize with thir giatulaiions as a patrone of their master: Then sail 
 ) find that your favors lies beine putt upone ane quho will ever be mvndful of 
 the leas' of them, and remaine a daily beadsman for the further incresse of \our health 
 and honour, rairweill, my lord. 
 
 Halyroodluuss, this 7 of March, 1631. 
 
 To THE SAME. 
 My 
 
 Mm 
 
 , . * ' ~-"o r ... ..x4 jiiuucab iuiiti:;u uriiris ins MU^A. 
 
 11 jour lordship susperte my recommendatione as partiall, hes obsequious cariane and wor- 
 thy ,m,rts after your tnall, will make all c I: So wishing your lordship all happiness, 
 
 heir and for ever, 1 will live and die, Your lordship, 
 
 Ed. 12 Maii, 1631. JA : BALFOU *- 
 
 l- 1? ''i7iS d E ' rl '! f Kinil u J. on the occasion of the coronation of King Charle. 
 hdmburgh in 1633. Sir James Balfour relates the following curious anecdote of his
 
 Sill JAMES BALFOUK. 
 
 Ill 
 
 who held the high and almost vice-regal office of Chancellor of Scotland. By 
 the recommendation of tins nobleman, aided by his "own excellent qualifications, 
 he was created by Charles I., Lord Lion King at Arms, a dignified legal office 
 in Scotland, in which resides the management of all matters connected with ar- 
 morial honours, as also all public ceremonials. Sir Jerome Lyndsay having pre- 
 viously resigned the office, Balfour was crowned and installed at Holyroodhouse, 
 June 15, 1630, having in the preceding month been invested with the necessary 
 honour of knighthood by the king. On this occasion, Lord Dupplin officiated 
 as Royal Commissioner. 
 
 Sir James Balfour now settled in Scotland, in the enjoyment of his office. 
 On the 21st of October, he was married to Anna Aiton, daughter of Sir John 
 Aiton of that Ilk, and in January, 1631, he obtained, in favour of himself and 
 his spouse, a grant of the lands and barony of Kinnaird in Fife. In December, 
 1633, he was created a baronet by Charles I., probably in consequence of the 
 able manner in which he marshalled the processions and managed the other 
 ceremonials of the royal visit that year. At this period of peace and prosperity, 
 a number of learned and ingenious men were beginning to exert themselves in 
 Scotland. It was a peaceful interval between the desolating civil wars of the 
 minority of King James, and the equally unhappy contest which was so~n aftei 
 incited by religious and political dissentions. Like soldiers enjoying themselvef 
 during a truce, the people were beginning to seek for and cultivate variour 
 sources of amusement in the more elegant arts. This was the era of Jamieson, 
 the pninter of Drummond, the poet of the geographer Pont and the histo- 
 rians Spottiswood, Calderwood, Johnston, and Kume. 5 Sir James Balfour, in- 
 spired with the common spirit of these men, commenced the writing of history, 
 with as much zeal as could be expected in an age, when, the printing of a written 
 work being a comparatively rare occurrence, literature might be said to want the 
 greater part of its temptations. 
 
 Sir James, as already mentioned, had been bred a strict Presbyterian. In 
 this profession he continued to 'the last, notwithstanding that, in politics, he was 
 an equally firm royalist. In a letter to a young nobleman, [Correspondence, 
 Advocates'* Library,] he is found advising a perusal of " Calvine, Beza, Parens, 
 and Whittaker," as " orthodox writers." When the introduction of the liturgy 
 imposed by Charles I. roused Scotland from one end to the other in a fit of 
 righteous indignation, Sir James Balfoui-, notwithstanding his connection with 
 the government, joined cordially with his countrymen, and wrote an account of 
 the tumult of the 23rd of July, under the burlesque title of " Stoneyfield Day." 6 
 
 lordship. The King, in 1626, had commanded, by a letter to his Privy Council, that the 
 Archbishop of St Andrews should have precedence of the Chancellor. To this his lordship 
 would never submit. " 1 remember," says Sir James, "that K. Charles sent me to the 
 Lord Chancellor on the day of his coronation, in the morning, to show him that it was his 
 will and pleasure, bol onlie for that day, that he wold cted and give way to the archbishop; 
 but he returned by me to his Majestie a wery bruske answer, which was that he was ready 
 in all humility to Jay his otiice doune at his Mujestie's feet ; bot since it was his royal will 
 ne should enjoy it with the knuwen privileges of the same, never a priest in Scotland 
 should sett a foot before him, so long as his blood was hole. Qulien I had related his an- 
 swer lo the kinge, he said, ' Weel, Lyone, letts goe to business : I will riot medle farther 
 witli that olde cankered gootish man, at quhose hand ther is nothing to be gained hot sou re 
 words.' " What makes this anecdote the more expressively illustrative of the rancour with 
 which the secular officers and nobility beheld the newly dignified clergy is, mat the Lord 
 Chancellor had just on the preceding afternoon been raised to the rank of Earl of Kinnoul. 
 
 5 David Hume of Godscroft, author of the History of the Hou-e of Douglas. 
 
 fi In a letter written on the 27th of July, to his friend Lord Elcho, he thus expresses him- 
 self regarding that extraordinary exertion of popular force: 
 
 "My Lord, I know your suddain departure from this citey on Saturday was to see how 
 they brought your light from darkness. Nather will I accuse you as privy to that OSANNA 
 our grate- he it! ed bishope had this by past Saboth, from the tumuliuous concors in welcom
 
 112 
 
 SIR JAMES BALFOUR. 
 
 ' But, though indignant, in common with all people of his own persuasion, at 
 the religious innovations attempted by the government, Sir James appears to 
 have very soon adopted different feelings. Like many moderate persons, who 
 had equally condemned the ill advised conduct of the king, he afterwards began to 
 fear that the opposition would produce greater mischiefs than the evil which was 
 opposed. He conceived that the people, in their indignation at the royal mea- 
 sures, had put themselves under a more slavish subjection to a band of ambitious 
 nobles, who appeared determined to press upon the royal prerogative till they 
 should leave no trace of the ancient government in the land. Thus, so early as 
 May 1639, less than two years after the publication of "Stoneyfield Day," and 
 while the popular leaders enjoyed an unlimited power, he is found addressing 
 the following letter " to a noble friend." 
 
 Altho, my lord, you think perhaps I might gaine muche by silence, for my part i 
 will never make question in speaking, qulien I have aney thing in my head better 
 than silence, and admouishe your lordship once again to bewarr of thosse men quho, 
 furiously seeking to cry downe the present government, and to shake the fundamen- 
 tal! lawes of the kingdom, doe bob rather aim at ther owen particular advantages than 
 redress of disorders, and since I have admonished your lordship quliat to eshew, I 
 wold also gladly advysse you quhat were most fitting for your awen housse and llie 
 preservation of your awen family to follow. And to causse, if I could, good lawes 
 to arysse out of evill maneris were not I think it more fitt to take tyme to deliberate 
 upone a matter of such importance, and trewly, my lord, to speak e heirin to purjmo 
 all the witt I have, joined to that of others, were no more than sufficient. In confi- 
 dence of your lordship's pardon, and in assurance that ye will remaine constant to be 
 my werrey good lord, I will heir subscribe myself, 
 
 Your lordship's most obliged servant. 
 Falkland, 9 May, 1639. 
 
 At a somewhat earlier date, he writes in the following terms to his friend 
 Drummond, who, it will be recollected, was also a devoted loyalist : 
 
 Sir, By your letters, you aske how I live heir in winter, out of the capitall citey. 
 I assure you, mured up within the royall walles, expecting the sessone of primroses 
 and anemonies. I am heir in a place of no curiosites. The sunne hath yet heaf 
 eneuche to dissolve our medow snowes, which all the winter fall upon the neighbouring 
 mountains. If ye wold have me to conceill nothing from you, I must freely tell you 
 that, there is no place quhar verteu is so neir to vice as heir. Idleness in this place 
 
 ing home their new devised liturgie to old St Geilles: Bot our day here begane to darken 
 ere twelffe o'clocke, (a verey short dny in Julay indeid) and if we live to tell you, my lorde 
 lykrly to Ix-rome a foule day, ver not our pryme churchmen had large breiches (happily} 
 and nimble lieiles to save them from a stoney tempest, which at two several tymes menacd, 
 destructione to all, yet nibled the noddells of hot two or three. Nather could that lubardh 
 monster with the satin goune defend himselve by hes swollwen hands and gressey bclley, 
 bot he hud half a dissone neck fishes to a reckoninge, and Maxwell becam so affrighted that 
 to have been safely gone I verely think that he wold have left Arminius houe^ and run 
 under the keyes of the batirane nay, he that first vented here Christ's locall disrension to 
 hell, if he might have been liberal of feare, wold have (before his tyme) gone thither him- 
 selve. Bot this day is fair wether, and ane indictione set on Edinburghe, for since the 
 preceisse peopell will not sing ther prayers, our famous clergy will not suffer them to have 
 aney in prosse. Our weyffes heir inveighss [envy] your lordships happlnes, quho may 
 pray publickly as the primitive fathers did, and say so be it, quheras ther gressey bellied fa- 
 thers wold have them to sing Amen, and to usse maney vantone curtisies, bobbings, imd- 
 ings, and kneilings, which this roughe and uncivil! multitude have not been accustomed nor 
 acquanted with a world of such trash and trumpries as your lordship may behold landeit 
 in ther New Alcoran. God bless our prince and all thousethat gives him healthful! coun- 
 saill, and as to thesse men quho only ambitiously hunts ther commodity and honor, God 
 gif them the reward of that honorles persone, quho after he had betrayed his maker and 
 master, hanged himselve, and gif your lordship many happey dayes to be assured of the 
 ti tuth, by which 1 own myselve to be, 
 
 Your lordships faithful friind and servant.
 
 Silt JAMES J3ALFOUR. 
 
 beug our honest mens ordinarey creatione, and debauches of all sortes the exercisse^ 
 quherem they discipline themselves. Notwitlistanding if ye be yet yourselve, and 
 by solemne vow have forsaken the world and the vanities thereof, assure yourselve 
 that it is in this place quher felicitie doth attend you, and being once in this place 
 you will esteerae all thosse as banished persons quhom you have left in Edin- 
 burghe behind. Faire weill, and confidently love him quho sail ever bie, 
 
 Falkland, January 8, 1639. Yom> trCU friend d Servant 
 
 It thus appears that, in some disgust at the bold measures taken against the 
 government, he had now retired to the royal hunting-palace of Falkland, where 
 and at his seat of Kinnaird, he devoted himself to those studies by which the 
 present may be forgotten in the past His annals, however, show that he still 
 occasionally appeared in public affairs in his capacity of Lord Lion. It is also 
 clear that his political sentiments must have been of no obtrusive character, as 
 he continued in his office during the whole term of the civil war, and was only 
 at last deprived of it by Cromwell. During his rural retirement at Falkland and 
 Kinnaird, he collected many manuscripts relative to heraldry, and wrote many 
 others in his own language, of which some are preserved in the Advocates' Libra- 
 ly, while others were either lost at the capture of Perth (1651), to which town 
 he had conveyed them for safety, or have since been dispersed. Persevering 
 with particular diligence in illustrating the History of Scotland, he had recourse 
 to the ancient charters and diplomas of the kingdom, the archives of monasteries, 
 and registers of cathedral churches, and in his library was a great number of 
 chronicles of monasteries, both originals and the abridgments ; but it is to be 
 deeply regretted that many of these valuable manuscripts fell a prey to the sa- 
 crilegious and illiterate, and were shamefully destroyed by the hands of children, 
 or perished in the flames during the civil wars. A few only were opportunely 
 rescued from destruction by those who were acquainted with their value. The 
 style of these monastic chronicles was, indeed, rude and barbarous ; but they 
 were remarkable for the industry, judgment, and fidelity to truth, with which 
 they were compiled. For some time after the erection of monasteries in this 
 kingdom, these writers were almost the only, and certainly the most respectable 
 observers in literature, as scarcely any other persons preserved in writing the me- 
 mory of the important occurrences of the times. In these registers and chroni- 
 cles were to be found, an accurate record of transactions with foreign powers, 
 whether in forming alliances, contracting marriages of state, or regulating com- 
 merce ; letters and bulls of the holy see ; answers, edicts, and statutes of kings ; 
 church rescripts ; provincial constitutions; acts of parliament ; battles; deaths 
 of eminent persons ; epitaphs and inscriptions ; and sometimes the natural ap- 
 pearances of the seasons ; the prevalent diseases ; miracles and prodigies ; the 
 heresies that sprung up ; with an account of the authors, and their punishments. 
 In short, they committed to writing every important occurrence in church and 
 state, that any question arising in after ages might be settled by their authority, 
 and the unanimous confirmation of their faithful and accurate chronicles. In 
 collecting and preserving these manuscripts, Balfour therefore raised a monument 
 to his memory which the latest posterity must revere. For he did so from a 
 conviction that these old and approved authors were the only guides to the 
 knowledge of facts, as well as to correct evidence, and reasoning on the remote 
 history of Scotland ; and he considered them, not only of signal use to himself, 
 but a valuable treasure to the literature of the country. He therefore persevered 
 throughout life in collecting such manuscripts, without regard to either trouble 
 or expense. The catalogue \vhich he left is still extant, 8 allhough many, as al- 
 
 r. 8 Memoria Balfouriana, p. 1933. *
 
 SIR JAMES BALFOUR. 
 
 ready mentioned, were lost by the depredations of the English and other causes. 
 He formed with great industry, and at a considerable expense, a library of the 
 most valuable books on every subject, particularly in the branches of Scottish 
 history, antiquities, and heraldry. From these he extracted every assistance 
 they could afford in the pursuit of his inquiries, and for further aid he estab- 
 lished a correspondence with the most respectable living historians, such as 
 Robert Maule, Henry Maule, David Buchanan, Gordon of Straloch, and, as has 
 already been shown, Drummond of Hawthornden, all of whom he regarded 
 through life with the warmest esteem, and with the greatest respect for their 
 talents and accomplishments. 
 
 He endeavoured to elucidate our history (which was then involved in confu- 
 sion) from the examination of ancient medals, coins, rings, bracelets, and other 
 relics of antiquity, of which he formed a separate collection, as an appendage to 
 his library. Observing also from historians, that the Romans had long been 
 settled in Scotland, and had made desperate attempts to expel our ancestors, 
 both Scots and Picts, he collected the inscriptions which' they had left on cer- 
 tain stone buildings, and transcribed them among his notes. In compiling the 
 work to which he gave the title of Annab, our author was more anxious to sup- 
 ply the deficiencies of other historians, and to bring to light obscure records, 
 than to exhibit a continued and regular history of Scotland. He therefore care- 
 fully extracted, from old manuscripts, the names, dignities, and offices of dis- 
 tinguished public characters, the dates of remarkable transactions, and every 
 other circumstance of importance, and arranged them in separate paragraphs. 
 He was actuated by a generous disposition, to rescue from oblivion and the 
 grave, the memory of illustrious men ; for which purpose he visited all the ca- 
 thedral, and the principal parish churches of the kingdom, and examined their 
 sepulchres and other monuments, from which he copied the epitaphs and inscrip- 
 tions, carefully preserving them in a volume. He deeply interested himself in 
 some laudable attempts to improve the geography of Scotland. The ingenious 
 Timothy Pont traversed the whole kingdom, (an attempt which had not been 
 made before) and from personal surveys made plans and descriptions of the 
 different counties and islands, which he was intending to publish, when carried 
 oft* by a premature death. Sir John Scott of Scotstarvet put these papers into 
 the hands of Straloch, by whom they were published, with corrections and addi- 
 tions, in the descriptions accompanying Bleau's maps. Sir James made also a sur- 
 vey of Fife, his native county, examining particularly ancient monuments, and 
 the genealogies of the principal families. He afterwards compiled a description of 
 the whole kingdom, of which the manuscript was so useful to Bleau, that he 
 dedicated to our author the map of Lome in his Theatrum Scotiae, and embel- 
 lished it with the arms of Balfour. 
 
 Zealous in the improvement and knowledge of heraldry, he carefully reviewed, 
 not only the public acts and diplomas of nobility, but the contents of ancient 
 edifices, temples, and palaces, shields and sepulchral monuments, When it had 
 become proper, from his years, to allow the Prince of Wales a separate estab- 
 lishment, an inquiry was ordered concerning the revenues of the hereditary 
 princes, as steward or lords marshall of Scotland, in which Balfour appears to 
 have taken part, as we find among his manuscripts the following; "The true 
 present state of the principality of Scotland, with the means how the same may 
 be most conveniently increased and augmented ; with which is joined ane sur- 
 vey, and brief notes from the public registers of the kingdoms, of certain infeft- 
 ments and confirmations given to princes of Scotland ; and by them to their 
 vassals of diverse baronies and lands of the principalitie, since the fifteenth year 
 of the reign of Robert III."
 
 ROBERT BALFOUR. 115 
 
 In. the history of this country, he displayed his uncommon industry in his 
 numerous collection of manuscripts, in the great assemblage of historical works 
 in his own library, and in his careful inspection of the various manuscripts dis- 
 persed over the kingdom, from which he generally extracted the substance, if he 
 did not wholly transcribe them, forming a general index to such as were useful in 
 Scottish history. He made several abridgments of the Registers of Scone, Cam- 
 buskenneth, and others, and from the works of Major, Bnece, Leslie, and Buchan- 
 an, which, in proper order, formed parts of his chronological works, along with 
 relations of important transactions throughout the world. Besides this, he wrote 
 a remarkably concise yet comprehensive history of the kings of Scotland, from 
 Fergus I. to Charles L. He also intended to have enlarged the annals of the 
 Scottish kings from James I. to the beginning of Charles II., of which he had 
 finished the two first James's, on a more diffuse and extensive scale. In other 
 works, he wrote memoirs ot James III., IV., V., of Queen Mary, and of James 
 VI., and the transactions of Charles I., brought down to his death. In natural 
 history, he wrote an alphabetical list of gems, with descriptions, their names 
 and qualities, and the places where they are produced. Another work upon 
 the same subject, written in Latin, exhibited from various authors, an account or 
 ingenious inventions or frauds, practised in counterfeiting and imitating precious 
 stones. 
 
 Sir James concluded an industrious, and, it would appear, a most blameless 
 life, in February, 1657, when he must have been about sixty years of age. He 
 had been four times married ; 1st, to Anna Aiton, by whom he had three sons 
 and six daughters, and who died August 26th, 1644; 2nd, to Jean Durham, 
 daughter of the laird of Pitarrow, his own cousin, who died without issue 
 only eleven months subsequent to the date of his first wife's death ; 3d, to Mar- 
 garet Arnot, only daughter of Sir James Arnot of Fernie, by whom he had three 
 sons and three daughters ; 4th, to Janet Auchinleck, daughter of Sir William 
 Auchinleck of Balmanno, by whom he had two daughters. Yet his family is 
 now extinct in the male line. The Annals and Short Passages of State, above 
 alluded to, were, after nearly two centuries of manuscript obscurity, published, 
 in 1824, in 4 volumes 8vo. by Mr James Haig of the Advocates' Library, in 
 which receptacle nearly the whole of the collections of this great antiquary have 
 found a secure resting-place. 
 
 BALFOUR, ROBERT, a distinguished philosopher of the seventeenth century, 
 was principal of Guyenne college, Bourdeaux, and is mentioned by Morhof as a 
 celebrated commentator on Aristotle. According to Dempster, he was "the 
 Phoenix of his age ; a philosopher profoundly skilled in the Greek and Latin 
 languages ; a mathematician worthy of being compared with the ancients : and 
 to those qualifications he joined a wonderful suavity of manners, and the utmost 
 warmth of affection towards his countrymen." This eminent personage appears 
 to have been one of that numerous class of Scotsmen, who, having gained all 
 their honours in climes more genial to science than Scotland was a few centu- 
 ries ago, are to this day better known abroad than among their own countrymen. 
 According to the fantastic Urquhart, who wrote in the reign of Charles I., 
 " Most of the Scottish nation, never having astricted themselves so much to tl 
 proprieties of words as to the knowledge of things, where there was one precep- 
 tor of languages amongst them, there were above forty professors of philosophy : 
 nay, to so high a pitch did the glory of the Scottish nation attain over all 
 parts of France, and for so long a time continue in that obtained height, by vir- 
 tue of an ascendant the French" conceived the Scots to have above ail nations, ir 
 matter of their subtlety in philosophical disceptations, that there hath not been, ti. 
 of late, for these several ages together, any lord, gentleman, or other, in all that
 
 JOHN BALIOL. 
 
 coantry, who being desirous to have his sou instructed in the principles of phil- 
 osophy, would intrust him to the discipline of any other than a Scottish master ; 
 of whom they were no less proud than Philip was of Aristotle, or Tullius of Cra- 
 tippus. And if it occurred (as very often it did,) that a pretender to a place in 
 any French university, having, in his tenderer years, been subi'erulary to some 
 other kind of schooling, should enter in competition with another aiming at the 
 same charge and dignity, whose learning flowed from a Caledonian source, com- 
 monly the lirst was rejected and the other preferred." It nevertheless appears that 
 Robert Balfour prosecuted the study of philology, as well as that of philosophy, 
 ,\ith considerable success. His edition of Cleomedes, published at Botmleaux, 
 in 1605, " Latitie versa, et perpetuo commentario illustrata," is spoken of in 
 (he highest terms of praise by the erudite Barthius. Other works by Balfour are, 
 " Gelasii Cyziceni Commentarius Actorum Nicaeni Concilii. Koberto Balforeo in- 
 terprete, 1604, folio," " Commentarius R. Balforei in Organum Logicum Aris- 
 totolis, 1616, 4to," and, " R. Balforei Scoti Commentariorum in lib. Arist. do 
 1'hilosophia, tomus secundus, 1620, 4to." 
 
 BALIOL, JOHN, king of Scotland, was the son of John de Baliol, of Bernard's 
 Castle in the county of Durham, a man of great opulence, being possessed of 
 thirty knights' fees, (ecjual to 12,000 of modern money.) and who was a steady 
 adherent of Henry III., in all his civil wars. The mother of Baliol was Devor- 
 gilia, one of the three daughters and co-heiresses of Allan, Lord of Galloway, by 
 Margaret, eldest daughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon, brother of Malcolm IV 
 and William the Lion, kings of Scotland. The first of the English family of 
 Baliol was a Norman noble, proprietor of the manors of Baliol, Harcourt, Dam- 
 pat, and Home in France, and who, coming over with the Conqueror, left a son, 
 Guy, whom William Hufus appointed to be Lord of the forest of Teesdale and 
 Marxvood, giving him at the same time the lands of Middleton and Guiseford in 
 Northumberland. Guy was the father of Bernard, who built the strong castle on 
 the Tees, called from him Bernard's Castle. Eustace, son of this noble, was 
 the father of Hugh, who was the father of John de Baliol, 1 the father of the king 
 of Scotland. 
 
 1 John de Baliol has distinguished himself in English literary history, by founding one of 
 the colleges of Oxford, which still bears his name. As this in.stitution is connected in more 
 -a\* than one with Scotland, the following account of its foundation, from Chalmers' i i i - 
 toiy of Oxford, may be read with interest. " The wealth and political consequence of John 
 de Biiliul were dignified by a love of learning, and a benevolence of disposition, which, 
 about the year 1263 (or 1268, as Wood thinks,) induced him to maintain certain poor scln - 
 lar* of Oxford, in number sixteen, by exhibitions, perhaps with a view to some more per- 
 manent establishment, when he should have leisure to mature a plan for that purpose. Oil 
 
 auuuiaia viuuiu in an piuvauiijiy nave ccaseu, nad not his 
 
 lady been persuaded to fulfil his intention in the most honourable manner, by taking upon 
 herself the future maintenance of them. * * * * The first step which the Lady 
 Devorgilla took, in providing for the scholars, was to have a house in Horsemonj;er Lane, 
 afterwards called Canditch (from Candida Fossa) in St Mary Magdalene's parish, and on 
 the site where the present college stands ; and being supported in his design by her hus- 
 band's executors, continued the provision which he allotted. In 1282, she gave them statutes 
 under her seal, and appointed Hugh de Hartipoll and William de Menyle as procurators 
 or governors of her scholars. In 1284, the Lady Devornilla purchased 
 
 a tenement of a citizen of Oxford, called Mary's Hall, as a perpetual settlement for the 
 principal and scholar of the House of Baliol. This edifice, after receiving suitable repair; 
 and additions, was called New Baliol Hall, and their former residence then began to re- 
 reive the name of Old Baliol Hall. The same year, she made over certain lands in tin 
 
 Vge were at fust small, yielding only eight-pence ;wr week to each scholar, or twenty -seven
 
 JOHN BALIQL. 
 
 117 
 
 The circumstances which led to the appearance of John Baliol in Scottish his- 
 tory, may be thus briefly narrated. By the death of Alexander the third, the 
 cro-.vn of Scotland devolved on the 31aiden of Norway, Marg;iret, the only child 
 of Alexander's daughter, late Queen of Norway. As she was only three years of 
 age, and residing in foreign parts, the convention of estates made choice of six 
 noblemen to be regents of the kingdom during her absence or minority ; but 
 dissensions soon arising among them, Eric, king of Norway, interposed, and' sent 
 plenipotentiaries to treat with Edward king of England, concerning the atihirs 
 of the infant Queen and her kingdom. Edward had already formed a scheme 
 for uniting England and Scotland, by the marriage of his eldest son with Mar- 
 garet, and, accordingly, after holding conferences at Salisbury, he sent an em- 
 bassy to the parliament of Scotland, on the 18th of July, 1290, with full powers 
 to treat of this projected alliance. The views of Edward were cheerfully met by 
 the parliament of Scotland : a treaty was drawn out honourable to both parties, 
 in which to guard against any danger that might arise from so strict an alli- 
 ance with such a powerful and ambitious neighbour the freedom and indepen- 
 dency of Scotland were fully acknowledged and secured; and commissioners 
 were despatched to Norway to conduct the young Queen into her dominions. 
 But this fair hope of lasting peace and union was at once overthrown by the 
 death of the princess on her passage to Britain ; and the crown of Scotland be- 
 came a bone of contention between various competitors, the chief of whom were 
 John Baliol, lord of Galloway, Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale, and John Has- 
 tings, lord of Abergavenny. In order to understand the grounds of their seve- 
 ral claims, it will be necessary to trace briefly their genealogy. 
 
 On the death of the Maiden of Norway, Alexander's grandchild, the crown of 
 Scotland devolved upon the posterity of David, earl of Huntington, younger bro- 
 ther, as already mentioned, of the kings Malcolm and William. David left three 
 daughters, Margaret, Isabella, and Ada. Margaret, the eldest daughter, married 
 Allan, lord of Galloway, by whom she had an only daughter, Devorgilla, married 
 to John Baliol, by whom she had John Baliol, the subject of this article, who, 
 therefore, was great-grandson to David Earl of Huntington, by his eldest daugh- 
 ter. Isabella, the second daughter of David, married Robert Bruce, by whom 
 she had Robert Bruce, the competitor who, therefore, was grandson to the 
 Earl of Huntington, by his second daughter. Ada, youngest daughter of David, 
 married John Hastings, by whom she had John Hastings who, therefore, was 
 grandson to David, by his third daughter. Hastings could have no claim to the 
 crown, while the posterity of David's elder daughters were in being ; but he in- 
 sisted that the kingdom should be divided into three parts, and that he should 
 inherit one of them. As, however, the kingdom was declared indivisible, his 
 pretensions were excluded, and the difficulty of the question lay between the two 
 great competitors Baliol and Bruce, whether the more remote by one degree, 
 descended from the eldest daughter, or the nearer by one degree, descended 
 from the second daughter, had the better title ? 
 
 The divided state of the national mind as to the succession presented a fa- 
 vourable opportunity to the ambitious monarch of England for executing a design 
 which he had long cherished against the independence of Scotland, by renewing 
 the unfounded claim of the feudal superiority of England over it. It has been 
 
 pounds nine shillings and fourpence for the whole per annum, which was soon found insuf- 
 ficient. A number of benefactors, however, promoted the purposes of^the founder, by en- 
 riching the establishment with gifts of land, money, and church-livings." 
 
 Mr Chalmers a" 
 amongst other con 
 
 grandson of the founder. The seal attached by 
 ;i portrait of her. She died in
 
 JOHN BALIOL. 
 
 generally supposed, that he was chosen arbitrator by the regents and states of 
 Scotland in the competition for the crown ; but it appears that his interference 
 was solicited by a few only of the Scottish nobles who were in his own interest. 
 Assuming this, however, as the call of the nation, and collecting an army to sup- 
 port his iniquitous pretensions, he requested the nobility and clergy of Scotland, 
 and the competitors for the crown, to meet him at Norham within the English 
 territories. There, after many professions of good-will and affection to Scot- 
 land, he claimed a right of Lord Paramount over it, and required that this right 
 should be immediately recognized. The Scots were struck with amazement at 
 this unexpected demand ; but, feeling themselves entirely in his power, could 
 only request time for the consideration of his claim. Another meeting was 
 fixed upon ; and during the interval, he employed every method to strengthen 
 his party in Scotland, and by threats and promises to bring as many as possible 
 to acknowledge his superiority. His purpose was greatly forwarded by the mu- 
 tual distrusts and jealousies that existed among the Scots, and by the time-serv- 
 ing ambition of the competitors, who were now multiplied to the number of thir- 
 teen some, probably, stirred up to perplex the question, and others, perhaps, 
 prompted by vanity. On the day appointed (2d June, 1291) in a plain opposite 
 to the castle of Norham, the superiority of the crown of England over the crown of 
 Scotland was fully acknowledged by all the competitors for the latter, as well as 
 by many barons and prelates ; and thus Edward gained the object on which his 
 heart had been long set, by conduct disgraceful to himself as it was to those who 
 had the government and guardianship of Scotland in keeping. All the royal 
 castles and places of strength in the country were put into his hands, under the 
 security that he should make full restitution in two months from the date of his 
 award, and with the ostensible reason that he might have a kingdom to bestow 
 on the person to whom it should be adjudged. Having thus obtained his wish, 
 he proceeded to take some steps towards determining the claim of the competi- 
 tors. Commissioners were appointed to meet at Berwick ; and after various 
 deliberations, the crown was finally adjudged to John Baliol, on the 19th of 
 \oveinber, 1292, and next day Baliol swore fealty to Edward at Norham. 
 
 Baliol was crowned at Scone shortly after ; but, that he might not forget. 
 his dependancy, Edward recalled him into England, immediately after his 
 coronation, and made him renew his homage and fealty at Newcastle. He was 
 soon loaded with fresh indignities. In the course of a year he received no fewer 
 than six citations to appear before Edward in the English parliament, to answer 
 private and unimportant complaints which were preferred against him by hie 
 subjects. Although led by an insidious policy, and his own ambition, into the 
 most humiliating concessions, Baliol seems not to have been destitute of spirit 
 or to have received without resentment the indignities laid upon him. In one 
 of the causes before the parliament of England, being asked for his defence 
 " I am king of Scotland," he said, " I dare not make answer //ere without the 
 advice of my people." " What means this refusal," said Edward, " you are my 
 liegeman ; you have done homage to me ; you are here in consequence of my 
 summons!" Baliol replied with firmness, " In matters which respect my king- 
 dom. I neither dare nor shall answer in this place, without the advice of my 
 people." Edward requested that he would ask a delay for the consideration of 
 the question ; but Baliol, perceiving that his so doing would be construed into 
 an acknowledgment of the jurisdiction of the English parliament, refused. 
 
 In the meantime, a war breaking out between France and England, Baliol 
 seized upon it as a favourable opportunity for shaking off a yoke that had be- 
 come intolerable. He negotiated a treaty with Philip, the French king, on the 
 23d October, 1295, by which it was agreed to assist one another against their
 
 JOHN BALIOL. jjg 
 
 common enemy the king of England, and not to conclude any separate peace. 
 At the same time, Baliol solemnly renounced his allegiance to Edward, and re- 
 ceived from the Pope an absolution from the oaths of fealty which he had sworn. 
 The grounds of his renunciation were these That Edward had wantonly and 
 upon slight suggestions summoned him to his courts ; that he had seized his 
 English estates, his goods, and the goods of his subjects ; that he had forcibly 
 carried oft' and still retained certain natives of Scotland ; and that, when remon- 
 strances were made, instead of redressing, he had continually aggravated these 
 injuries. Edward is said to have received BalioPs renunciation with more con- 
 tempt than anger. " The foolish traitor," he exclaimed, " since he will not 
 come to us, we will go to him." He accordingly raised a large army ; and, 
 sending his brother into France, resolved himself, in person, to make a total con- 
 quest of Scotland. 
 
 While Edward advanced towards Berwick, a small army of Scots broke into 
 Northumberland and Cumberland, and plundered the country. The castle ot 
 Werk was taken ; and a thousand men, whom Ed \vard sent to preserve it, falling 
 into an ambush, were slain. An English squadron, also, which blocked up Ber- 
 wick by sea, was defeated, and sixteen of their ships sunk. But these partial 
 successes were followed by fatal losses. The king of England was a brave and 
 skilful general ; he conducted a powerful army against a weak and dispirited 
 nation, headed by an unpopular prince, and distracted by party animosities. 
 His eventual success was, therefore, as complete as might have been anticipated. 
 He crossed the Tweed at Coldstream, took Berwick, and put all the garrison 
 and inhabitants to the sword. The castle of Roxburgh was delivered into his 
 hands ; and he hastened Warenne Earl of Surrey forward to besiege Dunbar. 
 \Varenne was there met by the Scots army, who, abandoning the advantage of 
 their situation, poured down tumultuously on the English, and were repulsed 
 with terrible slaughter. After this defeat, the castles of Dunbar, Edinburgh, and 
 Stirling, fell into Edward's hands, and he was soon in possession of the whole of 
 the south of Scotland. 
 
 Baliol, who had retired beyond the river Tay, with the shattered remains of 
 his army, despairing of making any effectual resistance, sent messengers to im- 
 plore the mercy of Edward. The haughty Plantagenet communicated the hard 
 terms upon which alone he might hope for what he, asked ; namely, an unqua- 
 lified acknowledgment of his " unjust and wicked rebellion," and an unconditiona 
 surrender of himself and his kingdom into the hands of his master. Ba 
 whose life presents a strange variety of magnanimous efforts and humihi 
 self-abasements, consented to these conditions ; and the ceremony of his 
 dation accordingly took place, July 2, 1296, in the church-yard of Straca 
 a village near Montrose. Led by force and in fear of his life, into the pre 
 of the Bishop of Durham and the English nobles, mounted on a sorry fa 
 was first commanded to dismount; and his treason being proclaimed, they pro 
 ceeded to strip him of his royal ornaments. The crown was snatche 
 head ; the ermine torn from his mantle, the sceptre wrested from hi i hand, ai 
 every thing removed from him belonging to the state and dignity ot a K^ 
 Dressed only in his shirt and drawers, and holding a white rod in I 
 after the fashion of penitents, he confessed that, by evil and false c 
 through his own simplicity, he had grievously offended his liege 1 
 lated all the late transactions, and acknowledged himself to be desem<% de 
 prived of his kingdom. He then absolved his people from ^allegiance, am, 
 signed a deed resigning his sovereignty over them into the 
 ward, giving his eldest son as a hostage for his fidelity. 
 
 The acknowledgment of an English paramountcy has at all tnnes been sc
 
 120 JOHN BALIOL. 
 
 agree.able to tlie Scottish people, and the ciraimstauces of (his renunciation of 
 the kingdom are so extremely humiliating to national pride, that John Baliol 
 nns been ever since held in hatred and contempt, and is scarcely allowed a 
 place in the ordinary rolls of the Scottish monarchs. It must be said, however, 
 in his defence, that his first acknowledgment of the paramountcy was no more 
 than what his rival Bruce and the greater part of the nobles of the kingdom 
 were also guilty of; while he is certainly entitled to some credit for his efforts 
 to shake off" the yoke, however inadequate his means were for doing so, or 
 whatever ill fortune he experienced in the attempt. In his deposition, notwith- 
 standing some equivocal circumstiinces in his subsequent history, he must be 
 looked upon as only the victim of an overwhelming force. 
 
 The history of John Baliol after his deposition is not in general treated with 
 much minuteness by the Scottish historians, all of whom seem to have wished to 
 close their eyes as much as possible to the whole affair of the resignation, and 
 endeavoured to forget that the principal personage concerned in it had ever 
 been king of Scotland. This history, however, is curious. The discrowned 
 monarch and his son were immediately transmitted, along with the stone of 
 Scone, the records of the kingdom, and all other memorials of the national in- 
 dependence to London, where the two unfortunate princes were committed to a 
 kind of honourable captivity in the Tower. Though the country was reduced 
 by the English army, several insurrections which broke out in the subsequent 
 year showed that the hearts of the people were as yet unsubdued. These insur- 
 gents invariably rose in the name of the deposed king John, and avowed a 
 resolution to submit to no other authority. It is also worth remarking, as a 
 circumstance favourable to the claims and character of Baliol, that he was still 
 acknowledged by the Pope, the King of France, and other continental princes. 
 When Wallace rose to unite all the discontented spirits of tlte kingdom in one 
 grand effort against the English yoke, he avowed himself as only the governor 
 of the kingdom in name of King John, and there is a charter still extant, to 
 which the hero appended the seal of Baliol, which seems, by some dinner, to 
 have fallen into his hands. The illustrious knight of Elderslie, throughout the 
 whole of his career, acknowledged no other sovereign than Baliol; and, 
 what is perhaps more remarkable, the father of Robert Bruce, who had formerly 
 asserted a superior title to the crown, and whose son afterwards displaced the Baliol 
 dynasty, appeared in arms against Edward in favour of King John, and in his 
 name concluded several truces with the English officers. There is extant a deed 
 executed on the 13th of November, 1299, by William, Bishop of St Andrews, 
 Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, and John Comyn the younger, styling themselves 
 guardians of the kingdom of Scotland ; in which they petition King Edward for 
 a cessation of hostilities, in order, as they afterwards expressed themselves, that 
 they might live as peaceable subjects under their sovereign King John. 
 
 There is, however, no reason to suppose, that these proceedings were in ac- 
 cordance with any secret instructions from Baliol, who, if not glad to get 
 quit of his uneasy sovereignty, at the time he resigned it, at least seems to 
 have afterwards entertained no wish for its recovery. A considerable time be- 
 fore his insurgent representatives made the above declaration in his behalf, he 
 is found executing a deed of the following tenor : " In the name of God, Amen. 
 In the year 1298, on the 1st of April, in the house of the reverend father, 
 Anthony, Bishop of Durham, without London. The said Bishop discoursing of 
 the state and condition of the kingdom of Scotland, and of the inhabitants of 
 the said kingdom, before the noble lord John Baliol : the said John, of his own 
 proper motion, in the presence of us, the Notary, and the subscribing witnesses, 
 amongst other things, said and delivered in the French tongue to this effect, that
 
 EDWARD BALIOL. 121 
 
 is to say, that while he, the said realm of Scotland, as King and Lord thereof, 
 held and governed, he had found in the people of the said kingdom so much 
 malice, fraud, treason, and deceit, that, for their malignity, wickedness, treachery, 
 and other detestable facts, and for that, as he had thoroughly understood, they 
 had, while their prince, contrived to poison him, it was his intention never to go 
 or enter into the said kingdom of Scotland for the future, or with the said king- 
 dom or its concerns, either by himself or others, to intermeddle, nor for the rea- 
 sons aforesaid, and many others, to have any thing to do with the Scots. At 
 the same time, the said John desired the said Bishop of Durham, that he would 
 acquaint the most magnificent prince, and his Lord, Edward, the most illustrious 
 king of England, with his intention, will, and firm resolution in this respect. 
 This act was signed and sealed by the public notary, in the presence of the 
 Bishop of Durham aforesaid, and of Ralph de Sandwich, constable of the Tower 
 of London, and others, who heard this discourse." 1 
 
 We regret for the honour of Scotland, that, excepting the date of this shame- 
 fid libel, there is no other reason for supposing it to be dictated in an insincere 
 spirit Baliol now appears to have really entertained no higher wish than to 
 regain his personal liberty, and be permitted to spend the rest of his days in 
 retirement Accordingly, having at last convinced King Edward of his sinceri- 
 ty, he and his son were delivered, on the 20th of July, 1299, to the Pope's le- 
 gfite, the Bishop of Vicenza, by whom they were transported to Erance. The 
 unfortunate Baliol lived there upon his ample estates, till the year 1314, when 
 he died at his seat of Castle Galliard, aged about fifty-five years. Though thus 
 by no means advanced in life, he is said to have been afflicted with many of the 
 infirmities of old age, among which was an entire deprivation of sight. 
 
 BALIOL, EDWARD. King John Baliol had two sons, Edward and Henry. 
 The former seems entitled to some notice in this work, on account of his vigo- 
 rous, though eventually unsuccessful attempt to regain the crown lost by his fa- 
 ther. When King John entered into the treaty with the King of France, in 
 1295, it was stipulated in the first article that his son Edward should marry the 
 daughter of Charles of Valois, niece to the French monarch, receiving writh her 
 twenty-five thousand livres de Tournois current money, and assigning to her, as 
 a dowry, one thousand five hundred pounds sterling of yearly rent, of which one 
 thousand should be paid out of King John's lands of Baliol, Dampier, Helicourt, 
 and de Hornay, in France, and five hundred out of those of Lanark, Cadiou, 
 Cunningham, 2 Haddington, and the Castle of Dundee, in Scotland. This young 
 prince accompanied his father in his captivity in the Tower, and was subse- 
 quently carried with him to France. After the death of John Baliol, Edward 
 quietly succeeded to the French family estates, upon which he lived unno- 
 ticed till 1324, when Edward II. commanded that he should be brought 
 over to England, apparently for the purpose of being held up as a rival to 
 Robert Bruce. Whether he now visited England or not is uncertain ; but 
 would rather appear that he did not, as, in 1326, he was invited by Edward I 
 for the same purpose. At this time, the English monarch was endeavouring t 
 secure a peace with the King of Scots, but at the same time held himself pre 
 pared for war by mustering his barons at Newcastle. He seems to have I 
 that a threat of taking Baliol under his patronage was apt to quicke 
 sires of the Scots for an accommodation. Nevertheless, in the summ 
 
 i Prynne's Collections, iii. 665. T 
 
 2 '. J, hn Baliol is known to have possessed in Cunningham the foil *^ " ^^ 
 Noddcsdale, Southannan. Dairy, Giffin, Cumsheuch, Dreghorn, %******"" 
 marnock, together with Bondinton and Hartshaw ; tei.d,n in alHo about j^ * 
 of valued rent, or about L15,000 real rent at present."- Robertson 5 Ayr* 
 i. Q
 
 122 
 
 EDWARD BALIOL. 
 
 rear, the Scots made a bold and successful incursion into England, under Ran- 
 dolph and Douglas, and King Edward was obliged, April 1328, to consent to 
 the treaty of Northampton, which acknowledged at once the independency of 
 the Scottish crown, and the right of Robert Bruce to wear it. No more is heard 
 of Edward Baliol, till after the death of Bruce, when he was tempted by the 
 apparent weakness of Scotland under the minority of David II. to attempt the 
 recovery of his birth-right. Two English barons, Henry de Beaumont and 
 Thomas Lord Wake, claimed certain estates in Scotland, which had been 
 declared their property by the treaty of Northampton ; Randolph, the Scot- 
 tish regent, distrusting the sincerity of the English in regard to other articles 
 of this treaty, refused to restore those estates ; and the two barons accord- 
 ingly joined with Baliol in his design. That the English king might not be 
 supposed accessory to so gross a breach of the treaty, he issued a proclama- 
 tion against their expedition ; but they easily contrived to ship four hundred 
 men at arms and three thousand infantry at Holderness, all of whom were safely 
 landed on the coast of Fife, July 31, 1332. Only eleven days before this event, 
 the Scottish people had been bereft of their brave regent, Randolph Earl of 
 Moray, who was almost the last of those worthies by whom the kingdom of 
 Bruce had been won and maintained. The regency fell into the hands of Don- 
 ald, Earl of Mar, in every respect a feebler man. Baliol, having beat back some 
 forces which opposed his landing, moved forward to Forteviot, near Perth ; where 
 the Earl of Mar appeared with an army to dispute his farther progress. As the 
 Scottish forces were much superior in number and position to the English, Baliol 
 found himself in a situation of great jeopardy, and would willingly have re- 
 treated to his ships, had that been possible. Finding, however, no other re- 
 source than to fight, he led his forces at midnight across the Erne, surprised the 
 Scottish camp in a state of the most disgraceful negligence, and put the whole 
 to the route. This action, fought on the 1 2th of August, was called the battle of 
 Dupplin. The conqueror entered Perth, and for some time found no resistance 
 to his assumed authority. On the 24th of September, he was solemnly crowned 
 at Scone. The friends of the line of Bruce, though unable to offer a formal 
 opposition, appointed Andrew Moray of Both well to be regent in the room of 
 the Earl of Mar, who had fallen at Dupplin. At Roxburgh, on the 23rd of 
 November, Bab'ol solemnly acknowledged Edward of England for his liege lord, 
 and surrendered to him the town and castle of Berwick, " on account of the 
 great honour and emoluments which he had procured through the good will of 
 the English king, and the powerful and acceptable aid contributed by his peo- 
 ple." The two princes also engaged on this occasion to aid each other in all 
 their respective wars. Many of the Scottish chiefs now submitted to Baliol, and 
 it does not appear improbable that he might have altogether retrieved a king- 
 dom which was certainly his by the laws of hei-editary juccession. But on the 
 1 5th of December, the adherents of the opposite dynasty surprised him in his 
 turn at Annan, overpowered his host, and having slain his brother Henry, and 
 many other distinguished men, obliged him to fly, almost naked, and with hardly 
 a single attendant, to England, liis subsequent efforts, though not so easily 
 counteracted, were of the same desultory character. He returned into Scotland 
 in Marsh, and lay for some time at Roxburgh, with a small force. In May, 
 1333, he joined forces with King Edward, and reduced the town of Berwick. 
 The Scottish regent being overthrown at Halidon Hill, July li), for a time all 
 resistance to the claims of Baliol ceased. In a parliament held at Edinburgh in 
 February, he ratified the fonner treaty with King Edward, and soon after sur- 
 rendered to that monarch the whole of the counties on the frontier, together 
 with the province of Lothian, as part of the kingdom of England. His power,
 
 JOHN BALLANTYNE. 
 
 123 
 
 however, was solely supported by foreign influence, and, upon the rise of a few 
 of the opposite hostile barons, in November, 1334, he again fled to England. In 
 July, 1335, Edward III. enabled him to return under the protection of an army. 
 But, notwithstanding the personal presence and exertions of no less a warrior 
 than the victor of Cressy, the Scots never could altogether be brought under 
 the sway of this vassal king. For two or three yean, Edward Balioi held a 
 nominal sway at Perth, while the greater part of the country was in a state of 
 rebellion against him. The regent Andrew Moray, dying in July, 1338, was 
 succeeded by Robert Stewart, the grandson of Bruce, and nephew of David II. 
 who having threatened to besiege Balioi in Perth, obliged him to retreat once 
 more to England. The greater part of the country speedily fell under the do- 
 minion of the regent, nor was Edward III. now able to retrieve it, being fully 
 engaged in his French wars. The Scots having made an incursion, in 1344, 
 into England, Balioi, with the forces of the northern counties, was appointed to 
 oppose them. Two years after this period, when the fatal battle of Durham, 
 and the capture of David II. had again reduced the strength of Scotland, Balioi 
 raised an insurrection in Galloway, where his family connections gave him great in- 
 fluence, and speedily penetrated to the central parts of the kingdom. He gained, 
 however, no permanent footing. For some years after this period, Scotland 
 maintained a noble struggle, under its regent Robert Stewart, against both the 
 pretensions of this adventurer, and the power of the King of England, till at 
 length, in 1355-6, wearied out with an unavailing contest, and feeling the ap- 
 proach of old age, Balioi resigned all his claims into the hands of Edward III. 
 for the consideration of five thousand merks, and a yearly pension of two thou- 
 sand pounds. After this surrender, which was transacted at Roxburgh, and 
 included his personal estates, as well as his kingdom, this unfortunate prince 
 retired to England. " The fate of Edward Baliol," says Lord Hailes, " was 
 singular. In his invasion of Scotland during the minority of David Bruce, he 
 displayed a bold spirit of enterprise, and a courage superior to all difficulties. 
 By the victory at Dupplin, he won a crown ; some few weeks after, he was sur- 
 prised at Annan and lost it The overthrow of the Scots at Halidon, to which 
 he signally contributed, availed not to his re-establishment Year after year, he 
 saw his partisans fall away, and range themselves under the banner of his com- 
 petitor. He became the pensioner of Edward III. and the tool of his policy, 
 assumed or laid aside at pleasure : and, at last, by his surrender at Roxburgh, 
 he did what in him lay to entail the calamities of war upon the Scottish nation, 
 a nation already miserable through the consequences of a regal succession dis- 
 puted for threescore years. The remainder of his days was spent in obscurity ; 
 and the historians of that kingdom where he once reigned, know not the time 
 of his death." It may further be mentioned, that neither these historians nor 
 the Scottish people at large, ever acknowledged Edward Baliol as one of the 
 line of Scottish monarchs. The right of the family of Bruce, though inferior in 
 a hereditary point of view, having been confirmed by parliament on account of 
 the merit of King Robert, this shadowy intruder, though occasionally dominant 
 through the sword, could never be considered the legitimate monarch, more 
 especially as he degraded himself and his country by a professed surrender ot 
 its independence, and even of a part of its territory, to a foreign enemy, 
 died childless, and, it would also appear, unmarried, in 1363, when h 
 have been advanced to at least the age of seventy. 
 
 BALLANTYNE, JOHN. Of all the remarkable men, by whom tl me, in 
 its various orthographical appearances, has been borne, not the least worthy of no- 
 tice is John Ballantyne, who died on the 16th of June, 1831, about the age of 
 ( r rty-five years. This gentleman was the son of a merchant at Kelso, where 1
 
 124 JOHN BALLENTYNE (OK BELLENDEN). 
 
 1 - 
 
 waa born and educated. In his youth, he displayed such an extraordinary quick- 
 ness of mind, as sufficiently betokened the general ability by which he was to be 
 distinguished in after life. While still a young man, his mind was turned to 
 literary concerns by the establishment of a provincial newspaper, the Kelso 
 Mail, which was begun by his elder brother J;nnes. The distinction acquired 
 by his brother in consequence of some improvements in printing, by which there 
 issued from a Scottish provincial press a series of books rivalling, in elegance 
 and accurate taste, the productions of a I3ensley or a Baskerville, caused the 
 removal of both to Edinburgh about the beginning of the present century. But 
 the active intellect of John Ballantyne was not to be confined to the dusky 
 shades of the printing-house. He embarked largely in the bookselling trade, 
 and subsequently in the profession of an auctioneer of works of art, libraries, 
 &c. The connection which he and his brother had established at Kelse with 
 Sir Walter Scott, whose Border Minstrelsy was printed by them, continued in this 
 more extensive scene, and accordingly during the earlier and more interesting 
 years of the career of the author of Waverley, John Ballantyne acted as the coiiii- 
 d.int of that mysterious writer, and managed all the business of the communication 
 of his works to the public. Some of these works were published by John Ballan- 
 tyne, who also issued two different periodical works, written chiefly by Sir Wal- 
 ter Scott, entitled respectively the Visionary and the Sale-room, of which the 
 1 itter had a reference to one branch of 31r Ballantyne's trade. It is also wor- 
 thy of notice, that the large edition of the works of Beaumont and Fletcher, which 
 appeared under the name of Mr Henry Weber as editor, and which, we may pre- 
 sume to say, reflects no inconsiderable credit upon the Scottisli press, was an en- 
 enterprise undertaken at the suggestion and risk of this spirited publisher. 
 Mr Ballantyne himself made one incursion into the field of letters : he 
 was the author of a tolerably sprightly novel in two thin duodecimos, styled, 
 " The Widow's Lodgings," which reached a second edition, and by which, 
 as he used to boast in a jocular manner, he made no less a sum than thirty 
 pounds ! It was not, however, as an author that Mr Ballantyne chiefly shone- 
 his forte was story-telling. As a co?Ueur, he was allowed to be unrivalled by 
 any known contemporary. Possessing an infinite fund of ludicrous and charac- 
 teristic anecdote, which he could set oft' with a humour endless in the variety of 
 its shades and tones, he was entirely one of those beings who seem to have been 
 designed by nature for the task, now abrogated, of enlivening the formalities and 
 alleviating the cares of a court : he was Yorick revived. After pursuing a la- 
 borious and successful business for several years, declining health obliged him to 
 travel upon the continent, and finally to retire to a seat in the neighbourhood of 
 Melrose. He had been married, at an early age, to Miss Parker, a beautiful 
 young lady, a relative of I)r Rutherford, author of the View of Ancient His- 
 tory and other esteemed works. This union was not blessed with any children. 
 In his Melrose rustication, he commenced the publication of a large and beautiful 
 dition of the British Novelists, as an easy occupation to divert the languor of 
 lines*, and fill up those vacancies in time, which were apt to contrast disagree- 
 .ibly with the former habits of busy life. The works of the various novelists 
 vvere here amassed into large volumes, to which Sir Walter Scott furnished bio- 
 graphical prefaces. But the trial was brief. While flattering himself with the 
 hope that his frame was invigorated by change of air and exercise, death stepped 
 in, and reft the world of as joyous a spirit as ever brightened its sphere. The 
 Novelist's Library was afterwards completed by the friendly attention of Sir Wal- 
 ter Scott 
 
 BALLENTYNE, (or BKLLKNDKN,) JOHN, otherwise spelt Ballanden and Bal- 
 lentyn an eminent poet of the reign of James V., and the translator of Boece's
 
 JOHN BALLENTYNE (OR BELLENDEN). 125 
 
 Latin History, and of the first five books of Livy, into the vernacular language 
 of his time, was a native of Lothian, and appears to have been born towards the 
 close of the 1 5th century. He studied at the university of St Andrews, where 
 his name is thus entered in the records : " 1508, Jo. Balletyn nac. Lav [doniai}." 
 It is probable that he remained there for several years, which was necessary before 
 he could be laureated. His education was afterwards completed at the univer- 
 sity of Paris, where he took the degree of Doctor of Divinity ; and as has been 
 remarked by his biographer, {Works of Bellenden, I., xxxvii,] " the effects of his 
 residence upon the continent may be traced both in his idiom and language." 
 
 He returned to Scotland during the minority of James V., and became attach- 
 ed to the establishment of that monarch as " Clerk of his Comptis." This ap- 
 pears from " the Proheme of the Cosmographe," prefixed to his translation of 
 Boece, in which he says : 
 
 And first occurrit (o my remembering, 
 
 How that 1 wes in service with the king ; 
 
 But to his grace in yens teiiderest, 
 
 Clerk of his compts, thoucht I wes indigii [unworthy.j 
 
 With hart and hand and every other thing 
 
 That micht him pleis in my maner best ; 
 
 Quhill hie invy me from his service kest, 
 
 Be thame that had the court in governing, 
 
 As bird but plumes heryit of the nest. 
 
 The biographer of Ballentyne, above quoted, supposes that he must have been 
 the " Maister Johnne Ballentyne," who, in 1528, was " secretar and servitour " 
 to Archibald Earl of Angus, and in that capacity appeared before parliament to 
 state his master's reasons for not answering the summons of treason which had 
 been issued against him. We can scarcely, however, reconcile the circumstance 
 of his being then a " Douglas's man," with the favour he is found to have enjoyed 
 a few years after with James V., whose antipathy to that family was so great as 
 probably to extend to all its connections. However this may be, Ballentyne is 
 thus celebrated, in 1530, as a court poet, by Sir David Lyndsay, who had been 
 in youth his fellow-student at St Andrews, and was afterwards his fellow-servant 
 in the household of the king : 
 
 But now of late has start up heastily 
 A cunning clerk that writeth craftily; 
 A plant of poets, called Ballanten, 
 Whose ornat writs my wit cannot defyne ; 
 Get he into the court authority, 
 He will precel Quintin and Kenedy. 
 
 In 1530 and 1531, Ballentyne was employed, by command of the king, in 
 translating Boece's History, which had been published at Paris in 1526. The 
 object of this translation was to introduce the king and others who had " missed 
 Jheir Latin," to a knowledge of the history of their country. In the epistl 
 the king at the conclusion of this work, Ballenden passes a deserved complin 
 upon his majesty, for having " dantit this region and brocht the same to si 
 rest, gud peace and tranquillity ; howbeitthe same could nocht be done be you 
 gret baronis during your tender age ;" and also says, without much flattery, 
 "Your nobilland worthy deidis proceeds mair be naturall inclination and actn 
 curate, than ony gudly persuasioun of assisteris." He also attests Ins own sin- 
 cerity, by a lecture to the king on the difference between tyrannical and just 
 government ; which, as a curious specimen of the prose composition of that tune,
 
 126 JOHN BALLENTYNE (OK BELLENDEN). 
 
 ind also a testimony to the enlightened and upright character of Ballentyue, v e 
 shall extract into these pages : 
 
 " As Seneca says in his tragedeis, all ar nocht kingis that bene clothit with pur 
 pure and dredoure, but only they that sekis na singulare proflet, in dammage ol 
 the coramonweill ; and sa vigilant that the life of their subdetis is mair deir and 
 precious to them than thair awin life. Ane tyrane sekis riches ; ane king sekis 
 honour, conquest be virtew. Ane tyrane governis his realmis be slauchter, dre- 
 doure, and lalsi't ; ane king gidis his realnie be prudence, integrite, and favour. 
 Ane tyrane suspeckis all them that hes riches, gret doniinioun, auctorite, or gret 
 rentis ; ane king haldis sic men for his maist helply friendis. Ane tyrane luffis 
 nane bot vane fleschouris, vicious and wicket lymmaris, be quhais counsall he 
 rages in slauchter and tyranny ; ane king luffis men of wisdom, gravite, and 
 science ; knawing weill that his gret materis maybe weill dressit be thair pru- 
 dence. Treuth is that kingis and tyrannis hes mony handis, mony ene, and 
 mony mo memberis. Ane tyrane sets him to be dred ; ane king to be luffet. 
 Ane tyrane rejoises to mak his pepill pure ; ane king to mak tbame riche. 
 Ane tyrane draws his pepill to sindry factiones, discord, and hatrent ; ane king 
 ninks peace, tranquillite, and concord ; knawing nothing sa dammagious as di- 
 vision amang his subdittis. Ane tyrane confounds all divine and hummane 
 lawis ; ane king observis thaime, and rejoises in equite arid justice. All thir pro- 
 perteis sal be patent, in reding the livis of gud and evil kingis, in the history 
 precedent." 
 
 To have spoken in this way to an absolute prince shows Ballentyne to have 
 been not altogether a courtier. 
 
 He afterwards adds, in a finely impassioned strain : " Quhat thing maybe 
 mair plesand than to se in this present volume, as in ane cleir mirroure all the 
 variance of tyme bygane ; the sindry chancis of fourtoun ; the bludy fechting 
 and terrible berganis sa mony years continuit, in the defence of your realm and 
 liberte ; quhilk is fallen to your hieness with gret felicita. howbeit the samin 
 has aftimes been ransomit with maist nobill blude of your antecessoris. Quhat 
 is he that wil nocht rejoise to heir the knychtly afaris of thay forcy campions, 
 King Robert Bruce and William Wallace ? The first, be innative desyre to re- 
 cover his realme, wes brocht to sic calamite, that mony dayis he durst nocht 
 appeir in sicht of pepill ; but amang desertis, levand on rutes and herbis, in 
 esperance of better fortoun ; bot at last, be his singulare manheid, he come to 
 sic preeminent glore, that now he is reput the maist valyeant prince that was 
 eftir or before his empire. This other, of small beginning, be feris enrage and 
 corporall strength, not only put Englishmen out of Scotland, but als, be feir of 
 his awful visage, put Edward king of England to flicht ; and held all the bor- 
 ders fornence Scotland waist" 
 
 Ballentyne delivered a manuscript copy of his work to the king, in the sum- 
 mer of 1533, and about the same time he appears to have been engaged in a 
 translation of Livy. The following entries in the treasurer's book give a curi- 
 ous view of the prices of literary labour, in the court of a king of those days. 
 
 " To Maister John Ballentyne, be the kingis precept, for his translating of the 
 Chronykill, 30. 
 
 " 1531, Oct 4th. To Maister John BaUantyne, be the kingis precept, for 
 his translating of the Chroniclis, 30. 
 
 " Item, Thairefter to the said Maister Johne, be the kingis command, 6. 
 " 1533, July 26. To Maister John Ballentyne, for ane new Chronikle gevin 
 to the kingis grace, 12. 
 
 " Item, To him in part payment of the translation of Titus Livius, 8.
 
 HENRY BALNAVES. 
 
 127 
 
 " Au g- 24. To Maister John Ballentyne, in part payment of the second 
 
 buke of Titus Livius, 8. 
 
 NOT. 30. To Maister John Ballentyne, be the kingis precept, for his 
 
 laboris dune in translating of Livie, 20. 
 
 The literary labours of Ballentyne were still further rewarded by his royal 
 master, with an appointment to the arcbdeanery of Moray, and the escheated 
 property and rents of two individuals, who became subject to the pains of trea- 
 son for having used influence with the Pope to obtain the same benefice, againsl 
 the king's privilege. He subsequently got a vacant prebendaryship in the 
 cathedral of Ross. His translation of Boece was printed in 1536, by Thomas 
 Davidson, and had become in later times almost unique, till a new edition was 
 published in a remarkably elegant style, in 1821, by Messrs Tait, Edinburgh. 
 At the same time appeared the translation of the first two books of Livy, which 
 had never before been printed. The latter work seems to have been carried no 
 further by the translator. 
 
 Ballentyne seems to have lived happily in the sunshine of court favour during 
 the remainder of the reign of James V. The opposition which he afterwards 
 presented to the reformation, brought him into such odium, that he retired from 
 his country in disgust, and died at Rome, about the year 1550. 
 
 The translations of Ballentyne are characterised by a striking felicity of lan- 
 guage, and also by a freedom that shows his profound acquaintance with the 
 learned language upon which he wrought. His Chronicle, which closes with the 
 reign of James I., is rather a paraphrase than a literal translation of Boece, and 
 possesses in several respects the character of an original work. Many of the 
 historical errors of the latter are corrected not a few of his redundancies re- 
 trenched and his more glaring omissions supplied. Several passages in the 
 work are highly elegant, and some descriptions of particular incidents reach to 
 something nearly akin to the sublime. Many of the works of Ballenden are 
 lost among others a tract on the Pythagoric letter, and a discourse upon Vir- 
 tue and Pleasure. He also wrote many political pieces, the most of which are 
 lost Those which have reached us are principally Proems prefixed to his prose 
 works, a species of composition not apt to bring out the better qualities of a 
 poet ; yet they exhibit the workings of a rich and luxuriant fancy, and abound 
 in lively sallies of the imagination. They are generally allegorical, and distin- 
 guished rather by incidental beauties, than by the skilful structure of the fable. 
 The story, indeed, is often dull, the allusions obscure, and the general scope of 
 the piece unintelligible. These faults, however, are pretty general characteris- 
 tics of allegorical poets, and they are atoned for, in him, by the striking thoughts 
 and the charming descriptions in which he abounds, and which, " like threds of 
 gold, the rich arras, beautify his works quite thorow." 
 
 BALNAVES, HENRY, of Halhill, an eminent lay reformer, and also a prose- 
 writer of some eminence, was born of poor parents in the town of Kirkaldy. 
 After an academical course at St Andrews, he travelled to the continent, and, 
 hearing of a free school in Cologne, procured admission to it. and received a li 
 beral education, together with instruction in protestant principles. Returning 
 to his native country, he applied himself to the study of law, and acted for some 
 time as a procurator at St Andrews. In the year 1538, he was appointed by 
 James V. a senator of the college of Justice, a court only instituted five years be- 
 fore. Notwithstanding the jealousy of the clergy, who hated him on account of his 
 religious sentiments, he was employed on important embassies by James \., and 
 subsequently by the governor Arran, during the first part of whose regency he 
 acted as secretary of state. Having at length made an open profession of the 
 Protestant religion, he was, at the instigation of Arran's brother, the Abbot of
 
 HENRY BALNAVES. 
 
 Paisley, dismissed from that situation. He now appears to have entered into tho 
 interests of the English party against the governor, and accordingly, with the 
 I'iirl of Rothes and Lord Gray, was thrown into Blackness Castle (November 
 1343), where he probably remained till relieved next year, on the appearance of 
 the English fleet in the Firth of Forth. There is much reason to believe that this 
 sincere and pious man was privy to the conspiracy formed against the life of Car- 
 dinal Beaton; an action certainly not the brightest in the page of Scottish his- 
 tory, but of which it is not too much to say, that it might have been less defensi- 
 ble if its motive had not been an irregular kind of patriotism. Balnaves, though 
 he did not appear among the tactual perpetrators of the assassination, soon after 
 joined them in the castle of St Andrews, which they held out against the gover- 
 nor. He was consequently declared a traitor and excommunicated. His prin- 
 dpjil employment in the service of the conspirators seems to have been that of 
 an ambassador to the English court. In February 1 54(i-7, he obtained from 
 Henry VIII. a subsidy of jll80, besides a quantity of provisions, for his com- 
 patriots, and a pension of 125 to himself, which was to run from the '25th 
 of .March. On the 1 5th of this latter month, he had become bound along with 
 liis friends, to deliver up Queen Mary, and also the castle of St Andrews, into 
 the hands of the English; and, in May, he obtained a further sum of .300. 
 While residing in the castle, he was instrumental, along with Mr John Rough 
 and Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, in prevailing upon John Knox to preach 
 publicly in St Andrews the first regular ministration in the reformed religion 
 in Scotland. 
 
 When the defenders of the castle surrendered in August, Balnaves shared in 
 their fate, along with Knox, and many other eminent persons. He was conveyed 
 to the castle of Rouen in France, and there committed to close confinement. 
 Yet he still found occasional opportunities to communicate with his friend Knox. 
 Having employed himself, during his solitary hours, in composing a Treatise on 
 Justification, he conveyed it to the reformer, who was so much pleased with it, 
 that he divided it into chapters, added some marginal notes and a concise epi- 
 tome of its contents, and prefixed a commendatory dedication, intending that it 
 should be published in Scotland as soon as opportunity ottered. This work fell 
 aside for some years, but, after Knox's death, was discovered in the house of Or- 
 miston by Richard Bannatyne, and was published at Edinburgh, in 1584, under 
 the title of " 'Ihe Confession of Faith, containing, how the troubled man should 
 seek refuge at his God, thereto led by Faith ; &c., Compiled by M. Henrie Bal- 
 naves of Halhill, one of the Lords of Session and counsell of Scotland, being as 
 prisoner within the old pallaice of Roane, in the year of our Lord, 1548. Di- 
 rect to his faithful brethren being in like trouble or more, and to all true profes- 
 sors and favourers of the syncere worde of God." Dr M'Crie has given some 
 extracts from this work in his Life of John Knox. After his return from ban- 
 ishment, Balnaves took a bold and conspicuous part in the contest carried on by 
 the lords of the congregation against the Regent Mary. He was one of the 
 commissioners, who, in February, 1559-60, settled the treaty at Berwick, between 
 the former insurgent body and the Queen of England, in consequence of which 
 the Scottish reformation was finally established, through aid from a country al- 
 ways heretofore the bitterest enemy of Scotland. In 15(53, he was re-appointed 
 to the bench, and also nominated as one of the commissioners for revising the 
 Book of Discipline. He acted some years later, along with Buchanan and others, 
 as counsellors to the Earl of Murray, in the celebrated inquiry by English and 
 Scottish commissioners into the alleged guilt of Queen Mary. He died, accord- 
 ing to Mackenzie, in 1 579. 
 
 " In his Treatise upon Justification," says the latter authority, " he affirms thai
 
 GEORGE BANNATYNB. 
 
 the justification spoken of by St James is different from that spoken of by St 
 Paul : For the justification by good works, which St James speaks of, only justi- 
 fies us before man ; but the justification by faith, which St Paul speaks of, justi- 
 fies us before God : And that all, yea even the best of our good works, are but 
 sins before God." 
 
 " And," adds Mackenzie, with true Jacobite sarcasm, " whatever may be in this 
 doctrine of our author's, I think we may grant to him that the most of all his 
 actions which he valued himself upon, and reckoned good works, were really 
 great and Jieinous sins before God, for no good man will justify rebellion and 
 murder." 
 
 Without entering into the controversies involved by this proposition, either as 
 to the death of Cardinal Beaton, or the accusations against Queen Mary, we may 
 content ourselves with quoting the opinion entertained of Balnaves by the good 
 and moderate Melville ; he was, according to this writer, " a godly, learned, 
 wise, and long experimented counsellor." ' A poem' by Balnaves, entitled, 
 " An advice to headstrong Youth," is selected from Bannatyne's manuscript into 
 the Evergreen. 
 
 BANNATYNF, GEORGE, takes his title to a place in this work from a source 
 of lame participated by no other individual within the range of Scottish biogra- 
 phy ; it is to this person that we are indebted for the preservation of nearly all 
 the productions of the Scottish poets of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 
 Though the services he has thus rendered to his country were in some measure 
 the result of accident, yet it is also evident that, if he had not been a person of 
 eminent literary taste, and also partly a poet himself, we should never have had 
 to celebrate him as a collector of poetry. The compound claim which he has 
 thus established to our notice, and the curious antique picture which is presented 
 to our eye by even the little that is known regarding his character and pursuits, 
 will, it is hoped, amply justify his admission into this gallery of eminent 
 Scotsmen. 
 
 George Bannatyne was born in an elevated rank of society. His father, 
 James Bannatyne, of the Kirktown of Newtyle, in the county of Forfar, was a 
 writer in Edinburgh, at a time when that profession must have been one of some 
 distinction and rarity ; and he was probably the person alluded to by Robert 
 Semple, in " The Defens of Grissell Sandylands :" 
 " For men of law I wait not quhair to luke : 
 James Bannatyne was anis a man of skill.*' 
 
 It also appears that James Bannatyne held the office of TABULAR to the Lords of 
 Session, in which office his eldest son (afterwards a Lord of Council and Session) 
 was conjoined with him as successor, by royal precept dated May 2, 1583. 
 James Bannatyne is further ascertained to have been connected with the very 
 ancient and respectable family of Bannachtyne, or Bannatyne of Camys, [now 
 I ames] in the island of Bute. He was the father, by his wife Katharine Tail- 
 liefer, of twemy-threi: children, nine of whom, who survived at the time of his 
 leath, in 1583, were " we ill, and sufficiently provydit be him, under God." 
 
 George Bannatyne, the seventh child of his parents, was born on the 22nd 
 day of Jbebrurry, 1545, and was bred up to trade. 1 It is, however, quite unrer- 
 
 i In a memoir of George Bannatyne, by Sir Walter Scott, prefixed to a collection of me- 
 morabilia regarding him,\vhich ha= been printed for the Bannatyne Club, it 
 that he was not catty engaged in business, but this supposition seems only to n 
 uncenr.in inference from a passage in George Bannatyne's "Memonall Sink, T 
 
 five years of age.
 
 130 
 
 GEORGE BANNATYNE. 
 
 tain at what time he began to be engaged in business on his own account, or 
 whether he spent his youth in business or not. Judging, however, as the world 
 is apt to judge, we should suppose, from his taste for poetry, and his having been 
 a writer of verses himself, that he was at least no zealous applicant to any com- 
 mercial pursuit Two poems of his, written before the age of twenty-three, are 
 full of ardent though conceited affection towards some fair mistress, whom he 
 describes in the most extravagantly complimentary terms. It is also to be sup- 
 posed that, at this age, even though obliged to seek some amusement during a 
 time of necessary seclusion, he could not have found the means to collect, 01 
 the taste to execute, such a mass of poetry as that which bears his name, 
 if he had not previously been almost entirely abandoned to this particular pur- 
 suit. At the same time, there is some reason to suppose that he was not alto- 
 gether an idle young man, given up to vain fancies, from the two first lines of 
 his valedictory address at the end of his collection : 
 
 " Heir eridis this Buik vvrittin in tyme of pest, 
 Quhen we fra labor was compel'd to rest." 
 
 Of the transaction on which the whole fame of George Bannatyne rests, we give 
 the following interesting account from the Memoir just quoted : 
 
 " It is seldom that the toils of the amanuensis are in themselves interesting 
 or that, even while enjoying the advantages of the poor scribe's labour, we are 
 disposed to allow him the merit of more than mere mechanical drudgery. But 
 in the compilation of George Bannatyne's manuscript, there are particulars 
 which rivet our attention on the writer, and raise him from a humble copyist 
 into a national benefactor. 
 
 " Baunatyue's Manuscript is in a folio form, containing upwards of eight 
 hundred pages, very neatly and closely written, and designed, as has been sup- 
 posed, to be sent to the press. The labour of compiling so rich a collection was 
 undertaken by the author during the time of pestilence, in the year 1568, 
 when the dread of infection compelled men to forsake their usual employments, 
 which could not be conducted without admitting the ordinary promiscuous inter- 
 course between man and his kindred men. 
 
 " In this dreadful period, when hundreds, finding themselves surrounded by 
 danger and death, renounced all care save that of selfish precaution for their 
 own safety, and all thoughts save apprehensions of infection, George Bannatyns 
 had the courageous energy to form and execute the plan of saving the literature 
 of a whole nation ; and, undisturbed by the universal mourning for the dead, 
 and general fears of the living, to devote himself to the task of collecting ami 
 recording the triumphs of human genius; thus, amid the wreck of all that w; s 
 mortal, employing himself in preserving the lays by which immortality is at ones 
 given to others, and obtained for the writer himself. His task, he informs us, 
 had its difficulties ; for he complains that he had, even in his time, to contend 
 with the disadvantage of copies old, maimed, and mutilated, and which long 
 before our day must, but for this faithful transcriber, have perished entirely. 
 The very labour of procuring the originals of the works which he transcribed, 
 must have been attended with much trouble and some risk, at a time when all 
 the usual intercourse of life was suspended, and when we can conceive that even 
 so simple a circumstance as the borrowing and lending a book of ballads, was 
 accompanied with some doubt and apprehension, and that probably the suspected 
 volume was subjected to fumigation, and the precautions used in quarantine. 2 
 
 2 With deference to Sir Walter, we would suggest that the suspicion under which books 
 are always held at a time of pestilenon, as a means of conveying the infection, gives great 
 reason to suppose that George Bannatyne had previously collected his original manuscripts, 
 and oifly took this opportunity of transcribing them The writing of eight hundred foJio
 
 GEORGE BANNATYNE. 
 
 * * * 
 
 " In the reign of James IV. and V., the fine arts, as they awakened in other 
 countries, made some progress in Scotland also. Architecture and music were 
 encouraged by botli of those accomplished sovereigns ; and poetry above all, 
 seems to have been highly valued at the Scottish court The King of Scotland, 
 who, in point of power, seems to have been little more than the first baron of 
 his kingdom, held a free and merry court, in which poetry and satire seem to 
 have had unlimited range, even where their shafts glanced on royalty itself. 
 The consequence of this general encouragement was the production of much 
 poetry of various kinds, and concerning various persons, which the narrow exer- 
 tions of the Scottish press could not convey to the public, or which, if printed 
 at all, existed only in limited editions, which soon sunk to the rarity of manu- 
 scripts. There was therefore an ample mine out of which Bannatyne made his 
 compilation, with the intention, doubtless, of putting the Lays of the Makers out 
 of the reach of oblivion, by subjecting the collection to the press. But the bloody 
 wars of Queen Mary's time 3 made that no period for literary adventure ; and 
 the tendency of the subsequent age to polemical discussion, discouraged lighter 
 and gayer studies. There is, therefore, little doubt, that had Bannatyne lived 
 Later than he did, or had he been a man of less taste in selecting his materials, 
 a great proportion of the poetry contained in his volume must have been lost to 
 posterity ; and, if the stock of northern literature had been diminished only by 
 the loss of such of Dunbar's pieces as Bannatyne's Manuscript contains, the da- 
 mage to posterity would have been infinite." 
 
 The pestilence which caused Bannatyne to go into retirement, commenced at 
 Edinburgh upon the 8th of September, 1568, being introduced by a merchant 
 of the name of Dalgleish. We have, however, no evidence to prove that Ban- 
 natyne resided at this time in the capital. We know, from his own informa- 
 tion, that he wrote his manuscript during the subsequent months of October, 
 November, and December ; which might almost seem to imply that he had lived 
 in some other town, to which the pestilence only extended at the end of the 
 month in which it appeared in Edinburgh. Leaving this in uncertainty, it is 
 not perhaps too much to suppose that he might have adopted this means of 
 spending his time of seclusion, from the fictitious example held out by Boccacio, 
 who represents the tales of his Decameron as having been told for mutual amuse- 
 ment, by a company of persons who had retired to the country to escape the 
 plague. A person so eminently acquainted with the poetry of his own country, 
 might well be familiar with the kindred work of that illustrious Italian. 
 
 The few remaining facts of George Bannatyne's life, which have been gathered 
 up by the industry of Sir Walter Scott, may be briefly related. In 1572, he 
 was provided with a tenement in the town of Leith, by a gift from his father. 
 This would seem to imply that he was henceforward, at least, engaged in busi- 
 ness, and resided either in Edinburgh or at its neighbouring port. It was not, how- 
 ever, till the 27th of October, 1587, that, being then in his forty-third year, he 
 was admitted in due and competent form to the privileges of a merchant and 
 guild-brother of the city of Edinburgh. " We have no means of knowing what 
 branch of traffic George Bannatyne chiefly exercised ; it is probable that, as 
 usual in a Scottish burgh, his commerce was general and miscellaneous. A\e 
 
 pages in the careful and intricate style of caligraphy then practised, appears a sufficient task 
 in itself for three months, without supposing that any part of the time was spent in collect- 
 ing manuscripts. And hence we see the greater reason for supposing that a large part of 
 the attention of George Bannatyne before his twenty-third year was devoted to {Scottish 
 poetry. , 
 
 3 The accomplished writer should rather have said, the minority of James VI., whose 
 reign had commenced before the manuscript was written.
 
 GKOIIGB BANNATYNE. 
 
 have reason to know that it was successful, as we find him in a few years pns- 
 sessed of a considerable capital, the time being considered, which he employed 
 to advantage in various money-lending transactions. It must not be forgot that 
 the penal laws of the Catholic period pronounced all direct taking of interest 
 upon money, to be usurious and illegal. These denunciations did not deciease 
 the desire of the wealthy to derive some profit from their capital, or diminish the 
 necessity of the embarrassed land-holder who wished to borrow money. The 
 mutual interest of the parties suggested various evasions of the law, of which the 
 most common was, that the capitalist advanced to his debtor the sum wanted, as 
 the price of a corresponding annuity, payable out of the lands and tenements of 
 the debtor, which annuity was rendered redeemable upon the said debtor repay- 
 ing the sum advanced. The moneyed man of those days, therefore, imitated the 
 conduct imputed to the Jeuisii patriarch by Shylock. They did not take 
 
 interest not as you would say 
 
 Directly interest, 
 
 but they retained payment of an annuity as long as the debtor retained the use 
 of their capital, which came to much the same thing. A species of transaction 
 was contrived, as affording a convenient mode of securing the lender's money. 
 Our researches have discovered that George Bannatyne had sufficient funds to 
 enter into various transactions of this kind, in the capacity of lender ; and, as 
 we have no reason to suppose that he profited unfairly by the necessities of the 
 other party, he cannot be blamed for having- recourse to the ordinary expedi- 
 ents, to avoid the penult y of an absurd law, and accomplish a fair transaction, 
 dictated by mutual expediency." 
 
 Bannatyue, about the same time that he became a burgess of Edinburgh, ap- 
 pears to have married his spo;ise, Isobel Mawchan [apparently identical with the 
 modern name Maughari], who was the relict of Bailie William Xisbett, and must 
 have been about forty years of age at the time of her second nuptials, supposing 
 1586 to be the date of that event, which is only probable from the succeeding 
 year having produced her first child by Bannatyne. This child was a daughter, 
 by name Janet, or Jonet ; she was born on the 3rd of May, 1587. A son, 
 James, born on the 6th of September, 1589, and who died young, completes the 
 sum of Bannatyne's family. The father of Bannatyne died in the year 1583, 
 and was succeeded in his estate of Newtyle, by his eldest living son, Thomas, 
 who became one of the Lords of Session by that designation, an appointment 
 which forms an additional voucher for the general respectability of the family. 
 George Bannatyne was, on the 27th of August, 1603, deprived of his affectionate 
 helpmate, Isobel Mawchan, at the age of fifty-seven, She had lived, according 
 to her husband's " Memorial!," " a godly, honourable, and virtuous life ; was a 
 wise, honest, and true matron, and departed in the Lord, in a peaceful and 
 godly manner." 
 
 George Bannatyne hi mself deceased previous to the year 1608, leaving onl\ 
 one child, Janet, who had, in 1603, been married to George Foulis of Woodhail 
 and Ravelstone, second son of James Foulis of Colingtoun. His valuable col- 
 lection of Scottish poetry was preserved in his daughter's family till 1712, \vhen 
 his great-grandson, William Foulis of Woodhall, bestowed it upon the Honourable 
 William Carmichael of Skirling, advocate, brother to the Earl of Hyndford, a 
 gentleman who appears to have had an eminent taste for such monuments of 
 antiquity. While in the possession of Mr Carmichael, it was borrowed by Allan 
 Kamsay, who selected from its pages the materials of his popular collection, 
 styled, "The Evergreen." Lord Hailes, in 1770, published a second and more 
 correct selection from the Bannatyne Manuscript; and the venerable tome was,
 
 JOHN HARBOUR. 133 
 
 in 1772, by the liberality -of John, third Earl of Hyndford, deposited in the 
 Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, where it still remains. 
 
 We have already alluded to George Bannatyne as a poet; and it remains t 
 be shown in what degree he was entitled to that designation. To tell the truth, 
 his verses display little, in thought or imagery, that could be expected to interest 
 the present generation ; neither was he perhaps a versifier of great repute, even 
 in his o\vn time. He seems to have belonged to a class very numerous in pri- 
 vate life, who are eminently capable of enjoying poetry, and possess, to appear- 
 ance, all the sensibilities which are necessary to its production ; but, wanting the 
 active or creative power, rarely yield to the temptation of writing verse, without 
 a signal defeat. Such persons, of whom George Bannatyne was certainly one, 
 may be said to have negative, but not positive poetry. As it seems but fair, 
 however, that he who has done so much to bring the poetry of others before the 
 world, should not have his own altogether confined to the solitude of manuscript, 
 or the unobvious print of his own bibliographical society, we subjoin a specimen 
 from one of the very few pieces which have come down to our own time. The 
 verses which follow are the quaint, but characteristic conclusion of a sonnet to 
 his mistress' eyebrow. It is ludicrous to observe theology pressed by the ve- 
 nerable rhymester into the service of love. 
 
 " Na tiling of rycht I ask, ray Lady fair, 
 
 Bot of fre will and mercy me to saif ; 
 Your will is your awin, as ressoun wald it ware, 
 
 Thairfoir of grace, and nocht of rycht I craif 
 
 Of you mercy, as ye wald mercy haif 
 Off God our Lord, quii ji-s mercyis infeneit 
 
 Gois befoire all his worlds, we may persaif, 
 To thame quhois hanrtis with marcy ar repleit. 
 
 Now to conclude with wordis compendious ; 
 
 Wald God my tong wald to my will respond, 
 And eik my speich was so facuiidioas, 
 
 That I was full of rethore termys jocond ! 
 
 Than suld my lufe at nioir length be expoiisd, 
 Than my cunnying can to you heir declair ; 
 
 For this my style inornetly compond, 
 Eschangs my pen your eiris to truble mair. 
 
 Go to my deir with humm'll reverence, 
 
 Tiiou bony bill, both rude and imperfeyte ; 
 Go, nocht will forgit flattery to her presence, 
 
 As is of falset the custome use and ryte ; 
 
 Causs me nocht BAN that evir I the indyte. 
 NA TTNE rny travel!, turning all in vane ; 
 
 Bot with ane faithfull hairt, in word and wryte, 
 Declair my mind and bring me joy agane. 
 
 My name quha list to knaw, let him tak tent 
 Vnto this littill verse nixt presedent." 
 
 It only remains to be mentioned that the name of George Bannatyne has been 
 appropriately adopted by a company of Scottish literary antiquaries interested, 
 PP e him, in'the preservation of such curious memorials of the taste of pas age, 
 well as such monuments of history, as might otherwise run the hazard 
 
 as 
 
 ARBOUR, JOHN, a name of which Scotland has just occasion to be proud, 
 was Archdeacon of Aberdeen in the later part of the fourteenth century. There
 
 134 JOHN BARBOUR. 
 
 has been much idle controversy as to the date of his birth ; while all that is 
 known with historic certainty, may be related in a single sentence. As he was 
 an archdeacon in 1357, and as, by the canon law, no man, without a dispensa- 
 tion, can attain that rank under the age of twenty-live, he was probably born be- 
 fore the year 1332. There is considerable probability that he was above the 
 age of twenty-five in 1357, for not only is that date not mentioned as the year 
 of his attaining the rank of archdeacon, but in the same year he is found exer- 
 cising a very important political trust, which we can scarcely suppose to have been 
 confided to a man of slender age, or scanty experience. This was the duty of 
 a commissioner from the Bishop of Aberdeen, to meet with other commissioners 
 at Edinburgh, concerning the ransom of David II., who was then a prisoner in 
 England. 
 
 As to the parentage or birth-place of Barbour, we have only similar conjec- 
 tures. Besides the probability of his having been a native of the district in 
 which he afterwards obtained high clerical rank, it can be shown that there were 
 individuals of his name, in and about the town of Aberdeen, who might have 
 been his father. Thus, in 1309, Robert Bruce granted a charter to Robert Bar- 
 bour, " of the lands of Craigie, within the shirefdom of Forfar, quhilk sumtyme 
 were Joannis de Baliolo." There is also mention, in the Index of Charters, 
 of a tenement in the Castle-street of Aberdeen, which, at a period remotely 
 antecedent to 1360, belonged to Andrew Barbour. The name, which appears 
 to have been one of that numerous class derived from trades, is also found in per- 
 sons of the same era, who were connected with the southern parts of Scotland. 
 
 In attempting the biography of an individual who lived four or five centuries 
 ago, and whose life was commemorated by no contemporary, all that can be ex- 
 pected is a few unconnected, and perhaps not very interesting facts. It is 
 already established that Barbour, in 1357, was Archdeacon of the cathedral of 
 Aberdeen, and fulfilled a high trust imposed upon him by his bishop. It is 
 equally ascertained that, in the same year, he travelled, with three scholars in 
 his company, to Oxford, for purposes connected with study. A safe-conduct 
 granted to him by Edward III., August 23d, at the request of David II., conveys 
 this information in the following terms : " Veniendo, cum tribus scholaribus in 
 comitiva sua, in regnum nostrum Anglias, causa studendi in universitate Oxonias 
 et ibidem actus scholasticos exercendo, morando, exinde in Scotiam ad propria 
 redeundo." It might have been supposed that Barbour only officiated in this 
 expedition as tutor to the three scholars ; but that he was himself bent on study 
 at the university, is proved by a second safe-conduct, granted by the same mon- 
 arch, November Gth, 1364, in the following terms : "To Master John Barbour, 
 Archdeacon of Aberdeen, with four knights (equites), coming from Scotland, 
 by land or sea, into England, to study at Oxford, or elsewhere, as he may 
 think proper." As also from a third, bearing date November 30th, 1368, " To 
 Master John Barbour, with two valets and two horses, to come into Eng- 
 land, and travel through the same, to the other dominions of the king, versus 
 Franciam, causa studiendi, and of returning again." It would thus appear that 
 Barbour, even after that he had attained a high ecclesiastical dignity, found it 
 agreeable or necessary to spend several winters at Oxford in study. When we 
 recollect that at this time there was no university in Scotland, and that a man of 
 such literary habits as Barbour could not fail to find himself at a loss even for 
 the use of a library in his native country, we are not to wonder at his occasional 
 pilgrimages to the illustrious shrine of learning on the banks of the Isis. Or 
 the 16th of October, 1635, he received another safe-conduct from Edward III., 
 peimitting him ' to come into England and travel throughout that kingdom, 
 mm sex sociis suis equitibus, usque Sanctum Dionisium ;" i. e. with six knights
 
 JOHN BARBOUR. 135 
 
 in company, to St Denis in France. Such slight notices suggest curious and in- 
 teresting views of the manners of that early time. We are to understand from 
 them, that Barbotir always travelled in a very dignified manner, being sometimes 
 attended by four knights and sometimes by no fewer than six, or at least, by two 
 mounted servants. A man accustomed to such state might be the better able 
 to compose a chivalrous epic like " the Bruce." 
 
 There is no other authentic document regarding Barbour till the year 1373, 
 when his name appears in the list of Auditors of Exchequer for that year, being 
 then described as " Clericus Probationis domus domini nostri Regis ;" i. e. ap- 
 parently Auditor of the comptroller's accounts for the royal household. This, 
 however, is too obscure and solitary an authority to enable us to conclude that 
 he bore an office under the king. Hume of Godscroft, speaking of " the Bruce ? s 
 book," says : " As I am informed, the book was penned by a man of good know- 
 ledge and learning, named Master John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeene, foi 
 which work he had a yearly pension out of the exchequer during his life, which 
 he gave to the hospitall of that towne, and to which it is allowed and paid still 
 in our dayes." 1 This fact, that a pension was given him for writing his book, 
 is authenticated by an unquestionable document. In the Rotuli Ballivorum Bur- 
 gi de Aberdonia for 1471, the entry of the discharge for this royal donation 
 bears that it was expressly given " for the compilation of the book of the Deeds 
 of King Robert the First," referring to a prior statement of this circumstance in 
 the more ancient rolls : " Et Deeano et Capitulo Abirdonensi percipienti an- 
 nuatim viginti solidos pro anniversario quondam Magistri Johannis Barberi, pro 
 compilatione libri gestorum Regis Roberti primi, ut patet in antiquis Rotulis de 
 anno Compoti, xx. s." The first notice we have of Barbour receiving a pension 
 is dated February 18th, 1390; and although this period was only about two 
 months before the death of Robert the Second, it appears from the rolls that to 
 that monarch the poet was indebted for the favour. In the roll for April 26th, 
 1398, this language occurs: " Quam recolendie memorie quondam dominus 
 Robertus secundus, rex Scottorum, dedit, concessit. et carta sua confirmavit quon- 
 dam Johanni Barbere archediacono Aberdonensi," &c. In the roll dated June 
 2d, 1424, the words are these : " Deeano et capitulo ecclesiae cathedralis Aber- 
 donensis percipientibus annuatim viginti solidos de firmis dicti burgi pro anni- 
 versario quondam magistri Johannis Barbar pro compilacione libri de gestis 
 Regis Roberti Brwise, ex concessione regis Roberti secundi, in plenam solucionem 
 dicte pensionis," &c. Barbour's pension consisted of 10 Scots from the cus- 
 toms of Aberdeen, and of 20 shillings from the rents or burrow-mails of the 
 same city. The first sum was limited to " the life of Barbour ;" the other to 
 " his assignees whomsoever, although he should have assigned it in the way of 
 mortification." Hume of Godscroft and others are in a mistake in supposing 
 that he appropriated this sum to an hospital (for it appears from the accounts 
 of the great chamberlain that he left it to the chapter of the cathedral church of 
 Aberdeen, for the express purpose of having mass said for his soul annually 
 after his decease : " That the dean and canons of Aberdeen, for the time being, 
 also the chapter and other ministers officiating at the same time in the said 
 church, shall annually for ever solemnly celebrate once in the year an anniver- 
 sary for the soul of the said umquhile John." Barbour's anniversary, it is supposed 
 continued till the reformation ; and then the sum allowed for it reverted to the 
 crown. 
 
 All that is further known of Earbnur is, that he died towards the close of 1395. 
 This appears from the Chartulary of Aberdeen, and it is the last year in which 
 the payment of his pension of jlO stands on the record. 
 ' History of the Douglasses.
 
 JOHN BARBOUR. 
 
 "The Bruce," which Barbour himself in forms us he wrote in the year 1375, 
 is a metrical history of Robert the First his exertions and achievements for tlu- 
 recovery of the independence of Scotland, and the principal transactions of his 
 reign. As Barbour flourished in the age immediately following that of his hero, 
 he must have enjoyed the advantage of hearing from eye-witnesses narratives of 
 the war of liberty. As a history, his work is of good authority; he himsei. 
 boasts of its soothfastness ; and the simple and straight-forward way in whir.i 
 the story is told goes to indicate its general veracity. Although, however, the 
 object of the author was mainly to give a soothfast history of the life and tran- 
 sactions of Robert the Bruce, the work is far from being destitute of poetic.'.! 
 feeling or rhythmical sweetness and harmony. The lofty sentiments and vivid 
 descriptions with which it abounds, prove the author to have been fitted by feeling 
 and by principle, as well as by situation, for the task which he undertook. His 
 genius has lent truth all the charms that are usually supposed to belong to fiction 
 The horrors of war are softened by strokes of tenderness that make us equally 
 in love with the hero and the poet. In battle painting, Barbour is eminent : 
 the battle of Bannockburn is described with a minuteness, spirit, and fervency, 
 worthy of the day. The following is a part of the description of that noble en- 
 gagement, and presents a striking picture of a mortal combat before tho intro- 
 duction of gunpowder m:ide warfare less a matter of brute force. 
 
 with wapynys stalwart of stele 
 
 They dang upon, with all thair mycht 
 Their fayis resawyt wele, Ik hycht, 
 With swerdis, speris, anil with mase 
 The battaill thair sa feloun was, 
 And swa rycht spilling of blud, 
 That on the erd the sloussis stud. 
 The Scottsmen sa weill thaim bar, 
 And swa gret slauchter maid thai thar. 
 And fra sa fele the lyvis rewyt, 
 That all the feld bludy was lewyt. 
 Thai tyme thir thre bataills wer, 
 All syd be syd, fechtand weill ner, 
 Thar mycht men her monydint, 
 And wapynys apon armurs stynt, 
 And se tumble knychts and steds, 
 And mony rych and reale weds. 
 Defoullyt foully undre fete, 
 Sum held on loft ; sum tynt the snet 
 A lang quhill thus fechtand thai war -, 
 That men na noyis mycht her thair; 
 Men hard noucht, but granys, and dynts 
 That flew fyr, as men flayis on flynts. 
 Thai faucht ilkane sa egrely, 
 That thai maid na noyis na cry, 
 But dan? on othyr at thair mycht, 
 With wapnys that war burnyst brycht 
 
 
 Whar mycht men se men felly fycht, 
 And men, that worthy war and wychtt 
 Do mony worthy wassellage. 
 Whai faucht as thai war in a rage. 
 For quhen the Scotts archery 
 Saw thair fayis sa sturdely
 
 JOHN BARBOUR. 137 
 
 Stand into bataill them agayne ; 
 
 With all thair mycht, and all thairmayne, 
 
 Thai layid on, as men out off wyt. 
 
 And quhar thai, with full strak, mycht liyt, 
 
 Thar mycht na armur stynt thair strak. 
 
 Thai to fruchyt that thai mycht ourtak. 
 
 And with axys such dusches gave, 
 
 That thai helmys, and heds, clave. 
 
 And thair fayis rycht bardely 
 
 Met thaim, and dung on them douchtely, 
 
 With wapyngs that war styth off' stele. 
 
 Thar wes the bataill strekyt weill. 
 
 Sa gret dyn that wes off dynts, 
 
 As wapyngs apon armur stynts ; 
 
 And off spers sa gret bresting ; 
 
 And sic thrang, and sic thrysting ; 
 
 Sic gyrning, granyng ; and sa gret 
 
 A noyis, as thai gan othyr beit : 
 
 And ensenyeys on ilka sid : 
 
 Gewand, and takand, wounds wid ; 
 
 That it wes hidwyss for to her. Book xiii. 1. 14 & 138. 
 
 The apostrophe to Freedom, after the painful description of the slavery t 
 which Scotland was reduced by Edward, is in a style of poetical feeling very 
 uncommon in that and many subsequent ages, and has been quoted with high 
 praise by the most distinguished Scottish historians and critics : 
 
 A ! fredome is a iiobill thing ! 
 
 Fredome mayse man to haiff liking! 
 
 Fredome all solace to man giffis: 
 
 He levys at ese that f rely levys ! 
 
 A noble hart may haiff nane ese, 
 
 Na ellys nocht that may him plese, 
 
 Gyff fredome failythe : for fre liking 
 
 Is yeaniyt our all othir thing 
 
 Na he, that ay hase levyt fre, 
 
 May nocht knaw weill the propyrte, 
 
 The angyr, na the wrechyt dome, 
 
 That is cowplyt to foule thyrldome. 
 
 Bot gyff he had assayit it, 
 
 Than all perquer he suld it wyt ; 
 
 And suld think fredome mar to pryse 
 
 Than all the gold in warld that is.i Book i. I. 225- 
 
 i Some readers may perhaps arrive at the sense of this fine passage more readily through 
 the medium of the folio ^Pj^P^ =~ thing , 
 
 And can to life a relish bring. 
 Freedom all solace to man gives ; 
 He lives at ease that freely lives. 
 A noble heart may have no ease, 
 Nor aught beside that may it please, 
 If freedom fail for 'tis the choice, 
 More than the chosen, man enjoys. 
 Ah, he that ne'er yet lived in thrall, 
 Knows not the weary pains which gall 
 The limbs, the soul, of him who 'plains 
 In slavery's foul and festering chains! 
 If these he knew, 1 ween right soon 
 He would seek back the precious boon 
 Of freedom, which he then would prize 
 More than all wealth beneath the skies.
 
 JOHN BAKBOUll. 
 
 " Barbour," says an eminent critic in Scottish poetical literature, " was eviileni- 
 ly skilled in such branches of knowledge as were then cultivated, and his learn- 
 ing- was so well regulated as to conduce to the real improvement of his mind : 
 the liberality of his views, and the humanity of his sentiments, appear occasion- 
 ally to have been unconfined by the narrow boundaries of his own age. He has 
 drawn various illustrations from ancient history, and from the stories of romance, 
 but has rarely displayed his erudition by decking his verses with the names of 
 ancient authors : the distichs of Cato, 2 and the spurious productions of Dares 
 Phrygius, and Dictys Cretensis, are the only profane books to which he formally 
 refers. He has borrowed more than one illustration from Statins, who was the 
 favourite classic of those times, and who likewise appears to have been the fa- 
 vourite of Barbour : the more chaste and elegant style of Virgil and Horace 
 were not so well adapted to the prevalent taste as the strained thoughts and 
 gorgeous diction of Statius and Claudian. The manner in which he has inci- 
 dentally discussed the subject of astrology and necromancy, may be specified as 
 not a little creditable to his good sense. It is well known that these branches 
 of divination were assiduously cultivated during the ages of intellectual darkness. 
 The absurdity of astrology and necromancy he has not openly attempted to ex- 
 pose ; for as the opinions of the many, however unfounded in reason, must not 
 be too rashly stigmatized, this might have been too bold and decided a step. Of 
 the possibility of predicting events he speaks with the caution of a philosopher ; 
 but the following passage may be considered as a sufficient indication of hi,, tic- 
 liberate sentiments : 
 
 And sen thai ar in sic wenyng, 
 For owtyne certante off witting, 
 Me think quha sayis he knawis tl, inn's 
 To cum, he makys great gabingis. 
 
 To form such an estimate, required a mind capable of resisting a strong torrent 
 of prejudice ; nor is it superfluous to remark, that in an age of much higher re- 
 finement, Dryden suffered himself to be deluded by the prognostications of 
 judicial astrology. It was not, however, to be expected that Barbour should on 
 every occasion evince a decided superiority to the. general spirit of the age to 
 which he belonged. His terrible imprecation on the person who betrayed Sir 
 Christopher Seton, " In hell coudampnyt mot he be ! " ought not to have been 
 uttered by a Christian priest. His detestation of the treacherous and cruel King 
 Edward, induced kim to lend a credulous ear to the report of his consulting an 
 infernal spirit. The misfortunes which attended Bruce at almost every step of 
 his early progress, he attributes to his sacrilegious act of skying Comyn at the 
 high altar. He supposes that the women and children who assisted in supply- 
 ing the brave defenders of Berwick with arrows and stones, were protected from 
 injury by a miraculous interposition. Such instances of superstition or unchari 
 table zeal are not to be viewed as marking the individual : gross superstition 
 with its usual concomitants, was the general spirit of the time ; and the devia- 
 tions from the ordinary track are to be traced in examples of liberal feeling or 
 enlightened judgment" 3 
 
 One further quotation from the Scottish contemporary and rival of Chaucer 
 may perhaps be admitted by the reader. As the former refer, one to a lofty 
 incident, the other to a beautiful sentiment, the following is one of the slight 
 and minute stoi-ies with which the poet fills up his narrative : 
 
 z And Catone sayis us in his vrryt 
 To fenyhe foly quhile is wyt The Bruce, 4to, ;>, 13. 
 8 Article BARI.OUR, written by Dr Irving, "in Encyclopedia Britannica, 7th edition.
 
 ALEXANDEll BARCLAY. 139 
 
 The king has hard a woman cry; 
 He askyt quhat that wes in hy. 
 " It is the layndar, Schyr," said anc, 
 " That her child-ill rycht now has tane, 
 " And mon leve now behind ws her; 
 " Tharfor scho makys yone iwill cher." 
 The king said, " Certis it war pite 
 * That scho in that poynt left suld be ; 
 " For certis I trow thar is na man 
 " That be ne will rew a woman than." 
 Hiss ost all thar arestyt he, 
 And gert a tent sone stentit be, 
 And gert hyr gang in hastily, 
 And othyr wemen to be hyr by, 
 Quhill scho wes delier, he bad, 
 And syne furth on his wayis raid : 
 And how scho furth suld cary it be, 
 Or euir he furth fur, ordanyt be. 
 This wes a full gret curtasy, 
 That swilk a king, and sa mighty, 
 Gert his men duell on this maner 
 Bot for a pouir lauender. 
 
 No one can fail to remark that, Avhile the incident is in the highest degree hon- 
 ourable to Bruce, showing that the gentle heart may still he known by gentle 
 deed, so also is Barbour entitled to the credit of humane feelings, from the way 
 in which he had detailed and commented upon the transaction. 
 
 Barbour was the author of another considerable work, which has unfortunately 
 perished. This was a chronicle of Scottish history, probably in the manner of 
 that by Andrew Winton. 
 
 BARCLAY, ALKXANDER, a distinguished writer of the English tongue at the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century, is known to have been a native of Scotland 
 only by very obscure evidence. He spent some of his earliest years at Croydon. 
 in Surrey, and it is conjectured that he received his education at one of the 
 English Universities. In the year ]508, he was a prebendary' of the collegiate 
 church of St Mary, at Ottery, in Devonshire. He was afterwards a Monk, first 
 of the order of St Benedict at Ely, and latterly of the order of St Francis at 
 Canterbury. While in this situation, and having the degree of Doctor of Pivi, 
 nity, he published an English translation of the " Mirrour of Good Manners," fa 
 treatise compiled in Latin by Dominyke Mancyn,) for the use of the " juvent of 
 England." After the Reformation, Barcray accepted a ministerial charge under 
 the new religion, as vicar of Much-Badew in Essex. In 1546, he was vicar of 
 Wokey in Somersetshire, and in 1552 he was presented by the Dean and Chap- 
 ter of London to the rectory of Allhallows in Lombard Street Having reached 
 an advanced age, he died in June this year, at Croydon in Surrey, where he 
 was buried. 
 
 Barclay published a great number of books, original and translated, and 
 allowed by the most intelligent enquirers into early English literature to hr.ve 
 done more for the improvement of the language than any of his contemporary s. 
 His chief poetical work is "the Ship of Fooles," which was written in imitation 
 of a German work entitled, "Das Narren Schi/," published in 1 
 Ship of Fooles," which was first printed in 1509, describes a vessel laden wul, 
 all sorts of absurd persons, though there seems to have been no end ,n view but 
 to bring them into one place, so that they might be described, as the beasts were 
 brought before Adam in order to be named. We shall transcribe one passage
 
 JOHN BARCLAY, A.M. 
 
 from this work, as a specimen of the English style of Barclay : it u a curious 
 contemporary character of King James IV. of Scotland. 
 And, ye Christen princes, whosoever ye be, 
 
 If ye be destitute of a noble captayne, 
 Take James of Scotland for his audacitie 
 
 And proved manhode, if ye will laude attaine: 
 Let him have the forwarde : have ye no disdayn* 
 Nor indignation ; for never king was borne 
 That of ought of waure can shaw the uncorne. 
 
 For if that once he take the speare in hand 
 
 Agaynst these Turkes strongly with it to ride, 
 None shall be able his stroke for to withstande 
 
 Nor before his face so hardy to abide. 
 
 Yet this his manhode increaseth not his pride ; 
 But ever sheweth meeknes and humilitie, 
 In worde or dede to hye and lowe degree. 
 
 Barclay also made a translation of Sallust's History of the Jugurthine war, 
 which was published in 1557, five years after his death, and is one of the earli- 
 est specimens of English translation from the classics. 
 
 BARCLAY, JOHN, A.M. was the founder of a religious sect in Scotland, gene- 
 rally named Bereans, but sometimes called from the name of this individual, 
 Barclayans. The former title derived its origin from the habit of Mr Barclay, 
 in always making an appeal to the Scriptures, in vindication of any doctrine he 
 advanced from the pulpit, or which was contained in his writings. The perfec- 
 tion of the Scriptures, or of the Book of divine revelation, was the fundamental 
 article of his system ; at least this was what he himself publicly declared upon 
 all occasions, and the same sentiments are still entertained by his followers. In 
 the Acts of the Apostles, xvii. 10. the Bereans are thus mentioned, "These Avere 
 more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all 
 readiness of mind, arid searched the Scriptures daily, whether tuose things were 
 so." These words were frequently quoted by Mr Barclay. It ought to be ob- 
 served, however, that originally it was not a name of reproach invented by the 
 malevolent part of the public, with the design of holding up Mr Barclay and his 
 associates to contempt, but was voluntarily assumed by them, to distinguish them 
 from other sects of professed Christians. 
 
 Mr Barclay was born in 173k His father, Mr Ludovic Barclay, was a for- 
 mer in the parish of Muthill, in the county of Perth. Being at an early age 
 designed by his parents for the church, he was sent to school, and received the 
 best education which that part of the country coidd afford. The name of his 
 master is now forgotten, but if we are to judge from the eminent proficiency of 
 the pupil, we must infer, that he was a good scholar and an excellent teacher, 
 and was well aware of the absolute necessity and advantages of being well 
 grounded in the elements of classical learning. Respectable farmers, such as 
 Mr Barclay's father, had a laudable ambition in affording to their sons an oj- 
 portunity of being instructed in the learned Languages, and to do the parish 
 schoolmasters justice, many of them were eminently qualified for performing the 
 t isk which they had undertaken. 
 
 Young Barclay was sent by his father to St Andrews, and was enrolled as a stu- 
 dent in that University ; where he regularly attended the literary and philosophi- 
 cal classes, and having submitted to the usual examinations, he took the degree o? 
 A.M. At the commencement of the subsequent session, he entered the New Divinity, 
 or St Mary's College, a seminary in which theology alone is taught. Nothing 
 very particular occurred during his attendance at the Hall, as it is generally
 
 JOHN BARCLAY, A.M. 
 
 called. He was uniformly regular in his private conduct, ind though consti- 
 tutionally of very impetuous passions, and a fervid imagination, at no time of 
 his life was he ever seduced into the practice of what was immoral or vicious. 
 The Christian principles, with which he seems to have been impressed very early 
 in life, afforded him sufficient protection against the allurements or snares to 
 which he was exposed. He prosecuted his studies with the most unremitted in- 
 dustry, and with great care prepared the discourses prescribed by the professor, 
 and publicly delivered in the Hall. 
 
 While he attended the lectures on divinity, the University of St Andrews, and 
 indeed the Church of Scotland in general, were placed in a very unpleasant si- 
 tuation, by the agitation of a question which originated with Dr Archibald 
 Campbell, professor of Church History in St Mary's College. He maintained 
 " that the knowledge of the existence of God was derived from Revelation, not 
 from Nature." This was long reckoned one of the errors of Socinus, and no 
 one in Scotland, before Dr Campbell's time, had ever disputed the opinion that 
 was generally current, and consequently esteemed orthodox. It was well known 
 that the Doctor was not a Socinian, and did not favour any of the other dog- 
 mas of that sect. The constitutional tendency of his mind was metaphysical, 
 and he certainly was possessed of great acuteness, which enabled him to perceive 
 on what point his opponents were most vulnerable, and where they laid them- 
 selves open to attack. He published his sentiments without the least re-' 
 serve, and was equally ready to enter upon a vindication of them. He considered 
 his view of the subject as a foundation necessary to be laid in order to demon- 
 strate the necessity of revelation. A whole host of opponents volunteered their 
 services to strangle in the birth such dangerous sentiments. Innumerable pam- 
 phlets rapidly made their appearance, and the hue and cry was so loud, and cer- 
 tain persons so clamorous, that the ecclesiastical courts thought that they could no 
 longer remain silent Dr Campbell was publicly prosecuted on account of his here- 
 tical opinions, but after long litigation the matter was compromised, and the only 
 effect it produced was, that the students at St Andrews in general became more 
 zealous defenders of the Doctor's system, though they durst not avow it so openly. 
 Among others, Mr Barclay with his accustomed zeal, and with all the energies 
 of his juvenile but ardent mind, had warmly espoused Dr Campbell's system. 
 Long before he left College he was noted as one of his most open and avowed 
 partizans. These principles he never deserted, and in his view of Christianity 
 it formed an important part of the system of revealed truth. It must not be 
 imagined, however, that Mr Barclay slavishly followed, or adopted all Dr Camp- 
 bell's sentiments. Though they were both agreed that a knowledge of the true 
 God was derived from revelation and not from nature, yet they differed upon 
 almost every other point of systematic divinity. Mr Barclay was early, and 
 continued through life to be a high predestinarian, or what is technically deno- 
 minated a snpralapsarian, while Dr Campbell, if one may draw an inference 
 from some of his illustrations, leaned to Arminianism, and doubtless was not a 
 decided Calvinist 
 
 Mr Barclay having delivered the prescribed discourses with the approbation of 
 the professor of Divinity, he now directed his views to obtain license as a preacher 
 in the establishment, and took the requisite steps. Having delivered the usual series 
 of exercises with the entire approbation of his judges, he was, on the '27th Sep- 
 tember, 1759, licensed by the presbytery of Auchterarder as a preacher of the gos- 
 peL He was not long without employment. Mr Jobson, then minister of Enrol, 
 near Perth, was advanced in years, in an infirm state of health, and required 
 an assistant. Mr Barclay, from his popularity as a preacher, and the reputa- 
 tion he enjoyed through a great part of Perthshire, as well as of Angus and
 
 JOHN BARCLAY, A.JI. 
 
 Me.trns, easily obtained this situation. Here he remained for three or foui 
 years, until n rupture with his principal obliged him to leave it Mr Jobsoi; 
 was what may be called, of the old school. He warmly espoused (as a great many 
 clergymen of the Church of Scotland in those days did), the system of the 
 Marrow of Modern Divinity, a book written by Edward Fisher, an English dis- 
 senter, about the middle of the seventeenth century. This work had ;i vast 
 circulation throughout Scotland. The celebrated Mr Thomas Boston of Ettrick, 
 when visiting his parish ministerially, casually found it in the house of one of 
 his parishioners. He carried it home, was a warm admirer of the system of 
 divinity it contained, and was at the labour of writing notes upon it, Boston's 
 name secured its success among a numerous class of readers. For many years 
 this book occasioned a most serious commotion in the Church of Scotland, which 
 is generally called, " The Marrow Controversy." It was, indeed, the remote 
 cause of that great division, which has since been styled the Secession. 
 
 But there was another cause for the widening of this unfortunate breach. 
 The well known Mr John Glass, minister of Tealing, near Dundee, had pub- 
 lished in 1727, a work entitled, " The Testimony of the King of Marty re." 
 With the exception of the Cameronians, this gentleman was the first dissenter 
 from the Church of Scotland since the devolution, and it is worthy of remark 
 that the founders of the principal sects were all originally cast out of the church. 
 Mr Glass was an admirer of the writings of the most celebrated English Indepen- 
 dents, (of l)r John Owen in particular) and of their form of church government. 
 Mr Barclay, who was no independent, heartily approved of many of his senti- 
 ments respecting the doctrines of the Gospel, and as decidedly disapproved of 
 others, as shall be mentioned in the sequel. At no time were disputes carried 
 on with greater violence between Christians of different denominations. Mr 
 Barclay had a system of his own, and agreed with none of the parties; but this, 
 if possible, rendered him more obnoxious to Mr Jobson. Much altercation took 
 place between them in private. Mr Barclay publicly declared his sentiments 
 from the pulpit, Mr Jobson did the same in defence of himself, so that a rupture 
 became unavoidable. 
 
 About the time of Mr Barclay's leaving Errol, Mr Anthony Dow, minister 
 of Fettercairn, in the presbytery of Fordoun, found himself unfit for the 
 fidl discharge of his duties. He desired his son, the Rev. David Dow, then 
 minister of the parish of Dron, in the presbytery of Perth, to use his endeavour 
 to procure him an assistant Mr Dow, who, we believe, was a fellow student 
 of Mr Barclay at St Andrews, was perfectly well acquainted with his talents 
 and character, and the cause of his leaving Errol, immediately made offer to 
 him of being assistant to his father. This he accepted, and he commenced his 
 labours in the beginning of June, 1763. What were Mr Anthony Dow's pecu- 
 liar theological sentiments we do not know, but those of Mr David Dow were 
 not very different from Mr Barclay's. Here he remained for nine years, which 
 he often declared to have been the most happy, and considered to have been 
 the most useful period of his life. 
 
 Mr Barclay was of a fair, and in his youth, of a very florid complexion. He 
 then looked younger than he really was. The people of Fettercairn were at 
 first greatly prejudiced against him on account of his youthful appearance. But 
 this was soon forgotten. His fervid manner, in prayer especially, and at diffe- 
 rent parts of almost every sermon, rivetted the attention, and impressed the 
 minds of his audience to such a degree, that it was almost impossible to lose the 
 memory of it His popularity as a preacher became so great at Fettercairn, 
 that anything of the like kind is seldom to be met with in the history of the Church 
 of Scotland. The parish church being an old fashioned building, had rafters
 
 JOHN BARCLAY, A.M. 143 
 
 across ; these were crowded with hearers ; the sashes of the windows were taken 
 out to accommodate the multitude who could not gain admittance. During- the 
 whole period of his settlement at Fettercairn, he had regular hearers who flecked 
 to him fi-om ten or twelve of the neighbouring parishes. If an opinion could 
 be formed of what his manner had been in his youth, and at his prime, from 
 what it was a year or two before he died, it must have been vehement, passion- 
 ate, and impetuous to an uncommon degree. At the time to which we allude, 
 we heard him deliver in his own chapel at Edinburgh, a prayer immediately 
 after the sermon, in which he had alluded to some of the corruptions of the 
 Church of Rome ; the impression it made upon our mind was of the most vivid 
 nature ; and, we are persuaded, was alike in every other member of the congre- 
 gation. The following sentence we distinctly remember, " We pray, we plead, 
 we cry, O Lord, that thou wouldst dash out of the hand of Antichrist, that cup of 
 abominations, wherewith she hath poisoned the nations, and give unto her, and 
 unto them, the cup of salvation, by drinking whereof they may inherit everlast- 
 ing life." But the words themselves are nothing unless they were pronounced 
 with his own tone and manner. 
 
 During his residence at Fettercairn he did not confine his labours to his 
 public ministrations in the pulpit, but visited from house to house, was the friend 
 and adviser of all who were at the head of a family, and entered warmly into 
 whatever regarded their interests. He showed the most marked attention to 
 children and to youth ; and when any of the household were seized with sick- 
 ness or disease, he spared no pains in giving tokens of his sympathy and ten- 
 derness, and administered consolation to the afflicted. He was very assiduous 
 in discharging those necessary and important duties, which he thought were 
 peculiarly incumbent upon a country clergyman. Such long continued and 
 uninterrupted exertior.s were accompanied with the most happy effects. A taste 
 for religious knowledge, or what is the same, the reading and study of the 
 Bible, began to prevail to a great extent ; the morals of the people were im- 
 proved, and vice and profaneness, as ashamed, were made to hide their heads. 
 Temperance, sobriety, and regularity of behaviour, sensibly discovered them- 
 selves throughout all ranks. 
 
 Mr Barclay had a most luxuriant fancy, a great liking for poetry, and possess- 
 ed considerable facility of versification. His taste, however, was far from being 
 correct or chaste, and his imagination was little under the management of a sound 
 judgment. Many of his pieces are exceedingly desultory in their nature, but 
 occasionally discover scintillations of genius. The truth probably is, that he 
 neither corrected nor bestowed pains on any of his productions in prose or 
 verse. From the ardour of his mind, they were generally the result of a single 
 effort. At least this appears particularly the case in his shorter poems. He 
 does not seem to have perceived or known that good writing, whether in prose 
 or verse, is an art, and not to be acquired without much labour and practice, 
 as well as a long and repeated revisal of what may have been written. Mr Bar- 
 clay's compositions in both styles, with two or three exceptions, appear to have 
 merely been thrown forth upon the spur of the moment As soon as written, 
 they were deposited among his manuscripts, and, instead of being attentively 
 examined by him, and with a critical eye, were shortly after submitted to the 
 public. Besides his works in prose, he published a great many thousand verses 
 on religious subjects. 
 
 He had composed a Paraphrase of the whole book of Psalms, part of which 
 was published in 1766. To this was prefixed, " A Dissertation on the best 
 means of interpreting that portion of the canon of Scripture." His views upon 
 this subject were peculiar. He was of opinion that, in all the Psalms which are
 
 JOHN BARCLAY, A.M. 
 
 other mere man, 
 sometimes 
 
 in the first person, the speaker is Christ, and not David nor any other 
 and that the other Psalms describe the situation of the Church of God, 
 in prosperity, sometimes in adversity, and finally triumphing over all its enemies. 
 This essay is characterized by uncommon vigour of expression, yet in some 
 places with considerable acrimony. The presbytery of Fordoun took great of- 
 fence at this publication, and summoned Mr Barclay to appear at their bar. He 
 did so, and defended himself with spirit and intrepidity. His opinions were 
 not contrary to any doctrine contained in the Confession of Faith, so that he 
 could not even be censured by them. The truth was, that they had taken great 
 offence at the popularity of Mr Barclay as a preacher, and it was only in this 
 way that they could avenge his superiority over themselves. Being disappointed 
 in establishing heresy, their rancour became more violent, and they determined 
 to give him as much annoyance as they possibly could. Even the names of the 
 members of the presbytery of Fordoun are now forgotten. None of them were 
 distinguished for remarkable talents of any kind, and they have long lain mute 
 and inglorious. But at this time they possessed an authority, which they resolv- 
 ed to exercise to the utmost stretch. Having engaged in the invidious and 
 i<rnoble employment of heresy hunting, they seem to have been aware, that it 
 was necessary to proceed with caution. The presbytery have the charge of the 
 spiritual concerns of all the individuals within their bounds. They have a right 
 to inspect the orthodoxy of the doctrine taught, as well as the moral conduct 
 of clergymen and laymen. It is their especial business to examine narrowly into 
 the behaviour of the former class. Having pounced upon Mr Barclay, they 
 made the most they could of his supposed offence, which at the worst, was only a 
 venial error. 
 
 Mr Barclay, who being naturally of a frank, open, and ingenuous disposition , 
 had no idea of concealing his opinions, not only continued to preach the same 
 doctrines which were esteemed heretical by the presbytery, but published them 
 in a small work, entitled, " Rejoice evermore, or Christ All in AIL" This ob- 
 stinacy, as they considered it, irritated them to a very high degree. They drew 
 up a wa 111 ing against the dangerous doctrines that he preached, and ordered it 
 to be read publicly in the church of Fettercairn after sermon, and before pro- 
 nouncing the blessing, by one of their own members, expressly appointed 
 for that purpose on a specified day, which was accordingly done. This at- 
 tempt to ruin 3Ir Barclay's character and usefulness, and deprive him of th" 
 means of obtaining daily bread, contained an enumeration of his supposed er- 
 rors, which they were cautioned to avoid, and strictly enjoined not to receive. 
 .Mr Marclay viewed their conduct with indifference mingled with contempt. At 
 a former meeting of presbytery, the points of difference had been argued in 
 public at great length, and he is generally allowed to have come off" victo- 
 rious. He was, it is confessed, too keen in his temper to listen, with sedate 
 composure, to the arguments of an opponent, when engaged in a private 
 debate. But his talents for controversy were of a superior order. He had a 
 clear understanding, a tenacious memory, and a ready elocution ; and at no time 
 of his life did he decline an argument. No effect of any kind resulted from the 
 warn in.? to the people of Fettercairn, who were unanimous in their approbation 
 of Mr Barclay's doctrine. He continued during Mr Dow's life-time to instruct 
 the people of his parish, and conducted his weekly examinations to the great 
 profit of those who gave attendance. 
 
 In 17b'9, he published one of the largest of his treatises, entitled, " Without 
 Faith without God, or an appeal to God concerning his own existence." This 
 was a defence of similar sentiments respecting the evidence in favour of the ex- 
 istence of God, which were entertained by Dr Campbell already mentioned. The
 
 JOHN BARCLAY, A.M. 145 
 
 illustrations are entirely Calvin isticaL This essay is not very methodical. It 
 contains, however, a great many acute observations, and sarcastic remarks upon 
 the systems of (hose who have adopted the generally current notions respecting 
 natural religion. The author repeatedly and solemnly declares, that he attacks 
 doctrines and not men that he has no quarrel with any man, nor means to 
 hsirt any one. The metaphysical arguments in favour of his side of the question, 
 as well as what may not improperly be called the historical proofs, he has left 
 to others, esteeming such kind of evidence as of small value in regard to settling 
 the point at issue, tiis object is to prove from the Scriptures, that the know- 
 ledge of God comes not by nature, innate ideas, intuition, reason, &c. but only 
 by Revelation. But we must refer to the treatise itself, it being impossible in 
 this place to give even an abridgment of his reasoning. It may be observed, 
 however, that he exposes in the most unreserved language, and denies, that the 
 merely holding that there is a first, original, unoriginated cause of all things, 
 &c. is the same with the knowledge of God, whose character and works are re- 
 vealed in Scripture. 
 
 In the course of the same year, 1769, he addressed a letter on the " Eternal 
 Generation of the Son of God," to Messrs Smith and Ferrier. These two gen- 
 tlemen had been clergymen in the church of Scotland. They published their 
 reasons of separation from the established church. They had adopted all the 
 sentiments of Mr Glass, who was a most strict independent, and both of them 
 died in the Glassite communion. The late Dr Dalgliesh of Peebles had, about 
 the time of their leaving the church, published a new theory respecting the son- 
 ship of Christ, and what is not a little singular, it had the merit of originality, 
 and had never before occurred to any theologian. He held the tri-personality 
 of Deity, but denied the eternal Sonship of the second person of the Godhead, 
 and Mas of opinion that this filiation only took place when the divine nature 
 was united to the human, in the person of Christ, Immanuel, God with us. Novel 
 as this doctrine was, all the Scottish Independents, with a very few exceptions, 
 embraced it. The difference between Dalgliesh and the Arians consists in this, 
 that the second person of the Trinity, according to him, is God, equal with the 
 Father, whilst the latter maintain in a certain sense his supreme exaltation, yet 
 they consider him as subordinate to the Father. Mr Barclay's letter states very 
 clearly the Scriptural arguments usually adduced in favour of the eternal gene- 
 ration of the Son of God. It is written with great moderation, and in an ex- 
 cellent spirit. 
 
 In 1771, he published a letter, " On the Assurance of Faith," addressed to a 
 gentleman who was a member of Mr Cudworth's congregation in London. Cud- 
 worth was the person who made a distinguished figure in defending the cele- 
 brated Mr Hervey against the acrimonious attack of Mr Robert Sandeman, who 
 was a Glassite. Excepting in some peculiar forms of expression, Cudworth's 
 views of the assurance of faith did not materially differ from Mr Barclay's. 
 There appeared also in the same year, " A Letter off Prayer," addressed to ai: 
 Independent congregation in Scotland. 
 
 The liev. Anthony Dow, minister of Fettercairn, died in 1772. The pres- 
 bytery of Fordoun seized this opportunity of gratifying their spleen ; they pro- 
 hibited 3Ir Barclay froai preaching in the kirk of Fettercairn, and used all their 
 influence to prevent him from being employed, not only within their bounds, 
 which lie in what is called the Mearns, but they studied to defame him in all 
 quarters. The clergy of the neighbouring district, that is, in Angus, were much 
 more friendly. They were ready to admit him into their pulpits, and he gene- 
 rally preached every Lord's day, during the subsequent autumn, winter, and 
 spring. Multitudes from all parts of the country crowded to hear him. 
 
 i. T
 
 146 JOHN BARCLAY, A.M. 
 
 The patronage of Fettercairn is in the gift of the crown. The parish almost 
 unanimously favoured Mr Barclay. They were not, however, permitted to have any 
 choice, and the Rev. Robert Foote, then minister of Eskdale Muir, was presented. 
 At the moderation of the call, only three signed in favour of Mr Foote. The 
 parishioners appealed to the Synod, and from the Synod to the General Assembly, 
 who ordered Mr Foote to be inducted. 
 
 The presbytery carried their hostility against Mr Barclay so far, as to refuse him 
 a certificate of character, which is always done, as a matter of course, when a preacher 
 leaves their bounds. He appealed to the Synod, and afterwards to the Assembly, 
 who found (though he was in no instance accused of any immorality) that the 
 presbytery were justified in withholding the certificate. He had no alternative, and 
 therefore left the communion of the Church of Scotland. 
 
 A great many friends in Edinburgh, who had adopted his peculiar sentiments, 
 formed themselves into a church, and urged him to become their pastor. The people 
 of Fettercairn also solicited him to labour in the ministry amongst them ; but for 
 the present he declined both invitations. Having hitherto held only the status ot 
 u probationer or licentiate, he visited Newcastle, and was ordained there October 
 12th, 1773. The certificate of ordination is signed by the celebrated James Murray 
 of Newcastle, the author of the well-known "' Sermons to Asses ; " which 
 contain a rich vein of poignant satire, not unworthy of Swift. It was also signed 
 by Robert Somerville of Weardale, and James Somerville of Swalwell, and Robert 
 Green, clerk. 
 
 His friends at Fettercairn meanwhile erected a place of worship at Sauchyburn, 
 in the immediate neighbourhood, and renewed their application to have him settled 
 amongst them. But Mr Barclay, conceiving that his sphere of usefulness would be 
 more extended were he to reside in Edinburgh, gave the preference to the latter. 
 Mr James M'Rae, having joined Mr Barclay, was ordained minister at Sauchyburn 
 in spring, 1774. The congregation there, at this time, consisted of from one thou- 
 sand to twelve hundred members. 
 
 Mr Barclay remained in Edinburgh about three years ; and was attended by a 
 numerous congregation, who had adopted his views of religious truth. But having 
 a strong desire to disseminate his opinions, he left the church at Edinburgh under the 
 care of hiselders and deacons, and repaired to London. For nearly two years he preached 
 there, as well as at Bristol, and other places in England. A church was formed in the 
 capital. He also established there a debating society, which met weekly in the even- 
 ing, for the purpose of disputing with any who might be disposed to call his doctiines 
 in question. One of those who went with the design of impugning Mr Barclay's 
 opinions was Mr William Nelson, who eventually became a convert. This gentle- 
 man had been educated in the Church of England, but, when Mr Barclay came first 
 to London, had joined the Whitefieldian or Calvinistic Methodists. He afterwards 
 came to Scotland ; was connected with Mr Barclay ; practised as a surgeon in 
 Edinburgh, and delivered lectures on chemistry there, for about ten years. He 
 was a man of considerably abilities; amiable in private life, and of the most unble- 
 mished character. He was cut off liy apoplexy in 1800. 
 
 At Edinburgh, Mr Barclay published an edition of his works in three volumes, 
 including a pretty large treatise on the sin against the Holy*Ghost, which, according 
 to him, is merely unbelief or discrediting the Scripture. In 1783 he published a 
 small work for the use of the Berean Churches, " The Epistle to the Hebrews 
 Paraphrased," with a collection of psalms and songs from his other works, accom- 
 panied with " A close examination into the truth of several received principles." 
 
 Mr Barclay died on the 29th of July, 1798. Being Sabbath, when on his road to 
 preach, he felt himself rather unwell ; he took a circuitous route to the meeting-
 
 JOHN BARCLAY, M.D. 147 
 
 house, but finding himself no better, he called at the bouse of one of the members of 
 his congregation. In a few minutes after he entered the house, while kneeling in 
 prayer beside a chair, he expired without a groan, in the sixty fourth year of his age, 
 and thirty-ninth of his professional career. His nephew, Dr John Barclay, was 
 immediately sent for, who declared his death to have been occasioned by apoplexy. 
 He was interred in the Calton Old Burying-ground, Edinburgh, where a monument 
 has been erected to his memory. Mr Barclay was a very uncommon character, and 
 made a great impression upon his contemporaries. 
 
 There are Berean churches in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Crieff, Kiikaldy, Dundee, 
 Arbroath, Montrose, Brechin, Fettercairn, and a few other places. 
 
 BARCLAY, JOHN, M.D., an eminent lecturer on anatomy, was the nephew of 
 John Barclay, the Berean, after whom he was named. He was born in 1759, or 
 17GO, at Cairn, near to Drummarjuhance, in Perthshire. His father was a respect- 
 able farmer in that part of the country, and was characterized by great natural 
 shrewdness and vivacity. His son, John, was educated at the parish school of 
 Muthill, and early distinguished himself by hie superior powers of mind, and by his 
 application. Being destined for the church, he, in 1776, repaired to the university 
 of St Andrews, where he became a successful candidate for a bursary. He made 
 great proficiency in the Greek language, then taught by the late principal George 
 Hill, and also discovered a partiality for the study of mathematics, although he does 
 not appear to have prosecuted this important branch of science. After having 
 attended the usual preliminary classes at the united college of St Salvador and 
 St Leonard, Barclay studied divinity in St Mary's, attaching himself to the moderate 
 party in the church. He studied divinity at St Andrews, under the professor, Dr 
 Spence, for two or three sessions, but having engaged to teach a school, he found it 
 more convenient to deliver the prescribed exercises before the professor in Edinburgh. 
 On one of these occasions there took place a very singular occurrence, which the 
 Doctor himself used to relate. Having come to Edinburgh for the express purpose 
 of delivering a discourse in the hall, he waited upon his uncle, who was an excellent 
 scholar. It was what is called " An Exercise and Addition," or a discourse, in which 
 the vvords of the original are criticised the doctrines they contain illustrated and 
 it is concluded by a brief paraphrase. He proposed to read it to his uncle before he 
 delivered it and when he vvas in the act of doing so, his respected relative objected 
 to a criticism which be had introduced, and endeavoured to show that it vvas con- 
 trary to several passages in the writings of the apostle Paul. The doctor had 
 prepared the exercise with great care, and had quoted the authority of Xenophon in 
 regard to the meaning of the word. The old man got into a violent passion at his 
 nephew's obstinacy, and seizing a huge folio that lay on the table, hurled it at the 
 recusant's head, which it fortunately missed. Barclay, who really had a great 
 esteem for his uncle, related the anecdote to a clergyman a few days after it happened, 
 and laughed very heartily at it. Barclay wrote about this time, " A History of all 
 Religions," but of this no trace was to be found among his manuscripts. Having 
 delivered with approbation his trial discourses, he obtained license from the Presby- 
 tery of Dunkeld. Meanwhile he acted as tutor to the two sons of Sir James Campbell, 
 of Aberuchill, whose daughter, Eleonora, in 1811, became his wife. In 1789 he accom- 
 panied his pupils to Edinburgh, where he preached occasionally for his friends. The 
 medical school of Edinburgh was then at the height of its reputation. Cullen's bril- 
 liant career was drawing to a close, and he was succeeded by the celebrated Dr Gregory. 
 Dr Black and the second Monro still shed lustre on their respective departments. 
 Barclay was principally attracted to the anatomical class by the luminous prelections of 
 Dr Monro, and appears to have thenceforward devoted himself to a complete course 
 of medical study. In 1796 he took the degree of M.D., choosing as the subject of his
 
 JOHN BARCLAY, M.D. 
 
 thesis, De dirima, sett Principio VitaU, the vital principle having long been with 
 him a favourite topic of speculation. Alter graduation, Dr Barclay proceeded to 
 London, and attended the anatomical lectures of Dr Marshall, of Thavies Inn. In 
 1797 he commenced to deliver private lectures on anatomy in a small class room in 
 the High School-yards, Edinburgh, but had to contend with formidable difficulties; 
 the popularity of the second Mui.ro, and of the late John Bell, being still undimi- 
 iiished amongst tbe students. Dr Barclay, therefoie. had lew students at first; but 
 he resolved to persevere. The introductory lectures (which, after his death, were 
 published by his friend, Sir George Ballingall, M.D.) were prepared with scrupulous 
 care. He studied to express himself in plain and perspicuous language, which he 
 justly esteemed to be the chief quality of style in lecturing. His illustrations were 
 clear and copious, and not un frequently an apposite anecdote fixed more strongly in 
 the memories of his pupils the particular part he was demonstrating; and, at a time 
 when it was no means fashionable, he never omitted to point out the wisdom 
 of God, as displayed in that most wonderful of all his works, the formation and 
 support of the human body. 
 
 Barclay's first literary performance was the article Physiology, in tbe third edition 
 of the Lncyclopcedia Britannica. In 1803 he published a new anatomical nomencla- 
 ture. This had been long the subject of his meditation, and was a great desideratum 
 in anatomy. The vagueness or indefinite nature of the terms of anatomy has been 
 perceived and regretted by all anatomists. They have produced much ambiguity and 
 confusion in anatomical descriptions, and their influence has been strongly felt, par- 
 ticularly by those who have just entered upon the study. Barclay was the first who, 
 fully aware of the obstacles that were thus thrown in the way of students, set about 
 inventing a new nomenclature. The vagueness of the terms principally referred 
 to those implying position, aspect, and direction. Thus, what is superior in one 
 position of the body, becomes anterior in another, posterior in a third, and even 
 inferior in a fourth. What is external in one position is internal in another, 
 <tc. These terms become much more ambiguous in comparative anatomy. His 
 object was to contrive a nomenclature, in which the same terms should universally 
 apply to the same organ, in all positions of the body, and in all animals. It is the 
 opinion of very candid judges that he has succeeded in his endeavour, and that, were 
 his nomenclature adopted, the greatest advantages would accrue to tbe study of the 
 science. The proposal is delivered with singular mc.desty, and discovers both a 
 most accurate knowledge of anatomy and great ingenuity. 
 
 In 1808, appeared his woik on the muscular motions of the human body, and, in 
 
 1812, a description of the arteries of the human body both of which contain a most 
 
 complete account of those parts of the system. These three works were dedicated 
 to the late Dr Thomas Thomson, Professor of Chemistry in the University of 
 Glasgow. The last work which Dr Barclay lived to publish, was an inquiry into 
 the opinions, ancient and modern, concerning life and organization. This, as we 
 have mentioned, formed the subject of his thesis. 
 
 He also delivered, during several summers, a course of lectures on comparative 
 anatomy, a branch of study for which he had always shown a marked partiality 
 not only as an object of scientific research, but as of great practical utility. At one 
 time he proposed to the town council, the patrons of the university of Edinburgh, 
 to be created professor of that department of the science; how tbe proposal was 
 received is not known. The writer of the memoir of Dr Barclay, in the Naturalist's 
 Library, furnishes a characteristic illustration of the lively interest he felt in the 
 dissections of uncommon animals which came in his way in the Scottish metropolis. 
 " At one of these we happened to be present. It was the dissection of a Beluga, or 
 White While. Never shall we forget the enthusiasm of the Doctor wading to his
 
 KOBE LIT BARCLAY. 
 
 knees amongst the viscera of the great tenant of the deep, alternately cutting away, 
 with his large and dexterous knife, and regaling his nostrils with copious infusions of 
 snuff, while he pointed out, in his usual felicitous manner, the various contrasts or agree- 
 ments of the forms of the viscera with those of other animals and of man." Barclay 
 was the means of establishing, under the auspices of the Highland Society, a veteri- 
 nary school in Edinburgh. He might be called an enthusiast in his profession : 
 there was no branch of anatomy, whether practical or theoretical, that he had not 
 cultivated with the utmost care ; he had studied the works of the ancient and 
 modern, foreign and British anatomists with astonishing diligence. Whatever related 
 to natural science was certain of interesting him. The benevolence and generosity ot 
 his temper were also unbounded. No teacher was ever more generally beloved by bis 
 pupils than Dr Barclay, to which his uniform kindness and affability, and readiness 
 to promote their interest upon every occasion, greatly contributed. Many young men, 
 in straitened circumstances, were permitted to attend his instructions gratuitously; 
 and he has even been known to furnish them with the means of feeing other lecturers. 
 It is a curious circumstance, that Dr Barclay often declared that he had neither 
 the sense of taste nor of smell. 
 
 His last appearance in the lecture-room was in 1825, when he delivered the intro- 
 ductory lecture. He died 2lst August, 1826, and was buried at Restalrig, near 
 Edinburgh, the family burying-ground of his father-in-law. Sir James Campbell His 
 funeral was attended by the Royal College of Surgeons as a body. 
 
 A bust of Dr Barclay, subscribed for by his pupils, and executed by Joseph, was 
 presented to the College of Surgeons, to which he bequeathed his museum a valu- 
 iible collection of specimens, particularly in comparative anatomy, and which is to 
 retain his name. His design in tiiis legacy was to prevent it from being broken up 
 and scattered after his death. 
 
 BARCLAY, ROBERT, the celebrated Apologist for the Quakers, was born on the 
 23rd of December, 1648, at Gordonstoun, in Moray. His father, Colonel David 
 Barclay, of Ury, was the son of David Barclay, of Mathers, the representative of an 
 old Scoto- Norman family, which traced itself, through fifteen intervening generations, 
 to Theobald de Berkeley, who acquired a settlement in Scotland at the beginning of 
 the twelfth century. The mother of the Apologist was Catherine Gordon, daughter 
 of Sir Robert Gordon, of Gordonstoun, the premier baronet of Nova Scotia, and 
 well-known historian of the house of Sutherland. 
 
 The ancient family of de Berkeley became possessed of the estate of Mathers, by 
 immiage, in the year 1351. Alexander de Berkeley, who nourished in the fifteenth 
 century, is said to have been the first laird of Mathers who changed the name to 
 Barclay ; a change which says little for his taste, however recommended by that 
 principle of literal and syllabic economy which seems to have flourished at all periods 
 in a greater or less degree, though chiefly at the present era. This laird, however, 
 is reputed to have been a scholar, and to him are attributed the excellent verses, 
 known by the title of the LAIRD OP MATHERS' TESTAMENT, which, for their piety 
 and good sense, cannot be too widely disseminated, or too warmly recommended. 
 These verses are subjoined in the modified form under which, they have come down 
 traditionally to our time : 
 
 Gif thou desire thy house lang stand 
 
 And thy successors bruik thy land, 
 
 Abuve all things, lief God in fear, 
 
 Intromit nocht with wrangous gear; 
 
 Nor conquess 1 nothing wrangously ; 
 
 "With thy neighbour keep charity. 
 i Acquire.
 
 150 BOBEUT BARCLAY. 
 
 See that that thou pass not thy estate; 
 
 Obey duly thy magistrate; 
 
 Oppress not but support the puire; 
 
 To help the commonweill take cuire. 
 
 Use no deceit ; mell 2 not with treason ; 
 
 And to all men do richt and reason. 
 
 Both unto word and deid be true ; 
 
 All kinds of wickedness eschew. 
 
 Slay no man ; nor thereto consent ; 
 
 Be nocht cruel, but patient. 
 
 Ally ay in some gude place, 
 
 With noble, honest, godly, race. 
 
 Hate huredom, and all vices flee ; 
 
 Be humble; haunt gude com panye. 
 
 Help thy friend, and do nae wrang, 
 
 And God shall make thy house stand lang. 
 
 David, the grandfather of the Apologist, from neglect of some part of his ances- 
 tor's advice, was reduced to such difficulties as to be obliged to sell the estate of 
 Mathers, after it had been between two and three hundred years in the family, 
 as also the more ancient inheritance, which had been the property of the family 
 from its first settlement in Scotland in the days of King David I. His son, Da- 
 vid, the father of the Apologist, was consequently obliged to seek his fortune as 
 a volunteer in the Scottish brigades in the service of Gustavus Adolphus, king of 
 Sweden. This gentleman, like many others of his countrymen and fellow-sol- 
 diers, returned home on the breaking out of the religious troubles in Scotland, 
 and received the command of a troop of horse. Having joined the army raised 
 by the Duke of Hamilton in 1648 for the relief of Charles I., he was subsequent- 
 ly deprived of his command, at the instance of Oliver Cromwell ; and he never 
 afterwards appeared in any military transactions. During the protectorate, he 
 was several times sent as a representative from Scotland to Cromwell's parlia- 
 ments, and, in this capacity, is said to have uniformly exerted himself to repress 
 the ambitious designs of the Protector. After the restoration, David Barclay was 
 committed prisoner to Edinburgh Castle, upon some groundless charge of hostili- 
 ty to the government He was soon after liberated, through the interest of the 
 Earl of Middleton, with whom he had served in the civil war. But during 
 this imprisonment, a change of the highest importance both to himself and his 
 son, had come over his mind. In the same prison was confined the celebrated 
 Laird of Swinton, who, after figuring under the protectorate as a lord of session, 
 and a zealous instrument for the support of Cromwell's interest in Scotland, had, 
 during a short residence in England before the Restoration, adopted the princi- 
 ples of Quakerism, then recently promulgated for the first time by George Fox, 
 and was now more anxious to gain proselytes to that body than to defend his life 
 against the prosecution meditated against him. When this extraordinary person was 
 placed on trial before parliament, he might have easily eluded justice by plead- 
 ing that the parliamentary attainder upon which he was now charged, had be- 
 come null by the rescissory act But he scorned to take advantage of any plea 
 suggested by worldly lawyers. He answered, in the spirit of his sect, that when 
 he committed the crimes laid to his charge, he was in the gall of bitterness and 
 bond of iniquity, but that God having since called him to the light, he saw and 
 acknowledged his past errors, and did not refuse to pay the forfeit of them, even 
 tliough in their judgment this should extend to his Hie. His speech was, though 
 modest, so majestic, and, though expressive of the most perfect patience, so pa- 
 
 a Meddle.
 
 HUBERT BARCLAY. 
 
 151 
 
 thetic, that it appeared to melt the hearts of his judges, and, to the surprise of 
 all who remembered his past deeds, he was recommended to the royal mercy, 
 while many others, far less obnoxious, were treated with unrelenting severity. 
 Such was the man who inoculated David Barclay with those principles, of which 
 his son was destined to be the most distinguished advocate. 
 
 Robert Barclay, the subject of the present article, received the rudiments of 
 learning in his native country, and was afterwards sent to the Scots college at 
 Paris, of which his uncle Robert (son to the last Barclay of Mathers,) was Rec- 
 tor. Here he made such rapid advances in his studies, as to gain the notice and 
 praise of the masters of the college ; and he also becamo so great a favourite with 
 his uncle, as to receive the offer of being made his heir, if he would remain in 
 France. But his father, fearing that he might be induced to embrace the catho- 
 lic faith, went, in compliance with his mother's dying request, to Paris to 
 bring him home, when he was not much more than sixteen years of age. The 
 uncle still endeavoured to prevent his return, and proposed to purchase for him, 
 and present to him immediately, an estate greater than his paternal one. Ro- 
 bert replied, " He is my father, and must be obeyed." Thus, even at a very early 
 age, he showed how far he could prefer a sacred principle to any view of private 
 interest, however dazzling. His uncle is said to have felt much chagrin at his 
 refusal, and to have consequently left his property to the college, and to other 
 religious houses in France. 
 
 The return of Robert Barclay to his native country took place in 1664, 
 about two years before his father made open profession of the principles 
 of the Society of Friends. He was now, even at the early age of sixteen, 
 perfectly skilled in the French and Latin languages, the latter of which he 
 could write and speak with wonderful fluency and correctness ; he had also 
 a competent knowledge of the sciences. With regard to the state of his 
 feelings on the subject of religion at this early period of life, he says, in his 
 Treatise on Universal Love : " My first education, from my infancy fell amongst 
 the strictest sort of Calvinists ; those of our country being generally acknow- 
 ledged to be the severest of that sect ; in the heat of zeal surpassing not only 
 Geneva, from whence they derive their pedigree, but all other the reformed 
 churches abroad, so called. I had scarce got out of my childhood, when I was, 
 by the permission of Divine Providence, cast among the company of papists; and 
 my tender years and immature capacity not being able to withstand and resist 
 the insinuations that were used to proselyte me to that way, I became quickly 
 defiled with the pollutions thereof, and continued therein for a time, until it 
 pleased God, through his rich love and mercy, to deliver me out of those snares, 
 and to give me a clear understanding of the evil of that way. In both these 
 sects I had abundant occasion to receive impressions contrary to this principle of 
 love : seeing the straitness of several of their doctrines, as well as their practice 
 of persecution, do abundantly declare how opposite they are to universal love. 
 The time that intervened betwixt my forsaking the church of Rome, and joining 
 those with whom I now stand engaged, I kept myself free from joining with any 
 sort of people, though I took liberty to hear several ; and my converse was most 
 with those that inveigh much against judging, and such kind of severity ; which 
 latitude may perhaps be esteemed the other extreme, opposite to the precisenoss 
 of these other sects ; whereby I also received an opportunity to know what usu- 
 ally is pretended on that side likewise. As for those I am now joined to, 1 
 justly esteem them to be the true followers and servants of Jesus Christ." 
 
 In his Apology, he communicates the following account of his conversion to 
 the principles previously embraced by his father. " It was not," he says, " by 
 .strength of argument, or by a particular disquisition of each doctrine, and con-
 
 152 ROBERT BARCLAY. 
 
 wincement of my understanding thereby, that I came to receive and bear witness 
 of the truth, bs:t by being secretly reached by this Life. For when I came into 
 the silent assemblies of God's people, 1 felt a secret power amongst them which 
 touched my heart ; and as I gave way unto it, I found the evil weakening in me, 
 and the good raised up ; and so I became thus knit and united unto them, hun- 
 gering more and more after the increase of this power and life, whereby I might 
 find myself perfectly redeemed." According to his friend William I'enn, it was 
 in the year 1667, when only nineteen years of age, that he fully became " con- 
 vinced, and publicly owned the testimony of the true light, enlightening 
 every man." " This writer," says he, " came early forth a zealous and fervent 
 witness for it [the true light], enduring the cross and despising the shame that 
 attended his discipleship, and received the gift of the ministry ns his greatest 
 honour, in which he laboured to bring others to God, and his labour was not in vain 
 in the Lord." The testimony of another of his brethren, Andrew .Taffray, is to the 
 same eftoct : " Having occasion, through his worthy father, to be in the meetings of 
 God's chosen people, who worship him in hi; own name, spirit, and power, and not 
 in the words of man's wisdom and preparation, he was, by the virtue and effica- 
 cious life of this blessed power, shortly after reached, and that in a time of si- 
 lence, a mystery to the world, and came so fast to grow therein, through his great 
 love and watchfulness to the inward appearance thereof, that, not long after, he 
 was called out to the public ministry, and declaring abroad that his eyes had 
 seen and his hands had handled of the pure word of life. Yea the Lord, who 
 loved him, counted him worthy so early to call him to some weighty and hard 
 services for his truth in our nation, that, a little after his coming out of the ago 
 of minority, as it is called, he was made willing, in the day of God's power, to 
 give up his body as a sign and wonder to this generation, and to deny himself 
 .nd all in him as a man so far as to become a fool, for his sake whom he loved, 
 in going in sackcloth and ashes through the chief streets of the city of Aberdeen, 
 besides some services at several steeple-houses and some sufferings in prison for 
 the truth's sake." 
 
 The true grounds of Barclay's predilection for the meek principles of the 
 Friends, is perhaps to be found in his physical temperament. On arriving in 
 Scotland, in 16(J4, with a heart open to every generous impulse, his mild nature 
 appears, from one of the above extracts of his own writings, to have been shock- 
 ed by the mutual hostility which existed between the adherents of the established 
 and the dis-e c tablished churches. While these bodies judged of each ether in 
 the severest spirit, they joined in one point alone a sense of the propriety of 
 persecuting the new and strange sect called Quakers, from whom both might ra- 
 ther have learned a lesson of forbearance and toleration. Barclay, who, from his 
 French education, was totally free of all prejudices on either side, seems to have 
 deliberately preferred that sect which alone, of all others in his native country, 
 professed to regard every denomination of fellow-Christians with an equal feel- 
 ing of kindness. 
 
 In February, 16559-70, Robert Barclay married Christian Mollison, daughter 
 of Gilbert Mollison, merchant in Aberdeen ; and on his marriage settled at 
 Ury with his father. The issue of this marriage was three sons and four daugh- 
 ters, all of whom survived him, and were living fifty years after his death. In 
 the life of John Gratton, there is an agreeable and instructive account of this 
 excellent mother's solicitude to imbue the tend-r minds of her children with 
 pious and good principles. The passage is as follows : " I observed (1694, her 
 husband being then dead,) that when her children were up in the morning and 
 diessed, she sat down with them, before breakfast, and in a religious manner 
 waited upon the Lord: which pious care, and motherly instruction of her chi!-
 
 ROBERT BARCLAY. 15? 
 
 dren when young, doubtless had its desired effect upon them, for as they grew in 
 years, they also grew in the knowledge of the blessed truth; and since that time, 
 some of them have become public preachers thereof." Believing it to lie her duty 
 to appear a preacher of righteousness, she was very solicitous that her example might, 
 in all respects, correspond with her station. 
 
 Robert Barclay, after his marriage, lived about sixteen years with his father ; in 
 which time he wrote most of those works by which his fame has been established. 
 All his time, however, was not passed in endeavouring to serve the cause of religion 
 with liis pen. He both acted and suffered for it. His whole existence, indeed, 
 seems to have been henceforth devoted to the interests of that profession of religion 
 which he had adopted. In prosecution of his purpose, he made a number of excur- 
 sions into England, Holland, and particular parts of Germany; teaching, as he went 
 along, the universal and saving light of Christ, sometimes vocally, but as often, we 
 may suppose, by what he seems to have considered the far more powerful manner, 
 expressive silence. In these peregrinations, the details of which, had they been pre- 
 served, would have been deeply interesting, he was on some occasions accompanied 
 by the famous William Penn, and probably also by others of the brethren. 
 
 The first of his publications in the order of time was, " Truth cleared of Calumnies, 
 occasioned by a book entitled, A Dialogue between a Quaker and a Stable Christian, 
 written by the Rev. William Mitchell, a minister or preacher in the neighbourhood 
 of Aberdeen." " The Quakers," says a defender of the Scottish church, " were, at 
 this time, only newly risen up ; they were, like every new sect, obtrusively forward ; 
 some of their tenets were of a startling, and some of them of an incomprehensible 
 kind, and to the rigid presbyterians especially, they were exceedingly offensive. 
 Hearing these novel opinions, not as simply stated and held by the Quakers, who 
 were, generally speaking, no great logicians, but in their remote consequences, they ' 
 regarded them with horror, and in the heat of their zeal.it must be confessed, often 
 lost sight both of charily and truth. They thus gave their generally passive oppo- 
 nents great advantages over them. Barclay, who was a man of great talents, was 
 certainly in this instance successful in refuting many false charges, and rectifying 
 many forced constructions that had been put upon parts of their practice, and, upon 
 the whole, setting the character of his silent brethren in a more favourable light than 
 formerly, though he was far from having demonstrated, as these brethren fondly 
 imagined, 'the soundness and scripture verity of their principles.' " This publica- 
 tion was dated at Ury, the 19th of the second Month, 1670, and in the eleventh 
 month of the same year, he added to it, by way of appendix, " Some things of 
 weighty concernment proposed in meekness and love, by way of queries, to the 
 serious consideration of the inhabitants of Aberdeen, which also may be of use ta 
 such as are of the same mind with them elsewhere in this nation." These queries, 
 twenty in number, were more particularly directed to Messrs David Lyal, George 
 Meldrum, and John Menzies, the ministers of Aberdeen who had, not only from the 
 pulpit, forbidden their people to read the aforesaid treatise, but had applied to the 
 magistrates of Aberdeen to suppress it. Mitchell wrote a reply to " Truth cleared 
 of calumnies, ' and, on the 24th day of the tenth Month, 1671, Barclay finished a 
 rejoinder at Ury, under the title of " William Mitchell unmasked, or tbe staggering 
 instability of the pretended stable Christian discovered ; his omissions observed, and 
 weakness unvailed," <kc. This goes over the same ground with the former treatise, 
 and is seasoned with several severe strokes of sarcasm against these Aberdonians, 
 who, "notwithstanding they had sworn to avoid a detestable neutrality, could now 
 preach under the bishop, dispense with the doxology, forbear lecturing and other 
 parts of the Directorial discipline, at the bishop's order, and yet keep a reserve for
 
 154 ROBERT BARCLAY. 
 
 presbytery in case it came again in fashion." He also turns some of William Mitchell's 
 arguments against himself with great ingenuity, though still he comes far short of 
 establishing his own theory. It is worthy of remark, that, in this treatise, he has 
 frequent recourse to Richard Baxter's aphorisms on justification, whose new law 
 scheme of the gospel seems to have been very much to the taste of the Quaker. It 
 appears to have been on the appearance of this publication that, " for a sign and 
 wonder to the generation," he walked through the chief streets of the city of Aber- 
 deen, clothed in sackcloth and ashes; on which occasion he published (in 1672) a 
 " Seasonable warning and serious exhortation to, and expostulation with, the 
 inhabitants of Aberdeen, concerning this present dispensation and day of God's living 
 visitation towards them." 
 
 His next performance was, " A Catechism and Confession of Faith," the answers 
 to the questions being all in the express words of Scripture ; and the preface to it 
 is dated, " From Ury, the place of my being, in my native country of Scotland, the 
 llth of the sixth month, 1G73." This was followed by "The Anarchy of the 
 Ranters," <fcc. 
 
 TVe now come to his great work, "An Apology for the true Christian Divinity, 
 a^ the same is held forth and preached by the people called in scorn, Quakers : Being 
 n lull explanation and vindication of their principles and doctrines, by many argu- 
 ments deduced from Scripture and right reason, and the testimonies of famous authors, 
 both ancient and modern ; with a full answer to the strongest objections usually 
 made against them. Presented to the King. Written and published in Latin for 
 the information of strangers, by Robert Barclay, and now put into our own language 
 for the benefit of his countrymen." The epistle to the King, prefixed to this 
 elaborate work, is dated, " From Ury, the place of my pilgrimage, in my native 
 country of Scotland, the 25th of the month called November, 1675." This epistle 
 is not a little curious, among other things, for the ardent anticipations which tlie 
 writer indulges with regard to the increase and future prevalence of the doctrines of 
 the Quakers, which be calls, " the gospel now again revealed after a long and dark 
 night of apostacy, and commanded to be preached to all nations." After some para- 
 grapbs.suificiently complimentary to the peaceable habits of his silence loving brethren, 
 he tells his majesty that "generations to come will not more admire that singular 
 step of Divine Providence, in restoring thee to thy throne without bloodshed, than 
 they shall admire the increase and progress of this truth without all outward help, 
 and against so great opposition, which shall be none of the least things rendering thy 
 memory remarkable." In looking back upon the atrocities that marked the reign of 
 Charles II., the growth of Quakerism is scarcely ever thought of, and the sufferings 
 of its professors are nearly invisible, by reason of the far greater sufferings of another 
 branch of the Christian church. Though led by his enthusiasm in his own cause to 
 overrate it, Barclay certainly had no intention of flattering the King. "God," he 
 goes on to tell him, "hath done great things for thee; he bath sufficiently shown thee 
 that it is by him princes rule, and that he can pull down and set up at his pleasure. 
 Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity ; thouknowest what it is to be banished 
 thy native country, to be overruled as well as to rule and sit upon the throne, and 
 being oppressed thou hast reason to know how hateful the oppressor is, both to God 
 and man. If after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto 
 the Lord with all thy heart, but forget him who remembered thee in thy distress, 
 and give up thyself to lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation." 
 
 The Apology is a most elaborate work, indicating no small portion of both talent 
 and learning. It contains, indeed, the sum of the author's thoughts in those treatises 
 we have already mentioned, as well as in those which he afterwards published, 
 digested into fifteen propositions, in which are included all the peculiar notions of
 
 ROBERT BARCLAY. 155 
 
 the sect: Immediate Revelation; the Universal Spiritual light; Silent worship; 
 Perfection ; the Rejection of the Sabbath and the Sacraments, <kc., <tc. This is 
 done with great apparent simplicity, and many plausible reasons, a number of excel- 
 lent thoughts being struck out by the way ; yet they are far from being satisfactory, 
 arid never will be so to any who are not already strongly possessed with an idea of 
 the internal light in man, to which the author holds even the Scriptures themselves 
 to be subordinate. There are, indeed, in the book, many sophisms, many flat contra- 
 dictions, and many assertions that are incapable of any proof. The appeals which 
 he makes to his own experience for the proof of his doctrines are often not a little 
 curious, and strongly illustrative of his character, as well as of the principles he had 
 espoused. 
 
 The same year in which he published the Apology, he published an account of a 
 dispute with the students of Aberdeen, which touches little besides the folly of such 
 attempts to establish truth or confute error. The following year, in conjunction 
 with George Keith, he put forth a kind of second part to the foregoing article, which 
 they entitled, " Quakerism Confirmed, being an answer to a pamphlet by the Aber- 
 deen students, entitled, Quakerism Canvassed." This treats only of matters to be 
 found in a better form in the Apology. In the first month of the year 1677, from 
 Aberdeen prison, he wrote his treatise of " Universal Love," and in the end of the 
 same year, he wrote, from his house at Ury, " An Epistle of Love and Friendly 
 Advice to the Ambassadors of the several princes of Europe, met at Nimeguen, to 
 consult the peace of Christendom so far as they are concerned ; wherein the true 
 cause of the present war is discovered, and the right remedy and means for a firm 
 and settled peace is proposed." This last was written in Latin, but published also 
 in Englis'a for the benefit of his countrymen. Both of the above tracts deserve 
 serious perusal. In 1679, he published a vindication of his Apology, and in 1686, 
 Lis last work, " The possibility and necessity of the inward and immediate revelation 
 of the Spirit of God towards the foundation and ground of true faith ; in a letter to 
 a person of quality in Holland," published both in Latin and English. In neither 
 of these, in our opinion, has he added anything to his Apology, which, as we have 
 already said, contains the sum of all that he has written or published. 
 
 In the latter part of his life, Barclay obtained, by the influence of his talents and 
 the sincerity and simplicity of his character and professions, an exemption from that 
 persecution which marked his early years. He had also contributed in no small 
 degree, by the eloquence of his writings in defence of the Friends, to procure for 
 them a considerable share of public respect. He is even found, strangely enough, to 
 have latterly possessed some influence at the dissolute court of Charles II. In 1679, 
 he obtained a charter from this monarch, under the great seal, erecting his lands of 
 Ury, 1 into a free barony, with civil and criminal jurisdiction to him and his heirs. 
 This charter was afterwards ratified by an act of Parliament, the preamble of which 
 states it to be " for the many services done by Colonel David Barclay, and his son, 
 the said Robert Barclay, to the King and his most royal progenitors in times past." 
 Another and more distinguished mark of court favour was conferred upon him in 
 1682, when he received the nominal appointment of governor of East Jersey, in 
 North America, from the proprietors of that province, of whom his friend the Earl 
 of Perth was one. He was also himself made a proprietor, and had allotted to 
 him five thousand acres of land above his proprietary share, as inducements for 
 his acceptance of the dignity, which, at the same time, he was permitted to depute. 
 The royal commission confirming this grant states, that such are his known fidelity 
 and capacity, that he has the government during life, but that no other governor 
 
 * Ilis father had died in 1676, leaving him in possession of this estate.
 
 15,3 EGBERT BARCLAY. 
 
 alter him shall have it ibr more than three years. One of his brothers settled 
 in the province, but he never visited it himself. In this year we find him assist- 
 ing the Laird of Swinton with his interest and purse at Edinburgh ; thus an- 
 swering practically and freely the apostolic expostulation (1 Cor. ix. 11.), by 
 permitting Swinton to reap carnal things, who had sown spiritual things to his 
 family. 
 
 The remainder of his life is not marked with many instances of public ac- 
 tion. Much of it appears to have been passed in tranquillity, and in the 
 bosom of his family ; yet he occasionally undertook journeys to promote his pri- 
 vate concerns, to serve his relations and neighbours, or to maintain the cause of 
 his brethren in religious profession. He was in London in 1685, and had fre- 
 quent access to King James II., who had all along evinced a warm friendship 
 towards him. Barclay, on the other hand, thinking James sincere in his faith, 
 and perhaps influenced a little by the flattery of a prince's favour, appeal's to 
 have conceived a real regard for this misguided and imprudent monarch. Li- 
 berty of conscience having been conceded to the Friends on the accession of 
 James II., Barclay exerted his influence to procure some parliamentary arrange- 
 ment, by which they might be exempted from the harsh and ruinous prosecu- 
 tions to which they were exposed, in consequence of their peculiar notions as to 
 the exercise of the law. He was again in London, on this business, in 1686, 
 on which occasion he visited the seven bishops, then confined in the Tower, for 
 having refused to distribute in their respective dioceses the king's declaration 
 for liberty of conscience, and for having- represented to the king the grounds of 
 their objection to the measure. The popular opinion was in favour of the 
 bishops ; yet the former severities of some of the episcopal order against dissen- 
 ters, particularly against the Friends, occasioned some reflections on them. This 
 having come to the knowledge of the imprisoned bishops, they declared that, 
 " the Quakers had belied them, by reporting that they had been the death of 
 some." Kobert Barclay, being informed of this declaration, went to the Tower, 
 and gave their lordships a well-substantiated account of some persons having 
 been detained in prison till death, by order of bishops, though they had been 
 apprized of the danger by physicians who were not Quakers. He, however, 
 observed to the bishops, that it was by no means the intention of the Friends to 
 publish such events, and thereby give the king, and their other adversaries, any 
 advantage against them. Barclay was in London, for the last time, in the me- 
 morable year 1688. He visited James II., and being with him near a window, 
 the king looked out, and observed that, " the wind was then fair for the prince 
 of Orange to come over." Robert Barclay replied, " it was hard that no expe- 
 dient could be found to satisfy the people." The king declared, " he would do 
 any thing becoming a gentleman, except parting with liberty of conscience, 
 which he never would whilst he lived." At that time Barclay took a final leave 
 of the unfortunate king, for whose disasters he was much concerned, and with 
 whom he had been several times engaged in serious discourse at that time. 
 
 Robert Barclay " laid down the body," says Andrew Jaffray, " in the holy and 
 honourable truth, wherein he had served it about three and twenty years, upon 
 the 3rd day of the eighth month, 1690, near the forty and second year of his 
 age, at his own house of Urie, in Scotland, and it was laid in his own burial 
 ground there, upon the 6th day of the same month, before many friends and 
 other people." His character has been thus drawn by another of the amicable 
 fraternity to which he belonged : a 
 
 " He was distinguished by strong mental powers, particularly by great pene- 
 tration, and a sound and accurate judgment His 1 talents M'ere much improved 
 * A short account of the Life and Writings of Robert Barclay, London, 18C2.
 
 WILLIAM BARCLAY. 157 
 
 by a regular and classical education. It does not, however, appear that his su- 
 perior qualifications produced that elation of mind, which is too often their 
 attendant : he was meek, humble, and ready to allow to others the merit they 
 possessed. All his passions were under the most excellent government. Two 
 of his intimate friends, in their character of him, declare that they never knew 
 him to be angry. He had the happiness of early perceiving the infinite supe- 
 riority of religion to every other attainment ; and the Divine grace enabled him 
 to dedicate his life, and all that he possessed, to promote the cause of piety and 
 virtue. For the welfare of his friends he was sincerely and warmly concerned : 
 and he travelled and wrote much, as well as suffered cheerfully, in support of 
 the society and the principles to which he had conscientiously attached himself. 
 But this was not a blind and bigoted attachment His zeal was tempered with 
 charity ; and he loved and respected goodness wherever he found it His urt- 
 corrapted integrity and liberality of sentiment, his great abilities and suavity of 
 disposition, gave him much interest with persons of rank anA*influence, and he 
 employed it in a manner that marked the benevolence of his heart. He loved 
 peace, and was often instrumental in settling disputes, and in producing recon- 
 ciliations between intending parties. 
 
 " In support and pursuit of what he believed to be right, he possessed great 
 firmness of mind ; which was early evinced in the pious and dutiful sentiment 
 he expressed to his uncle, who tempted him with great offers to remain in 
 France, against the desire of his father : ' He is my father,' said he, ' and he 
 must be obeyed.' All the virtues harmonize, and are connected with one another: 
 this firm and resolute spirit in the prosecution of duty, was united with great 
 sympathy and compassion towards persons in affliction and distress. They were 
 consoled by his tenderness, assisted by his advice, and occasionally relieved by 
 his bounty. His spiritual discernment and religious experience, directed by 
 that Divine influence which he valued above all things, eminently qualified him 
 to instruct the ignorant, to reprove the irreligious, to strengthen the feeble- 
 minded, and to animate the advanced Christian to still greater degrees of virtue 
 and holiness. 
 
 " In private life he was equally amiable. His conversation was cheerful, 
 guarded, and instructive. He was a dutiful son, an affectionate and faithfut 
 husband, a tender and careful father, a kind and considerate master. Without 
 exaggeration, it may be said, that piety and virtue were recommended by his 
 example ; and that, though the period of his life was short, he had, by the aid 
 of Divine grace, most wisely and happily improved it. He lived long enough 
 lo manifest, in an eminent degree, the temper and conduct of a Christian, and 
 the virtues and qualifications of a true minister of the gospel." 
 
 BARCLAY. WILLIAM, an eminent civilian, and father of the still more cele- 
 brated author of the Argenis, was descended from one of the best families in 
 Scotland under the rank of nobility, and was born in Aberdeenshire, in 1541. 
 He spent his early years in the court of Queen Mary, with whom he was in high 
 favour. After her captivity in England, disgusted with the turbulent state of his 
 native country, which promised no advantage to a man of learning, he removed 
 to France (1573), and began to study the law at Bourges. Having in time 
 qualified himself to teach the civil law, he was appointed by the Duke of Lorran, 
 through the recommendation of his relation Edmund Hay, the Jesuit, to be a pro- 
 fessor of that science in the university of Pontamousson, being at the same time 
 counsellor of state and master of requests to his princely patron. In 1531, lie 
 married Anne de Maleville, a young lady of Lorrain, by whom he had his son 
 John, the subject of the following article. This youth showed tokens of genius at 
 an early period, and was sought from his father by the Jesuits, that he might enter
 
 158 JOHN BARCLAY. 
 
 their society. The father, thinking proper to refuse the request, became an ob- 
 ject of such wrath to that learned and unscrupulous fraternity, that he was com- 
 pelled to abandon all his preferments, and seek refuge in England. This was 
 in 1603, just at the time when his native sovereign had acceded to the throne of 
 England. James I. offered him a pension, and a place in his councils, on con- 
 dition that he would embrace the protestant faith ; but though indignant at the 
 intrigues of the Jesuits, he would not desert their religion. In 1604, he return- 
 ed to France, and became professor of civil law at Angers, where he taught for a 
 considerable time with high reputation. It is said that he entertained a very 
 high sense of the dignity of his situation. He used to " go to school every day, 
 attended by a servant who went before him, himself having a rich robe lined with 
 ermine, the train of which was supported by two servants, and his son upon his 
 right hand ; and there hung about his neck a great chain of gold, with a medal 
 of gold, with his Qipn picture." Such was, in those days, the pomp and circum- 
 stance of the profifcsion of civil law. He did not long enjoy this situation, dy- 
 ing towards the close of 1605. He is allowed to have been very learned, not 
 only in the civil and canon law, but in the classical languages, and in ecclesias- 
 tical history. But his prejudices were of so violent a nature as to obscure both 
 his genius and erudition. He zealously maintained the absolute power of mon- 
 archs, and had an illiberal antipathy to the protestant religion. His works are, 
 1, a controversial treatise on the royal power, against Buchanan and other king- 
 killers, Paris, 1600 ; 2, a treatise on the power of the Pope, showing that he 
 has no right of rule over secular princes, 1609 ; 3, a commentary on the title 
 of the pandects de rebis creditis, &c ; 4, a commentary on Tacitus's Life o l 
 Agricola, All these works, as well as their titles, are in Latin. 
 
 BARCLAY, JOHN, son of William Barclay, was born at Pontamousson in 
 France. January 28, 1582, and was educated under the care of Jesuits 
 When only nineteen years old, he published notes on the Thebais of Statins. He 
 was, as above stated, the innocent cause of a quarrel between his father and the 
 Jesuits, in consequence of which the family removed to England, in 1603. At 
 the beginning of 1604, young Barclay presented a poetical panegyric to the 
 king, under the title of Kalendee Januariae. To this monarch lie soon after 
 dedicated the first part of his celebrated Latin satire entitled, Euphonnion. Join. 
 Barclay, like many young men of genius, was anxious for distinction, quocunque 
 modo, and, having an abundant conceit of his own abilities, and looking upon 
 all other men as only fit to furnish him with matter of ridicule, he launched at the 
 very first into the dangerous field of general satire. He confesses in the apology 
 which he afterwards published for his Euphonnion, that, " as soon as he left 
 school, a juvenile desire of fame incited him to attack the whole world rather 
 with a view of promoting his own reputation, than of dishonouring individuals." 
 We must confess that this grievous early fault of Barclay was only the transores- 
 sion of a very spirited character. He says, in his dedication of Euphormion to 
 King James, written when he was two-and-twenty, that he was ready, in the ser- 
 vice of his Majesty, to convert his pen into a sword, or his sword into a pen. 
 His prospects at this court were unfortunately blighted, like those of his fa- 
 ther, by the religious contests of the time; and in 1604 the family returned 
 to France. John, however, appears to have spent the next year chiefly in Eng- 
 land, probably upon some renewal of his prospects at the court of Kin"- James. 
 In 1606, after the death of his father, he returned to France, and at Paris mar- 
 ried Louisa Debonnaire, with whom he soon after settled at London. Here he pub- 
 lished the second part of his Euphormion, dedicating it to the Earl of Salisbury, 
 a minister in whom he could find no fault but his excess of virtue. Lord liailes 
 remarks, as a surprising circumstance, that the writer who could discover no faults
 
 JOliN BARCLAY. 
 
 in Salisbury, aimed the shafts of ridicule at Sully ; but nothing can be less sur- 
 prising in such a person as Barclay. A man who satirized only for the sake 
 of personal eclat, would as easily flatter in gratitude for the least notice. It should 
 also be recollected, that many minds do not, till the approach of middle life, ac- 
 quire the power of judging accurately regarding virtue and vice, or merit and 
 demerit: all principles, in such minds, are jumbled like the elements of the 
 earth in chaos, and are only at length reduced to order by the overmastering 
 influence of the understanding. In the disposition which seems to have cliarac- 
 terised Barclay, for flattering those who patronised him, he endeavoured to please 
 King James, in the second part of the Euphormion, by satirizing tobacco and 
 the puritans. In this year he also published an account of the gun-powder plot, 
 a woik remarked to be singularly impartial, considering the religion of the writer. 
 During the course of three years' residence in England, Barclay received no 
 token of the royal liberality. Sunk in indigence, with an increasing family 
 calling for support, he on ly wished to be indemnified for his English journeys, 
 and to have his charges defrayed into France. At length he was relieved from 
 his distresses by his patron Salisbury. Of these circumstances, so familiar and 
 so discouraging to men of letters, we are informed by some allegorical and ob- 
 scure verses written by Barclay at that sad season. Having removed to France 
 in 1'iOD. he next year published his Apology for the Euphormion. This denotes 
 that he came to see the folly of a general contempt for mankind at the age of 
 twenty-eight. How he supported himself at this time, does not appear ; but he 
 is found, in 1614, publishing his Icon Animarum, which is declared by a com- 
 petent critic to be the best, though not the most celebrated of his works. It is 
 a delineation of the genius and manners of the European nations, with remarks, 
 moral and philosophical, on the various tempers of men. It is pleasant to ob- 
 serve that in this work he does justice to the Scottish people. In 1615, Barclay 
 is said to have been invited by Pope Paul V. to Rome. He had previously 
 lashed the holy court in no measured terms ; but so marked a homage from 
 this quarter to his distinction in letters, as usual, softened his feelings, and he 
 now accordingly shifted his family thither, and lived the rest of liis life under the 
 protection of the pontirK In 1617, he published at Rome his " Paranesis ad 
 Sectaries, Libri Duo ;" a work in which he seems to have aimed at atoning for 
 his foi-mer sarcasms at the Pope, by attacking those whom his holiness called 
 heretics. Barclay seems to have been honoured with many marks of kindness, 
 not only from the Pope, but also from Cardinal Barberini ; yet it does not appear 
 that he obtained much emolument. Incumbered with a wife and family, and 
 having a spirit above his fortune, he was left at full leisure to pursue his studies. 
 It was at that time that he composed his Latin romance called Argents. He 
 employed his vacant hours in cultivating a flower garden ; and Rossi relates, in his 
 turgid Italian style, that Barclay cared not for those bulbous roots which produce 
 flowers of a sweet scent, but cultivated such as produced flowers void of smell, 
 but having variety of colours. Hence we may conclude that he was among the 
 first of those who were injected with that strange disease, a passion for tulips, 
 which soon after overspread Europe, and is commemorated under the name of the 
 Tulipo-mania. Barclay might truly have said with Virgil, " Tantus amor flo- 
 >m /" He had t.vo mastiffs placed as sentinels to protect his garden ; and ra- 
 ther than abandon his favourite flowers, chose to continue his residence in an ill- 
 aired and unwholesome situation. 
 
 This extraordinary genius, who seems to have combined the perfervidum in- 
 genium of his father's country, with the mercurial vivacity of his mother's, died 
 at Kome on the 12th of August, 1 621, in the thirty-ninth year of his age. He 
 left a wife, who had tormented him much with jealousy, (through the ardour of
 
 100 JAMES BASSANTIN (OR BASSANTOUN). 
 
 ner afTection, as he explained it), besides three children, of whom two were boys. 
 He also left, in the hands of the printer, his celebrated Argents, and also an un- 
 published history of the conquest of Jerusalem, and some fragments of a general 
 history of Europe. He was buried in the church of St Onuphrhis, and his widow 
 erected a monument to him, with his bust in marble, at the church of St Law- 
 rence, on the road to Tivoli. A strange circumstance caused the destruction of 
 this trophy. Cardinal Barberini chanced to erect a monument, exactly similar, 
 ii the same place, to his preceptor, Bernardus Gulienus a monte Sancti Sabini. 
 When the widow of Barclay heard of this, she said, " My husband was a man of 
 birth, and famous in the literary world ; I will not suffer him to remain on a 
 level with a base and obscure pedagogue." She therefore caused the bust to be 
 removed, and the inscription to be obliterated. The account given of the Ar- 
 oenis, by Lord Hailes, who wrote a life of John Barclay as a specimen of a Bio- 
 graphia Scotica* is as follows : " Argenis is generally supposed to be a history 
 under feigned names, and not a romance. Barclay himself contributed to estab- 
 lish this opinion, by introducing some real characters into the work. But that 
 was merely to compliment certain dignitaries of the church, whose good offices 
 he courted, or whose power he dreaded. The key prefixed to Argenis has per. 
 petuated the error. There are, no doubt, many incidents in it that allude to the 
 state of France during the civil wars in the seventeenth century ; but it requires 
 a strong imagination indeed to discover Queen Elizabeth in Hyanisbe, or Henry 
 Ill.of France in Meleander." On the whole, Argenis appears to be a poetical fable, 
 replete with moral and political reflections. Of this work three English translations 
 have appeared, the last in 1772 ; but it now only enjoys the reflective reputation 
 of a work that was once in high repute. We may quote, however, the opinion 
 which Cowper was pleased to express regarding this singular production. " It 
 is," says the poet of Olney, " the most amusing romance that ever was written. 
 It is the only one, indeed, of an old date, that I had ever the patience to go 
 through with. It is interesting in a high degree, richer in incident than can be 
 imagined, full of surprises, which the reader never forestalls, and yet free from 
 entanglement and confusion. The style too, appears to me to be such as would 
 not dishonour Tacitus himself." 
 
 BASSANTIN, or BASSANTOUN, JAMES, astronomer and mathematician, was 
 the son of the Laird of Bassantin, in Berwickshire, and probably born in the 
 early part of the sixteenth century. Being sent to study at the University of 
 Glasgow, he applied himself almost exclusively to mathematics, to the neglect of 
 languages and philosophy, which Avere then the most common study. In order 
 to prosecute mathematics more effectually than it was possible to do in his own 
 country, he went abroad, and travelled through the Netherlands, Switzerland, 
 Italy, and Germany ; fixing himself at last in France, Avhere for a considerable 
 time he taught his favourite science with high reputation in the University of 
 Paris. In that age, the study of astronomy was inseparable from astrology, and 
 Bassantin became a celebrated proficient in this pretended science, which was 
 then highly cultivated in France, insomuch that it entered more or less into 
 almost all public affairs, and nearly every court in Europe had its astrologer. 
 Bassantin, besides his attainments in astrology, understood the laws of the 
 heavens to an extent which excited the wonder of the age especially, when it 
 was considered that he had scarcely any knowledge of the Greek or Latin lan- 
 guages, in which all that was formerly known of this science had been embodied. 
 But, as may be easily conceived, astronomy was as yet a most imperfect science ; 
 fhe Copernican system, which forms the groundwork of modern astronomy, 
 was not yet discovered or acknowledged ; and all that was really known had 
 1 Printed in 4to, in 1782, and the groumMvurk of the present s&rtrh.
 
 JOHN BASSOL. 
 
 in time become so inextricably associated with the dreams of astrology, as to be 
 entitled to little respect. Bassantin returned to his native country in 1562, 
 and in passing through England, met with Sir Robert Melville of Mordecairny' 
 who was then engaged in a diplomatic mission from Mary to Elizabeth, for the 
 purpose of bringing about a meeting between the two queens. A curious account 
 of this rencontre is preserved by Sir James Melville in his 3Iemoirs, and, as it 
 is highly illustrative of the character and pretensions of Eassantin, we shall lay 
 it before the reader. " Ane Bassantin, a Scottis man, that had been travelit, 
 and was learnit in Inch scyences, cam to him [Sir Robert Melville] and said, 
 ' Gud gentilman, I hear sa gud report of you that I love you hardy, and there- 
 fore canot forbear to shaw you, how all your upricht dealing and your honest 
 travell will be in vain, where ye believe to obtein a weall for our Quen at the 
 Quen of Englandis handis. You bot tyne your tyme ; for, first, they will never 
 meit togither, and next, there will nevir be bot discembling and secret hattrent 
 for a whyle, and at length captivity and utter wrak for our Quen by England.' 
 31y brother's answer again was, that he lyked not to heir of sic devilisch newes 
 nor yet wald he credit them in any sort, as false, ungodly, and unlawfull for 
 Christians to inedle them with. Bassantin answered again, ' Gud Mester Mel- 
 vill, tak not that hard opinion of me ; I am a Christian of your religion, and 
 fears God, and purposes never to cast myself in any of the unlawful artis that 
 ye mean of, bot sa far as Melanthon, wha was a Godly theologue, has declared 
 and written anent the iiaturall scyences, that are lawfull and daily red in dyvers 
 < liristian Universities; in the quhilkis, as in all othir artis, God geves to some 
 lss, to some mair and clearer knawledge than till others ; be the quhilk knaw- 
 ledge I have also that at length, that the kingdom of England sail of rycht 
 fall to the crown of Scotland, and that ther are some born at this instant, that 
 sail bruik lands and heritages in England. Bot alace it will cost many their 
 lyves, and many bludy battailes wilbe fouchten first, or [ere] it tak a sattled 
 effect ; and be my knawledge,' said he, ' the Spaniards will be helpers, and 
 will tak a part to themselves for ther labours, quhilk they wilbe laith to leve 
 again.'" If the report of this conference be quite faithful, we must certainly 
 do Bassantin the justice to say, that the most material part of his prophecy 
 came to pass ; though it might be easy for him to see that, as the sovereign 01 
 Scotland was heiress-presumptive to the crown of England, she or her heirs had 
 a near prospect of succeeding. How Bassantin spent his time in Scotland does 
 not appear; but, as a good protestant, he became a warm supporter of the Earl 
 of Murray, then struggling for the ascendancy. He died in 1563. His works 
 ire, I, A System of Astronomy, published for the third time in 1593, by Johi: 
 Tornuesius. 2, A Treatise of the Astrolabe, published at Lyons in 1555, and 
 reprinted at Paris in 1617. 3, A Pamphlet on the Calculation of Nativities. 
 4, A Treatise on Arithmetic. 5, Music on the Principles of the Platonists. 6, 
 On Mathematics in general. It is understood that, in the composition of thes>; 
 works, he required considerable literary assistance, being only skilled in his own 
 language, which was never then made the vehicle of scientific discussion. 
 
 BASSOL, JOHN, a distinguished disciple of the famous Duns Scotus, is stated 
 by Mackenzie to have been born in the reign of Alexander III. He studied 
 under Duns at Oxford, and with him, in 1304, removed to Paris, where he 
 resided some time in the University, and, in 1313, entered the order of the 
 Minorites. After this he was sent by the general of his order to Rheims, where 
 he applied himself to the study of medicine, and taught philosophy for seven 
 or eight years. In 1322, he removed to Mechlin in Brabant, and after teach- 
 ing theology in that city for five and twenty years, died in 1347. 
 
 only work was one entitled, " Commentaria Seu Lecturae in Quatuor
 
 162 JOHN BAtiiSOL. 
 
 Libros Senteiitiarum," to which were attached some miscellaneous papers on 
 Philosophy and Medicine. The book was published in folio at Paris, in 15 J 7. 
 Bassol was known by the title, Doctor Ordinatissimus, or the most Methodical 
 Doctor, on account of the clear and accurate method in which he lectured and 
 composed. The fashion of giving such titles to the great masters of the schools 
 ivas then in its prime. Thus, Duns Scotus himself was styled Doctor Subtilis, 
 jr the Subtle Doctor. St Francis of Assis was called the Seraphic Doctor; 
 Alexander Hales the Irrefragable Doctor ; Thomas Aquinas the Angelical Doc- 
 tor ; Hendricus Bonicollius the Solemn Doctor ; Richard Middleton the Solid 
 Doctor ; Francis Mayron the Acute Doctor ; Durandus a S. Portiano the most 
 Resolute Doctor ; Thomas H red ward! n the Profound Doctor ; Joannes Ruys- 
 brokius the Divine Doctor, and so forth ; the title being in every case founded 
 upon some extravagant conception of the merit of the particular individual, 
 adopted by his contemporaries and disciples. In this extraordinary class of 
 literati, John Bassol, as implied by his soubriquet, shines conspicuous for order 
 and method ; yet we are told that his works contain most of the faults which 
 are generally laid to the charge of the schoolmen. The chief of these is an 
 irrational devotion to the philosophy of Aristotle, as expounded by Thomas Aqui- 
 nas. In the early ages of modern philosophy, this most splendid exertion of 
 the human mind was believed to be irreconcileable to the Christian doctrines ; 
 and at the very time when the Angelical Doctor wTote his commentary, it stood 
 prohibited by a decree of Pope Gregory IX. The illustrious Thomas not only 
 restored Aristotle to favour, but inspired his followers with an admiration of his 
 precepts, which, as already mentioned, was not rational. Not less was their ad- 
 miration of the "angelical" commentator, to whom it was long the fashion 
 among them to offer an incense little short of blasphemy. A commentator upon 
 an original work of Thomas Aquinas, endeavours, in a prefatory discourse, to 
 prove, in so many chapters, that he wrote his books not without the special in- 
 fusion of the spirit of God Almighty ; that, in writing them, he received many 
 things by revelation ; and, that Christ had given anticipatory testimony to his 
 writings. By way of bringing the works of St Thomas into direct comparison 
 with the Holy Scriptures, the same writer remarks, " that, as in the first General 
 Councils of the church, it was common to have the Bible unfolded upon the 
 Altar, so, in the last General Council (that of .Trent), St Thomas' 'Sum' was 
 placed beside the Bible, as an inferior rule of Christian doctrine." Peter Labbe, 
 a learned Jesuit, with scarcely less d;iring flattery, styles St Thomas an angel, 
 and says that, as he learned many things from the angels, so he taught the an 
 gels some things; that St Thomas had said what St Paul was not permitted to 
 utter ; and that he speaks of God as if he had seen him, and of Christ as if he 
 tiad been his voice. One might almost suppose that these learned gentlemen, 
 disregarding the sentiment afterwards embodied by Gray, that flattery soothes 
 not the cold ear of death, endeavoured by their praises to make interest with 
 the " angelical" shade, not doubting that he was able to obtain for them a larger 
 share of paradise than they could otherwise hope for. In the words of the au- 
 thor of the Reflections on Learning, " the sainted Thomas, if capable of hearing 
 these inordinate flatteries, must have blushed to receive them." 
 
 Bassol was also characterised, in common with all the rest of the schoolmen, 
 by a ridiculous nicety in starting questions and objections. Overlooking the 
 great moral aim of what they were expounding, he and his fellows lost them- 
 selves in minute and subtle inquiries after physical exactness, started at every 
 straw which lay upon their path, and measured the powers of the mind by grains 
 and scruples. It must be acknowledged, in favour of this singular class of IUT, 
 that they improved natural reason to a great height, and that much of what
 
 ANDREW BAXTER. 1Q3 
 
 is most admired in modern philosophy is only borrowed from them. At the 
 same time, their curiosity in raising and prosecuting frivolous objections to the 
 Christian system is to be regretted as the source of much scepticism and irreli- 
 gion. To many of their arguments, ridicule only is due ; and it would perhaps 
 be impossible for the gravest to restrain a smile at the illustrissimo mentioned 
 by Cardan, one of whose arguments was declared to be enough to puzzle aii 
 posterity, and who himself wept in his old age, because he had become unable 
 to understand his own books. 
 
 The works of Bassol have been long forgotten, like those of his brethren ; 
 but it is not too much to say regarding this great man of a former day, that the 
 same powers of mind which he spent upon the endless intricacies of the school 
 philosophy, would certainly, in another age and sphere, have tended to the 
 permanent advantage of his fellow creatures. He Mas so much admired by his 
 illustrious preceptor, that that great man used to say, " If only Joannes Bassio- 
 lis be present, I have a sufficient auditory." 
 
 BAXTER, ANDREW, an ingenious moral and natural philosopher, was the 
 son of a merchant in Old Aberdeen, and of Mrs Elizabeth Fraser, a lady 
 connected with some of the considerable families of that name in the north of 
 Scotland. He was boni at Old Aberdeen, in 1686 or 1687, and educated at 
 the King's College, in his native city. His employment in early life was that of 
 a preceptor to young gentlemen ; and among others of his pupils were Lord Gray, 
 Lord Blantyre, and Mr Hay of Drummelzier. In 1723, while resident atDunse 
 Castle, as preceptor to the last-mentioned gentleman, he is known, from letters which 
 passed between him and Henry Home, afterwards Lord Kaimes, to have been 
 deeply engaged in both physical and metaphysical disquisitions. As Mr Home's 
 paternal seat of Kaimes was situated within a few miles of Dunse Castle, the si- 
 milarity of their pursuits appears to have brought them into an intimate friend- 
 ship and correspondence. This, however, was soon afterwards broken offi Mr 
 Home, who was a mere novice in physics, contended with Mr Baxter that mo- 
 tion was necessarily the result of a succession of causes. The latter endeavoured, 
 at first with much patience and good temper, to point out the error of this ar- 
 gument ; but, teased at length with what he conceived to be sophistry purposely 
 employed by his antagonist to show his ingenuity in throwing doubts on princi- 
 ples to which he himself annexed the greatest importance, and on which he had 
 founded what he believed to be a demonstration of those doctrines most material 
 to the happiness of mankind, he finally interrupted the correspondence, saying, 
 " I shall return you all your letters; mine, if not already destroyed, you may 
 likewise return; we shall burn them and our philosophical heats together." 
 About this time, Mr Baxter married Alice Mabane, daughter of a respectable 
 clergyman in Berwickshire. A few years afterwards he published his great 
 work, entitled, " An Enquiry into the nature of the Human Soul, wherein its 
 immateriality is evinced from the principles of Reason and Philosophy." This 
 ork was originally without date ; but a second edition appeared in 1737, and 
 a third in 1745. It has been characterised in the highest terms of panegyric 
 by Bishop Warburton. " He who would see," says this eminent prelate, " the 
 justest and precisest notions of God and the soul, may read this book ; one o 
 the most finished of the kind, in my humble opinion, that the present times, 
 greatly advanced in true philosophy, have produced." The object of the trea- 
 tise is to prove the immateriality, and consequently the immortality of the soul, 
 from the acknowledged principle of the vis inertia of matter. His argument, 
 according to the learned Lord Woodhouselee, is as follows: " There is a resis- 
 tance to any change of its present state, either of rest or motion, essential to 
 matter, which is inconsistent with its possessing any active power. Those, there-
 
 ANDHEW BAXTER. 
 
 fore, which have been called the natural powers of matter, as gravity, attraction, 
 elasticity, repulsion, are not powers implanted in matter, or possible to be 
 made inherent in it, but are impulses or forces impressed upon it ab extra. The 
 consequence of the want of active power in matter is, that all those effects com- 
 monly ascribed to its active powers, must be produced upon it by an immaterial 
 being. Hence we discover the necessity for the agency of a constant and uni- 
 versal Providence in the material world, who is GOD ; and hence we must admit 
 the necessity of an immaterial mover in all spontaneous motions, which is the 
 Soul ; for that which can arbitrarily effect a change in the present state of 
 matter, cannot be matter itself, which resists all change of its present state : and 
 since this change is effected by willing, that thing which wills in us is net mat- 
 ter, but an immaterial substance. From these fundamental propositions, the 
 author deduces as consequences, the necessary immortality of the soul, as being 
 a simple uncompounded substance, and thence incapable of decay, and its capa- 
 city of existing, and being conscious when separated from the body." In 1741, 
 leaving his family in Berwick, he went abroad with his pupil Mr Hay, and 
 resided for several years at Utrecht. In the course of various excursions which 
 he made through Holland, France, and Germany, he was generally well received 
 by the literati. He returned to Scotland in 1747, and, till his death in 1750, 
 resided constantly at Whittingham in East Lothian, a seat of his pupil Mr Hay. 
 His latter works were, " Matho, sive CosmotheorSa puerilis, Dialogus," a piece 
 designed for the use of his pupil, and, " An Appendix to his Enquiry into the 
 nature of the human soul," wherein he endeavoured to remove some difficulties, 
 which had been started against his notions of the vis inertias of matter by 
 Maclaurin, in his " Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries " 
 In 1779, the Rev. Dr Duncan of South Warnborough published, " The evidence 
 of reason in proof of the Immortality of the Soul, independent on the more 
 abstruse enquiry into the nature of matter and spirit collected from the MSS. 
 of the late Mr Baxter." 
 
 The learning and abilities of Mr Baxter are sufficiently displayed in his 
 writings, which, however, were of more note in the literary world during his own 
 time than now. He was very studious, and sometimes sat up whole nights read- 
 ing and writing. His temper was cheerful ; he was a friend to innocent merri- 
 ment, and of a disposition truly benevolent In conversation he was modest, 
 and not apt to make much show of the extensive knowledge he possessed. In 
 the discharge of the several social and relative duties of life, his conduct was 
 exemplary. He had the most reverential sentiments of the Deity, of whose 
 presence and immediate support, he had always a strong impression upon his 
 mind. He paid a strict attention to economy, though he dressed elegantly, and 
 was not parsimonious in his other expenses. It is known also that there were 
 several occasions on which he acted with remarkable disinterestedness ; and so 
 far was he from courting preferment, that he repeatedly declined offers of that 
 kind that were made to him, on the condition of his taking orders in the Church 
 of England. The French, German, and Dutch languages were spoken by him 
 with much ease, and the Italian tolerably; and he read and wrote them all, 
 together with the Spanish. His friends and correspondents were numerous and 
 respectable ; among them are particularly mentioned, Mr Pointz, preceptor to 
 the Duke of Cumberland, and Bishop Warburton. While travelling on the Con- 
 tinent, he had formed an intimate friendship with the celebrated John Wilkes ; 
 and he accordingly dedicated to this gentleman his Appendix to the Enquiry. 
 After the death of Mr Baxter, Mr Wilkes published a remarkably interesting 
 letter, the last but one which he had received from his friend, exhibiting in a 
 very striking manner the deep impression which the excellent principles of M>
 
 JAMES BAYNE (OB, BAINE). 
 
 Baxter had made upon his own mind, and which were oniythe more deeply and 
 confidently cherished as life approached its close. " As to the state of my dis- 
 ease," says the dying philosopher, " unless I would make suppositions contrary 
 to all probability, I hare no reasonable hopes of recovery, the swelling which 
 began at my legs, being now got up to my belly and head. I am a trouble to 
 all about me, especially to my poor wife, who has the life of a slave night and 
 day, helping me to take care of my diseased frame. Yet I may linger on a 
 while, as I can still walk a little through the room, and divert myself now and 
 then with reading, nay, in writing down my remarks on what I read. But I 
 can with sincerity assure you, my most dear Mr Wilkes, death has nothing ter- 
 rible to me ; or rather I look upon it with pleasure. I have long and often 
 considered and uritten down the advantages of a separate state. I shall soon 
 know more than all the men I leave behind me ; wonders in material nature 
 and the world of spirits, which never entered into the thoughts of philosophers. 
 The end of knowledge then, is not to get a name, or form a new sect, but to 
 adore the power and wisdom of the Deity. This kills pride, but heightens hap- 
 piness and pleasure. All our rational desires, because rational, must be satisfied 
 by a being, himself infinitely rational I have been long aware that nothing 
 can go beyond the grave, but habits of virtue and innocence. There is no dis- 
 tinction in that world, but what proceeds from virtue or vice. Titles and riches 
 are laid off when the shroud goes on." [Mr Baxter then goes on to express his 
 conviction that even the punishments which may be awarded in a future state 
 will only be " to correct and make better."] " Besides, what is it to be free 
 from the pains and infirmities of the body though I am satisfied just now, 
 that the weakness of my distressed limbs is as much the immediate effect of the 
 same power and goodness, as their growth and strength was sixty years ago ! 
 Dare I add a word without being thought vain ? This is owing to my having 
 reasoned honestly on the nature of that dead substance, matter. It is as utterly 
 inert when the tree flourishes, as when the leaf withers. And it is the same 
 divine power, differently applied, that directs the last parting throb, and the 
 first drawing breath. O the blindness of those who think matter can do any 
 thing of itself, or perform an effect without impulse or direction from superior 
 power!" 
 
 BAYNE, [or BAIXE] JAMES, A. M. a divine of some note, M - as the sen of the 
 Rev. Mr Bayne, minister of Bonhill in Dumbartonshire, and was born in 1710. 
 His education commenced at the parish school, was completed at the university 
 of Glasgow, and in due time he became a licensed preacher of the established 
 church of Scotland. In consequence of the respectability of his father, and his 
 own talents as a preacher, he was presented by the Duke of Montrose to the church 
 of Killearn, the parish adjoining that in which his father had long ministered 
 the gospel, and memorable as the birth-place of Bucbanan. In this sequester- 
 ed and tranquil seen* 1 , he spent many years, which he often referred to in after 
 I ife as the happiest he had ever known. He here married Miss Potter, daughtei 
 of Dr Michael Potter, professor of divinity in the Glasgow university, by whom 
 he had a large family. His son, the Rev. James Bayne, was licensed in the Scot- 
 tish establishment, but afterwards received episcopal ordination, and died in the 
 exercise of that profession of faith at Alloa. 
 
 The reputation of Mr Bayne as a preacher soon travelled far beyond the rural 
 scene to which his ministrations were confined. His people, in allusion to the 
 musical sweetness of his voice, honoured him with the poetical epithet of " the swan 
 of the west." He was appointed to a collegiate charge in the High Church of Paisley, 
 where his partner in duty was the celebrated Mr Wotherspoon, afterwards president 
 of the Nassau Hall College, Princetown, New Jersey. The two colleagues, however,
 
 106 JAMES BAYNE (OR BAINE). 
 
 did not co-operate harmoniously, although both enjoyed a high degree of popularity. 
 Mr Bavne displayed great public spirit during his connection with the Established 
 church, defending her spiritual liberties and independence in the church courts, and 
 offering a determined opposition to the policy of the moderate or ruling party. The 
 deposition of Mr Thomas Gillespie, of Carnock, the founder of the Relief church, 
 made a powerful impression on his mind, and undoubtedly had a strong influence in 
 inducing him to resign his pastoral charge in Paisley. But the immediate cause of 
 that resolution was a keen dispute which took place in the kirk-session of his parish, 
 respecting the appointment of a session-clerk. The session contested the right of 
 appointment with the town-council ; the whole community took an interest in the 
 dispute; and the case came at last to be litigated in the Court or Session, which decided 
 in favour of the town-council. Unhappily, Mr Bayne and his colleague took opposite 
 sides in this petty contest, and a painful misunderstanding was produced betwixt 
 them, followed by consequences probably affecting the future destinies of both. Mr 
 Bayne refers to these differences in his letter of resignation, addressed to the Pres- 
 bytery, dated 10th February, KG6 : " They (the Presbytery) know not. how far I 
 am advanced in life, who see not that a house of worship, so very large as the High 
 Church, and commonly so crowded too, must be very unequal to my strength ; and 
 this burden was made more heavy by denying me a .essiori to assist me in the com- 
 mon concerns of the parish, which 1 certainly had a title to. But the load became 
 quite intolerable, when, by a late unhappy process, the just and natural right of the 
 common session was wrested from us, which drove away from acting in it twelve men 
 of excellent character." Mr Bayne joined the Relief church, then in its infancy, 
 having, even whilst in the Establishment, held ministerial communion with Mr Simpson, 
 minister of Bellshill congregation, the first Relief church in the west of Scotland. 
 In his letter of resignation, already quoted, Mr Bayne assured his former brethren 
 that the change of his condition, and the charge he had accepted, would make no 
 change in his creed, nor in his principles of Christian and ministerial communion 
 " Nay (he adds), none in my cordial regard to the constitution and interests of the 
 Church of Scotland, which I solemnly engaged to support some more than thirty 
 years ago, and hope to do so while I live. At the same time I abhor persecution in 
 every form, and that abuse of church power of late, which to me appears inconsistent 
 with humanity, with the civil interests of the nation, and destructive of the ends of 
 our office as ministers of Christ." On the 24th December, Mr Bayne accepted a 
 call to become minister of the College Street Relief Church, Edinburgh, and his 
 induction took place on the 13th February, 1T66, three days after his resignation of 
 his charge in Paisley. As his demission fell to be adjudicated upon by the General 
 Assembly, in May of that year, his name remained for the present upon the roll of the 
 Establishment, and so little did he yet consider himself separated from the communion 
 of that church, that when the half-yearly sacrament of the Lord's Supper came round 
 in Edinburgh, soon after his settlement, after preaching in his own church in the 
 forenoon, he went over in the afternoon, at the head of his congregation, to the 
 New Greyfriars' church, and joined in the ordinance with the congregation of the 
 Rev. Dr Erskine. At the Assembly in May, Mr Bayne, in obedience to a citation, 
 appeared at the bar, and was declared to be no longer a minister of the Church of 
 Scotland, and all clergymen of that body were prohibited from holding ministerial 
 communion with him. Mr Bayne defended the course he had taken in a review of 
 the proceedings of the Assembly, entitled, "Memoirs of Modern Church Reforma- 
 tion, or the History of the General Assembly, 1766, and occasional reflections upon the 
 proceedings of said Assembly ; with a brief account and vindication of the Presbytery 
 ot Relief, by James Bayne, A.M., minister of the gospel at Edinburgh." He 
 denounces, with indignant severity, the injustice of his having been condemned by
 
 SHOP OF S T AHIUlEWS,&r.,?-c. . 
 FROM -HOOP -HOUSE .
 
 CARDINAL BEATON. 1G7 
 
 the Assembly without a libel, merely for having accepted a charge in another church, 
 
 ' in which (says he), I presumed, they could find nothing criminal ; for often had 
 
 minister* resigned their charge upon different accounts, and justifiable; nav some 
 
 have given it up for the more entertaining a , ld elegant employ of the stage, who were 
 
 ot called in question or found delinquents. This was a palpable hit at Home the 
 author of Douglas," who sat in the AssemUy as a ruling elder, to aid Dr Robertson 
 in punishing Bayne. After a ministry of CO years, Mr Bayne died at Edinburgh on 
 the 17th January, 1790, in his eightieth year. He was 24 years minister of 'the 
 College Street Relief congregation, Edinburgh. His popularity as a preacher, his 
 talents for ecclesiastical affairs, his acquirements as a scholar and a theologian 
 and his sound judgment and weight of character, gave him great influence; and it 
 was mainly to his large and enlightened views that the Relief church was indebted 
 for the position to which it attained, even during his lifetime, as well as for 
 retaining, till it was finally merged in the United Presbyterian church, the catho- 
 lic constitution on which it had been founded by Gillespie and Boston.' Mr Bayne 
 was an uncompromising opponent of whatever he considered to be a violation of 
 public morality. In 1770 he published a discourse, entitled, "The Theatre Licen- 
 tious and Perverted," administering a stern rebuke to Mr Samuel Foote for his 
 Minor; a drama, in which the characters of Whitefield, and other zealous minis- 
 ters were held up to profane ridicule. The dramatist considered it necessary to reply 
 to Mr Bayne's strictures, in an " Apology for the Minor, in a letter to the Rev. 
 Mr Bayne," resting his defence upon the plea that he only satirized the vices and 
 follies of religious pretenders. A volume of Mr Bayne's discourses was published 
 iu 1778. 
 
 BEATON, or BEATOUN (CARDINAL) DAVID, who held the rectory of Campsie, 
 the abbacy of Aberbrothick, the bishopric of Mirepoix in France, the cardinalship of 
 St Stephen in Monte Coalio, and the chancellorship of Scotland, and who was the 
 chief of the Roman Catholic party in Scotland in the earlier age of the reformation, 
 was descended from an ancient family in Fife, possessed of the barony of Balfour, 
 and was born in the year 1494. He was educated at the college of St Andrews, 
 where he completed his courses of polite literature and philosophy, but was sent 
 afterwards to the university of Paris, where he studied divinity for several rears. 
 Entering into holy orders, he had the rectory of Campsie and the abbacy of Aber- 
 brothick bestowed upon him, by his uncle, James Beaton, Archbishop of St Andrew's, 
 who retained one-half of the rents of the abbacy to his own use. Possessing good 
 abilities and a lively fancy, David Beaton became a great favourite with James V , 
 who, in 1519, sent him to reside as his ambassador at the court of France. He 
 returned to Scotland in 1525, and, still growing in the King's favour, was, ifi 1528 
 made lord privy seal. 
 
 In the year 1533, he was again sent on a mission to the French court. 
 Beaton on this occasion was charged to refute certain calumnies which it was 
 supposed the English had circulated against his countrymen, to study the preserva- 
 tion of the ancient league between the two nations, and to conclude a treaty of 
 marriage between James am] Magdalene, the daughter of Francis I. If unsuccessful 
 in any of these points, he was furnished with letters which he was to deliver to 
 the parliament at Paris, and depart immediately for Flanders, for the purpose of 
 forming an alliance with the emperor. In every part of his embassy, Beaton seems 
 to have succeeded to the utmost extent of his wishes, the marriage excepted, which 
 Was delayed on account of the declining state of health in which Magdalene then 
 was. How long Beaton remained at the French court at this time has not been 
 ascertained ; but it is certain that he was exceedingly agreeable to Francis, who, 
 perceiving his great abilities, and aware of the influence he possessed over the mind
 
 [(J8 CARDINAL B BATON. 
 
 of the Scottish King, used every expedient to attach him to the interests of France, 
 being afraid of the predilection of James towards his uncle, Henry VIII., who also, 
 he was aware, was strengthening, by all the influence he possessed, his interest at 
 the Scottish court. 
 
 In 1536, finding a second embassy also unsuccessful, king James set sail for 
 France, and proceeded to the court, where he was most cordially welcomed ; 
 and, unable to deny his suit, especially as it was exceedingly agreeable to 
 Magdalene herself, Francis consented to their union, which was celebrated 
 with great rejoicings on the 1st of January, 1537. On the 28th of May 
 following, the royal pair landed in Scotland, being conveyed by a French 
 Meet. Magdalene was received by the Scottish nation with the utmost cor- 
 diality ; but she was already far gone in a decline, and died on the 7th of 
 July following, to the inexpressible grief of the whole nation. It was on the 
 death of this queen that mournings were first worn in Scotland. James, how- 
 ever, in expectation of this event, had fixed his attention upon Mary of 
 Guise, widow of the Duke of Longueville ; and Beaton, who by this time had 
 returned to Scotland, was dispatched immediately to bring her over. On this 
 occasion he was appointed by the king of France bishop of Mirepoix, to which 
 see he was consecrated, December 5th, 1537. The following year, he was, at 
 the recommendation of the French king, elevated to the cardinalship by the 
 I'ope, which was followed by a grant on the part of the French king for services 
 already done and for those which he might afterwards do to his majesty, allowing 
 his heirs to succeed him to his estate in France, though the said heirs should be 
 born and live within the kingdom of Scotland, and though they should have no 
 particular letter or act of naturalization in that country. Notwithstanding of the 
 obligations he was thus laid under by the king of France, he returned to Scot- 
 land with Mary of Guise, and shortly after obtained the entire management of 
 the diocese and primacy of St Andrews, under his uncle James Beaton, whom he 
 eventually succeeded in that office. 
 
 A severe persecution was commenced at this time by the cardinal against 
 all who were suspected of favouring the reformed doctrines. Many were forced to 
 recant, and two persons, Norman Gourlay and David Straiton, were burnt at the 
 Hood of Greenside, near Edinburgh. The pope, as a further mark of his re- 
 pect, and to quicken his zeal, declared Beaton Legatus a Ictlerc ; and l.o, 
 to manifest his gratitude, brought to St Andrews the earls of Huntley, Arran, 
 Marischal, and Montrose, the lords of Fleming, Lindsay, Erskine, and Seaton, 
 Gavin archbishop of Glasgow (chancellor), William bishop of Aberdeen, Henr\ 
 bishop of Galloway, John bishop of Brechin, and William bishop of Dumblane, 
 the abbots of Melrose, Dunfermline, Luidores, and Kinloss, with a multitude o : 
 priors, deans, doctors of divinity, &c. , all of whom being assembled in the cathe- 
 dral church, he harangued them from his chair of state on the dangers that hung 
 over the true catholic church from the proceedings of king Henry in England, and 
 particularly from the great increase of heresy in Scotland, where it had long been 
 spreading, and found encouragement even in the court of the king. As he pro- 
 ceeded, he denounced Sir John Borthwick, provost of Linlithgow, as one of the most 
 industrious incendiaries, and caused him to be cited before them for maintaining 
 (hat the Pope had no greater authority over Christians than any ether bishop 
 or prelate that indulgences granted by the pope were of no force or effect, but 
 devised to amuse the people and deceive poor ignorant souls that bishops, 
 priests, and other clergymen, may lawfully marrythat the heresies commonly 
 called the heresies of England and their new liturgy were to be commended !,y 
 ill good Christians, and to be embraced by them that the people of Scotland 
 re blinded by their clergy, and profess not the true faiththat diurchiuei,
 
 CARDINAL BI;ATON. 169 
 
 ought not to enjoy any temporalities that the king oi^ght to convert the super- 
 duous revenues of the church unto other pious uses that the church of Scotland 
 ought to be reformed after the same manner as that of England Avas that the 
 Cation law was of no force, being contrary to the Law of God that the orders 
 of friars and monks should be abolished, as had been done in England that lie 
 had openly called the pope a Simoniac, because he had sold spiritual things 
 that he had read heretical books and the Xew Testament in English, with treatises 
 
 o ~ 
 
 written by 3ielanchth.ni, (Ecolampadius, and other heretics, and that he not only 
 read them himself but distributed them among others and lastly, that he openly 
 ilisowued the authority of the Roman see. These articles being read, and Sir 
 .Tohn neither appearing himself nor any person for him, he was set down as a 
 confessed heretic, and condemned as an heresiarch. His goods were ordered to 
 be confiscated and himself burnt in effigy, if he could not be apprehended, and 
 all manner of persons forbidden to entertain or converse with him, under the 
 pain of excommunication or forfeiture. This sentence was p:issed against him 
 on the 2oth of 31ay. and executed the same day so far as was in the power of 
 the court, his effigy being burnt in the market place of St Andrews and two days 
 after at Edinburgh. This was supposed by many to be intended as a gratifying 
 spectacle to Mary of Guise, the new queen, who had only a short time before 
 arrived from France. 
 
 Sir John Borthwick, in the meantime, being informed of these violent 
 proceedings, fled into England, where he was received with open arms by 
 Henry VIII., by whom he was sent on an embassy to the protestant princes 
 of Germany, for the purpose of forming with them a defensive league against 
 the pope. Johnston, in his Heroes of Scotland, says, that " John Borth- 
 wick, a noble knight, was as much esteemed by king James V. for his exem- 
 plar and amiable qualities, as he Avas detested by the order of the priesthood 
 on account of his true piety, for his unfeigned profession of which he Avas con- 
 demned ; and though absent, his effects confiscated, and his effigy, after being 
 subjected to various marks of ignominy, burnt " as AVC have above related. " This 
 condemnation," Johnston adds, " he answered by a most learned apology, which 
 may yet be seen in the records of the martyrs, [Fox,] and having survived many 
 years, at last died in peace in a good old age." 
 
 While these affairs were transacted, Henry, anxious to destroy that inter- 
 est which the French government had so long maintained in Scotland to 
 the prejudice of England, sent into that kingdom the bishop of St Davids 
 \vith some books Avritten in the vulgar tongue upon the doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity, which lie recommended to his nephew carefully to peruse, and to 
 weigh Avell their contents. James, who Avas more addicted to his amusements, 
 than to the study of the doctrines and duties of Christianity, gave the books 
 to be perused by some of his courtiers, who, being attached to the clerical 
 order, condemned them as heretical, and congratulated the king upon hav- 
 ing so fortunately escaped the contamination of his royal eyes by such pesti- 
 ferous Avritings. There Avere, however, other matters proposed to the king 
 by this embassy than the books, though it was attempted by the clerical faction 
 to persuade the people that the books Avere all that was intended : for, shortly after, 
 the same bishop, accompanied by William Howard, brother of the Duke of Nor- 
 folk, came to the king at Stirling so suddenly, that he Avas not aware of their 
 coming till they Avere announced as arrived in the town. This no doubt Avas 
 planned by Henry to prevent the intriguing of the priests and the French faction 
 beforehand. His offers Avere of a nature so advantageous, that James acceded 
 to them without any scruple, and readily agreed to meet with his uncle Henry 
 on -in appointed day, Avhen they were to settle all matters in dependence be-
 
 CARDINAL BEATON. 
 
 ween them for the welfare of both kingdoms. Nothing could be more terrible 
 TO the clergy, of which Beaton was now confessedly the head in Scotland, than 
 the agreement of the two kings ; they saw in it nothing short of the loss of all 
 that was dear to them, their altars, their revenues, and of course their influence, 
 and they hastened to court from all quarters to weep over their religion about to 
 be betrayed by an unholy conference, which, being impious in its purposes, 
 could not fail, they said, to end in the ruin of the kingdom. Having by these 
 representations made a strong impression upon the king, who was ignorant and 
 superstitious, they then bribed, by the promise of large sums of money, the cour- 
 aers who had the most powerful influence over him, to dissuade him from the 
 lourney he had promised to make into England, which they successfully did, and 
 so laid the foundation of a quarrel which ended in a war, die disastrous issue of 
 which, preying upon the mind of James, brought him to an untimely end. 
 
 In the whole of these transactions, Beaton, a zealous churchman and the hired 
 tool of France, was the chief actor, and knowing that the king was both cove- 
 tous and needy, h overcame his scruples, by persuading the clergy to promise him 
 a yearly subsidy of thirty thousand gold crowns, and even their whole fortunes, if 
 this should be thought necessary. As he had no design, however, to be at any unne- 
 cessary expense himself, nor meant to be burdensome to bis brethren, he pointed 
 out the estates of those who rebelled against the authority of the Pope and the ma- 
 jesty of the king as proper subjects for confiscation, whereby there might be raised 
 annually the sum of one hundred thousand crowns of gold. In order to attain 
 this object, he requested that, for himself and his brethren, they might only be 
 allowed to name, as they were precluded themselves from sitting in judgment in 
 criminal cases, a lord chief justice, before whom, were he once appointed, there 
 could be neither difficulty in managing the process, nor delay in procuring judg- 
 ment, since so many men hesitated not to read the books of the New and Old Testa- 
 ments, to discuss and disown the power of the Pope, to contemn the ancient rites 
 of the church, and, instead of reverencing and obeying, dared to treat with deri- 
 sive contempt those individuals that had been consecrated to God, and whose 
 business it was to guide them in their spiritual concerns. This wicked counsel, 
 as it suited both the inclinations and the necessities of the king, was quickly 
 complied with, and they nominated for this new court of inquisition a judge every- 
 way according to their own hearts, James Hamilton, (a natural brother of the 
 Earl of Arran,) whom they had attached to their interests by large gifts, and 
 who was willing to be reconciled to the king, whom he had lately oftended, by 
 any service, however cruel 
 
 The suspicions which the king entertained against his nobility from this 
 time forward were such as to paralyze his efforts whether for good or evil. 
 The inroads of the English, too, occupied his whole attention, and the shame- 
 f'll overthrow of his army which had entered England by the Solway, threw 
 him into such a state of rage and distraction, that his health sunk under it, 
 and he died at Falkland on the 13th of December, 1542, leaving the king- 
 dom, torn by faction, and utterly defenceless, to his only surviving legitimate 
 child, Mary, then no more than five days old. The sudden demise of the 
 king, while it quashed the old projects of the Cardinal, only set him upon 
 forming new ones still more daring and dangerous. Formerly he had laboured 
 to direct the movements of die king by humouring his passions, flattering his 
 vanity, and administering to his vicious propensities. Now, from the infancy ot 
 die successor, die death, die captivity, or the exile of the most influential part 
 
 >t die nobility, and the distracted state of the nation in general, he conceived 
 that it would be easy for him to seize upon the government, which he might now 
 administer for the infant queen, solely to his own mind. Accordingly, with the
 
 CARDINAL BEATON. 171 
 
 assistance of one Henry Balfour, a mercenary priest, whom he suborned, he is 
 said to have forged a will for die king, in which he was himself nominated agent, 
 with three of the nobility as his assessors or assistants. According to Knox, these 
 wre Argyle, Huntley, and Murray ; but Buchanan, whom we think a very suf- 
 ficient authority in this case, says that he also assumed as an assessor his cousin 
 by the mother's side, the Earl of Arran, who was, after Mary, the next heir to 
 the crown, but was believed to be poorly qualified by the humbler virtues for 
 discharging the duties of a private life, and still less fitted either by courage or 
 capacity 1'or directing the government of a kingdom. Aware of the danger that 
 might arise from delay, the cardinal lost not a moment in idle deliberation. The 
 will which he had forged he caused to be proclaimed at the cross of Edinburgh 
 on the Monday immediately succeeding the king's death. 
 
 Arran, the unambitious presumptive heir to the throne, would, had he 
 been left to himself, have peaceably acquiesced in the cardinal's arrange- 
 ments, for he had the approbation of the queen mother, and, by presents 
 and promises, had made no inconsiderable party among the nobility. But 
 iiis friends, the Hamiltons, says Buchanan, more anxious for their own 
 aggrandizement than for his honour, incessantly urged him not to let such 
 an occasion slip out of his hands, for they would rather have seen the whole 
 kingdom in flames than have been obliged to lead obscure lives in private sta- 
 tions. Hatred, too, to the Cardinal, who, from his persecuting and selfish 
 spirit, was very generally detested, and the disgrace of living in bondage to 
 a priest, procured them many associates. The near prospect which Arran now 
 had of succeeding to the crown, must also have enlisted a number of the more 
 wary and calculating politicians upon his side. But what was of still more con- 
 sequence to him, Henry of England who had carried all the principal prisoners 
 taken in the late battle to London, marched them in triumph tlirough that me- 
 tropolis, and given them in charge to his principal nobility, no sooner heard of the 
 death of the king than ho recalled the captives to court, entertained them in the 
 most friendly manner, and having taken a promise from each of them that they 
 would promote as far as possible, without detriment to the public interests, or 
 disgrace to themselves, a marriage between his son and the young queen, he sent 
 them back to Scotland, where they arrived on the 1st of January, 1543. Along 
 with the prisoners the Earl of Angus and his brother were restored to their coun- 
 try, after an exile of fifteen years, and all were received by the nation with the 
 most joyful granulations. 
 
 It was in vain that the Cardinal had already taken possession of the 
 regency. Arran, by the advice of the Laird of Grange, called an assem- 
 bly of the nobility, whicli finding the will upon which the Cardinal had as- 
 assumed the regency forged, set him aside and elected Arran in his place. This 
 was peculiarly grateful to a great proportion of the nobles, three hundred of 
 whom, with Arran at their head, were found in a proscription list among the 
 king's papers, furnished to him by the Cardinal Arran, it was well known, 
 was friendly to the reformers, and his imbecility of mind being unknown, the 
 greatest expectations were formed from the moderation of his character. In tho 
 parliament that met in the month of March following, public affairs put on a 
 much more promising appearance than could have been expected. The king of 
 England, instead of an army to waste or to subjugate the country, sent an am- 
 bassador to negociate a marriage between the young queen and his son, and a 
 lasting peace upon the most advantageous terms. The Cardinal, who saw m this 
 alliance with protestant England the downfall of his church in Scotland, opposed 
 himself, with the whole weight of the clergy at his back, and all the influence 
 of the Queen-dowager, to every thing like pacific measures, and that with so
 
 172 
 
 CARDINAL BEATO.V. 
 
 much violence, that lie was by the general consent of the house shut up in a 
 te chamber, while the votes were taken; after which every thing wr-s 
 I in the most amicable manner, and it was agreed that hostages should 
 'p sent into I upland for the fulfilment of the stipulated articles. 
 
 '['he Cardinal in the meantime was committed as a prisoner into the hands of 
 Lc.nl Seton, who kept him first in Dalkeith, afterwards in Seton, and by and 
 bye, something being bestowed on Lord Seton and the old Laird of I ethino-ton 
 y of compensation, he was suffered to resume his own castle at St Andrews. 
 in the great confusion and uncertainty in public affairs that had prevailed for a 
 number of years, trade had been at an entire stand, and now that a lasting peace 
 seemed to be established, the merchants began to bestir themselves in all quar- 
 ters, and a number of vessels were sent to sea laden with the most valuable mer- 
 chandise. Edinburgh itself fitted out twelve, and the othfcr towns on the eas- 
 tern coast in proportion to their wealth, all of them coasting the English shows 
 and entering their harbours with the mcst tmdoubting confidence. Restored ' 
 however, to liberty, the Cardinal, enraged at the opposition he had encountered' 
 and writhing under the disgrace of detected fraud, strained every nerve to break 
 np the arrangements that had been so happily concluded. Seconded by the 
 Queen-douager, who, like him, hated the Douglasses, and trembled for the 
 established religion, any change in which would necessarily involve a rupture of 
 the ancient treaty with France, he convoked, at St Andrews, soon after his re- 
 turn to that place, an assembly of the clergy, to determine upon a certain sum 
 of money to be given by them in case their measures for the preservation of the 
 catholic church should involve the country in a war with England. The whole 
 of the bishops not being present, the meeting was adjourned to the month of 
 June ; but the Cardinal had the address to prevail on those that were present 
 to give all their own money, their silver plate, and the plate belonging to their 
 lurches, for the maintainance of such a war, besides engaging to enter them- 
 selves into the army as volunteers, should such a measure be thought necessary 
 
 Aided by this money, with which he wrought upon the avarice and the poverty 
 of the nobles ami excited the clamours of the vulgar, who hated the very name 
 f an English alhance, the Cardinal soon found himself at the head of a for 
 Hdable party, which treated the English ambassador with the greatest haughti" 
 i the hope of forcing him out of the country before the arrival of the dav 
 imbat tIlB treaty '" th * lle regent f r the deUvei 7 of Ule Postages. The 
 
 the regent, and complained in strong terms of the manner in'whid! ht hadlbec 
 "sed, and the affronts that had been put, not upon himself only, but ponWs 
 'aster , contempt of the law of nature and of nations, but at the sin 
 demanded the fulfilment of the treaty and the.i
 
 CARDINAL BEATON. 173 
 
 same time seized upon all the Scottish vessels, a great number of which had been 
 lately fitted out, as we have stated, and were at this time in the English harbour 
 and road-steads, confiscated the merchandise, and made the merchants and the 
 m?rriners prisoners of war. This, while it added to the domestic miseries of 
 Scotland, served also to fan the flames of dissension, which burned more fiercely 
 than ever. The faction of the Cardinal and the Queen-dowager, entirely de- 
 voted to France, now sent ambassadors thither to state their case as utterly des- 
 perate, unless they were supported from that country. In particular, they re- 
 quested that Matthew Earl of Lennox might be ordered home, in order 'that they 
 might set him up as a rival to the Hamiltons, who were already the objects of 
 his hatred, oii account of their having waylaid and killed his father at Linlithgow. 
 Arran laboured to strengthen his party in the best manner he could ; and for 
 this end resolved to possess himself of the infant Queen, who had hitherto re- 
 mained at Linlithgow in the charge of her mother the Queen-dowager. The 
 Cardinal, however, was too wary to be thus circumvented, and assembling his 
 faction, took possession of Linlithgow, where he lived at free quarters upon the 
 inhabitants, on pretence of being a guard to the Queen. Lennox, in the mean- 
 time, arrived from France, and was received by the regent with great kindness 
 each of them dissembling the hatred he bore to the other, and having informed 
 his friends of the expectations he had been led to form he proceeded to join the 
 Queen at Linlithgow, accompanied by upwards of four thousand men. Arran 
 who had assembled all his friends in and about Edinburgh for the purpose of 
 breaking through to the Queen, now found himself completely in the back 
 ground, having, by the imbecility of his character, entirely lost the confidence 
 of the people, and being threatened with a law-suit by the friends of Lennox to 
 deprive him of his estates, his father having married his mother, Janet Beaton 
 an aunt of the Cardinal, while his first wife, whom he had divorced was still 
 alive. He now thought of nothing but making his peace with the Cardinal. To 
 this the Cardinal was not at all averse, as he wished to make Arran his tool ra- 
 ther than to crush him entirely. Delegates of course were appointed by both 
 parties, who met at Kirkliston, a village about midway between Edinburgh and 
 Linlithgow, and agreed that the Queen should be carried to Stirling; the Earl of 
 Montrose, with the Lords Erskine, Lindsay, ami Livingstone, being nominated to 
 take the superintendence of her education. Having been put in possession of the 
 infant Queen, tbese noblemen proceeded with her direct to Stirling Castle, 
 where she w.is solemnly inaugurated with the usual ceremonies on the 9th of Sept 
 1 5 13. The feeble regent soon followed, and before the Queen-mother and the 
 principal nobility in th-j church of the Franciscans at Stirling, solemnly abjured 
 the protestant doctrines, by the profession of which alone he had obtained the 
 favour of so large a portion of the nation, and for the protection of which he 
 had been especially called to the regency. In this manner the Cardinal, through 
 the cowardice of the regent, and the avarice of his friends, obtained all that he 
 intended by the forged will, and enjoyed all the advantages of ruling, while all 
 the odium that attended it attached to the imbecile Arran, who was now as much 
 hated and despised by his own party as he had formerly been venerated by them. 
 There was yet, however, one thing wanting to establish the power of the Cardi- 
 nal the dismissal of Lennox, who, though he had been greatly useful to them 
 in humbling Arran, was now a serious obstacle in the way of both the Cardinal 
 and the Queen-mother. They accordingly wrote to the king of France, entreat- 
 ing that, as Scotland had been restored to tranquillity by his liberality and assis- 
 tance, he would secure his own good work and preserve the peace which he 
 had procured, by recalling Lennox, without which it was impossible it could 
 be lastinf.
 
 174 CARDINAL BEATON. 
 
 Though they were thus secretly labouring to undermine this nobleman, the 
 Queen-mother and the Cardinal seemed to study nothing so much as how they 
 might put honour upon him before the people, and in the most effective manner 
 contribute to his comfort By a constant succession of games and festivals, the 
 court presented one unbroken scene of gaiety and pleasure. Day after day was 
 spent in tournaments, and night after night in masquerades. In these festivities, 
 of which he was naturally fond, Lennox found a keen rival in James Hepburn, 
 Earl of Bothwcll, who had been banished by James "V., but had returned aftei 
 his decease, and was now labouring to obtain the Queen-dowager in marriage 
 by the same arts that Lennox fancied himself to be so successfully employing. 
 Both these noblemen were remarkable for natural endowments, and in the gifts 
 of fortune they were nearly upon a level Finding himself inferior, however, 
 in the sportive strife of arms, Bothwell withdrew from the court in chagrin, leav- 
 ing the field to his rival undisputed. Lennox, now fancying that he had no- 
 thing more to do than to reap the harvest of fair promises that had been so 
 liberally held forth to him, pressed his suit upon the Queen, but learned with 
 astonishment that she had no intention of taking him for a husband, and so far 
 from granting him the regency, she had agreed with the Cardinal to preserve it 
 in the possession of his mortal enemy Arran, whom they expected to be a more 
 pliant tool to serve their own personal views and purposes. Exasperated to the 
 highest degree, Lennox swore to be amply revenged, but uncertain as yet what 
 plan to pursue, departed tor Dunbarton, where he was in the midst of his vassals 
 and friends. Here he received thirty thousand crowns, sent to increase the 
 strength of his party by the king of France, who had not yet been informed of the 
 real state of Scotland. Being ordered to consult with the Queen-dowager and the 
 Cardinal in the distribution of this money, Lennox divided part of it among his 
 friends, and part he sent to the Queen. The Cardinal, who had expected to 
 have been intrusted with the greatest share of the money, under the influence of 
 rage and disappointment, persuaded the vacillating regent to raise an army and 
 march to Glasgow, where he might seize upon Lennox and the money at the 
 same time. Lennox, however, warned of their intentions, raised on the instant 
 among his vassals and friends upwards of ten thousand men, with which he 
 marched to Leith, and sent a message to the Cardinal at Edinburgh, that he de- 
 sired to save him the trouble of coming to fight him at Glasgow, and would give 
 him that pleasure any day in the fields between Edinburgh and Leith. 
 
 This was a new and unexpected mortification to the Cardinal, who, having gained 
 the regent, imagined he should have gained the whole party that adhered to him ; 
 but the fact was, he had gained only the regent and his immediate dependants, 
 the great body of the people, who had originally given him weight and influence, 
 being now so thoroughly disgusted with his conduct, that they had joined the 
 standard, and now swelled the ranks of his rival. The Cardinal, however, 
 though professing the utmost willingness to accept the challenge, delayed coming 
 to action from day to day under various pretexts, but in reality that he might 
 have time to seduce the adherents of his rival, and weary out the patience of his 
 followers, who, without pay and without magazines, he was well aware could not 
 be kept for any length of time together. Lennox, finding the war thus 
 protracted, and himself so completely unfurnished for undertaking a siege, 
 at the urgent, entreaty of his friends, who for the most part had provided se- 
 cretly for themselves, made an agreement with the regent, and, proceeding to 
 Edinburgh, the two visited backwards and forwards, as if all their ancient ani- 
 mosity had been forgotten. Lennox, however, being advised of treachery, with- 
 drew in the night secretly to Glasgow, where he fortified, provisioned, and garri- 
 soned the Bishop's castle, but retired himself to Dunbarton. Here he learned
 
 CARDINAL BEATON". 175 
 
 that the Douglasses had agreed with the Haniiltons, and that, through the influ- 
 ence of his enemies, the French king was totally estranged from him, Archibald 
 Douglas Earl of Angus, and Robert Maxwell, in the meantime, came to Glasgow 
 with the view of mediating between Lennox and the Regent The Regent, 
 however, seized them both in a clandestine manner by the way, and made them 
 close prisoners in the castle of Cadzow. While the two factious were thus 
 harassing one another to the ruin of their common country, Henry was demand- 
 ing by letters satisfaction for the breach of treaties and the insults that had been 
 heaped upon him in the person of his late ambassador. No notice being taken 
 of these letters, Henry ordered a large armament, which he had prepared to send 
 against the coast of France, to proceed directly to Leith, and to visit Edinburgh 
 and the adjacent country with all the miseries or war; and with so much secrecy 
 and celerity did this armament proceed, that the first tidings heard of it in Scot- 
 land was its appearance in Leith roads. Ten thousand men were disembarked on 
 the 4th May, 1544, a little above Leith, who took possession of that place with- 
 out the smallest opposition, the inhabitants being mostly abroad in the prosecu- 
 tion of their business. The Regent and the Cardinal were both at the time in 
 Edinburgh, and, panic-stricken at the appearance of the enemy, and still more at 
 the hatred of the citizens, fled with the utmost precipitation towards Stirling. 
 The English, in the meantime, having landed their baggage and artillery, march- 
 ed in order of battle towards Edinburgh, which they sacked and set on fire ; then 
 dispersing themselves over the neighbouring country, they burnt towns, villages 
 and gentlemen's seats to the ground, and returning by Edinburgh to Leith, em- 
 barked aboard their ships and set sail with a fair wind, carrying with them an 
 immense booty, and with the loss on their part of only a few individuals. 
 
 The Cardinal and his puppet the Regent, in the meantime, raised a small 
 body offerees in the north, with which, finding the English gone, they marched 
 against Lennox in the west, and laid siege to the castle of Glasgow, which they 
 battered with brass cannon for a number of days. A truce was at last concluded for 
 one day, during which the garrison were tampered with, and, on a promise of safety, 
 surrendered. They were, however, put to death, with the exception of one or 
 two individuals. Lennox, now totally deserted by the French, and* unable to 
 cope with the Cardinal, had no resource but to fly into England, where, through 
 the medium of his friends, he had been assured of a cordial reception. Before 
 leaving the country, however, he was determined to inflict signal vengeance upon 
 the Haniiltons. Having communicated with William Earl of Glencairn upon the 
 subject, a day was appointed OH which they should assemble with their vassals 
 at Glasgow, whence they might make an irruption into the territory of the Ham- 
 iltons, which lay in the immediate neighbourhood. The Regent, informed ot 
 this design, with the advice of the Cardinal, resolved to pre-occupy Glasgow. 
 Glencairn, however, did not wait the appointed day, but was already in the town, 
 and learning the approach of the Kamiltons marched out to give them battle, 
 aided by the citizens, who do not appear to have been friendly to the Regent. 
 The battle was stoutly contested, and for some time the Haniiltons seemed to 
 have the worst of it. In the end, however, they gained a complete victory, the 
 greater part of the Cuninghames being slain, and among the rest two of th* 
 Earl's sons. Nor was it a bloodless victory to the Hamiltons, several of their 
 chieftains being slain ; but the severest loss fell upon the citizens of Glasgow, 
 whose houses were cruelly plundered, and even their doors and window shutters 
 destroyed. The friends of Lennox refused to risk another engagement, but they 
 insisted that he should keep the impregnable fortress of Dumbarton, where he 
 might in safety await another revolution in the state of parties, which they prog- 
 nosticated would take place in a very short time. Nothing, however, could di-
 
 176 CARDINAL BEATON. 
 
 vert him from his purpose ; and, committing the charge of the castle of Dumbar- 
 ton to George Stirling-, he sailed for England, where he was honourably enter- 
 tained by king Henry, who settled a pension upon him, and gave him to wife 
 his niece, 3Iargaret Douglas, a princess in the flower of her age, and celebrated 
 for every accomplishment becoming the female character. The Queen-dowager, 
 aware that the faction Lennox had thus left without a leader could not be brought 
 to submit to Arran, whose levity and imbecility of character they were now per- 
 tectly acquainted with, nor to the Cardinal, whose cruelty they both hated and 
 feared, and dreading they might break out into some more desperate insurreo 
 tiou, condescended to soothe them and to take them under her particular protec- 
 tion. Arran was delighted to be delivered from such a formidable rival upon 
 any terms ; and in the next parliament, which met at Linlithgow, he succeeded 
 in causing Lennox to be declared a traitor, and in having his estates and those 
 of his friends confiscated, by which he realized considerable sums of money. 
 
 The English, during these domestic broils, made a furious inroad into Scotland, 
 burned Jedburgh and Kelso, and laid waste the whole circumjacent country. Thence 
 proceeding to Coldingham, they fortified the church and the church lower, in 
 which they placed a garrison on retiring to their own country. This garrison, 
 from the love of plunder as well as to prevent supplies for a besieging army, 
 wasted the neighbouring district to a wide extent. Turning their attention at 
 last to general interests, the Scottish government, at the head of which was the Car- 
 dinal, the Queen-dowager, and the nominal Regent Arran, issued a proclamation 
 for the nobles and the more respectable of the commons to assemble armed, and with 
 provisions for eight days, to attend the Regent Eight thousand men were speed- 
 ily assembled, and though it was the depth of winter, they proceeded against 
 the church and tower of Coldingham without delay. When they had been be- 
 fore the place only one day and one night, the Regent, informed that the Eng- 
 lish were advancing from Berwick, took horse, and with a few attendants 
 galloped in the utmost haste to Dunbar. This inexplicable conduct threw 
 the whole army into confusion, and, but for the bravery of one man, Archi- 
 bald Douglas Earl of Angus, the whole of their tents, baggage, and artillery 
 wotdd have been abandoned to the enemy. But although Angus and a lew t-t 
 his friends, at the imminent hazard of their lives, saved the artillery and brought 
 it in safety to Dunbar, the conduct of the army in general, and of the Regent in 
 particular, was pusillanimous in the extreme. The spirit of the nation sunk ai.d 
 the courage of the enemy rose in proportion. Ralph Ivers, and Brian Latoun, the 
 English commanders, overran, without meeting with any opposition, the districts 
 of Merse, Teviotdale, and Lauderdale, and the Forth only seemed to limit their 
 victorious arms. Angus, who alone of all the Scottish nobility at this time gave 
 any indication of public spirit, indignant at the nation's disgrace and deeply af- 
 fected with his own losses, for he had extensive estates both in Merse and Teviot- 
 dale, made a vehement representation to the Regent upon the folly of his conduct 
 in allowing himself to be the dupe of an ambitious but cowardly priest, who, like 
 the rest of his brethren, un warlike abroad, was seditious at home, and, exempt from 
 danger, wished only the power of wasting the fruit of other men's labours upon 
 Iris own voluptuousness. Always feeble and always vacillating, the Regent Mas 
 roused by these remonstrances to a momentary exertion. An order was issued 
 through the neighbouring counties for all the nobles to attend him, wherever he 
 should be, without loss of time, and in company with Angus, he set out the 
 very next day for the borders, their whole retinue not exceeding three hundred 
 horse. Arrived at Melrose, they determined to wait for their reinforcements, 
 having yet been joined only by a few individuals frcm the Merse. The English, 
 who were at Jedburgh, to the number ot five thousand men, having- by their
 
 CARDINAL BEATON. 177 
 
 scouts ascertained the situation and small number of their forces, marched on the 
 instant to surprise them, before their expected supplies should come up. The 
 Scots, however, apprized of their intentions, withdrew to the neighbouring hills, 
 whence, in perfect security, they watched the movements of their enemies, who, 
 disappointed in not finding them, wandered about during the night in quest of 
 such spoils as a lately ravaged town could supply, and with the returning dawn 
 marched back to Jedburgh. The Scots now joined by Norman Lesly, a youth of 
 great promise, son to the Earl of Rothes, and three hundred men from Fife, with- 
 drew to the hills which overlook the village of Ancrum, where they were joined 
 by the Laird of Balcleuch, an active and experienced commander, with a few of 
 his vassals, who assured him that the remainder would follow immediately. By 
 the advice of Balcleugh, the troops were dismounted, and the horses under the 
 care of servants sent to an adjoining hill. The army was formed in the hollow 
 in the order of battle. The English, as had been anticipated, seeing the horses 
 going over the hill, supposed the Scots to be in full retreat, and eager to prevent 
 their escape, rushed after them, and ere they were aware, fell upon the Scottish 
 spears. Taken by surprise, the English troops, though they fought with great 
 bravery, were thrown into disorder, and sustained a signal defeat, losing in killed 
 and "captured up wards of thirteen hundred men. The loss on the part of the 
 Scots was two men killed and a few wounded. 
 
 In consequence of this victory, the Scots were freed from the incursions of the 
 English for the ensuing summer ; but it was principally improved by the Regent, 
 with the advice of the Cardinal, for drawing closer the cords of connexion with 
 France. An ambassador was immediately despatched to that country with the 
 tidings to report in strong terms the treachery of Lennox, and to request re- 
 inforcements of men and money. These could not at this time indeed well be 
 spared, as an immediate descent of the English was expected; yet, in the hopes 
 of somewhat distracting the measures of Henry, an auxiliary force of three thou- 
 fand loot and five hundred horse was ordered, under the command of James Mont- 
 gomery of Largo, who was also empowered to inquire into the differences between 
 Lennox and the Regent and Cardinal. Montgomery arrived in Scotland on the 
 3d day of July, 1545, and having exhibited his commission, and explained the 
 purposes of his master, the king of France, to the Scottish council, they were 
 induced to issue an order for an army of the better class, who might be able to 
 support the expenses of a campaign, to assemble on an early day. This ordei 
 was punctually complied with, and on the day appointed, fifteen thousand Scots- 
 men assembled at Haddington, who were marched directly to the English bor- 
 der, and encamped in the neighbourhood of Werk castle. From this camp, they 
 carried on their incursions into the neighbouring country for about a day's 
 iourney, carrying oft* every thing that they could lay hold of. Having wasted 
 in the course of ten days the country that lay within their reach, and being des- 
 titute of artillery for carrying on sieges, the army disbanded, and every man 
 went to his own home. Montgomery repaired to court, to inquire into the dis- 
 putes with Lennox ; the English, in the meantime, by way of reprisals, wasting 
 the Scottish borders in every quarter. Montgomery, in the beginning of winter, 
 returned home, leaving the Cardinal, though he blamed him as the sole author 
 of the dissentions between Lennox and the Regent, in the full possession of all 
 his authority. 
 
 Beaton now supposed himself fully established in the civil as well as the ec- 
 clesiastic management of the kingdom, and proceeded on a progress through 
 the different provinces for the purpose of quieting the seditions, which, as he 
 alleged, had arisen in various places, but in reality to repress the protestants, 
 who, notwithstanding his having so artfully identified the cause of the catholic
 
 178 CARDINAL BEATON. 
 
 religion with that of national feeling-, had still been rapidly increasing-. Carry- 
 ing his puppet Arran along with him, as also the Earl of Argyle, Lord Justice- 
 General, Lord Borthwick, the Bishops of Orkney and Dunblane, &c. he came 
 to Perth, or, as it was then more commonly called, St Johnston, where several 
 persons were summoned before him for disputing upon the sense of the Scriptures, 
 which, among all true catholics, was a crime to be punished by the judge. Four 
 unhappy men, accused of having eaten a goose upon a Friday, were condemned 
 to be hanged, which rigorous sentence was put into execution. A woman, 
 Helen Stark, for having refused to call upon the Virgin for assistance in her 
 labour, was drowned, although again pregnant. A number of the burgesses of 
 the city, convicted or suspected (for in those days they were the same thing) of 
 smaller peccadilloes, were banished from the city. He also deposed the Lord 
 Ruthven from the provostry of the city, for being somewhat attached to the new 
 opinions, and bestowed the office upon the Laird of Kinfauns, a relation to the 
 Lord Gray, who was neither supposed to be averse to the new religion, nor 
 friendly to the Cardinal ; but he hoped by this arrangement to lay a founda- 
 tion for a quarrel between these noblemen, by which at least one of them would 
 be cut off. This act of tyranny, by which the citizens were deprived of their 
 privilege of choosing their own governor, was highly resented by them, as well 
 as by the Lord Ruthven, whose family had held the place so long that they al- 
 most considered it to be hereditary in their family. The new provost Einfauns 
 was urged by the Cardinal and his advisers to seize upon the government of the 
 city by force, hut the Lord Ruthven, with the assistance of the citizens, put him 
 to the route, and slew sixty of his followers. That Ruthven was victorious must 
 have been a little mortifying to the Cardinal ; but as the victims were enemies 
 of the church, the defeat was the less to be lamented. 
 
 From St Johnston the Cardinal proceeded to Dundee, in order to bring to punish- 
 ment the readers of the New Testament, which about this time began to be taught to 
 them in the original Greek, of which the Scottish priesthood knew so little that they 
 held it forth as a new book written in a new language, invented by Mastin Luther, 
 and of such pernicious quah'ties that, whoever had the misfortune to look into it be- 
 came infallibly tainted with deadly lieresy. Here, however, their proceedings 
 were interrupted by the approach of Lord Patrick Gray and the Earl of Rothes. 
 These noblemen being both friendly to the Reformation, the Cardinal durst not 
 admit them with their followers into a town that was notorious for attachment to 
 that cause above all the cities of the kingdom ; he therefore sent the Regent back 
 to Perth, whither he himself also accompanied him. Even in Perth, however, 
 lie durst not meet them openly, and the Regent requiring them to enter sepa- 
 rately, they complied, and were both committed to prison. Rothes was soon 
 dismissed, but Gray, whom the Cardinal was chiefly afraid of, remained in con- 
 finement a considerable time. The Cardinal having gone over as much of 
 Angus as he found convenient at the time, returned to St Andrews, carrying 
 along with him a bla^k friar named John Rogers, who had been preaching the 
 reformed doctrine in Angus. This individual he committed to the sea-tower of 
 St Andrews, where, it is alleged, he caused him to be privately murdered and 
 thrown over the wall, giving out that he had attempted to escape over it, and 
 iu the attempt fell and broke his neck. He also brought along with him the 
 Regent Arran, of whom, though he held his son as a hostage, he was not with- 
 out doubts, especially when he reflected upon the inconstancy of his character 
 the native fierceness of the nobility, and the number of them that were still un- 
 friendly to his own measures. He therefore entertained him, for twenty days 
 together, with all manner of shows and splendid entertainments, made him 
 many presents, and, promising him many more, set out with him to Edinburgh,
 
 CARDINAL BEATON. 179 
 
 where he convened an assembly of the clergy to devise means for putting a stop 
 to the disorders that were so heavily complained of, and Avhich threatened the 
 total ruin of the church. In this meeting it was proposed to allay the public 
 clamours by taking measures for reforming the open profligacy of the priests, 
 which was the chief source of complaint Their deliberations, however, were 
 cut short by intelligence that George Wishart, the most eminent preacher of the 
 reformed doctrines of his day, was residing with Cockburn of Ormiston, only about 
 saven miles from Edinburgh. They calculated that, if they could cut off this 
 individual, they should perform an action more serviceable to the cause of the 
 Ciiurch, and also one of much easier accomplishment, than reforming the lives 
 uf the priests. A troop of horse were immediately sent off to secure him ; but 
 Cockburn, refusing to deliver him, the Cardinal himself and the Regent fol- 
 lowed, blocking up every avenue to the house, so as to render the escape of the 
 reformer impossible. To prevent the effusion of blood, however, the Earl of 
 Both well was sent for, who pledged his faith to Cockburn, that he would stand 
 by Wishart, and that no harm should befall him; upon which he was peaceably 
 surrendered. Both well, however, wrought upon by the Cardinal, and especially 
 by the Queen-mother, with whom, Knox observes, " he was then in the glan- 
 ders," after some shuffling to save appearances, delivered his prisoner up to the 
 Cardinal, who imprisoned him, first in the Castle of Edinburgh, and soon after 
 carried him to St Andrews, where he was brought before the ecclesiastical tri- 
 bunal, condemned for heresy, and most cruelly put to death, as the reader will 
 find related in another part of this work, under the article WISHART. Wishart 
 was a man mighty in the Scriptures, and few even of the martyrs have displayed 
 more of the meekness and humility that ought to characterize the follower of 
 Jesus Christ ; but his knowledge of the Scriptures availed him nothing, and the 
 meek graces of his character, like oil thrown upon flame, only heightened the 
 rage and inflamed the fury of his persecutors. Arran, pressed by his friends, 
 and perhaps by his own conscience, wrote to the Cardinal to stay the proceed- 
 ings till he should have time to inquire into the matter, and threatened him with 
 the guilt of innocent blood. But the warning was in vain, and the innocent 
 victim was only the more rapidly hurried to his end for fear of a rescue. 
 
 This act of tyranny and murder was extolled by the clergy and their dependants 
 as highly glorifying to God and honourable to the actor, who was now regarded 
 by them as one of the prime pillars of heaven, under whose auspices the most 
 glorious days might be expected. The people in general felt far otherwise, 
 and, irritated rather than terrified, regarded the Cardinal as a monster of cruel- 
 ty and lust, whom it would be a meritorious action to destroy. Beaton was not 
 ignorant of the hatred and contempt in which he was held, nor of the devices 
 that were forming against him ; but he supposed his power to be now so firmly 
 established as to be beyond the reach of faction, and he was determined by the 
 most prompt and decisive measures to be before-hand with his enemies. In the 
 mean time, he thought it prudent to strengthen his interest, which was already 
 great, by giving his daughter in marriage to the Master of Crawford. For this 
 purpose he proceeded to Angus, where the marriage was celebrated with almost 
 royal splendour, the bride receiving from her father the Cardinal, no less than 
 four thousand marks of dowry. From these festivities he was suddenly recalled 
 by intelligence that Henry of England was collecting a great naval force, with 
 which he intended to annoy Scotland, and especially the coast of Fife, 
 provide against such an exigency, the Cardinal summoned the nobility to attend 
 nim in a tour round the coast, where he ordered fortifications to be made, and 
 garrisons placed in the most advantageous positions. In this tour he was at- 
 tended by the Master of Rothes, Norman Leslie, who had formerly been one of
 
 180 CARDINAL BEATON. 
 
 his friends, but had of late, from some private grudge, become cold towards 
 him. Some altercation of course ensued, and they parted in mortal enmity ; 
 the Cardinal determined secretly to take off; or to imprison Norman, with his 
 friends the Lairds of Grange, elder and younger, Sir James Learmont, provost 
 of St Andrews, and the Laird of Raith, all whom he feared, and Norman re- 
 iolved to slay the Cardinal, be the consequences what they would. 
 
 The Cardinal was in the meantime in great haste to repair and strengthen his 
 castle, upon which a large number of men were employed almost night and day. 
 The conspirators having lodged themselves secretly in St Andrews on the night* f 
 May the twenty-eighth, 1 546, were, ere the dawn of the next morning, assembled to 
 the number of ten or twelve persons in the neighbourhood of the castle, and the 
 gates being opened to let in the workmen with their building materials, Kircaldy 
 of Grange entered, and with him six persons, who held a parley with the porter. 
 Norman Leslie and his company having then entered, passed to the middle of 
 the court. Lastly came John Leslie and four men with him, at whose appear- 
 ance the porter, suspecting some design, attempted to lift the drawbridge, but 
 was prevented by Leslie, who leaped upon it, seized the keys, and threw the 
 janitor himself headlong into the ditch. The place thus secured, the workmen, 
 to the number of a hundred, ran off the walls, and were put forth at the wicket 
 gate unhurt, Kircaldy then took charge of the privy postern, the others going 
 through the different chambers, from which they ejected upwards of fifty persons, 
 who were quietly permitted to escape. The Cardinal, roused from his morning 
 slumbers by the noise, threw up his window and asked Avhat it meant. Being 
 answered that Norman Leslie had taken his castle, he ran to the postern, but, 
 finding it secured, returned to his chamber, drew his two-handed sword, and 
 ordered his chamberlain to barricade the door. In the meantime, John Leslie 
 demanded admittance, but did not gain it till a chimiieyful of burning coals 
 was brought to burn the door, when the Cardinal or his chamberlain (it is not 
 known which) threw it open. Beaton, who had in the mean time hidden a box 
 of gold under some coals in a corner of the room, now sat down in a chair, cry- 
 ing, " I am ft priest, I am a priest; you will not slay me." But he was now in 
 the hands of men to whom his priestly character was no recommendation. John 
 I/eslie, according to his vow, struck him twice with his dagger, and so did Peter 
 Carmichael ; but James Melville, perceiving them to be in a passion, withdrew 
 them, saying, " This work and judgment of God, although it be secret, ought to 
 be gone about with gravity." Then admonishing the Cardinal of his wicked 
 life, particularly his shedding the blood of that eminent preacher, Mr George 
 Wishart, Melville struck him thrice through with a stag sword, and he fell, 
 exclaiming, " Fie, fie, I am a priest, all's gone !" Before t^is time the inhabitants 
 of St Andrews Avere apprized of what was going on, and began to throng around 
 the castle, exclaiming, Have ye slain my Lord Cardinal ? What have ye done 
 with my Lord Cardinal ?" As they refused to depart till they saw him, his dead 
 body was slung out by the assassins at the same window from which he had but 
 a short time before witnessed the burning of Mr George Wishart. Having no 
 opportunity to bury the body, they afterwards salted it, wrapped it in lead, and 
 consigned it to the ground floor of the sea tower, the very place where he was 
 said to have caused Rogers the preaching friar to be murdered. 
 
 In this manner fell Cardinal David Beaton, in the height of prosperity, and 
 in the prime of life, for he had only reached the fifty-second year of his age. 
 His death was deeply lamented by his own party, to whom it proved an irrepa- 
 e loss, and the authors of it were regarded by them as sacrilegious assassins, 
 >ut by numbers who, on account of difference in religion, were in dread of 
 then- hves from h,s cruelty, and by others who were disgusted by his insufferable
 
 CARDINAL BEATON. 
 
 arrogance, they were regarded as the restorers of their country's liberties, and 
 many di<J not hesitate to hazard their lives and fortunes along with them. \\ hat- 
 ever opinion may be formed regarding the manner of his death, there can be 
 only one regarding its effects ; the Protestant faith, which had quailed before 
 liis persecuting arm, from this moment began to prosper in the land. It is probable, 
 as his enemies alone have been his histoiians, that the traits of his character, and 
 even tbe tone and bearing of many of his actions, have been to some degree exag- 
 gerated ; yet there seems abundant proof of his sensuality, his cruelty, and his total 
 disregard of principle in his exertions for the preservation of the Romish faith. 
 Nothing, on the other Land, but that barbarism of the times, which characterizes all 
 Beaton's policy, as well as his actions, could extenuate the foul deed by which he 
 was removed from the world, or the unseemly sympathy which the reforming party 
 in general manifested towards its perpetrators. As a favourable view of his charac- 
 ter, and at the same time a fine specimen of old English composition, we extract the 
 following from the supplement to Dempster : 
 
 " It frequently happens that the same great qualities of mind which enable a 
 man to distinguish himself by the splendour of his virtues, are so overstrained 
 or corrupted as to render him no less notorious for his vices. Of this we have 
 many instances in ancient writers, but none by which it is more clearly displayed 
 than in the character of the Cardinal Archbishop of St Andrews, David Beaton, 
 who, from his very childhood, Avas extremely remarkable, and whose violent death 
 had this in it singtdar, that his enemies knew no way to remove him from his 
 absolute authority but that [of assassination]. When he was but ten years of 
 age, he spoke with so much ease and gravity, with so much good sense, and 
 freedom from affectation, as surprised all who heard him. When he was little 
 more than twenty, he became known to the Duke of Albany, and to the court 
 of France, where he transacted affairs of the greatest importance, at an age 
 when others begin to become acquainted with them only in books. Before he 
 was thirty, he had merited the confidence of the Regent, the attention of the 
 French King, and the favour of his master, so that they were all suitors to the 
 court of Rome in his behalf. He was soon after made Lord Privy-Seal, and 
 appointed by act of parliament to attend the young king, at his majesty's own 
 desire. Before he attained the forty-fifth year of his age, he was Bishop of 
 Mirepoix in France, Cardinal of the Roman Church, Archbishop of St Andrews, 
 and Primate of Scotland, to which high dignities he added, before he was fifty, 
 those of Lord High Chancellor, and legate a latere. His behaviour was so 
 taking, that he never addicted himself to the service of any prince or person, 
 but he absolutely obtained their confidence, and this power he had over the 
 minds of others, he managed with so much discretion, that his interest never 
 weakened or decayed. He was the favourite of the Regent, Duke of Albany, 
 and of his pupil James V. as long as they lived ; and the French king and the 
 governor of Scotland equally regretted his loss. He was indefatigable in busi- 
 ness, and yet managed it with great ease. He understood the interests of the 
 courts of Rome, France, and Scotland, better than any man of his time, and he 
 was perfectly acquainted with the temper, influence, and weight of all the nobi- 
 lity in his own country. In time of danger, he showed great prudence and 
 steadiness of mind, and in his highest prosperity, discovered nothing of vanity 
 or giddiness. He was a zealous churchman, and thought severity the only wea- 
 pon that could combat heresy. He loved to live magnificently, though not pro- 
 fusely, for at the time of his death he was rich, and yet had provided plentifully 
 for his family. But his vices were many, and his vices scandalous. He quar- 
 relled with the old Archbishop of Glasgow in his own city, and pushed this 
 ouarrel so far that their men fought in the very church. His ambition was
 
 182 JAMES BEATON. 
 
 boundless, for he took into his hands the entire management of the affairs of the 
 kingdom, civil and ecclesiastical, and treated the English ambassador^, as if he 
 had been a sovereign prince. He made no scruple of sowing discord among his 
 enemies, that he might reap security from their disputes. His jealousy of the 
 governor [Arran] was such, that he kept his eldest son as a hostage in his house, 
 under pretence of taking care of his education. In point of chastity he was 
 rery deficient; for, though M - e should set aside as calumnies many of those things 
 which his enemies have reported of his intrigues, yet the posterity he left be- 
 hind him plainly proves that he violated those vows to gratify his passions, 
 which he obliged others to hold sacred on the penalty of their lives. In a word, 
 bad his probity been equal to his parts, bad his virtues come up to his abilities, his 
 end had been less fatal, and his memory without blemish. As it is, we ought to 
 consider him as an eminent instance of the frailty of the brightest human facul- 
 ties, and the instability of what the world calls fortune." 
 
 He wrote, according to Dempster, " Memoirs of his own Embassies," " A Trea- 
 tise of Peter's Primacy," and "Letters to several Persons." 
 
 BEATON, JAMES, uncle to the preceding, and himself an eminent prelate and 
 statesman, was a younger son of John Beaton of Balfour, in Fife, and of 3Iary 
 Boswell, daughter of the Laird of Balmouto. Having been educated for the 
 church, he became, in 1503, provost of the collegiate church of Bothwell, by 
 the favour, it has been almost necessarily supposed, of the house of Douglas, who 
 were patrons of the establishment. His promotion was very rapid. In 1504, 
 he was made Abbot of the rich and imptirtant abbacy of Dunfermline, which 
 had previously been held by a brother of the king; and in 1505, on the death 
 of his uncle, Sir David Beaton, who had hitherto been his chief patron, he re- 
 ceived his office of High Treasurer, and became, of course, one of the principal 
 ministers of state. On the death of Vaus, Bishop of Galloway, in 1508, James 
 Heaton was placed in that see, and next year be was translated to the arclii- 
 episcopate of Glasgow. He now resigned the Treasurer's staff, in order that he 
 might devote himself entirely to his duties as a churchman. While Archbishop 
 of Glasgow, he busied himself in what were then considered the most pious and 
 virtuous of offices, namely, founding new altarages in the cathedral, and im- 
 proving the accommodations of the episcopal palace. He also entitled himself 
 to more lasting and rational praise, by such public acts as the building and re- 
 pairing of bridges within the regality of Glasgow. Upon all the buildings, 
 both sacred and profane, erected by him, were carefully blazoned his armorial 
 bearings. During all the earlier part of his career, this great prelate seems to 
 have lived on the best terms with the family of Dpuglas, to which he must have 
 been indebted for his first preferment In 151 5, when it became his duty to con- 
 secrate the celebrated Gavin Douglas as Bishop of Dunkeld, he testified his respect 
 for the family by entertaining the poet and all his train in the most magnificent 
 manner at Glasgow, and defraying the whole expenses of his consecration. 
 Archbishop Beaton was destined to figure very prominently in the distracted 
 period which ensued upon the death of James IV. As too often happens in the 
 
 tical scene, the violence of faction broke up his old attachment to the 
 
 The Earl of Angus, chief of that house, having married the widow 
 
 king, endeavoured, against the general sense of the nation, to obtain the 
 
 supreme power Beaton, who was elevated by the Regent Albany, to the high 
 
 t Lord Chancellor, and appointed one of the governors of' the kingdom 
 
 during his absence in France, attached himself to the opposite faction of the 
 
 Hanultons under the Earl of Arran. On the 29th of April, I 520, a convention 
 
 ring been caUed to compose the differences of the two parties, the Hamiltons 
 i in military guise, and seemed prepared to vindicate their supremacy
 
 JAMES BEATON. 183 
 
 with the sword. Beaton, their chief counsellor, sat in his house at the bottom 
 of the Blackfriars- Wynd, 1 with armour under his robes, ready apparently to 
 have joined the forces of the Hamiltons, in the event of a quarrel. In this crisis, 
 Gavin Doug-las was deputed by his nephew the Earl of Angus, to remonstrate 
 with the Archbishop against the hostile preparations of his party. Beaton en- 
 deavoured to gloss over the matter, and concluded with a solemn asseveration 
 upon his conscience, that he knew not of it As he spoke, he struck his hand 
 upon his breast, and caused the mail to rattle under his gown. Doug-las replied, 
 with a cutting equivoque, " Methinks, my lord, your conscience clatters," as 
 much as to say, your conscience is unsound, at the same time that the word 
 might mean the undue disclosure of a secret. In the ensuing conflict, which 
 took place upon the streets, the Hamiltons wero worsted, and Archbishop Beaton 
 had to take refuge in the Blackfriars' Church. Being found there by the 
 Douglasses, he had his rochet torn from his back, and would have been slain on 
 the spot, but for the interposition of the Bishop of Dunkeld. Haying with 
 some difficulty escaped, he lived for some time in an obscure way, till the return 
 of the Duke of Albany, by whose interest he was appointed in 1523, to the 
 metropolitan see of St Andrews. On the revival of the power of the Douglasses 
 in the same year, he was again obliged to retire. It is said that the insurrec- 
 tion of the Earl of Lennox in 1525, which ended in the triumph of the Doug-- 
 lasses and the death of the Earl at Linlithgow Bridge, was stirred up by Arch- 
 bishop Beaton, as a means of emancipating the King. After this unhappy 
 event, the Douglasses persecuted him with such keenness, that, to save his lite, 
 he assumed the literal guise and garb of a shepherd, and tended an actual flock 
 upon Bogrian-Xnowe in Fife. At length, when James V. asserted his indepen- 
 dence of these powerful tutors, and banished them from the kingdom, Beaton 
 was reinstated in all his dignities, except that of Chancellor, which was con- 
 ferred upon Gavin Dunbar, the King's preceptor. He henceforward resided 
 chiefly at St Andrews, where, in 1 527, he was induced by the persuasions of 
 other churchmen less mild than himself, to consent to the prosecution and death 
 of Patrick Hamilton, the proto-martyr of the Scottish Reformation. He was 
 subsequently led on to various severities against the reformers, but rather through 
 a want of power to resist the clamours of his brethren, than any disposition to 
 severity in his own nature. It would appear that he latterly entrusted much of 
 the administration of his affairs to his less amiable nephew. The chief employ- 
 ment of his latter years was to found and endow the New College of St Andrews, 
 in which design, however, he was thwarted in a great measure by his executors, 
 who. misapplied the greater part of his funds. He died in 1539. 
 
 BEATON, JAMES, Archbishop of Glasgow, was the second of the seven sons of 
 John Beaton, or Bethune of Balfour, elder brother of Cardinal Beaton. He 
 received the chief part of his education at Paris, under the care of his celebrated 
 uncle, who was then residing in the French capital as ambassador from James 
 V. His first preferment in the church was to be chanter of the cathedral of 
 Glasgow, under Archbishop Dunbar. Whei. his uncle attained to nearly supreme 
 power, he was employed by him in many important matters, and in 1543, suc- 
 coeded him as Abbot of Aberbrothick. The death of the Cardinal does net 
 appear to have materially retarded the advancement of his nephew ; for we find 
 that, in 1552, he had sufficient interest with the existing government, to receive 
 the second place in the Scottish, church, the Archbishopric of Glasgow, to 
 which he was consecrated at Home. He was now one of the most important 
 personages in the kingdom; he enjoyed the con:;dence of the governor, the 
 Earl of Arran ; his niece, Mary Beaton, one of the " Four Maries," was the 
 
 1 Lane.
 
 184 JAMES BEATON. 
 
 favourite of the young Queen Mary, now residing in France ; and he was also 
 esteemed very highly by the Queen Dowager, Mary of Lorrain, who was now 
 aspiring to the Regency. During the subsequent sway of the Queen Regent, 
 the Archbishop of St Andrews enjoyed her highest confidence. It Mas to him 
 that she handed the celebrated letter addressed to her by John Knox, saying 
 with a careless air, "Please you, my lord, to read a pasquil." In 1557, when 
 the marriage of the youthful Mary to the Dauphin of France was about to take 
 place, James Beaton, Archbishop of St Andrews, stood the first of the parliamen- 
 tary commissioners appointed to be present at the ceremony, and to conduct the 
 difficult business which was to precede it. He and his companions executed 
 this duty in a most satisfactory manner. After his return in 1558, he acted as 
 a Privy Councillor to the Queen Regent, till she was unable any longer to con- 
 tend with the advancing tide of the Reformation. In November, 155'J, his 
 former friend, the Earl of Arran, who had now become a leading reformer, 
 came with a powerful retinue to Glasgow, and, to use a delicate phrase of the 
 time, ; ' took order" with the Cathedral, which he cleared of all the images, 
 placing a garrison at the same time in the Archbishop's palace. Beaton soon after 
 recovered his house by means of a few French soldiers ; but he speedily found that 
 neither he nor his religion could maintain a permanent footing in the country. 
 
 In June, 1560, the Queen Regent expired, almost at the very moment 
 when her authority became extinct. Her French troops, in terms of a 
 treaty with the Reformers, sailed next month for their native country, and in 
 the same ships was the Archbishop of Glasgow, along with all the plate and 
 records of the cathedral, which he said he would never return till the Catholic 
 faith should again be triumphant in Scotland. Some of these articles were of 
 great value. Among the plate, which was very extensive and rich, was a golden 
 image of Christ, with silver images of his twelve apostles. Among the records, 
 which were also very valuable, were two chartularies, one of which had been 
 written in the reign of Robert III., and was called, " The Red Book of Glas- 
 gow." All these objects were deposited by the Archbishop in the Scots College 
 at Paris, where the manuscripts continued to be of use to Scottish antiquaries up 
 to the period of the French Revolution, when, it is believed, they were destroyed 
 or dispersed. Beaton was received by Queen Mary at Paris, with the distinc- 
 tion due to a virtuous and able counsellor of her late mother. On her depar- 
 ture next year, to assume the reins of government in Scotland, she left him in 
 charge of her affairs in France. He spent the whole of the subsequent part of 
 his life as ambassador from the Scottish court to his most Christian Majesty. 
 This duty was one of extreme delicacy during the brief reign of Queen Mary, 
 when the relation of the two courts was of the most important character. Mary 
 addressed him frequently in her own hand, and a letter in which she details to him 
 the circumstances of her husband's death, is a well known historical document. 
 
 It is not probable that Beaton's duty as an ambassador during the mi- 
 nority of James VI. was any thing but a titular honour; but that prince, on 
 taking the government into his own hands, did not hesitate, notwithstanding the 
 difference of religion, to employ a statesman who had already done faithful ser- 
 vice to the two preceding generations. James also, in 1587, was able to restore 
 to him both his title and estates as Archbishop of Glasgow ; a proceeding quite 
 anomalous, when we consider that the presbyterian religion was now established 
 in Scotland. The Archbishop died, April 24, 1603, in the eighty-sixth year of 
 his age, and a full jubilee of years from his consecration. He had been ambas- 
 sador to three generations of the Scottish royal family, and had seen in France 
 a succession of six kings, and transacted public affairs under five of them. He 
 also had the satisfaction of seeing his sovereign accede to the English throne.
 
 r Joshua ' 
 
 
 ES BEATIFIC L
 
 JAMES BEATTIE. 185 
 
 James learned the intelligence of his death while on his journey to London, and 
 immediately appointed the historian Spottiswoode to be his successor in the ca- 
 thedral chair of Glasgow. Archbishop Spottiswoode characterises him as " a 
 man honourably disposed, faithful to the Queen while she lived, and to the Kino- 
 her son ; a lover of his country, and liberal, according to his means, to all his 
 countrymen." His reputation, indeed, is singularly pure, when it is considered 
 with what vigour he opposed the reformation. He appears to have been re- 
 garded by the opposite party as a conscientious, however mistaken man, and to 
 have been spared accordingly all those calumnies and sarcasms with which party 
 rage is apt to bespatter its opponents. Having enjoyed several livings in 
 France, besides the less certain revenues of Glasgow, he died in possession of a 
 fortune amounting to 80,000 livres, all of which he left to the Scots College, 
 for the benefit of poor scholars of Scotland ; a gift so munificent, that he was 
 afterwards considered as the second founder of the institution, the first havino- 
 been a bishop of Moray, in the year 1325. Besides all this wealth, he left 
 an immense quantity of diplomatic papers, accumulated during the course of his 
 legation at Paris ; which, if they had been preserved to the present time, would 
 unquestionably have thrown a strong light upon the events of his time. 
 
 BEATSOX, ROBERT, LL.D. an ingenious and useful author, was a native of 
 Dysart, where he was born in 1742. Being educated with a view to the military 
 profession, he obtained an ensigncy in 175. i, at the commencement of the seven 
 years' war. He served next year in the expedition to the coast of France, and af- 
 terwards, as lieutenant, in the attack on Martinique, and the taking of Guadaloupe. 
 In 1760, he retired on half-pay, and did not again seek to enter into active 
 life till the breaking out of the American war. Having failed on "this occasion 
 to obtain an appointment suitable to his former services, he resolved to apply 
 himself to another profession that of literature for which he had all along 
 had considerable taste. His publications were, 1, "A Political Index to the 
 Histories of Great Britain and Ireland," 1 voL 8vo. 178(5, of which a third 
 edition in 3 volumes was published at a late period of his life. This work con- 
 sists chiefly of accurate and most useful lists of all the ministers and other prin- 
 cipal officers of the state, from the earliest time to the period of its publication, 
 2, " Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain, from 1727 to the present 
 time," 3 vols. 8vo. 1790; 2nd edition, 6 vols. 1804. 3, " View of the Me- 
 morable Action of the 27th of July, 1778," 8vo. 1791. 4, "Essay on the 
 Comparative Advantages of Vertical and Horizontal Windmills," 8vo. 1798, 
 5, " Chronological Register of both Houses of Parliament, from 1706 to 1807," 
 3 vols. 8vo. 1807. Besides some communications to the board of agriculture, 
 of which he was an honorary member. This laborious author enjoyed in his 
 latter years the situation of barrack-master at Aberdeen, where, if we are not 
 mistaken, he received his degree of LL.D. He died at Edinburgh, January 24, 
 1818. 
 
 BEATTIE, JAMES, poet and moral philosopher, was born on the 2 5th October, 
 1735, at Lauiencekirk, then an obscure hamlet in Kincardineshire. His father, 
 James Beattie, was a small shop-keeper in the village, and at the same time 
 rented a little farm in the neighbourhood. His mother's name was Jean Wat- 
 son, and they had six children, of whom the subject of tliis article was the 
 youngest. The father was a man of information, and of character superior to 
 his condition, and the mother was also a person of abilities; on the early death 
 of her husband, she carried on the business of his shop and farm, with the as- 
 sistance of her eldest son, and thus was able to rear her family in a comfortable 
 manner. 
 
 Young Beattie, who, from his earliest years, was considered a child of pro- 
 
 I. 2 A
 
 166 JAMES BEATTIE. 
 
 mise received the rudiments of a classical education at the parish school, which 
 had been taught forty years before by Ruddiraan, and was at this time a semi- 
 nary of considerable reputation. His avidity for books, which, in such a scene 
 might have otherwise remained unsatisfied, was observed by the minister, who 
 kindly admitted him to the use of his library. From a copy of Ogilvy's Virgil, 
 obtained in this way, he derived his first notions of English versification. Even 
 at this early period, his turn for poetry began to manifest itself, and among his 
 school-fellows he went by the name of the Poet. In 1749, being fourteen years 
 of age, he commenced an academical course at Mareschal College, Aberdeen, 
 and was distinguished by Professor Blackwell as the best scholar in the Greek 
 class. Having entitled himself by this superiority to a bursary, he continued at 
 the college for three years more, studying philosophy under the distinguished 
 Gerard, and divinity under Dr Pollock. His original destination being for the 
 church, he read a discourse in the Hall, which met with much commendation, 
 but was at the same time remarked to be poetry in prose. Before the period 
 when he should have taken his trials before the presbytery, he relinquished all 
 thoughts of this profession, and settled as school-master of the parish of Fordoun, 
 near his native village. 
 
 In this humble situation, Beattie spent the years between 1753 and 1758. 
 In the almost total want of society, he devoted himself alternately to useful study 
 and to poetical recreation. It was at this period of life his supreme delight to 
 saunter in the fields die livelong night, contemplating the sky, and marking the 
 approach of day. At a small distance from the place of his residence, a deep 
 and extensive glen, finely clothed with wood, runs up into the mountains. 
 Thither he frequently repaired ; and tliere several of his earliest pieces were 
 written. From that wild and romantic spot, he drew, as from the life, some of 
 the finest descriptions, and most beautiful pictures of nature, that occur in his 
 poetical compositions. It is related that, on one occasion, having lain down 
 ejirly in the morning on the bank of his favourite rivulet, adjoining to his 
 mother's house, he had fallen asleep ; on awaking, it was not without astonish- 
 ment that he found he had been walking in his sleep, and that he was then at 
 a considerable distance (about a mile and a half) from the place where he had 
 lain down. On his way back to that spot, he passed some labourers, and in- 
 quiring of them if they had seen him walking along, they told him that they 
 Had, with his head hanging down, as if looking for something he had lost Such 
 an incident, though by no means unexampled, shows to what a degree Beattie 
 was now the creature of impulse and imagination. He was, indeed, exactly the 
 fenciful being whom he has described in " The Minstrel" Fortunately for 
 Beattie, Mr Garden, advocate, (afterwards Lord Gardenstone) who at that time 
 resided in the neighbourhood, found him one day sitting in one of his favourite 
 haunts, employed in writing with a pencil On discovering that he was engaged 
 in the composition of poetry, Mr Garden became interested, and soon found oc- 
 casion to honour the young bard with his friendship and patronage. Beattie at 
 the same time became acquainted with Lord Monboddo, whose family seat was 
 within the parish. 
 
 In 1757, when a vacancy occurred in the place of usher to the grammar- 
 school of Aberdeen, Beattie applied for it, and stood an examination, without 
 success. On the place becoming again vacant next year, he had what he con- 
 sidered the good fortune to be elected. This step was of some importance to 
 him, as it brought him into contact with a circle of eminent literary and profes- 
 sional characters, who then adorned the colleges of Aberdeen, and to whom he 
 soon made himself favourably known. 
 
 In 1760, one of the chairs in the 3Iarischal College became vacant by the
 
 JAMES BEATTIE. 187 
 
 death of Dr Duncan, professor of Natural Philosophy. Beattie, whose ambition 
 had never presumed to soar to such an object, happened to mention the circum- 
 stance in conversation, as one of the occurrences of the day, to his friend, Mr 
 Arbuthnot, merchant in Aberdeen ; J who surprised him with a proposal that he 
 should apply for the vacant situation. With a reluctant permission from Beattie, 
 he exerted his influence with the Earl of Errol to apply, by means of Lord Mil- 
 ton, to the Duke of Argyll, who then dispensed the crown patronage of Scot- 
 land ; and to the astonishment of the subject of the application, he received the 
 appointment. By an accommodation, however, with the nominee to another 
 vacant chair, he became professor of Moral, instead of Natural Philosophy ; an 
 arrangement suitable to the genius and qualifications of both the persons con- 
 cerned. 
 
 By this honourable appointment, Beattie found himself, through an extraor- 
 dinary dispensation of fortune, elevated in the course of two years from the 
 humble and obscure situation of a country parish school-master, to a place of 
 very high dignity in one of the principal seats of learning in the country, where 
 he could give full scope to his talents, and indulge, in the greatest extent, his 
 favourite propensity of communicating knowledge. His first business was to 
 prepare a course of lectures, which he began to deliver to his pupils during the 
 session of 1760-1, and which, during subsequent years, he greatly improved. 
 In the discharge of his duties, he was quite indefatigable ; not only delivering 
 the usual lectures, but taking care, by frequent recapitulations and public ex- 
 aminations, to impress upon the minds of his auditors the great and important 
 doctrines which he taught. 
 
 So early as the year 175(5, Dr Beattie had occasionally sent poetical contri- 
 butions to the Scots Magazine from his retirement at Fordoun. Some of these, 
 along with others, he now arranged in a small volume, which was published at 
 London, 1760, and dedicated to the Earl of Errol, his recent benefactor. His 
 " Original Poems and Translations," such was the title of the volume made 
 him favourably known to the public as a poet, and encouraged him to further 
 exertions in that branch of composition. He also studied verse-making as an 
 art, and in 1762, wrote his " Essay on Poetry," which was published in 1776, 
 along with the quarto edition of his " Essay on Truth." In 1763, he visited 
 London from curiosity, and in 1765, he published a poem of considerable length, 
 but unfortunate design, under the title of " The Judgment of Paris," which 
 threatened to be as fatal to his poetical career, as its subject had been to the 
 Trojan state. In 1766, he published an enlarged edition of his poems, con- 
 taining, among other compositions, " The Judgment of Paris ; " but this poem 
 he never afterwards reprinted. His object was to make the classical fable 
 subservient to the cause of virtue, by personifying wisdom, ambition, and plea- 
 sure, in the characters of three goddesses, an idea too metaphysical to be gene- 
 rally liked, and which could scarcely be compensated by the graces of even 
 Beattie's muse. 
 
 Gray, the author of the " Elegy in a Country Church-yard," visited Scotland 
 in the autumn of 1765, and lived for a short time at Glammis Castle with the 
 Earl of Strathmore. Beattie, whose poetical genius was strongly akin to that of 
 Gray, wrote to him, intreating the honour of an interview ; and this was speedi- 
 ly accomplished, by an invitation for Dr Beattie to Glammis Castle, where the 
 two poets laid the foundation of a friendship that was only interrupted by the 
 death of Gray in 1771. In a letter to Sir William Forbes, Beattie thus speaks 
 of the distinguished author of the Elegy . 
 
 Father to Sir William Arbuthnot, Bart, who was Lord Provost of Edinburgh at the 
 \isit of George IV. in 1822.
 
 JAMES BEATTIE. 
 
 " You would have been much pleased with Mr Gray. Setting aside his merit 
 as a poet, which, however, is greater in my opinion than any of his contempo- 
 raries can boast, in this or any other nation, I found him possessed of the most 
 exact taste, the soundest judgment, and the most extensive learning. He is hap- 
 py in a singular facility of expression. His conversation abounds in original 
 observations, delivered with no appearance of sententious formality, and seeming 
 to arise spontaneously, without study or premeditation. I passed two very 
 agreeable days with him at Glammis, and found him as easy in his manners, and 
 as communicative and frank, as I could have wished." 
 
 It is curious to find that, during this trip to Scotland, Gray thus expressed 
 himself to Dr Gregory of Edinburgh regarding the immortal poem to which his 
 name is so endearingly attached ; " he told me," says Dr Gregory, " with a good 
 deal of acrimony, it owed its popularity entirely to the subject, and that the 
 public would have received it as well if it had been written in prose.'' 2 
 
 Beattie was at this period in a low state of health, being afflicted with a 
 kind of giddiness, which defied all his efforts to banish it, and even threatened 
 to interrupt his professional duties. In a letter to the honourable Charles Boyd, 
 brother of the Earl of Errol, he thus playfully alludes to this, as well as several 
 other personal peculiarities : 
 
 " I flatter myself that I shall ere long be in the way of becoming a great 
 man. For have I not headaches like Pope? vertigo like Swift? grey hairs like 
 Homer? 3 Do I not wear large shoes (for fear of corns) like Virgil? and some- 
 times complain of sore eyes (though not of lippitude) like Horace? Am I not, 
 at this present writing, invested with a garment not less ragged than that of 
 Socrates? Like Joseph the patriarch, I am a mighty dreamer of dreams ; like 
 Nimrod the hunter, I am an eminent builder of castles (in the air). I procras- 
 tinate like Julius Caesar : and very lately in imitation of Don Quixote, I rode a 
 horse, lean, old, and lazy, like Rosinante. Sometimes, like Cicero, I write bad 
 verses ; and sometimes bad prose like VirgiL This last instance I have on the 
 authority of Seneca. I am of small stature like Alexander the Great ; somewhat 
 inclined to fatness like Dr Arbuthnot and Aristotle ; and I drink brandy and 
 water like Mr Boyd. I might compare myself, in relation to many other infir- 
 mities, to many other great men ; but if fortune is not influenced in my favour 
 by the particulars already enumerated, I shall despair of ever recommending 
 myself to her good graces." 
 
 Some time previous to September 1766, Beattie commenced a poem in the 
 Spenserian stanza ; a description of verse to which he was much attached, on 
 account of its harmony, and its admitting of so many fine pauses and diversified 
 terminations. The subject was suggested to him by the dissertation on the old 
 minstrels, which was prefixed to Dr Percy's " Heliques of Ancient English 
 Poetry," then just published. In May, 1767, he informs his friend Blacklock 
 at Edinburgh, that he wrote one hundred and fifty lines of this poem some 
 months before, and had not since added a single stanza. His hero was not then 
 even born, though in the fair way of being so; his parents being described and 
 He proposed to continue the poem at his leisure, with a description 
 of the character and profession of his ideal minstrel ; but he was wofully cast 
 own by the scantiness of the poetical taste of the age. 
 
 On the 28th of June, 1767, Dr Beattie was married at Aberdeen, to Miss 
 
 lary Dun, the only daughter of Dr James Dun, rector of the grammar-school of 
 
 at city. The heart of the poet had previously been engaged in honourable 
 affection to a Miss Mary Lindsay, whom, so late as the year 1823, the writer of 
 
 ! Forbes' Life of Beattie, 4to. vol. i. p. 83. 
 1 Hair, like Byron's, "grey at thirty \ "
 
 JAMES BE ATl'IE. 189 
 
 this memoir heard recite a poem written by Beattie in her praise, the lines of 
 which commenced with the letters of her name in succession. The venerable 
 lady was the widow of a citizen of Montrose, and in extreme, though healthy 
 old age. 
 
 At this period, infidelity had become fashionable to a great extent in Scot- 
 land, in consequence of the eclat which attended the publication of Hume's me- 
 taphysical treatises. Attempts had been made by Drs Reid and Campbell, in 
 respective publications, to meet the arguments of the illustrious sceptic; but it 
 was justly remarked by the friends of religion, thjxt the treatises of these two 
 individuals assumed too much of that deferential tone towards the majesty of 
 Mr Hume's intellect and reputation, which was to be complained of in society 
 at large, and no doubt was one of the causes why his sceptical notions had be- 
 come so fashionable. It occurred to Dr Beattie, and he was encouraged in the 
 idea by his friends Dr Gregory, Sir William Forbes, and other zealous adherents 
 of Christianity, that a work treating Hume a little more roughly, and not only 
 answering him with argument, but assailing him and his followers with ridicule, 
 might meet the evil more extensively, and be more successful in bringing back 
 the public to a due sense of religion. Such was the origin of his " Essay on 
 Truth," which was finished for the press in autumn 1769. 
 
 It is curious that this essay, so powerful as a defence of religion, was only 
 brought into the world by means of a kind of pia fraus. The manuscript was 
 committed to Sir William Forbes and Mr Arbuthnot, at Edinburgh, with an in- 
 junction to dispose of it to any bookseller who would pay a price for it, so as to 
 insure its having the person.il interest of a tradesman in pushing it forward in 
 the world. Unfortunately, however, the publisher to whom these gentlemen ap- 
 plied, saw so little prospect of profit in a work on the unfashionable side of the 
 argument, that he positively refused to bring it forth unless at the risk of the 
 author; a mode to which it was certain that Dr Beattie would never agree. 
 " Thus," says Sir William Forbes, " there was some danger of a work being lost, 
 the publication of which, we flattered ourselves, would do much good in the 
 world. 
 
 " In this dilemma it occurred to me," continues Beattie's excellent biographer, 
 " that we might, without much artifice, bring the business to an easy conclusion 
 by our own interposition. W r e therefore resolved that we ourselves should be 
 the purchasers, at a sum with which we knew Dr Beattie would be well satisfied, 
 as the price of the first edition. But it was absolutely necessary that the business 
 should be glossed over as much as possible ; otherwise, we had reason to fear 
 that he would not consent to our taking on us a risk which he himself had re- 
 fused to run. 
 
 " I therefore wrote him (nothing surely but the truth, although, I confess, not 
 H the whole truth,) that the manuscript was sold for fifty guineas, which I remitted 
 to him by a bank-bill ; and I added that we had stipulated with the bookseller 
 who was to print the book, that we should be partners in the publication. On 
 such trivial causes do things of considerable moment often depend ; for had it 
 not been for this interference of ours in this somewhat ambiguous manner, per- 
 haps the ' Essay on Truth,' on which all Dr Beattie's future fortunes hinged, 
 might never have seen the light." 
 
 In the prosecution of his design, Dr Beattie has treated his subject in the 
 following manner : he first endeavours to trace the different kinds of evidence 
 and reasoning up to their first principles ; with a view to ascertain the standard 
 of truth, and explain its immutability. He shows, in the second place, that his 
 sentiments on this head, how inconsistent soever with the genius of scepticism, 
 and with the principles and practice of sceptical writers, are yet perfectly con-
 
 100 JAMES BEA.TTIE. 
 
 sistent with the genius of true philosophy, and with the practice and principles 
 of those whom all acknowledge to have been the most successful in the investi- 
 gation of truth ; concluding with some inferences or rules, by which the most 
 important fallacies of the sceptical philosophers may be detected by every per- 
 son of common sense, even though he should not possess acuteness of metaphysi- 
 cal knowledge sufficient to qualify him for a logical confutation of them. In 
 the third place he answers some objections, and makes some remarks, by way 
 of estimate of scepticism and sceptical writers. 
 
 The Essay appeared in May 1770, and met with the most splendid success. 
 It immediately became a shield in the hands of the friends of religion, where- 
 with to intercept and turn aside the hitherto resistless shafts of the sceptics. A 
 modern metaphysician may perhaps find many flaws in the work : but, at the 
 time of its publication, it was received as a complete and triumphant refutation 
 of all that had been advanced on the other side. Under favour of the eclat 
 which attended the publication, religion again raised its head, and for a time 
 infidelity was not nearly so fashionable as it had been. 
 
 After getting this arduous business off his mind, Beattie returned to his long 
 Spenserian poem, and, in 1771, appeared the first part of "The Minstrel," 
 without his name. It was so highly successful, that he was encouraged to re- 
 publish this, along with a second part, in 1774; when his name appeared 
 in the title-page. " Of all his poetical works, ' the Minstrel ' is, beyond all 
 question, the best, whether we consider the plan or the execution. The language 
 is extremely elegant, the versification harmonious, it exhibits the richest poetic 
 imagery with a delightful flow of the most sublime, delicate, and pathetic senti- 
 ment It breathes the spirit of the purest virtue, the soundest philosophy, and 
 the most exquisite taste. In a word, it is at once highly conceived and ad- 
 mirably finished." 1 Lord Lyttleton thus expressed his approbation of the 
 poem ; one of the most warmly conceived compliments that was ever perhaps 
 paid by a poet to his fellow : " I read the Minstrel with as much rapture as 
 poetry, in her sweetest, noblest charms, ever raised in my mind. It seemed to 
 me, that my once most beloved minstrel, Thomson, was come down from heaven, 
 refined by the converse of purer spirits than those he lived with here, to let me 
 hear him sing again the beauties of nature and finest feelings of virtue, not with 
 human but with angelic strains !" It is to be regretted that Beattie never com- 
 pleted this poem. He originally designed that the hero should be employed in 
 the third canto in rousing his countrymen to arms for defence against a foreign 
 invasion, and that, overpowered and banished by this host, he should go forth 
 o other lands in his proper character of a wandering minstrel It must al- 
 ways be recollected, in favour of this poem, that it was the first of any length, 
 n pur English, which had been published by a Scottish wi-iter in his own 
 country so late has been the commencement of this department of our literature. 
 
 Beattie visited London a second time in 1771, and, as might be expected 
 
 from his increased reputation, entered more largely into literary society than 
 
 former occasion. Among those who honoured him with their notice, was 
 
 >r Johnson, who had been one of the warmest admirers of the Essay on Truth. 
 
 1773, he paid another visit to the metropolis, along with his wife, and was 
 
 :eived into a still wider and more eminent circle than before. On this occa- 
 sion, the university of Oxford conferred upon him an honorary degree of Doctor 
 of Laws. 
 
 The chief object of this tour was to secure a provision which his friends had 
 n to expect from the government, in consideration of his services in the 
 of religion. Many plans were proposed by his friends for obtaining this 
 1 Forbes' Life of Beattie.
 
 JAMES BEATTIE. 191 
 
 object. A bishop is believed to have suggested to the king, that the author of 
 the Essay on Truth might be introduced to the English church, and ' advanced 
 according to his merits ; to which the king, however, is said to have slily replied, 
 that, as Scotland abounded most in infidels, if would be best for the general in- 
 terests of religion that he should be kept there. George III., who had read and 
 admired Beattie's book, and whose whole mind ran in favour of virtue and reli- 
 gion, suggested himself the more direct plan of granting him a pension of two 
 hundred pounds a year, which was accordingly carried into effect The king 
 also honoured Dr Beattie with his particular notice at a levee, and, further, 
 granted him the favour of an interview in his private apartments at Kew for up- 
 wards of an hour. The agreeable conversation and unassuming manners of Dr 
 Beattie appear to have not only made a most favourable impression upon the 
 king and queen; for her majesty also was present at this interview but upon 
 every member of that lofty circle of society to which he was introduced. 
 
 Even after he had been thus provided for, several dignified clergymen of the 
 church of England continued to solicit him to take orders ; and one bishop went 
 so far as directly to tempt him with the offer of a rectorate worth five hundred 
 a-year. He had no disinclination to the office of a clergyman, and he decid- 
 edly preferred the government and worship of the English church to the 
 presbyterian system of his own country. But he could not be induced to take 
 such a reward for his efforts in behalf of religion, lest his enemies might say that 
 he had never contemplated any loftier principle than that of bettering his own 
 circumstances. Nearly about the same time, he further proved the total absence 
 of a mercenary tinge in his character, by refusing to be promoted to the chair 
 of Moral Philosophy in the university of Edinburgh. His habits of life were 
 now, indeed, so completely associated with Aberdeen, and its society, that he 
 seems to have contemplated any change, however tempting, with a degree of pain. 
 About this time, some letters passed between him and Dr Priestley, on occasion 
 of an attack made by the latter on the Essay on Truth. In his correspondence 
 with this ingenious but petulant adversary, Dr Beattie shows a great deal of can- 
 dour and dignity. He had at first intended to reply, but this intention he ap- 
 pears afterwards to have dropped : " Dr Priestley," says he, " having declared 
 that he will answer whatever I may publish in my own vindication, and being a 
 man who loves bustle and book-making, he wishes above all things that I should 
 give him a pretext for continuing the dispute. To silence him by force of argu- 
 ment, is, I know, impossible." 
 
 In the year 1786, Beattie took a keen interest in favour of a scheme then 
 agitated, not for the first time, to unite the two colleges of Aberdeen. It was 
 found impossible to carry this project into effect, though it is certainly one 01 
 those obvious improvements which must sooner or later be accomplished. In the 
 same year, Dr Beattie projected a new edition of Addison's prose works, with a 
 biographical and critical preface to the extent of half a volume, in which he 
 meant to show the peculiar merits of the style of Addison, as well as to point oul 
 historically the changes which the English language has undergone from time to 
 time, and the hazard to which it is exposed of being debased and corrupted by 
 modern innovations. He was reluctantly compelled by the state of his health to 
 retrench the better part of this scheme. The works of Addison were published 
 under his care, in 1790, by 3Iessrs Creech and Sibbald, booksellers, Edinburgh, 
 but he could only give Tickell'sLife, together with some extracts from Dr Johnson's 
 " Remarks on Addison's Prose," adding a few notes of his own, to make up any 
 material deficiency in TickelTs narrative, and illustrating Johnson's critique by a 
 few occasional annotations. Though Jthese additions to his original stock of ma- 
 terials, are very slight, the admirer of Addison is much gratified by some new
 
 192 JAMES BEATTIE. 
 
 information which he was ignorant of before, and to which Dr Beattie has given 
 degree of authenticity, by adhering, even in this instance, to his general prac- 
 tice of putting his name to every thing he wrote. 
 
 In 1787, Dr Beattie made application to the Marischal college, while the 
 pioject of the union was still pending, desiring that his eldest son, James Hay 
 Beattie, then in his twentieth year, should be recommended to the crown as his 
 assistant and successor in the chair of Moral Philosophy. The letter in which 
 this application was made, sets forth the extraordinary qualifications of his son, 
 with a delightful mixture of delicacy and warmth. The young man was an ex- 
 cellent Greek and Latin scholar ; wrote and talked beautifully in the latter Ian 
 guage, as well as in English, and, to use the language of his father, the best 
 of his genius lay entirely towards theology, classical learning, morals, poetry, 
 and criticism. The college received the application with much respect, and, 
 after a short delay on account of the business of the union, gave a cordial sanc- 
 tion to the proposal. 
 
 Unfortunately for the peace of Dr Beattie's latter years, his son, while in the 
 possession of the highest intellectual qualifications, and characterised by every 
 virtue that could be expected from his years, was destined by the inherent infirm- 
 ity of his constitution for an early death. After his demise, which happened 
 on the 19th of November, 1790, when he had just turned two-and-twenty, Dr 
 Beattie published a small collection of his writings, along with an elaborate pre- 
 face, entering largely into the character and qualifications of the deceased. In 
 this, he was justified by the admiration which he heard everywhere expressed, 
 of the character and intellect of his son ; but, as posterity appears to have re- 
 duced the prodigy to its proper limits, which were nothing wonderful, it is 
 unnecessary to bring it further into notice. The following is the more unaffected 
 and touching account which the afflicted parent has given of his loss, in a letter 
 to the Duchess of Gordon ; a lady with whom, for many years, he cultivated the 
 warmest friendship, and whose society he largely enjoyed, along with his son, 
 during repeated visits to Gordon Castle : 
 
 " Knowing with what kindness and condescension your Grace takes an inter- 
 est in every thing that concerns me and my little family, I take the liberty to 
 inform you that my son James is dead ; that the last duties are now paid ; and 
 that I am endeavouring to return, with the little ability that is left me, and with 
 entire submission to the will of Providence, to the ordinary business of life. I 
 have lost one who was always a pleasing companion ; but who, for the last five 
 or six years, was one of the most entertaining and instructive friends that ever 
 man was blest with : for his mind comprehended almost every science ; he was 
 a most attentive observer of life and manners : a master of classical learning ; 
 and he possessed an exuberance of wit and humour, a force of understanding, 
 and a correctness and delicacy of taste, beyond any other person of his age I 
 have ever known. 
 
 " He was taken ill on the night of the 30th of November, 1789 ; and from 
 that time his decline commenced. It was long what physicians calls a nervous 
 atrophy ; but towards the end of June, symptoms began to appear of the lungs 
 being affected. Goat's milk, and afterwards asses' milk, were procured for him 
 in abundance ; and such exercise as he could bear he regularly took : these 
 means lengthened his days, no doubt, and alleviated his sufferings, which indeed 
 were very often severe ; but in spite of all that could be done, he grew weaker 
 and weaker, and died the 19th of November, 1790, without complaint or pain, 
 without even a groan or sigh ; retaining to his last moment the use of his rational 
 faculties : indeed, from first to last, not one delirious word escaped him. He 
 lived twenty-two years and thirteen days. Many weeks before it came, he saw
 
 JAMES BEATTIE. 193 
 
 death approaching ; and he met it with such composure and pious resignation, 
 as may no doubt be equalled, but cannot be surpassed. 
 
 My chief comfort arises from reflecting upon the par- 
 
 ticulai-s of his life ; which was one uninterrupted exercise of piety, benevolence, 
 filial affection, and indeed every virtue which it was in his power to practise' 
 I shall not, with respect to him, adopt a mode of speech which has become too 
 common, and call him my poor son, for I must believe that he is infinitely happy, 
 and will be so for ever." 
 
 Dr Beattie bore the loss of his son with an appearance of fortitude and re- 
 signation. Yet, although his grief was not loud, it was deep. He said, in a 
 subsequent letter, alluding to a monument which he had erected for his son : 
 
 I often dream of the grave that is under it : I saw, with some satisfaction, on 
 a late occasion, that it is very deep, and capable of holding my coffin laid on 
 that which is already in at ;" words that speak more eloquently of the griet 
 which this event had fixed in the heart of the writer, than a volume could have 
 done. The following is a copy of the epitaph which he composed for his amia- 
 ble and accomplished child : 
 
 JACOBO HAY BEATTIE. JACOBI, F. 
 
 Philos. in Acad. Marischal Professor!. 
 
 Adolescenti. 
 
 Ea. Modestia. 
 
 Ea. suavitati. morum. 
 
 Ea. benevolentia. erga. omnes. 
 
 Erga. Deum. pietate. 
 
 Ut Humanum. nihil. supra. 
 
 In. bonis. literis. 
 
 In. theologia. 
 
 In. omni. Philosophia, 
 
 Exercitissimo. 
 
 Poetse. insuper. 
 
 Rebus, in. levioribus. faceto. 
 
 In. grandioribus. sublimi. 
 Qui. PJacidam. Animam. efflavit 
 
 xix. Novemb. MDCCXC. 
 
 Annos. habens. xxii. diesque. xiii. 
 
 PATER MOERENS. H. M. P. 
 
 Another exemplification of the rooted sorrow which this event planted in the 
 mind of Beattie, occurs in a letter written during a visit in England, in the sub- 
 sequent summer. Speaking of the commemoration music, which was performed 
 in Westminster Abbey, " by the greatest band of musicians that ever were brought 
 together in this country," he tells that the state of his health could not permit 
 him to be present Then recollecting his son's accomplishment as a player on 
 the organ, he adds, " Perhaps this was no loss to me. Even the organ of Dur- 
 ham cathedral was too much for my feelings ; for it brought too powerfully to 
 my remembrance another organ, much smaller indeed, but more interesting, 
 which I can never hear any more." 
 
 In 1790, Dr Beattie published the first volume of his " Elements of Moral 
 Science," the second volume of which did not make its appearance till 1793. He 
 had, in 1770, published a series of Essays on poetry and music, on laughable 
 and ludicrous composition, and on the utility of classical learning. In 1783, 
 had appeared " Dissertations, Moral and Critical," and, in 1786, a small tract 
 entitled, " The Evidences of the Christian Religion, briefly and plainly stated." 
 All of these minor productions originally formed part of the course of prelections 
 which he read from his chair in the university ; his aim in their publication be- 
 
 l- *U
 
 JAMES BBATT1E. 
 
 ing " to inure young minds to habits of attentive observation; to guard them 
 against the influence of bad principles ; and to set before them such views of na- 
 ture, and such plain and practical truths, as might at once improve the heart and 
 the understanding, and amuse and elevate the fancy." His " Elements of Moral 
 Science," was a summary of the whole of that course of lectures, a little enlarged 
 in the doctrinal parts, with the addition of a few illustrative examples. In a 
 certain degree, this work may be considered as a text-book; it is one, however, 
 so copious in its extent, so luminous in its arrangement and language, and so 
 excellent in the sentiments it everywhere inculcates, that if the profound meta- 
 physician and logician do not find in it that depth of science which they may ex- 
 pect to meet with in other works of greater erudition, the candid enquirer after 
 truth may rest satisfied, that, if he has studied these " Elements " with due atten- 
 tion, he will have laid a solid foundation, on which to build all the knowledge 
 of the subject necessary for the common purposes of life. Of such of the lectures 
 as had already appeared in an extended shape, under the name of " Essays," 
 particularly those on the theory of language, and on memory and imagination, 
 Dr Beattie has made this abridgment as brief as was consistent with any degree 
 of perspicuity ; while he bestowed no less than seventy pages on his favourite 
 topic, the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and the subject of slavery connected 
 with it 
 
 While delighting the world with the quick succession and variety of his produc- 
 tions, Dr Eeattie was himself nearly all the while a prey to the severest private suf- 
 ferings. Mrs Beattie had unfortunately inherited from her mother a tendency 
 to madness. Though this did not for a considerable time break out into open 
 insanity, yet in a few years after their marriage, it showed itself in caprices and 
 follies, which embittered every hour of her husband's life. Dr Beattie tried for 
 a long time to conceal her disorder from the world, and, if possible, as he has 
 been heard to say, from himself; but at last, from whim, caprice, and melan- 
 choly, it broke out into downright phrenzy, which rendered her seclusion from 
 society absolutely necessary. During every stage of her illness, he watched and 
 cherished her with the utmost tenderness and care ; using every means at first 
 that medicine could furnish for her recovery, and afterwards, when her condition 
 was found to be perfectly hopelesss, procuring for her, in an asylum at Mussel- 
 burgh, every accommodation and comfort that could tend to alleviate her suffer- 
 ings. " When I reflect," says Sir William Forbes, " on the many sleepless 
 nights, and anxious days, which he experienced from Mrs Beattie's malady, and 
 think of the unwearied and unremitting attention he paid to her, during so great 
 a number of years in that sad situation, his character is exalted in my mind to a 
 degree which may be equalled, but I am sure never can be excelled, and makes 
 the fame of the poet and the philosopher fade from my remembrance." 
 
 The pressure of this calamity slow but certain the death of his eldest son, 
 and the continued decline of his health, made it necessary, in the session ol' 
 1793-4, that he should be assisted in the duties of his class. From that period 
 till 1797, when he finally relinquished his professorial duties, he was aided b) 
 Mr George Glennie, his relation and pupil. He experienced an additional ca- 
 lamity in 1796, by the sudden death of his only remaining son, Montague, a 
 youth of eighteen, less learned than his brother, but of still more amiable man 
 ners, and whom he had designed for the English church. This latter event un- 
 hinged the mind of Beattie, who, it may be remarked, had always been greatly 
 dependent on the society, and even on the assistance, of his children. 'Ihe care of 
 their education, in which he was supposed to be only over indulgent, had been his 
 <-hief employment for many years. This last event, by rendering him childless, 
 dissolved nearly the last remaining tie which bound him to the world ; and left
 
 JAMES BEATTIE. 195 
 
 him a miserable wreck upon the shores of life. Many days had not elapsed 
 after the death of Montague Beattie, ere he began to display symptoms of a de- 
 cayed intellect, in an almost total loss of memory respecting his son. He would 
 search through the whole house for him, and then say to his niece and house- 
 keeper, Mrs Glennie, " You may think it strange, but I must ask you, if I have 
 a son, and where he is." This lady would feel herself under'the painful necessity 
 of bringing to his recollection the death-bed sufferings of his son, which always 
 restored him to reason. A>.d he would then, with many tears, express his thank- 
 fulness that he had no child, saying, with allusion to the malady they might have 
 derived from their mother, " How could I have borne to see their elegant minds 
 mangled with madness ?'' When he looked for the last time on the dead body of 
 his son, and thought of the separation about to take place between himself and 
 the last being that connected him with this sublunary scene, he said, " Now, 
 I have done with the world !" After this, he never bent his mind again to study, 
 never touched the violincello on which he used to be an excellent and a frequent 
 player, nor answered the letters of his friends, except, perhaps, a very few. He 
 commanded his mind, however, to compose the following epitaph on his son ; it 
 was the last effort of the Minstrel, and has all his usual happiness in this peculiar 
 branch of composition : 
 
 MONTAGU. BEATTIE. 
 Jacobi. Hay. Beattie. Frater. 
 Ejusque. virtutuin. et. studiorum. 
 
 JEmulus. 
 
 Sepulchrique. censors 
 Variarum. Peritus. Artium. 
 
 Pingendi. imprimis. 
 Natus. Octavo. Julii. MDCCLXXVIII. 
 
 Multum. Defletus. obiit. 
 Decimo. quarto. Martii. MDCCXCV. 
 
 The phrase " sepulchrique consors " was literally true. That space in the 
 roomy grave of his eldest son, which he had calculated on as sufficient for him- 
 self, was devoted to receive this second and final hope of his old age. 
 
 In March 1797, Dr Beattie became completely crippled with rheumatism, and 
 in the beginning of 1799, he experienced a stroke of palsy, which for eight days 
 so affected his speech that he could not make himself understood, and even for- 
 got several of the most material words of every sentence. At different periods 
 after this, he had several returns of the same afflicting malady ; the last, in Octo- 
 ber 1802, deprived him altogether of the power of motion. He lingered for ten 
 months in this humiliating situation, but was at length relieved from all his suf- 
 ferings by the more kindly stroke of death, August 1 8, 1 803. He expired without 
 the least appearance of suffering. His remains were deposited close to those of 
 liis two sons in the ancient cemetery of St Nicolas, and were marked soon after 
 by a monument, for which Dr James Gregory of Edinburgh, supplied an elegant 
 inscription. 
 
 The eminent rank which Dr Beattie holds as a Christian moral philosopher is 
 a sufficient testimony of the public approbation of his larger literary efforts. It 
 may, however, be safely predicted, that his reputation will, after all, centre in 
 his " Minstrel," which is certainly his most finished work, and, every thing con- 
 sidered, the most pleasing specimen of his intellect. If we consider how much 
 original talent, and how much cultivated taste must have been necessary to the 
 composition of this beautiful poem, we will wonder that such should have been 
 found in a professor of a Scottish provincial university, at a time when scarcely 
 any vestige of the same qualifications was to be found out of London. "Beat-
 
 196 ANDREW BELL, D.D. 
 
 tie," says Cowper a kindred mind, well qualified to judge of his merits, " is the 
 most agreeable and amiable writer I have ever met with ; the only author I have 
 seen whose critical and philosophical researches are diversified and embellished 
 by a poetical imagination, that makes even the driest subject, and the leanest, a 
 feast for an epicure in books ; one so much at his ease, too, that his own charac- 
 ter appears in every page, and, which is very rare, not only the writer but the 
 man ; and the man so gentle, so well tempered, so happy in his religion, and so 
 humane in his philosophy, that it is necessary to love him, if one has any sense 
 of what is lovely. 
 
 The mind of Beattie is so exactly identified with his works, and is so undis- 
 guisedly depicted in them, that when his works are described, so also is his char- 
 acter. His whole life was spent in one continued series of virtuous duties. His 
 piety was pure and fervent ; his affection for his friends enthusiastic ; his bene- 
 volence unwearying, and the whole course of his life irreproachable. The only 
 fault which his biographer, Sir William Forbes, could find in the whole com- 
 position of his character, was one of a contingent and temporary nature : he be- 
 came, towards the end of his life, a little irritable by continued application to 
 metaphysical controversy. 
 
 Although his connections in early life had been of the humblest sort, yet he 
 showed no awkwardness of behaviour in the most polished circles to which his 
 eminent literary reputation afterwards introduced him. On the other hand, 
 though, in the course of his frequent visits to England, lie was caressed by the 
 very highest personages in the realm, he never was in the least degree spoilt, 
 but returned to his country with as humble and unassuming manners as he had 
 carried away from it. To a very correct and refined taste in poetry, he added 
 the rare accomplishment of an acquaintance to a considerable extent with both 
 the sister arts of painting and music : his practice in drawing never went, in- 
 deed, beyond an occasional grotesque sketch of some friend, for the amusement 
 of a social hour. In music he was more deeply skilled, being not only able to 
 take part in private concerts on the violoncello, but capable of appreciating the 
 music of the very highest masters for every other instrument In his person, he 
 was of the middle height, though not elegantly, yet not awkwardly formed, but 
 with something of a slouch in his gait. His eyes were black and piercing, with 
 an expression of sensibility somewhat bordering on melancholy, except when en- 
 gaged in cheerful conversation, and social intercourse with his friends, when they 
 were exceedingly animated. Such was " the Minstrel" 
 
 BELL, ANDREW, D.D., author of the "Madras System of Education," was born 
 at St Andrews, in 1753, and educated at the university of that place. The circum- 
 stances of his early life, and even the date of his entering into holy orders, are not 
 known ; but it is stated that he was remarkable in youth for the exemplary manner 
 in which he fulfilled every public and private duty. After having spent some time 
 in America, we find him, in 1786, officiating as one of the ministers of St Mary's, at 
 Madras, and one of the chaplains of Fort St George. 
 
 In that year, the Directors of the East India Company sent out orders to Madras, 
 that a seminary should be established there, for the education and maintenance of 
 the orphans and distressed male children of the European military. The proposed 
 institution was at first limited to the support of a hundred orphans : half the expense 
 was defrayed by the Company, and half by voluntary subscriptions ; and the Madras 
 Government appropriated Egmore Redoubt for the use of the establishment. The 
 superintendence of this ayslum was undertaken by Dr Bell, who, having no object 
 in view but the gratification of his benevolence, refused the salary of 1200 pagodas 
 (480) which was attached to it. " Here," he reasoned with himself, " is a field 
 lor a clergyman, to animate his exertion, and encourage his diligence. Here his
 
 ANDREW BELL, D.D. 107 
 
 success is certain, and will be in proportion to the ability he shall discover, the 
 labour he shall bestow, and the means he shall employ. It is by instilling principles 
 of religion and morality into the minds of the young, that he can best accomplish 
 the ends of his ministry : it is by forming them to habits of diligence, industry, 
 veracity, and honesty, and by instructing them in useful knowledge, that he can 
 best promote their individual inteiest, and serve the state to which they belong, 
 two purposes which cannot, in sound policy, or even in reality, exist apart." 
 
 With these feelings, and with this sense of duty, Dr Bell began his task. He had 
 to work upon the most unpromising materials, but the difficulties he had to encounter 
 led to that improvement in education with which his name is connected. Failing 
 to retain the services of properly qualified ushers, he resorted to the expedient of 
 conducting his school through the medium of the scholars themselves. It is in the 
 mode of conducting a school by means of mutual instruction, that the discovery of 
 Dr Bell consists ; and its value, as an abbreviation of the mechanical part of teaching, 
 and where large numbers were to be taught economically, could not be easily over- 
 estimated at the time, although later educationalists have improved upon the plan, 
 and the Madras system is now less in use than formerly. The first new practice 
 which Dr Bell introduced into his school, was that of teaching the letters, by making 
 the pupils trace them in sand, as he had seen children do in a Malabar school. The 
 next improvement, was the practice of sjllabic reading. The child, after be had 
 learned to read and spell monosyllables, was not allowed to pronounce two syllables 
 till he acquired by long practice a perfect precision. From the commencement of his 
 experiment, he made the scholars, as far as possible, do everything for themselves : 
 they ruled their own paper, made their own pens, <tc., with the direction only of their 
 teacher. The maxim of the school was, that no boy could do anything right the 
 first time, but he must learn when he first set about it, by means of his teacher, so 
 as to be able to do it himself ever afterwards. Every boy kept a register of the 
 amount of work which he perfotmed, so that his diligence at different times might 
 be compared. There was also a black book, in which all offences were recorded : 
 this was examined once a- week; and Dr Bell's custom, in almost every case of ill- 
 behaviour, was to make the boys themselves judges of the offender. He never had 
 reason, he says, to think their decision impartial, biassed, or unjust, or to interfere 
 with their award, otherwise than to mitigate or remit the punishment, when he 
 thought the formality of the trial, and of the sentence, was sufficient to produce 
 the effect required. But the business of the teachers was to preclude punishment, 
 by preventing faults ; and so well was this object attained that for months together, 
 it was not found necessary to indict a single punishment. 
 
 An annual saving of not less than 960, upon the education and support of two 
 hundred boys, was produced in the institution at Madras, by Dr Bell's regulations 
 and improvements. This, however, he justly regarded as an incidental advantage; 
 his grand aim was to redeem the children from the stigma under which they laboured, 
 and the fatal effect which that stigma produced ; and to render them good subjects, 
 good men, and good Christians. After superintending the school for seven years, 
 he found it necessary for his health, to return to Europe. The directors of the 
 charity passed a resolution for providing him a passage in any ship which he might 
 wish to sail in, declaring, at the same time, that, under " the wise and judicious 
 regulations which he had established, the institution had been brought to a degree 
 of perfection and promising utility, far exceeding what the most sanguine hopes could 
 have suggested at the time of its establishment ; and that he was entitled to their 
 fullest approbation, for his zealous and disinterested conduct." The language in 
 which Dr Bell spoke of the institution on leaving it, will not be read without 
 emotion, by those who are capable of appreciating what is truly excellent in human
 
 198 ANDREW BELL, D.D. 
 
 nature. During seven years which he had devoted to this office, be had "seen the 
 vices incident to the former situation of these orphans gradually vanishing, their 
 morals and conduct approaching nearer and nearer every year to what he wished 
 them to be, and the character of a race of children in a manner changed." " This 
 numerous family," said he, " I have long regarded as my own. These children are, 
 indeed, mine by a thousand ties ! I have for them a parental affection, which has 
 grown upon me every year. For them I have made such sacrifices as parents have 
 not always occasion to make for their children ; and the nearer the period approaches 
 when I must separate myself from them, the more I feel the pang I shall suffer in 
 tearing myself from this charge, and the anxious thoughts I shall throw back upon 
 these children, when I shall cease to be their protector, their guide, and their instruc- 
 tor." Eleven years after he had left India, Dr Bell received a letter, signed by 
 forty-four of these pupils, expressing, in the strongest terms, their gratitude for the 
 instruction and care which he had bestowed upon them in childhood. 
 
 On his arrival in Europe, Dr Bell published, in 1797, a pamphlet, entitled " An 
 Experiment in Education, made at the Male Asylum of Madras ; suggesting a System 
 by which a School or Family may teach itself, under the superintendence of the 
 Master or Parent." The first place in England where the system was adopted, was 
 the charity school of St Botolph's, Aldgate. Dr Briggs, then of Kendal, the second 
 who profited by Dr Bell's discovery, introduced it into the Kendal schools of industry. 
 These occurrences took place in 1798. In 1801, the system was fully and successfully 
 acted upon in the schools of the Society for bettering the condition of the poor. 
 
 In 1803, Mr Joseph Lancaster first appeared before the public. He published a 
 pamphlet with the following title " Improvements in Education, as it respects the 
 Industrious Classes of the Community ; containing a short Account of its Present 
 State, Hints towards its Improvement, and a detail of some Practical Experiments 
 conducive to that End." " The institution," he says, " which a benevolent Provi- 
 dence has been pleased to make me the happy instrument of bringing into usefulness, 
 was begun in the year 1798. The intention was to afford the children of mechanics, 
 &c., instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, at about half the usual price. The 
 peculiarity of his plan seems to have consisted, chiefly, in introducing prizes and 
 badges of merit, together with a mode of teaching spelling, which was said to 
 economize time and trouble : he also called in the assistance of boys, as monitors. 
 In his pamphlet, of 1803, he freely accords to Bell the priority of the mutual system, 
 acknowledging also that the published account of it had furnished him with several 
 useful hints. Eventually, Mr Lancaster put forward a claim, obviously unfounded, 
 to be considered the sole inventor of the system. One of his advertisements in the 
 newspapers was thus introduced : "Joseph Lancaster, of the Free School, Borough 
 Road, London, having invented, under the blessing of Divine Providence, a new 
 and mechanical system of education fur the use of schools, feels anxious to disseminate 
 the knowledge of its advantages through the united kingdom. By this system, para- 
 doxical as it may appear, above 1000 children may be taught and governed by one 
 master only." And on another occasion he writes : " I stand forward before the 
 public, at the bar of mankind, to the present, and for the future ages, avowing 
 myself the inventor of the British or Royal Lancasterian System." (Morning Post, 
 4th September.) Again : " I submit the plan, original as it is, to the country. The 
 same cannot be found in any other work, unless copied or pirated." (Preface to 
 edition of J808.) 
 
 But however unfounded Lancaster's claim to originality may be, there can be no 
 doubt that, through his exertions chiefly, the system was extensively reduced to practice 
 in England. Belonging to the sect of Quakers, a body whose exertions in the cause 
 of philanthropy are universally known, he did not apply to them in vain for pecuniary
 
 BENJAMIN BELL. 
 
 support and personal exertion. Lancasterian schools were rapidly established in all 
 parts of the kingdom. 
 
 Dr Bell lived long enough to witness the introduction of tis system into 12,9Y3 
 national schools, educating 900,000 of the children of bis English countrymen, and 
 to know that it was employed extensively in almost every other civilized country. 
 He acquired in later life the dignity of a prebendary of Westminster, and was 
 master of Sherborn hospital, Durham. He was also a member of the Asiatic Society, 
 and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He employed himself during his latter years 
 in writing several works on education, among which the most valuable were, " The 
 Elements of Tuition," " The English School," and a " Brief Manual of Mutual 
 Instruction and Discipline." The evening of. his pious and useful life was spent at 
 Cheltenham, in the practice of every social and domestic virtue. Previously to his 
 death he bestowed 120,000, three per cent, stock, for the purpose of founding an 
 academy on an extensive and liberal scale in his native city. He also bequeathed a 
 considerable sum for purposes of education in Edinburgh; which, however, to the 
 everlasting disgrace of the individuals intrusted with the public affairs of that city 
 at the time, was compromised among the general funds of that corporation, a few 
 months before its bankruptcy. 
 
 Dr Bell died on the 27th of January, 1832, in the eightieth year of his age, and was 
 buried in Westminster Abbey, the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London 
 acting as chief mourners. 
 
 BELL, BENJAMIN, a distinguished surgical author, was born in Dumfries in 1749. 
 He received an excellent classical education at the grammar-school of that town, 
 under Dr Chapman, the rector. The property of Blackett House, in Dumfriesshire, 
 having devolved to him on the death of his grandfather, he gave a remarkable instance 
 of generosity by disposing of it, and applying the proceeds in educating himself and 
 the younger branches of the family, fourteen in number. 
 
 Mr Bell bad early made choice of medicine as a profession, and accordingly he was 
 bound apprentice to Mr Hill, surgeon in Dumfries, whose practice was in that quarter 
 very extensive. It was a distinguishing feature in Mr Bell's character, that what- 
 ever he had once engaged in was prosecuted with extreme ardour and assiduity. 
 He therefore went through the drudgery and fatigue necessarily connected with the 
 detail of a surgeon apothecary's shop, with the greatest spirit. He, by degrees, 
 materially assisted his master, by attending his patients; to whom his correct beha- 
 viour, unfailing good humour, and agreeable manners recommended him in the most 
 powerful manner. He repaired to Edinburgh in 1766, entered himself as a member 
 of the university, and set himself, with the most serious application, to the prose- 
 cution of his medical studies. The Edinburgh medical school had just sprung into 
 notice, and was beginning to make very rapid strides to its present eminence. The 
 first and second Monro had already given evident tokens of the most distinguished 
 genius. The first had now relinquished, in favour of his equally skilful son, the 
 business of the anatomical theatre, and only occasionally delivered clinical lectures 
 in the infirmary. Mr Bell's ardour in the study of anatomy, in all its branches, was 
 unabated. As he proposed to practise surgery, he was well aware that eminence in 
 that department of the profession could only be arrived at by persevering industry. 
 He was appointed house-surgeon to the royal infirmary, which afforded him every 
 opportunity of improvement. It was here that he laid the foundation of that superior 
 adroitness and dexterity which so peculiarly characterized him in the many hazardous 
 but successful operations which he was called to perform. 
 
 Though Mr Bell was more particularly designed for the profession of a surgeon, 
 there was no department of medicine neglected by him. Dr Black, whose dis- 
 coveries formed a new era in the science of chemistry, hcd been removed from
 
 200 
 
 HENRY BELL. 
 
 Glasgow to Edinburgh during the year in which Mr Bell entered the university. 
 His lectures and experiments proved generally attractive, and powerfully interested 
 the mind of Mr Bell. Dr Cullen was professor of the Institutes of Medicine, and 
 his original genius excited the greatest ardour amongst the students. The practice 
 of medicine was taught by Dr John Gregory, and Botany by Dr John Hope. These 
 were the professors whom Mr Bell attended, and it must be confessed, that they 
 were men of distinguished talents, whose lectures no diligent student could listen 
 to without deriving very great advantage. 
 
 Mr Bell had resolved, in 1770, to visit Paris and London, the two great schools 
 for surgical practice. Before doing so, however, he passed the examinations at 
 Surgeon's Hall, and was admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, 
 Edinburgh. In those great cities he remained nearly two years, assiduously im- 
 proving himself in surgery. Returning to his native country in 1772, he commenced 
 business in Edinburgh. Few came better prepared than he did for the practice of 
 surgery. His education was liberal and extensive. His appearance was much in 
 his favour. His address was good, his manner composed and sedate. Mr Bell had 
 early formed the plan of composing a system of surgery and this he at last accom- 
 plished. He did not publish the whole work at once; but in the year 1778, about 
 six years after he had finally settled in Edinburgh, and become established in 
 practice, the first volume was given to the world. The remaining volumes appeared 
 from time to time until the work was completed in six volumes 8vo. in 1788. In 
 1793, appeared his "Treatise on Gonorrhoea," and in 1794, another "Treatise on 
 Hydrocele," which is understood to be the least popular of his works. 
 
 Mr Bell married, in 1776, Miss Hamilton, daughter of Dr Robert Hamilton, professor 
 of divinity in the University of Edinburgh, by whom he had a numerous family. 
 He died, April 4, 1806. 
 
 BELL, HENRY, the first successful applier of steam to the purposes of navigation 
 in Europe, was horn at Torphichen in Linlithgowshire, April 7, 1767- He was 
 sprung from a race of mechanics, being the fifth son of Patrick Bell and Margaret 
 Easton, whose ancestors, through several descents, were alike well-known in the 
 neighbourhood as ingenious mill-wrights and builders ; some of them having also 
 distinguished themselves in the erection of public works, such as harbours, bridges, 
 <bc., not only in Scotland, but also in the other divisions of the United Kingdom. 
 Henry Bell, after receiving a plain education at the parish school, began, in 1780, to 
 learn the handicraft of a stone-mason. Three years after, he changed his views in 
 favour of the other craft of the family, and was apprenticed to his uncle, who 
 practised the art of a mill-wright. At the termination of his engagement, he went 
 to Borrowstounness, for the purpose of being instructed in ship-modelling, and, in 
 1787, he engaged with Mr James Inglis, engineer at Bell's Hill, with the view of 
 completing his knowledge of mechanics. He afterwards went to London, where he 
 was employed by the celebrated Mr Rennie ; so that his opportunities of acquiring 
 a practical acquaintance with the higher branches of his art, were altogether very 
 considerable. 
 
 About the year 1790, Bell returned to Scotland, and it is said that he practised 
 for several years, at Glasgow, the unambitious craft of a house-carpenter. He was 
 entered October 20, 1797, as a member of the corporation of wrights in that city. 
 It was his wish to become an undertaker of public works in Glasgow; but either 
 Irom a deficiency of capital, or from want of steady application, he never succeeded 
 to any extent in that walk. " The truth is," as we have been informed, " Bell had 
 many of the features of the enthusiastic projector ; never calculated means to ends, or 
 looked much farther than the first stages or movements of any scheme. His mind was 
 a chaos of extraordinary projects, the most of which, from his want of accurate
 
 HENRY BELL. 201 
 
 scientific calculation, he never could carry into practice. Owing to an imperfection 
 in even his mechanical skill, he scarcely ever made one part of a model suit the rest, 
 so that many designs, after a great deal of pains and expense, were successively 
 abandoned. He was, in short, the hero of a thousand blunders and one success." 
 The idea of propelling vessels by means of steam early took possession of his mind. 
 "In 1800 (he writes) I applied to Lord Melville, on purpose to show his lordship 
 and the other members of the Admiralty, the practicability and great utility of 
 applying steam to the propelling of vessels against winds and tides, and every ob- 
 struction on rivers and seas, where there was depth of water." Disappointed in this 
 application, he repeated the attempt in 1803, with the same result, notwithstanding 
 the emphatic declaration of the celebrated Lord Nelson, -who, addressing their lord- 
 ships on the occasion, said, " My Lords, if you do not adopt Mr Bell's scheme, 
 other nations will, and in the end vex every vein of this empire. It will succeed 
 (he added), and you should encourage Mr Bell." Having obtained no support in 
 this country, Bell forwarded copies of the prospectus of his scheme to the different 
 nations of Europe, and to the United States of America. " The Americans," he 
 writes, " were the first who put my plan into practice, and were quickly followed 
 by other nations." The various attempts which preceded that of Bell are briefly 
 noticed in the " Fifth Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons 
 on Steam-Boats, June, 1822, Sir Henry Parnell, chairman." Mentioning the follow- 
 ing as experimenters, namely, Mr Jonathan Hulls, in 1736; the Duke of Bridge- 
 water, on the Manchester and Runcorn canal; Mr Miller of Dalswiuton; the 
 Marquis de Jouffroy (a French nobleman), in 1781 ; Lord Stanhope, in 1795; and 
 Mr Symington and Mr Taylor, on the Forth and Clyde canal, in 1801-2; the 
 Report proceeds " These ingenious men made valuable experiments, and tested 
 well the mighty power of steam. Still no practical uses resulted from any of these 
 attempts. It was not till the year 1807, when the Americans began to use steam- 
 boats on their rivers, that their safety and utility were first proved. But the merit 
 of constructing these boats is due to natives of Great Britain. Mr Henry Bell of 
 Glasgow gave the first model of them to the late Mr Fulton of America, and cor- 
 responded regularly with Fulton on the subject. Mr Bell continued to turn his 
 talents to the improving of steam apparatus, and its application to various manu- 
 factures about Glasgow; and in 1811, constructed the Comet steam-boat." 
 
 The launching of the first American steam-boat on the Hudson, and the first 
 British steam-boat on the Clyde, was the commencement of the application of 
 Watt's great discovery as a locomotive power. Already the improvement of the 
 steam-engine had given a new impulse to manufacturing industry, which only re- 
 quired a more peaceable era to develope itself in boundless progression. But the 
 improved steam-engine was now also to be employed in increasing the rapidity and 
 regularity of conveyance by water, and in uniting the most remote parts of the 
 globe in social and commercial relationship. It was destined also, before the lapse 
 of many years, to accelerate the speed of travelling by land to a degree which 
 had not been imagined by the most sanguine ; and from the united influence of 
 both was to be evoked that most astonishing discovery of all, which, literally 
 annihilating time and space, makes the lightning itself the medium of communica 
 tion throughout continents, and across arms of the sea. It is remarkable, as Dr. 
 Lardner has observed, that the introduction of steam navigation is due to the in- 
 telligence of men "none of whom shared those privileges of mental culture enjoyed 
 by the favoured sons of wealth; none of whom grew up within the walls of schools 
 or colleges, drawing inspiration from the fountains of ancient learning ; " but "sus- 
 tained by that innate consciousness of power, stimulated by that irrepressible force 
 of will, S o eminently characteristic of minds of the first order, they, in their humble
 
 202 HENRY BELL. 
 
 and obscure positions, persevered against adverse and embarrassing circumstances^ 
 against the doubts, the opposition, and not unfrequently the ridicule of an incre- 
 dulous world, until at length, truth was triumphant, and mankind now gathers the 
 rich harvest sown by these illustrious labourers." 
 
 In 1808, Bell removed to the modern village of Helensburgh, on the Firth of 
 Clyde, where his wife undertook the superintendence of the public baths, and at the 
 game time kept the principal inn, whilst he continued to prosecute his favourite 
 scheme, without much regard to the ordinary affairs of the world. In 1812 he pro- 
 duced his steam-boat, the Comet, of 30 tons burthen, with an engine of three horse- 
 power. The Comet, so called from the celebrated comet which appeared at that time, 
 was built by Messrs John Wood and Co., at Port-Glasgow, and made her trial trip 
 on the 18th of January, when she sailed from Glasgow to Greenock, making five 
 miles an hour against a head-wind. In August of the same year we find Bell 
 advertising the Comet to ply upon the Clyde three times a-week from Glasgow, 
 " to sail by the power of air, wind, and steam." In September the voyage was 
 extended to Oban and Fort- William, and was to be accomplished to and from the 
 latter place in four days. Mr Bell lived to see his invention universally adopted. 
 The Clyde, which first enjoyed the advantages of steam-navigation, became the 
 principal seat of this description of ship-building; and, at the present time, Clyde- 
 built steamers maintain their superiority in every port in the world. Steam-ships 
 are now launched from the building-yards of Glasgow and Greenock of 2000 tonnage 
 and 800 horse-power ; and Clyde-built ships, with Glasgow engines, make the 
 voyage betwixt Liverpool and New York in ten days. Steam-boat building and 
 marine-engine-making received their first powerful impulse from the solution of the 
 problem of ocean steam-navigation." From tables, constructed by Dr Strang from 
 returns furnished to him by the various ship-builders and engineers in Glasgow, Dum- 
 barton, Greenock, and Port-Glasgow, it appears that, during the seven years from 
 1846 to 1852, there were constructed at Glasgow and in its neighbourhood, 123 
 vessels, of which 1 was of wood, 122 of iron, 80 paddle, and 43 screw ; consisting of 
 200 wooden tonnage ; 70,441 iron tonnage ; 6610 horse-power engines for wooden 
 hulls, 22,639 horse-power engines for iron hulls, and 4720 horse-power engines for 
 vessels not built on the Clyde. During the same period there were constructed in 
 Dumbarton, 68 vessels, all of iron, 20 being for paddles and 38 for screws, and having 
 a tonnage of 29,761 ; and during the last three years of the same period 3616 horse- 
 power engines were made there for iron hulls, and 200 horse-power engines for 
 vessels not built on the Clyde. During the same period, from 1846 to 1852, there 
 were constructed at Greenock and Port- Glasgow, 66 steam-vessels, of which 13 were 
 of wood, and 53 of iron, 41 paddle, and 25 screw ; consisting of 18,131 wood tonnage, 
 and 29,071 iron tonnage, 129 horse-power engines for wooden hulls, 6439 horse- 
 power engines for iron hulls, and 4514 horse-power engines for vessels not built on 
 the Clyde. For the whole ports in the Clyde, the steam-vessels built and the marine 
 engines made, from 1846 to 1852, were as follows : Number of steam vessels built 
 Wood hulls, 14; iron hulls, 233; in all, 247; of these 141 were paddles, and 106 
 screws. The tonnage of the wooden steamers amounts to 18,331, of the iron to 
 129,273. The engines' horse-power in wood hulls was 6739, the engines' horse-power 
 in iron hulls was 31,693 ; while there was of engines' horse-power for vessels not 
 constructed on the Clyde, 9434, making a grand total of 247 steamers, amounting 
 to 147,604 tons, and of engines 47,766 horse-power. The steam communication 
 which has, for several years, existed betwixt our West Indian and North American 
 colonies and the mother country, has recently been extended to Australia and the 
 Cape of Good Hope, thus uniting Great Britain to her most distant dependencies by 
 new and powerful ties, and literally realizing the vivid description of George Can-
 
 JOHN BELL. 203 
 
 ning, who, dilating on the benefits of steam-navigation, several years before the 
 death of Bell, described it as "that new and mighty power, new at least in the 
 application of its might, which walks the water like a giant, rejoicing in its course, 
 stemming alike the tempest and the tide accelerating intercourse shortening 
 distances creating, as it were, unexpected neighbourhoods, and new combinations 
 of social and commercial relations, and giving to the fickleness of winds, and the 
 faithlessness of waves, the certainty and steadiness of a highway upon the land." 
 Whilst commerce and civilization were thus making rapid progress by means of his 
 invention, Henry Bell reaped no personal advantage from it. He even approached 
 the confines of old age in very straitened circumstances. Touched by his condition, 
 the late Dr Cleland, and a number of other benevolent individuals, commenced a 
 subscription on his behalf, by which a considerable sum was raised. The trustees 
 on the river Clyde granted him an annuity of 100, which has been continued to 
 his widow. This was but a becoming acknowledgment of the value of his great 
 invention on the part of the trustees of a river whose annual revenue was increased, 
 mainly by the impulse given to its trade by steam-navigation, from 6676 in 1810, 
 the year before Bell commenced the construction of the Comet, to 20,296 in 1830, 
 the year in which he died ; and which has been more than tripled during the last 
 twenty-two years, being, in 1852, 76,000. Within the same space of time, the 
 channel of the river has undergone a corresponding improvement, being rendered 
 navigable by ships of 700 and 800 tons burthen ; whereas, little more than half a 
 century ago, it was navigable only by coal gabbards and vessels of 30 to 45 tons. 
 The average available depth of the Clyde at high water of neap-tides, is 16 feet, 
 with an additional depth of two or three feet at spring-tides. At the Broomielaw, 
 the harbour of Glasgow, there are now 10,000 lineal feet of quayage, giving accom- 
 modation to hundreds of the largest ships belonging to the mercantile marine of this 
 and foreign countries. Mr Bell died at Helensburgh, March 14, 1830, aged sixty- 
 three, and lies buried in the Row churchyard. An obelisk to his memory was 
 erected on the rock of Dunglass, a promontory on the Clyde, about 2J miles above 
 Dumbarton. 
 
 BELL, JOHX, of Antermony, a traveller of the eighteenth century, was the 
 son of Patrick Bell, the representative of that old and respectable family, and 
 of Anabel Stirling, daughter of Mungo Stirling of Craigbarnet. He was born 
 in 1691, and, after receiving a classical education, turned his attention to the 
 study of medicine. On passing as physician, he determined to visit foreign countries, 
 but we shall insert this part of his history in Mr Bell's own words. " In my 
 youth," says he, " I had a strong desire of seeing foreign parts ; to satisfy which 
 inclination, after having obtained, from some persons of worth, recommendatory 
 letters to Dr Areskine, chief physician and privy counsellor to the Czar Peter 
 the First, I embarked at London, in the month of July, 1714, on board the 
 Prosperity of Ramsgate, Captain Emerson, for St Petersburg. On my arrival 
 there, I was received by Dr Areskine in a very friendly manner, to whom I com- 
 municated my intentions of seeking an opportunity of visiting some parts of Asia, 
 at least those parts which border on Russia. Such an opportunity soon presented 
 itself, on occasion of an embassy then preparing, from his Czarish Majesty to the 
 Sophy of Persia." Preface to his Travels. The ambassador fortunately applied 
 to Dr Areskine to recommend some one skilled in physic and surgery to go in 
 his suite, and Mr Bell was soon afterwards engaged in the service of the Russian 
 Emperor. He accordingly left St Petersburg on the 15th of July, 1715, and 
 proceeded to Moscow, from thence to Cazan, and down the Volga to Astracan. 
 The embassy then sailed down the Caspian Sea to Derbend, and journeyed by 
 Mougan, Tauris, and S>aba, to Ispahan, where they arrived on the 14th of March,
 
 2U4: JOHN BELL. 
 
 1717. They left that city on the 1st of September, and returned to St Peters- 
 burgh on the 30th of December, 1718, after having travelled across the country 
 from SaratofE On his arrival in the capital, Mr Bell found that his friend and 
 patron, Dr Areskine had died about six weeks before, but he had now secured 
 the friendship of the ambassador, and upon hearing that an embassy to China 
 was preparing he easily obtained an appointment in it through his influence. 
 The account of his journey to Cazan, and through Siberia to China, is by far 
 the most complete and interesting part of his travels. His description of the man- 
 ners, customs, and superstitions of the inhabitants, and of the Delay-lama and 
 Chinese wall, deserve particularly to be noticed. They arrived at Pekin " after 
 a tedious journey of exactly sixteen months." Mr Bell has left a very full 
 account of occurrences during his residence in the capital of China. The em- 
 bassy left that city on the 2nd of March, 1721, and arrived at Moscow on the 
 5th of January, 1722. 
 
 The war between Russia and Sweden was now concluded, and the Czar had de 
 termined to undertake an expedition into Persia, at the request of the Sophy, to 
 assist that prince against the Affghans, his subjects, who had seized upon Kand- 
 ahar, and possessed themselves of several provinces on the frontiers towards India. 
 Mr Bell's former journey to Persia gave him peculiar advantages, and he was 
 accordingly engaged to accompany the army to Derbent, from which he returned 
 in December, 1722. Soon afterwards he revisited his native country, and re- 
 turned to St Petersburgh in 1734. In 1737, he was sent to Constantinople by 
 the Russian Chancellor, and Mr Rondeau the British minister at the Russian 
 court. 1 He seems now to have abandoned the public service, and to have settled 
 at Constantinople as a merchant. About 1746, he married Mary Peters, a Rus- 
 sian lady, and determined to return to Scotland. He spent the latter part of 
 his life on his estate, and in the enjoyment of the society of his friends. At 
 length, after a long life spent in active beneficence, and exertions for the good 
 of mankind, he died at Antermony on the 1st of July, 1780, at the advanced 
 age of 89. 
 
 The only work written by Mr Bell is his " Travels from St Petersburg!! in 
 Russia, to various parts of Asia," to which reference has already been made. It 
 was printed in 2 volumes quarto by Robert and Andrew Foulis, in 1763, and 
 published by subscription. " The history of this book," says the Quarterly 
 Review, " is somewhat curious, and not generally known. For many years aftei 
 Mr Bell returned from his travels, he used to amuse his friends with accounts of 
 what he had seen, refreshing his recollection from a simple diary of occurrences 
 and observations. The Earl Granville, then president of the council, on hearing 
 some of his adventures, prevailed on him to throw his notes together into the 
 form of a narrative, which, when done, pleased him so much that he sent the 
 manuscript to Dr Robertson, with a particular request that he wotdd revise and 
 put it into a fit state for the press. The literary avocations of the Scottish 
 historian at that time not allowing him to undertake the task, he recommended 
 Mr Barron, a professor in the University of Aberdeen, and on this gentleman 
 consulting Dr Robertson as to the style and the book of travels which he would 
 recommend him to adopt for his guide, the historian replied, ' Take Gulliver's 
 Travels for your model, and you cannot go wrong.' He did so, and ' Bell's 
 Travels' have all the simplicity of Gulliver, with the advantage which truth 
 always carries over fiction." 2 
 
 BELL, JOHN, an eminent surgeon in Edinburgh, and of distinguished literary 
 qualifications, was born in 1762. He was the second son of the Rev. William 
 
 1 M'Ure's History of Glasgow, new edition, p. 115. 
 2 Quarterly Review on M'Leod's Voyage in the Alceste, 1817, pp. 464-5.
 
 JOHN BELL. 20J 
 
 Bell, a clergyman of the Scottish Episcopal Church, established at Edinburgh. 
 His mother was the daughter of Mr Morrice, also a member of the Scottish Epis- 
 copal Church. Mr John Bell, after receiving a liberal education, became the 
 pupil of Mr Alexander Wood, surgeon, who was long celebrated in Edin- 
 burgh as a medical practitioner. From the first, Mr Bell devoted himself to his 
 professional studies with that enthusiastic ardour so characteristic of genius, and 
 almost always the precursor of distinction. After completing his professional 
 education he travelled for a short time in Russia, and the north of Europe ; 
 and on his return commenced his professional duties by delivering lectures on 
 Surgery and Midwifery. These lectures, which he delivered between the years 
 1786 and 1796, were very highly esteemed, and speedily brought him into 
 practice as a consulting and operating surgeon. The increase of his private 
 practice, indeed, rendered it necessary for him, in 1796, to discontinue his 
 lectures, and from that time forward he devoted himself to his patients, and to 
 the preparation of the several publications of which he was the author. 
 
 For upwards of twenty years Mr Bell may be said to have stood at the head 
 of his profession in Edinburgh as an operator. Patients came to him from all 
 quarters, both of Scotland and England, and even from the continent ; and 
 during that interval he performed some of the most delicate and difficult opera- 
 tions in surgery. Nor was his celebrity confined to Edinburgh. He was gene- 
 rally known both in this country and throughout the world, as one of the most 
 distinguished men in his profession ; and his works show that his reputation was 
 well founded. 
 
 Early in 1816, he was thrown by a spirited horse; and appears never to 
 have entirely recovered from the effects of the accident. In the autumn of that 
 year he made an excursion, partly on account of his health, to London ; thence 
 he proceeded to Paris, and afterwards pursued his journey southwards, visiting 
 the most distinguished cities of Italy. During his residence on the Continent, he 
 was treated in the most flattering manner by the members of his own profession ; 
 and his countrymen, who, after the peace of 1815, had gone to the Continent 
 in great numbers, gladly took his professional assistance. In Paris, Naples, and 
 Rome in particular, his numerous patients occupied him perhaps too exclusively ; 
 for his health continued to decline, and he died at Rome, April 15, 1820, in 
 the fifty-seventh year of his age. 
 
 Mr Bell very early in life became impressed with a high notion of the ad- 
 vantage of combining general accomplishments with professional skill ; he there- 
 fore spared no pains to qualify himself in every w T ay to assume a favourable po- 
 sition in society. He was a good classical scholar, and so general a reader that 
 there were few works of any note in literature, either ancient or modern, with 
 which he was not familiar. This was remarkably shown in his library, in which 
 there was hardly a volume on any subject which did not bear traces of having 
 been carefully perused and noted by him. His practice was to make annota- 
 tions on the margin as he read ; and considering the engrossing nature of his 
 professional labours, and the several works in which he was himself engaged, 
 nothing is more extraordinary than the evidence which is still in existence cf 
 the extent and variety of his miscellaneous reading. 
 
 The information which he thus acquired was not lost upon him ; he was po- 
 lished and easy in his manners his perception of the ludicrous was keen and 
 the tact with which he availed himself of his extensive reading and general 
 knowledge of all the interesting topics of the day, will be long remembered by 
 those who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. His conversational powers, 
 indeed, were of the very highest order ; and as he had great urbanity and kind- 
 ness of manner, and was happily free from that affectation by which good talkers
 
 JOHN BELL. 
 
 are sometimes distinguished, there were few of his cotemporaries whose society 
 was more generally courted by the upper classes in Edinburgh ; and none who 
 were better tilted to adorn and enliven the circle in which he moved. 
 
 Mr Bell's notions of the dignity of his profession were very high ; and 
 no man perhaps ever discharged his professional duties with more disinterested 
 humanity, and honourable independence. His generosity to those whose cir- 
 cumstances required pecuniary aid was well known, and his contempt for any 
 thing approaching to what he thought mean or narrow minded, was boundless, 
 and frequently expressed in no very measured terms. The warmth of his tem- 
 per, however, involved him in several misunderstandings with his professional 
 brethren ; the most remarkable of which was that which brought him and the 
 late Dr Gregory into collision. The question on which these two distinguished 
 men took opposite sides, related to the right of the junior members of the Col- 
 lege of Surgeons of Edinburgh, to perform operations in the Royal Infirmary. 
 This dispute divided the medical men of Edinburgh towards the close of the last 
 century ; and Dr Gregory and Mr Bell wrote several volumes about it. But, 
 although great wit and much happy sarcasm were displayed on both sides, it is 
 impossible to look back to this dissension without feeling regret that two of the 
 most eminent medical men of their day should have wasted their ingenuity and 
 high talents in acrimonious and unprofitable controversy, on a topic of epheme- 
 ral interest and comparatively minor importance. Mr Bell's principal publica- 
 tion in this controversy was entitled, " Letters on Professional Character and 
 Manners ; on the education of a Surgeon, and the duties and qualifications of a 
 Physician; addressed to James Gregory, M.D. Edinburgh, 1810. It is a 
 large octavo volume, and is characterised by extraordinary acrimony. 
 
 In the fine arts, Mr Bell's taste was very correct. As a painter and draughts- 
 man his talents were far above mediocrity ; and the anatomical drawings by 
 which his works are illustrated have been much admired. He was also a profi- 
 cient in music, with more taste, however, than execution ; and, as Mrs Bell was 
 also a highly accomplished musician, his musical parties, although conducted on 
 a scale of expense which his circumstances hardly warranted, assembled at his 
 house the elite of Edinburgh society. He had no family, and his whole house 
 was laid out for this species of display a foible which those who were inclined 
 to laugh at his expense, did not overlook ; and which was to a certain extent 
 censurable, since his income, although very large, was never equal to his ex- 
 penditure. 
 
 Mr Bell's personal appearance was good. Although considerably under the 
 middle size, he was exceedingly well proportioned, very active, and studiously 
 elegant in his movements. His head was well formed, his features regular, his 
 eyes keen and penetrating, and his whole expression intellectual and intelligent 
 in no ordinary degree. He was also remarkable for the good taste which he 
 exhibited in his dress ; and was altogether a person whom even a stranger could 
 not have passed without recognizing as no ordinary man. 
 
 The limits of this work do not admit of an analysis of Mr Bell's writings. The 
 best is his treatise on " Gun-shot wounds," to enable him to prepare which, he 
 passed some weeks amongst the wounded men of Lord Duncan's fleet, after the 
 battle of Camperdown. 
 
 The following is a complete list of his professional works : 1. The Anatomy 
 of the Human Body, voL i. 8vo. 1793, containing the Bones, Muscles, and 
 Joints; vol. ii. 1797, containing the Heart and Arteries; vol. iii. 1802, con- 
 taining the Anatomy of the Brain, Description of the course of the nerves, and 
 the Anatomy of the Eye and Ear ; with plates by Charles Bell, third edition, 3 
 vols, 8vo. 1811. 2. Engravings of the Bones, Muscles, and Joints, illustrating
 
 WILLIAM BELLENDEN. 207 
 
 the first volume of the Anatomy of the Human Body, drawn and engraved by 
 himself, royal 4to. 1794, third edition. 3. Engravings of the Arteries, illus- 
 trating the second volume of the Anatomy of the Human Body, royal 4to. 1801, 
 third edition, 8vo. 1810. 4. Discourses on the nature and cure of wounds 
 8vo. 1795; third edition, 1812. 5. Answer for the Junior Members of the' 
 Royal College of Surgeons to the Memorial of Dr James Gregory, to the Mana- 
 gers of the Royal Infirmary, 8vo. 1800. 6. The Principles of Surgery, 3 vols. 
 4to. 1801-1808. 7. Letters on Professional Character, &c. His Observa- 
 tions on Italy is a posthumous work, which was edited by his respected friend, 
 the late Bishop Sandford of Edinburgh. 
 
 Mr Bell married Miss Congleton, daughter of Dr Congleton of Edinburgh. 
 His eldest brother was the late Robert Bell, Advocate, Professor of Conveyancing 
 to the Society of Writers to the Signet ; author of the " Scotch Law Dictionary," 
 and of several other works on the law of Scotland ; who died in 1816. John 
 Bell's immediately younger brothers were, the late George Joseph Bell, Advocate, 
 Professor of the Law of Scotland in the University of Edinburgh, and author 
 of "Commentaries on the Law of Scotland," a work of high authority; and 
 the late Sir Charles Bell, F.R.S. of London, the distinguished anatomist and 
 physiologist. It is rare to find so many members of the same family so favourably 
 known to the public. 
 
 BELLENDEN, WILLIAM, more commonly known by his Latin name of Guliel- 
 mus Bellendenus, is one of those learned and ingenious Scotsmen of a former 
 age, who are esteemed in the general literary world as an honour to their coun- 
 try, but with whom that country itself is scarcely at all acquainted. As there 
 were many great but unrecorded heroes before Agamemnon, so may it be said 
 that there have flourished, out of Scotland, many illustrious Scotsmen, whose 
 names have not been celebrated in that country. It is time, however, that this 
 should cease to be the case, at least in reference to William Bellenden, whose 
 intellect appears to have been one of most extraordinary character, and whose 
 intellectual efforts, if in a shape to command more extensive appreciation, would 
 certainly be considered a great addition to those productions which reflect hon- 
 our upon his native country. 
 
 William Bellenden was unquestionably a member of that family whose name 
 has been variously spelled Ballenden, Ballantyn, and latterly Ballantyne, and 
 which has produced several men eminent in Scottish literature. He lived in 
 the reign of James VI., to whom he was Magister Supplicum Libelloncm, 01 
 reader of private petitions, an office probably conferred upon him in considera- 
 tion of his eminent learning. King James, whose many regal faults were re- 
 deemed in no small measure by his sincere love of literature, and his extensive 
 patronage of literary men, provided Bellenden with the means of leading a life 
 of studious retirement at the French capital, where he is said to have afterwards 
 become Professor of Humanity, and an advocate in the parliament of Paris. As 
 he is said to have enjoyed his office of professor in 1602, it would of course appear 
 that James had furnished the necessary allowances for the retirement of his 
 learned protegee out of the slender revenues which he enjoyed in his native 
 kingdom ; a circumstance which enhances the praise due to him for his munifi- 
 cence in a very high degree. 
 
 Bellenden's first work, entitled, " Ciceronis Princeps," and published, appa- 
 rently without his name, in 1608, is a treatise on the duties of a prince, formed 
 out of passages of the works of Cicero referring to that subject. In this work, "he 
 shows that, whoever desires to exercise authority over others, should first of all 
 learn the government of himself; should remember and be obedient to every 
 thing which the laws command ; should on all occasions be ready to hear the
 
 208 WILLIAM BELLENDEN. 
 
 sentiments of the wise ; disdaining whatever bears affinity to corruption, and 
 abhorring the delusions of flattery : he should be tenacious in preserving his 
 dignity, and cautious how he attempts to extend it; he should be remarkable 
 for the purity of his morals, and the moderation of his conduct, and never direct 
 his hand, his eye, or his imagination, to that which is the property of another." 1 
 To the " Ciceronis Princeps," in which Bellenden has only the merit of an in- 
 genious collector, was prefixed an original essay, styled, "Tractatus de Processu 
 et Scriptoribus Rei Politico," in which there is a rich vein of masculine sense 
 and fervent piety, while the origin of our errors in religion, and of our defects 
 in policy and learning, is traced out with considerable accuracy and erudition. 
 In this treatise, the author, while he condemns the monstrous tenets of ancient 
 idolatry, and the gross corruptions of philosophy, bestows many just encomiums 
 on the wisdom and patriotism of some ancient legislators. He informs us that 
 among the Greek theorists, there is no systematic work on the science of poli- 
 tics, at once comprehensive in its principles, and applicable to real life; but 
 acknowledges that much useful information may be gathered from the writings 
 of Xenophon, and the fragments of Solon, Charondas, and Zaleucus. On the 
 authority of Cicero, he represents Demetrius Phalereus as the first person who 
 united the practice of politics with a correct and profound knowledge of his art. 
 He allows, however, great merit to Plato, to Aristotle, to Theophrastus, and oilier 
 imitators of Hippodamus, who, it seems, was the first writer on the subject of 
 government, without being personally concerned in the administration of it. 
 He then speaks with becoming and warm admiration of Cicero, and enumerates 
 the political Avorks of that writer which have come down to us those which 
 were written by him, but Jire now lost and those which he intended to draw 
 up at the request of Atticus. 
 
 Bellenden next published a treatise, formed like the foregoing from detached 
 passages in Cicero, regarding the duties of the consul, senator, and senate among 
 ihe Romans. It was entitled, " Ciceronis Consul, Senator, Populusque Romanus : 
 illustratus publici observatione juris, gravissimi usus disciplina, administrandi 
 temperata ratione : notatis inclinationibus temporum in Rep. et actis rerum in 
 Senatu : qute a Ciceroniana nondum edita profluxere memoria, annorum DCCX. 
 congesta in libros xvi. De statu rerum Romanorum unde jam manavit Ciceronis 
 Princeps, dignus habitus summorum lectione principum." Bellenden has here 
 shown, not only the duties of a senator, or statesman, but upon what basis the 
 rights of a free but jealous people are erected, and the hallowed care those iiK 
 stitutions demand, which have descended to us from our ancestors. This work 
 was published at Paris, in 1612, and like the former, was dedicated to Henry, 
 Prince of Wales. On the title page, the author is termed " Magister Supplicum 
 Libellorum augusti Regis Magnae Britanniae ;" from which it would appear that 
 either there is a mistake in describing him as Master of Requests to the King of 
 Scotland, or he must have been subsequently preferred to the same office for 
 Great Britain. The office, since he resided at Paris, must have been a sinecure. 
 and was probably given to him as a means of sustaining him in literary leisure. 
 
 The next work of Bellenden was entitled, " De Statu Prisci Orbis, in lleli- 
 gione, Re Politica, et Literis, liber unus." It was printed, but may scarcely be 
 described as published, in 1615. This is the most original of Bellenden's works. 
 The expressions and sentiments are all his own, excepting the quotations which 
 he takes occasion to introduce from his favourite Cicero. In this work he lias 
 * : brought to light, from the most remote antiquity, many facts which had been 
 buried in oblivion. Whatever relates to the discipline of the Persians and 
 Egyptians, which was obscure in itself, and very variously dispersed, he has care- 
 1 Parr's Preface to Bcllendeuus.
 
 WILLIAM BELLENDEN. 20 i) 
 
 fully collected, placed in one uniform point of view, and polished with diligent 
 acuteness. In a manner the most plain and satisfactory, he has described" the 
 first origin of states, their progressive political advances, and how they differed 
 from each other. Those fabulous inventions with which Greece has encumbered 
 history, he explains and refutes. Philosophy owes him much. He has confuted 
 .ill those systems which were wild and extravagant, and removed the difficulties 
 from such as were in their operation subservient to religious piety. But he has 
 in particular confirmed and dignified with every assistance of solid argument, 
 whatever tended to serve the great truths of revelation. Much, however, as he 
 has been involved in the gloom of ancient times, he in no one instance assumes 
 the character of a cold unfeeling antiquary; he never employs his talents upon 
 those intricate and useless questions in endeavouring to explain which many 
 luckless and idle ideologists- torment themselves and lose their labour. The style 
 of Bellendenus, in this performance, is perspicuous, and elegant without affecta- 
 tion. The different parts of the work are so well and so judiciously disposed, 
 that we meet with nothing harsh and dissonant, no awkward interval or inter- 
 rtiption, nothing placed where it ought not to remain." 2 
 
 All these three works namely, the " Princeps," the " Consul," and the " De 
 Statu Prisci Orb is," were republished in 1616, in a united form, under the ge- 
 neral title, " DE STATU, LIBRI TRES." Prince Henry being now dead, the whole 
 work was dedicated anew to his surviving brother Charles ; a circumstance which 
 afforded the author an opportunity of paying an ingenious compliment to the 
 latter prince : 
 
 Uno avulso non deficit alter, 
 
 Aureus, et simili frondescit virga metallo. 
 
 Of the justness of this eulogy the politician may have some doubt, but the nmn 
 of feeling will be captivated by its elegance and pathos. 
 
 The last work which Bellenden himself published is of very small extent, con- 
 sisting merely of two short poems : " Caroli Primi et Henries Marias, Regis et 
 Keginae Magnae Britannia?," &c. " Epithalamium ; et in ipsas augustissimas 
 nuptias, Panegyricum Carmen et Flogia." Paris, 1675, 4to. It would appear 
 that Bellenden did not soon forget the kind patronage which he had experienced 
 irom King James, but transferred his gratitude, with his loyalty, to the descen- 
 dants of that prince. This is the only known specimen of Bellenden's efforts in 
 poetry. 
 
 The "De Statu, Libri Tres," which perhaps were never very extensively dif- 
 fused, had latterly become so extremely scarce, as only to be known by name to 
 the most of scholars. From this obscurity, the work was rescued in 1787, by 
 Dr Samuel Pan-, the most eminent British Latinist of modern times. Dr Parr 
 republished it in an elegant form, with a preface, which, though embracing 
 a singular jumble of subjects, and not free from the charge of pedantry, is justly 
 looked upon as one of the most admirable specimens of modern Latin which we 
 possess. Imitating the example of Bellendenus, who prefixed a dedication to 
 each of his three books, the learned editor inscribed them anew to three great 
 men of modern times, Edward Burke, Lord North, and Charles James Fox, who 
 were then the leaders of his own party in British politics. In the preface, he 
 introduced a high allegorical eulogy upon these statesmen, which was admired 
 ns a singularly nervous piece of composition, though there were, of course, diffe- 
 rent opinions as to the justness of the panegyric. He also exposed the plagiary 
 which Middleton, in composing his "Life of Cicero," had committed upon the 
 splendid stores of Bellenden. 
 
 V> hile Bellenden was employed in writing his tripartite work, " De Statu," he 
 * Parr's Preface
 
 210 WILLIAM BELLENDEN. 
 
 had Cicero constantly before him. " His wannest attachment, and incrensin? 
 admiration," to quote the words of Dr Parr, " were necessarily attracted to the 
 character whose writings were the object of his unremitting attention ; whose 
 expressions were as familiar to him as possible ; and whose various and profound 
 learning occupied all the faculties of his soul." He now commenced a still more 
 extensive and laborious cento of the writings of the Roman orator, which In- 
 concluded in sixteen books, and which, with the addition of similar centoes of 
 the writings of Seneca and Pliny the Elder, was to bear the name, " De Tribtis 
 Luminibus Romanorum." The Ciceronian cento, the only one he lived to com- 
 plete, is justly considered a most extraordinary performance. By an exertion 
 of fictitious machinery, akin to the modern historical romance, Cicero is intro- 
 duced as if he had spoken or written the whole from beginning to end. The 
 first seven books give a very concise abstract of the Roman history, from the 
 foundation of the city, to the 647th year, in which he was born. Then he be- 
 comes more particular in the account of his own times, and enlarges very fully 
 on all that happened after his first appearance in public business. He gives an 
 account of the most remarkable of his orations and epistles, and the occasions on 
 which they were written, as also of such of his philosophical works as have come 
 down to us, and of some other pieces that are now lost, ending with a letter he 
 is supposed to have written to Octavianus, afterwards named Augustus, which let- 
 ter, however, is supposed to be spurious. There cannot be a more complete 
 history of the life of Cicero, or of the tumultuous times in which he lived, than 
 this work, all of which, by an exquisite ingenuity, is so faithfully compiled iivnu 
 the known works of the orator, that probably there is not in the whole book a 
 single expression, perhaps not a single word, which is not to be found in that 
 great storehouse of philosophical eloquence. Nor is there any incoherence or 
 awkwardness in this re-arrangement of Cicero's language ; but, on the contrary, 
 the matter flows as gracefully as in the original. " Whatever we find," says 
 Parr, in the different writings of Cicero, elegantly expressed, or acutely con- 
 ceived, Bellendenus has not only collected in one view, but elucidated in the 
 clearest manner. He, therefore, who peruses this performance with the attention 
 which it merits, will possess all the treasures of antiquity, all the energy of the 
 mightiest examples. He will obtain an adequate knowledge of the Roman law, 
 and system of jurisprudence, and may draw, as from an inexhaustible source, an 
 abundance of expressions, the most exquisite in their kind." In the opinion of 
 another critic, 1 it is inconceivable that Bellenden could have composed this sin- 
 gular work, without having the whole of the writings of Cicero, and all the col- 
 lateral authorities, in his mind at once, as it must have been quite impossible to 
 perform such a task by turning over the leaves of the books, in order to find the 
 different expressions suited to the various occasions where they were required. 
 
 After the death of Bellenden, the date of which is only known to have been 
 posterior to 1625, the manuscript of his great work fell into the hands of one 
 Toussaint du Bray, who printed it at Paris in 1631, or 1634, and dedicated it 
 to King Charles I. of Great Britain. It is alleged that the principal part of 
 the impression, about a thousand copies, was shipped for sale in Britain, and 
 was lost on the passage, so that only a few copies survived. The work therefore 
 fell at once into obscurity, and in a few years was scarcely known to exist One 
 copy having found its way to the Cambridge University Library, fell into the 
 hands of Conyers Middleton, the keeper of that institution, who seems to have 
 adopted the idea of making it the ground-work for a Life of Cicero under his 
 own name. Hence has arisen one of the most monstrous instances of literary 
 
 1 The late Earl of Buchan, who had the extraordinary fortune to possess a copy of this 
 rare book.
 
 WILLIAM BELLENDEN. 211 
 
 plugium which modern times have witnessed. The work of Middleton at once 
 attained to great reputation, and chiefly through that skilful arrangement of the 
 \vritings of the orator himself, which Bellenden had provided to his hands. The 
 theft was first denounced by Warton, and subsequently made clear by Dr Parr, 
 in his preface to the " De Statu.'' As the latter gentleman was prepossessed in 
 favour of both the literary and political character of Middleton, the terms in 
 which he speaks of the theft are entitled to the more weight. He commences 
 his exposure in the following strain of tender apology, which we quote in the 
 original, on account of its extraordinary beauty ; for we know not that even the 
 writings of Ttilly exhibit periods more harmonious, or that the human ear has 
 hitherto been gratified with a more enchanting sweetness of language : 
 
 " Litteraj fuerunt Middletono, non vulgares hse et quotidian*, sed uberrimje et 
 maxime exquisitae. Fuit judicium subtile limatumque. Teretes et religiosaa fuer- 
 unt aures. Stylus est ejus ita purus ac suavis, ita salebris sine ullis profluens 
 quiddam et canorum habet, nuuieros ut videatur compleeti, quales in alio quopiam, 
 praeter Addisonum, frustra quaesiveris. Animum fuisse ejusdem parum candidum 
 ac sincerum, id vero, fateor invitus, dolens, coactus." 
 
 " Middleton was a man of no common attainments ; his learning was elegant 
 and profound, his judgment acute and polished ; he had a fine and correct taste ; 
 and his style was so pure and so harmonious, so vigorously flowing without being 
 inflated, that, Addison alone excepted, he seems to be without a rival. As to 
 his mind, 1 am compelled with grief and reluctance to confess, it was neither in- 
 genuous nor faithful. 
 
 " Of the faith of any man, in matters of religion, 1 I presume not to speak 
 with asperity or anger : yet I am vehemently displeased that a man pos- 
 sessed of an elegant and enlightened mind, should deprive Bellenden of the fame 
 lie merited. For I assert, in the most unqualified terms, that Middleton is not 
 only indebted to Bellenden for many useful and splendid materials, but that, 
 wherever it answered his purpose, he has made a mere transcript of his work. 
 He resided at Cambridge, where he possessed all the advantages which that uni- 
 versity and all its valuable libraries afford, to make collections for his undertak- 
 ing. Yet did the man who proposed a system for the regulation of a university 
 library, possess the writings of Bellenden, anticipating all that he professed to 
 accomplish. I cannot deny but that he makes some allusion to this particular 
 work of Bellendenus in his preface, although in a very dark and mysterious 
 manner ; particularly where he speaks of the history of those times, which, who- 
 ever wishes to understand minutely, has only to peruse Cicero's Epistles with at- 
 tention ; of the tediousness of being obliged to peruse Cicero's works two or 
 three times over ; of the care and trouble of consorting for future use various 
 passages scattered through the different volumes ; and, above all, of the very 
 words of Cicero, which give a lustre and authority to a sentiment, when woven 
 originally into the text. 
 
 " To conclude the whole whatever Middleton ostentatiously declares it to 
 be his wish and his duty to do, had been already done to his hands, faithfully 
 and skilfully by Bellendenus, from the beginning to the end of the work ! 
 
 It is impossible to dismiss the life and singular writings of William Bellenden, 
 without a passing expression of regret, that so much ingenuity, so much learning, 
 so much labour, may be expended, without producing even the remuneration of 
 a name for Bellenden, to use a phrase of Buchanan, is a light rather than a 
 name. His last work extended to 824 pages in folio, and he contemplated other 
 two of similar size, and equal labour. Yet all this was so futile, that the very 
 
 1 Middleton \vns a free-thinker.
 
 WILLIAM BERRY. 
 
 next generation of his own countrymen do not appear to have known tliat such 
 a man ever existed. Even after all the care of bibliographers and others, which 
 has searched out the few facts embraced by this imperfect narrative, the name of 
 Bellenden is only known in connexion with certain works, which are, it is true, 
 reputed to be admirable of their kind, but, for every practical purpose, are 
 almost as entirely lost to the world at large, as those libri perditi of Cicero, 
 ivhicii he has himself alluded to with so much regret Nor can Eellenden be 
 described as a man defrauded by circumstances of that fame which forms at once 
 the best motive and the best reward of literature. He must have written wjth 
 but very slender hopes of reputation through the medium of the press. It thus 
 becomes a curious subject of speculation, that so much pains should have been 
 bestowed where there was so little prospect of its reflecting credit or profit upon 
 the labourer. And yet this seems to be rather in consequence of, than in defi- 
 ance to the want of such temptation. The works of the ancient classics, writ- 
 ten when there was no vehicle but manuscripts for their circulation, and a very 
 small circle in which they could be appreciated, are, of all literary performances, 
 the most carefully elaborated : those of the age when printing was in its infancy, 
 such as the works of Bellenden and other great Latinists, are only a degree in- 
 ferior in accuracy and finish ; while these latter times, so remarkable for the fa- 
 cility with which the works of men of genius are diffused, have produced hardly 
 a single w r ork, which can be pointed to as a perfect specimen of carefid work- 
 manship and faultless taste. There is something not ungratifying in this reflec- 
 tion ; it seems to atone to the great memories of the past, for the imperfect re- 
 wards which they enjoyed in life or in fame. If we could suppose that the lofty 
 spirits who once brightened the lustre of knowledge and literature, and died 
 without any contemporary praise, still look down from their spheres upon the 
 present world, it would gratify the moral faculties to think of the pleasure which 
 they must have, in contemplating their half-forgotten but unsurpassed labours, 
 and in knowing that men yet look back to them as the giants of old who have 
 left no descendants in the land. Thus even the aspirate " name " of Bellenden, 
 which almost seems as if it had never had a mortal man attached to it, might 
 reap a shadowy joy from the present humble effort to render it the justice which 
 has been so long withheld. 
 
 BERNARD, made abbot of Aberbrothirk in 13)3, and the first chancellor of 
 king Robert Bruce after his assumption of the crown in 1306, deserves a place 
 in this work, as the supposed writer of that spirited remonstrance which the Scot- 
 tish nobility and barons transmitted, in 1318, to the Roman pontiff, asserting 
 the independency of their country. He held the great seal till his death in 
 1327. Crawford supposes that his surname was Linton. 
 
 BERRY, WILLIAM, an ingenious artist, was born about the year 1730, and 
 bred to the business of a seal-engraver. After serving an apprenticeship under 
 a Mr Proctor at Edinburgh, he commenced business for himself in that city, and 
 soon became distinguished for the elegance of his designs, and the clearness and 
 sharpness of his mode of cutting. At this time the business of a stone-engraver 
 in the Scottish capital was confined to the cutting of ordinary seals, and the most 
 elaborate work of this kind which they undertook, was that of engraving the 
 armorial bearings of the nobility. Mr Berry's views were for several years con- 
 fined to this common drudgery of his art ; but, by studying gome ancient entaglios, 
 he at length conceived the design of venturing into that higher walk, which 
 might be said to bear the same relation to seal-engraving, which historical paint- 
 ing does to portrait-painting. The subject he chose for his first essay was a head 
 of Sir Isaac Newton, which he executed with such precision and delicacy, as 
 astonished all who had an opportunity of observing it The modesty of 31r
 
 WILLIAM BERRY. 213 
 
 Berry permitted him to consign this gem to the hands of a friend in a retired 
 situation of life, who had few opportunities of showing it to others. He resumed 
 his wonted drudgery, satisfied, we may suppose, with that secret consciousness 
 of triumphant exertion, which, to some abstracted minds, is not to be increased, 
 but rather spoilt, by the applause of the uninitiated multitude. For many years 
 this ingenious man " narrowed h:s mind " to the cutting of heraldic seals, while 
 in reality, he must have known that his genius fitted him for a competition wit'i 
 the highest triumphs of Italian art When he was occasionally asked to under- 
 take somewhat finer work, he generally found that, though he only deman led 
 perhaps half the money which he could have earned in humbler work during the 
 same space of time, yet even that was grudged by his employers ; and he there- 
 fore found that mere considerations of worldly prudence demanded his almost 
 exclusive attention to the ordinary walk of his profession. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the course of a few years, the impulse of genius so far over- 
 came his scruples, that he executed various heads, any one of which would have 
 been sufficient to ensure him fame among judges of excellence in this depart- 
 ment of art. Among these were heads of Thomson, author of " the Seasons," 
 Mary Queen of Scots, Oliver Cromwell, Julius Caesar, a young Hercules, and Mr 
 Hamilton of Bangour, the well-known poet Of these only two were copies from 
 the antique ; and they were executed in the finest style of those celebrated enta- 
 glios. The young Hercules, in particular, possessed an unaffected plain simpli- 
 city, a union of youthful innocence with strength and dignity, which struck 
 every beholder as most appropriate' to that mythological personage, while it was, 
 at the same time, the most difficult of all expressions to be hit off by the faithful 
 imitator of nature. As an actor finds it much less difficult to imitate any extra- 
 vagant violence of character, than to represent, with truth and perspicuity, the 
 elegant ease of the gentleman ; so the painter can much more easily delineate 
 the most violent contortions of countenance, than that placid serenity, to express 
 which requires a nice discrimination of such infinitely small degrees of variation 
 in certain lineaments, as totally elude the observation of men, on whose minds 
 nature has not impressed, with her irresistible hand, that exquisite perceptive 
 faculty, which constitutes the essence of genius in the fine arts. 
 
 BeiTy possessed this perceptive faculty to a degree which almost proved an 
 obstruction, rather than a help, in his professional career. In his best perform- 
 ances, he himself remarked defects which no one else perceived, and which he 
 believed might have been overcome by greater exertion, if for that greater exer- 
 tion he could have spared the necessary time. Thus, while others applauded his 
 entaglios, he looked upon them with a morbid feeling of vexation, arising from 
 the sense of that struggle which his immediate personal wants constantly main- 
 tained with the nobler impulses of art, and to which his situation in the world 
 promised no speedy cessation. This gave him an aversion to the higher depart- 
 ment of his art, which, though indulged to his own temporary comfort, and the 
 advantage of his family, was most unfortunate for the world. 
 
 In spite of every disadvantage, the works of Mr Berry, few as they were in 
 number, became gradually known in society at large ; and some of his pieces 
 were even brought into competition, by some distinguished cognoscenti, with 
 those of Piccler at Home, who had hitherto been the unapproached sovereign ot 
 this department of the arts. Although the experience of Piccler was that of a 
 constant practitioner, while Mr Berry had only attempted a few pieces at long 
 intervals in the course of a laborious life ; although the former li ved in a country 
 where every artificial object was attuned to the principles of art, while Mr Berry 
 was reared in a soil remarkable for the absence of all such advantages ; the lat- 
 ter was by many good judges placed above his Italian contemporary. The re-
 
 214 WILLIAM BERRY. 
 
 spective works of the two artists were well known to each other ; and each de- 
 clared, with that manly ingenuousness, which very high genius alone can con- 
 fer on the human mind, that the other was greatly his superior. 
 
 Mr Berry possessed not merely the art of imitating busts or figures set before 
 him, in which he could observe and copy the prominence or depression of the 
 parts : but he possessed a faculty which presupposes a much nicer discrimination : 
 that of being able to execute a figure in relievo, with perfect justness in all it> 
 parts, which was copied from a painting or drawing upon a flat surface. This 
 was fairly put to the test in the head he executed of Hamilton of Bangour 
 That gentleman had been dead several years, when his relations wished to havo 
 a head of him executed by Berry. The artist had himself never seen 3Ir Ham- 
 ilton, and there remained no picture of him but an imperfect sketch, which was 
 by no means a striking likeness. This was put into the hands of Mr Berry, by 
 a person who had known the deceased poet, and who pointed out the defects ol 
 the resemblance in the best way that words can be made to correct things of this 
 nature ; and from this picture, with the ideas that 3Ir Berry had imbibed from 
 the corrections, he made a head, which every one who knew Mr Hamilton, al- 
 lowed to be one of the most perfect likenesses that could be wished for. In 
 this, as in all his works, there was a correctness in the outline, and a truth and 
 delicacy in the expression of the features, highly emulous of the best antiques ; 
 which were, indeed, the models on which he fonned his taste. 
 
 The whole number of heads executed by Mr Berry did not exceed a dozen ; 
 but, besides these, he executed some full-length figures of both men and animals, 
 in his customary style of elegance. That attention, however, to the interests of 
 a numerous family, which a man of sound principles, as Mr Berry was, could 
 never allow himself to lose sight of, made him forego those agreeable exertions, 
 for the more lucrative, though less pleasing employment, of cutting heraldic seals, 
 which may be said to have been his constant employment from morning to night, 
 for forty years together, with an assiduity that almost surpasses belief. In this 
 department, he was, without dispute, the first artist of his time ; but even here, 
 that modesty which was so peculiarly his own, and that invariable desire of giv- 
 ing perfection to every thing he put out of his hand, prevented him from drawing 
 such emoluments from his labours as they deserved. Of this the following anec- 
 dote will serve as an illustration, and as an additional testimony of his very great 
 skilL Henry, Duke of Buccleuch, on succeeding to his title and estates, was 
 desirous of having a seal cut, with his arms properly blazoned upon it. But, as 
 there were no fewer than thirty-two compartments in the shield, which was of 
 necessity confined to a very small space, so as to leave room for the supporters 
 and other ornaments, within the compass of a seal of ordinary size, he found it 
 a matter of great difficulty to get it executed. Though a native of Scotland 
 himself, the noble Duke had no idea that there was a man of first-rate eminence 
 in this art in Edinburgh ; and accordingly he had applied to the best seal-en- 
 gravers in London and Paris, all of whom declared it to be beyond their power. 
 At this time, Berry was mentioned to him, with such powerful recommendations, 
 that he was induced to pay him a visit, and found him, as usual, seated at his 
 wheel The gentleman who had mentioned Mr Berry's name to the Duke, 
 accompanied him on his visit This person, without introducing the Duke, 
 showed Mr Berry the impression of a seal which the Duchess-dowager had got 
 cut a good many years before by a Jew in London, now dead, and which had 
 been shown to others as a pattern ; asking him if he would cut a seal the same 
 as that. After examining it a little, Mr Berry answered readily, that he would. 
 The Duke, at once pleased and astonished, exclaimed, " Will you, indeed!" 
 Mr Berry, who thought that this implied some doubt of his ability to perform
 
 HUGH BINNING. 215 
 
 what he undertook, was a little piqued, and turning round to the Duke, whom 
 fie had never before seen, he said, " Yes, Sir ; if I do not make a better seal 
 than this, I will charge no payment for it.'' The Duke, highly pleased, left the 
 pattern with Mr Berry, and went away. The original contained, indeed, the 
 various devices of the thirty-two compartments distinctly enough to be seen ; but 
 none of the colours were expressed. Mr Berry, in proper time, finished the 
 seal ; on which the figures were not only done with superior elegance, but the 
 colours on every part so distinctly marked that a painter could delineate the 
 whole, or a herald blazon it, with perfect accuracy. For this extraordinary and 
 most ingenious labour, he charged no more than thirty-two guineas, tbough the 
 pattern seal had cost -seventy-five. Thus it was, that, though possessed of talents 
 unequalled in their kind, at least in Britain, and assiduity not to be surpassed, 
 observing at the same time the strictest economy in his domestic arrangements 
 Mr Berry died at last, in circumstances far from affluent, June 3d, 1783, in the 
 fifty-third year of his age, leaving a numerous family of children. It had been 
 the lot of this ingenious man, to toil unceasingly for a whole life, without obtain- 
 ing any other reward than the common boon of mere subsistence, while his abili- 
 ties, in another sphere, or in an age more qualified to appreciate and employ 
 them, might have enabled him to attain at once to fame and fortune in a rery 
 few years. His art, it may be remarked, has made no particular progress in 
 Scotland, in consequence of his example. The genius of Berry was solitary, 
 both in respect of place and time, and has never been rivalled by any other of 
 his countrymen. It must be recorded, to the honour of this unrequited genius, 
 that his character in private life was as amiable and unassuming as his talents 
 were great ; and that his conduct on all occasions was ruled by the strictest prin- 
 ciples of honour and integrity. 
 
 BINNING, HUGH, an extraordinary instance of precocious learning and genius, 
 was the son of John Binning of Dalvennan, a landed gentleman of Ayrshire. 
 He appears to have been born about the year 1627. In his earliest years he 
 outstripped all his seniors in the acquisition of Latin. At Glasgow college, which 
 he entered in his fourteenth year, lie distinguished himself very highly in philo- 
 sophy. What was to others only gained by hard study, seemed to be intuitively 
 known by Binning. After taking the degree of Master of Arts, he began to 
 study for the church. When Mr James Dalrymple, afterwards Lord Stair, vacated 
 the chair of philosophy at Glasgow, Binning, though not yet nineteen, stood a 
 competitor with some men of graver years and very respectable acquirements, 
 and gained the object of his ambition by the pure force of merit. Though un- 
 prepared for entering upon his duties, no deficiency was remarked. He was one 
 of the first in Scotland to reform philosophy from the barbarous jargon of the 
 schools. While fulfilling the duties of his chair in the most satisfactory manner, 
 he continued his study of theology, and a vacancy occurring in the church of 
 Govan, near Glasgow, he received a call to be its minister. Here he married 
 Barbara Simpson, the daughter of a presbyterian clergyman in Ireland. As a 
 preacher, Mr Binning's fame was very great : his knowledge was extensive, and 
 there was a fervour in his eloquence which bore away the hearts of his congrega- 
 tion, as it were, to heaven. At the division of the church into Kesolutioners 
 and Protesters, he took the latter and more zealous side, but yet was too full of 
 virtuous and benevolent feeling to be a violent partizan. In order to heal the 
 difference as much as possible, he wrote a treatise on Christian love. W hen 
 Oliver Cromwell came to Glasgow, he caused a dispute to be held between his 
 own independent clergymen, and the Scottish presbyterian ministers. Binning 
 having nonplussed his opponents, Cromwell asked the name of " that bold young 
 man." On being told that he was called Mr Hugh Binning, the sectarian gene-
 
 216 
 
 CHARLES BISSET. 
 
 ral said, " lie hath bound well, indeed, but '' (chipping his hand upon his sword, 
 " this will loose all again." This excellent young preacher died of consumption, 
 1653, in his twenty-sixth year, leaving behind him a reputation for piety, vir- 
 tue, and learning, such as has rarely been attained by any individual under that 
 age. Besides his treatise on Christian love, he wrote many miscellaneous pieces, 
 of a pious nature, which were published, in 1732, in one volume quarto. A 
 selection from these, under the title of " Evangelical Beauties of Hugh Binning," 
 appeared in 182i), with a memoir of the author by the llev John Brown t>i 
 Whitburn. 
 
 BISSAT, OR B1SSART, PBTER, professor of the Canon Law in the University 
 of Bononia, was born in Fife in the reign of James V., being a descendant ol 
 Thomas Bissat, or Bissart, who was Earl of Fife in the reign of David II. He 
 received instructions in grammar, philosophy, and the laws, at the University of 
 St Andrews, and afterwards perfected his education at that of Paris. Having 
 then travelled into Italy, he was honoured by the University of Bononia with 
 the degree of Doctor of Laws, and shortly after became professor of the Canon 
 Law in that seminary, in which situation he continued for several years, " with 
 great applause." 
 
 Bissat appears to have been a man of general accomplishment a poet, an 
 orator, and a philosopher ; but his forte lay in the Canon Law. His various 
 writings were published at Venice in 15o5, in quarto, under the title, " Patricii 
 Bissarti Opera Omnia, viz. Poemata, Orationes, Lectiones Feriales, et Liber de 
 Irregularitate." The last of these compositions was a commentary on that part 
 of the Canon Law which gives the reasons assigned by the Church of Home for 
 excluding certain laymen from the clergy. 1 Bissat died in the latter part of the 
 year 1568. 
 
 BISSET, CHARLES, an ingenious physician and writer on Fortification, was 
 born at Glenalbert, near Dunkeld, in the year 1717. It is alone known, re- 
 garding his parentage, that his father was a lawyer of some eminence, and a 
 distinguished Latinist After a course of medical studies at Edinburgh, he \v;is 
 appointed, in 1740, second surgeon of the Military Hospital in Jamaica, and 
 spent several years in the West India Islands, and in Admiral Vernon's fleet, in 
 
 1 Of these, as detailed by Bissat, an abstract may be interesting to the British reader, 
 now happily so little familiar with the systems of the Catholic Church. Tin: primitive 
 Christians, in admitting the clergy, observed exactly the rules laid down by St Paul in the 
 first ep'stle to Timothy. Yet sometimes, as we learn from Jst Cyprian, at the pressing in- 
 stance of the people, persons of noted merit, who refused through humility, were compelled 
 to enter. By the canons, however, a man required to be a deacon before he could be a priest, 
 and a priest before he could be a bishop. It was a general principle of the church, that the 
 clergy should be chosen from the most holy of the laity, and, therefore, all liable to any re- 
 proach in their lives and conversations, were excluded. Agreeably to this principle, which 
 agreed with the injunction of St Paul, that they should be blameless and without reproach, 
 the first council of Nice excluded all those, specifically, who, after baptism, had been guilty 
 of any sort of crime, such as heresy, homicide, or adultery, nor was penance any pallia- 
 tive, seeing that the memory of the offence always remained ; while it was to be expected 
 lliat those whose lives were without stain should be preferred to those who had fallen. Thus 
 all persons who had performed penance were excluded. Those also were deemed irregular, 
 and not entitled to admittance, who had killed any person, bv accident or in self-defence, 
 or who had borne arms even in a just war ; who had twice married, or married a widow ; 
 or who engaged much in worldly affairs ; all of which circumstances were held as derogating 
 in some degree from the necessary purity of the iinli\ idual. The only other moral disqua- 
 lification was ignorance: the physical disqualification-, were almost equally numerous. All 
 deaf, dumb, or blind persons were excluded, as unable to perform their functions in a pro- 
 per manner. All persons who were lame, or had any deformity calculated to create an 
 aversion in the people, were declared unfit for orders. Madness and self-mutilation were 
 disqualifications. All persons born out of wedlock were excluded, because, however inno- 
 cent the individual in his own person, the associations which the sight of them was calcu- 
 lated to awaken, were not favourable to virtue. Slaves, servants, children, and mona>l.c 
 clergy without the consent of their superiors, were excluded.
 
 CHARLES BISSET. 217 
 
 order to become acquainted with the diseases of the torrid zone. The physician 
 who studies new and local forms of disease, with their symptoms, and natural 
 and accidental terminations, whatever may be his success as a medical practi- 
 tioner, may justly be said to perform good service to his kind. His observations 
 are not of less value than those of the cautious and expert navigator, who 
 searches and describes shores hitherto unknown. But, while thus seeking to avert 
 disease from others, Dr Bisset became himself liable to its ravages. Having, in 
 1745, contracted ill health at Greenwich in Jamaica, he was under the necessity 
 of resigning his situation as second surgeon, in order to return to Britain. In 
 May, 1746, he purchased an ensigncy in the 42nd (Highland) regiment, so well 
 known for a long train of military glories, and which was then commanded by 
 Lord John Murray. By this transition, his attention was turned from the medi- 
 cal to the military pi-ofession, and fortification became his favourite study. After 
 a fruitless descent on the coast of Brittany in September, 1748, and passing a 
 winter at Limerick in Ireland, the regiment was, in the beginning of next cam- 
 paign, brought into action at Sandberg, near Hulst, in Dutch Flanders, where 
 one Dutch and two English regiments suffered very severely. Here Dr Bisset 
 employed himself" in drawing a sketch of the enemy's approaches, and some time 
 after, in another of Bergen-op-Zoom, with the permanent lines, the environs, 
 and the enemy's first parallel ; which were presented by his colonel to the Duke 
 of Cumberland, the commander-in-chief. The Duke was so much pleased with 
 these specimens of Dr Bisset's military knowledge, that he ordered him to attend 
 the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, and give due attention daily to the progress of 
 both the attack and the defence, in order to form a journal of the whole pro- 
 ceedings. This distinguished duty Dr Bisset undertook with a modest reluc- 
 tance, the result rather of inexperience than of any consciousness of want of 
 knowledge. The result, however, was highly honourable to him, His journals, 
 duly illustrated with plans, were daily delivered to Lord John Murray, who for- 
 warded them every second or third day, to the Duke, who was then at Maestricht, 
 at the head of the allied army, observing the motions of the French army under 
 Marshal Saxe. His royal highness was pleased to express his approbation, by 
 recommending Dr Bisset to the Duke of Montagu, then master-general of the 
 ordnance, who honoured him with a warrant as engineer extraordinary to the 
 brigade of engineers ; he was at the same time promoted to a lieutenancy in 
 the army. 
 
 At the end of the war, being placed on half-pay, he had full leisure to pursue 
 his studies in fortification, and also to visit the principal specimens of the .art 
 upon the Continent. The result was his " Essay on the Theory and Construc- 
 tion of Fortifications," which appeared in 1751, in 8vo. 
 
 His attention being now disengaged from this pursuit, he resumed his original 
 profession, and, for the sake of a salubrious air, which was necessary to his 
 weakly constitution, retired to practise at the village of Skelton, in Cleveland, 
 Yorkshire, where he spent all the remainder of his life. In 1755, when the 
 Seven Years' War was impending, he published a " Treatise on the Scurvy, with 
 Remarks on the Cure of Scorbutic Ulcers," which he dedicated to Viscount An- 
 son, and the other Lords of the Admiralty. In 1762, appeared his "Essay on 
 th^ Medical Constitution of Great Britain," which he inscribed to his friend Sir 
 John Pringle. In this work he shows the effects of the change of weather, and 
 of the seasons, on the diseases of Great Britain ; and at the conclusion is an 
 interesting paper on the virtues of the herb BearVfoot, in the cure of worms. 
 In 1765, the University of St Andrews conferred upon him the degree of M.D. 
 In 1766, he published, at Newcastle, a volume of " Medical Essays and Observa- 
 tions," in which are upwards of twenty papers on the climate and diseases of the
 
 218 JOSEPH BLACK, M.D. 
 
 West Indies, which his experience in that country had enabled him to illustrate 
 in a most satisfactory manner; besides some others on the chronic diseases of 
 Great Britain, particularly the hooping-<;.>ugh and the scorbutic itch, as well as 
 .nany chirurgical remarks, which show a mini Lent on the improvement of his 
 profession. A few years before his death, he deposited, in the Library of the 
 Infirmary at Leeds, a manuscript of medical observations, in octavo, and extend- 
 ing to nearly seven hundred pages; for which the physicians of that institution 
 honoured him with a formal vote of thanks. Dr Bisset also presented a manu- 
 script treatise on fortification to the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.) ; 
 which was deposited in his Royal Highness's private library. These, with a 
 small published treatise on naval tactics, and a few political papers, constituted 
 the whole of the intellectual exertions of this distinguished man ; who died at 
 Knayton, near Thirsk, in May 1791, aged seventy-five years. 
 
 BLACK, JOSEPH, M.D. " the illustrious Nestor (as he lias been termed by 
 Lavoisier) of the chemical revolution," was not a native of Scotland, having 
 been born on the banks of the Garonne, in France ; but as his father was of 
 Scottish extraction, while his mother was a native of that country, and as Scot- 
 land, further, was the scene not only of the better part of his life, but of all 
 those exertions in science which will transmit his name to posterity, it seems pro- 
 per that he should obtain a place in this work, even at the expense of a slight 
 violation of its leading principle. 
 
 John Black, the father of the illustrious subject of this memoir, was a native 
 of Belfast, descended, as already mentioned, from a Scottish family, which had 
 for some time been settled there. For the purpose of carrying on the profession 
 of a wine-merchant, he resided chiefly at Bourdeaux, where he married a daugh- 
 ter of Mr Robert Gordon of Billhead in Aberdeenshire ; a gentleman who also 
 resided at Bourdeaux, and was engaged in the same trade. The sister of Mrs 
 Black was mother to Mr Russel, professor of natural philosophy in the university 
 of Edinburgh, and their aunt was mother to Dr Adam Ferguson, professor of 
 moral philosophy in the same college, and author of the History of the Roman 
 Republic. While Mr John Black resided at Bourdeaux, he was honoured with 
 the friendship of Montesquieu, who was president of the parliament or court of 
 justice in that province. " My father," says Dr Black, " was honoured with 
 President Montesquieu's friendship, on account of his good character and virtues. 
 He had no ambition to be very rich ; but was cheerful and contented, benevolent 
 and liberal-minded. He was industrious and prudent in business, of the strictest 
 probity and honour, very temperate and regular in his manner of life. He and 
 my mother, who was equally domestic, educated thirteen of their children, eight 
 sons and five daughters, who all grew up to men and women, and were settled in 
 different places. My mother taught her children to read English, there being 
 no school for that purpose at Bourdeaux." The regard which Montesquieu en- 
 t'jrtainod for Mr Black was testified in the warmest terms, when the latter was 
 proposing to return to his native country. " I cannot," said he, on that occasion, 
 " be reconciled to the thoughts of your leaving Bourdeaux. I lose the most 
 agreeable pleasure I had, that of seeing you often, and forgetting myself with 
 you.'' 
 
 , Dr Black was born in the year 1728. In 1740, a few years before his fath >r 
 retired from business, he was sent home, in order to have the education of a 
 British subject After spending some time at the schools of Belfast, he was sent 
 in 1746, to complete his studies at the college of Glasgow. Here his attention 
 became decidedly fixed upon physical science; insomuch that, on being desired 
 to select a profession, he chose that of medicine, on account of its allowing tho 
 greatest scope for such studies. It was about this time that Dr Cullen had been
 
 
 
 EIPM [ 
 
 :tEMI3TRY. UNIVERSITY OF GLASC-OW- 
 
 BLACK1E & r '
 
 JOSEPH BLACK, M.D. 219 
 
 appointed lecturer on chemistry in Glasgow university. Hitherto this science 
 had been only treated as a curious, and, in some respects, a useless art. This 
 great man, conscious of his own strength, and taking a wide and comprehensive 
 view, saw the unoccupied field of philosophical chemistry open before him. He 
 was satisfied that it was susceptible of great improvement, by means of liberal 
 inquiry and rational investigation. It was perhaps the good fortune of Dr Black, 
 in falling under such a master, that gave his mind a peculiar bent in favour of 
 this department of physical science. His previous acquirements and extraordin- 
 ary aptitude speedily became known to Dr Cullen, who was at all times remark- 
 able for the personal attentions he paid to his pupils. Black became a valuable 
 assistant to Dr Cullen in his chemical operations, and his experiments were some- 
 times publicly adduced in the lecture, as a sufficient authority for vai-ious new 
 facts. Thus commenced a friendship between two great men, which was never 
 afterwards interrupted, except by the Great Divider of kindred minds and loving 
 hearts, and which was of considerable service to mankind. 
 
 In 1751, Black was sent to Edinburgh to complete the course of his medical 
 studies. At this time, the mode of action of lithotriptic medicines, but parti- 
 cularly lime water, in alleviating the pains of stone and gravel, divided the opin- 
 ions of professors and practitioners. This subject attracted the attention of Black, 
 and it appears from some of his memorandums, that he at first held the opinion, 
 that the causticity of alkalis was owing to the igneous matter which they derive 
 from quick lime. Having prosecuted his experiments on magnesia, the grand 
 secret of nature, which for ever will be associated with his name, was laid open 
 to him. He perceived that the acrimony of these substances was not owing to 
 their combination with igneous particles ; that it was their peculiar property ; 
 and that they lost this property, and became mild, by combining with a certain 
 portion of air, to which he gave the name of FIXED AIR ; because it was fixed or 
 become solid in the substances, into the composition of which it entered. He 
 discovered, for instance, that a cubic inch of marble consisted of half its weight 
 of pure lime, and a quantity of air equal to six gallons measure. This grand 
 discovery, which forms one of the most important eras of chemical science, was 
 the subject of his inaugural essay, on obtaining his degree as doctor of medicine ; 
 and the reputation it acquired for him, was the means, in 1756, of placing him 
 in the chair of chemistry at Glasgow, then vacated by Dr Cullen, who was trans- 
 ferred to the same chair in the college of Edinburgh. The theory of fixed air 
 (now termed by chemists, carbonic acid gas,) was speedily propagated on the con- 
 tinent, where at this time chemistry was occupying the attention of many great 
 men. In Germany, Dr Black's opinions, though placed on the firmest basis by 
 experiments, met with much opposition, which, it appears, gave him an uneasi- 
 ness not to have been expected from his philosophical, and rather indolent char- 
 acter. In France, however, he was very differently treated. Lavoisier, in send- 
 ing him a copy of his treatise on respiration, thus expressed himself: " It is but 
 just you should be one of the first to receive information of the progress made 
 in a career which you yourself have opened, and in which all of us here consider 
 ourselves your disciples." To this Black replied, with a just admiration of what 
 the French chemists were doing, and without reference to any merit of his own. 
 On his assuming the chair of chemistry at Glasgow, that of anatomy was also 
 imposed upon him ; but this latter he soon exchanged for that of medicine, for 
 which, it would appear, he was better qualified. He gave great satisfaction by 
 the perspicuity and simplicity, the caution and moderation, which he discovered 
 in his medical lectures. At the same time, he became a favourite practitioner in 
 the city, where his engaging appearance and manners, snd the benevolent 
 and unaffected interest which he took in all the cases entrusted to his care, ren-
 
 2'20 JOSEPH BLACK, M.D. 
 
 dered him a most welcome visitor in every family. His principal hiend at 
 Glasgow was his associate Dr Adam Smith, professor of moral philosophy, with 
 whom he had become intimate, when attending the university as a student. A 
 peculiar simplicity and sensibility, an incorruptible integrity, the strictest deli- 
 racy and correctness of manners, marked the character of each of the philoso- 
 phers, and firmly bound them in the closest union. 
 
 " It seems to have been between the year 175J and 17G3, 1 that his specula- 
 tions concerning HEAT, which had long occupied his thoughts, were brought to 
 maturity. And when it is considered by what simple experiments, by what 
 familiar observations, Dr Black illustrated the Laws of fluidity and evaporation, 
 it appears wonderful that they had not long before been observed and demon- 
 strated. They are, however, less obvious than might at first sight be imagined, 
 and to have a distinct and clear conception of those seemingly simple processes of 
 nature, required consideration and reflection. If a piece of wood, a piece of lead, 
 and a piece of ice, are placed in a temperature much inferior to that of the body ; 
 and if we touch the piece of wood with the hand, it feels cold ; if we touch the piece 
 cf lead, it feels colder still ; but the piece of ice feels colder than either. Now, 
 the first suggestion of sense is, that we receive cold from the wood ; that we re- 
 ceive more from the lead ; and most of all from the ice ; and that the ice con- 
 tinues to be a source of cold till the whole be melted. But an inference pre- 
 cisely the contrary to all this is made by him, whose attention and reflection has 
 been occupied with this subject. He infers that the wood takes a little heat from 
 the hand, but is soon heated so much as to take no more. The lead takes more 
 heat before it be as much satiated ; and the ice continues to feel equally cold, 
 and to carry off heat as fast as in the first moment, till the whole be melted. 
 This, then, was the inference made by Dr Blade 
 
 " Boerhaave has recorded an interesting observation by Fahrenheit, namely, 
 that water would sometimes grow considerably colder than melting snow without 
 freezing, and would freeze in a moment when shaken or disturbed ; and in the 
 act cf freezing give out many degrees of heat. Founded on this observation, it 
 appears that Dr Black entertained some vague notion or conjecture, that the 
 heat which was received by the ice, during its conversion into water, was not 
 lest, but was still contained in the water. And he hoped to verify this conjec- 
 tuie, by making a comparison of the time required to raise a pound of water one 
 degree in its temperature, with the time required to melt a pound of ice, both 
 being supposed to receive the heat equally fast. And that he might ascertain 
 how much heat was extricated during congelation, he thought of comparing the 
 time required to depress the temperature of a pound of water one degree, with 
 the time required for freezing it entirely. The plan of this series of experiments 
 occurred to him during the summer season. But for want of ice, which he could 
 not then procure, he had no opportunity of putting them to the test He there- 
 fore waited impatiently for the winter. The winter arrived, and the decisive 
 experiment was performed in the month of December I7(il. From this experi- 
 ment it appeared that as much heat was taken up by the ice, during its liquefac- 
 tion, as would have raised the water 140 degrees in its temperature, and on the 
 ether hand, that exactly the same quantity of heat was given out during the 
 congelation of the water. But this experiment, the result of which Dr Black 
 eagerly longed for, only informed him how much heat was absorbed by the \CM 
 during liquefaction, was retained by the water while it remained fluid, and was 
 again emitted by it in the process of freezing. But his mind was deeply im- 
 pressed with the truth of the doctrine, by reflecting on the observations that 
 
 1 Thn following most interesting account of one of the principal discoveries in modern sci- 
 ence is from a biographical memoir, prefixed by professor Holjisun to Dr Black's lectures.
 
 JOSEPH BLACK, M.D. 221 
 
 presented themselves when a frost or thaw happened to prevail. The hills are 
 uct at once cleared of snow during the sunshine of the brightest winter day, nor 
 were the ponds suddenly covered with ice during a single frosty night Much 
 heat is absorbed and fixed in the water during the melting of the snow ; and 
 on the other hand, while the water is changed into ice, much heat is extricated 
 During a thaw, the thermometer sinks when it is removed from the air, and 
 placed in the melting snow ; and during severe frost, it rises when plunged into 
 freezing water. In the first case, the snow receives heat ; and in the last, the 
 water allows the heat to escape again. These were fair and unquestionable in 
 ferences, and now they appear obvious and easy. But although many ingenious 
 and acute philosophers had been engaged in the same investigations, and had 
 employed the same facts in their disquisitions, those obvious inferences were en 
 tirely overlooked. It was reserved for Dr Black to remove the veil which hid 
 this mystery of nature, and by this important discovery, to establish an era in 
 the progress of chemical science, one of the brightest, perhaps, which has yet 
 occurred in its history." 
 
 Dr Black explained his theory of latent heat such was the name he himself 
 gave to it to the members of a literary society, April 23, 1762, and afterwards 
 laid before his students a detailed view of the extensive and beneficial effects of 
 this habitude in the grand economy of nature. From observing the analogy 
 between the cessation of expansion by the thermometer, during the liquefaction 
 of the ice, and during the conversion of water into steam, Dr Black, having 
 explained the one, thought that the phenomena of boiling and evaporation would 
 admit of a similar explanation. He was so convinced of the truth of this theory, 
 that he taught it in his lectures in 1761, before he had made a single experi- 
 ment on the subject At this period, his prelections on the subject of evapora- 
 tion were of great advantage to Mr James Watt, afterwards so distinguished for 
 his application of steam power. His discovery, indeed, may be said to have laid 
 the foundation of that great practical use of steam, which has conferred so im- 
 mense a blessing upon the present age. 
 
 In 1766, on Dr Cullen being removed from the chair of chemistry at Edin- 
 burgh, to that of medicine, Dr Black, as formerly, supplied the vacant place. In 
 this new scene, he saw that his talents would become more conspicuous, and 
 of more extensive utility. He was therefore encouraged to devote himself, with 
 still more enthusiastic zeal, to his duties as a chemical teacher. In this he was 
 so far successful, that chemistry at length became a fashionable study in the Scot- 
 tish capital, and a necessary part of the education of every gentleman. After 
 this period, however, he retired from the field of chemical research, which now 
 began to be occupied by a great number of distinguished philosophers. The 
 cause of this was the delicate state of his health, aided, perhaps, a little by that 
 indolence, or rather perhaps absence of ambitious motive, which has been already 
 alluded to. It is to be regretted that, for the same reason, he can scarcely 
 be said to have published any thing to the world, by which his discoveries 
 might be permanently secured to the honour of his own name. From the period 
 of his accession to the chemical chair at Edinburgh, he was, for thirty years, a 
 most distinguished member of the professional society, which then adorned the 
 capital, and has since given such an Augustan eclat to the latter age of the eigh- 
 teenth century. Whatever obstruction his health proved in the way of publish- 
 ing, it never marred the active discharge of his duties. His courses became 
 every year plainer and more familiar, and were attended by a larger number of 
 pupils. The simplicity and elegance of his experiments were always much ad- 
 mired. His manner and appearance were peculiarly pleasing. His voice in 
 lecturing was lo\v and fine, and his articulation so distinct that it was perfectly
 
 222 JOHN BLACKADDER. 
 
 well heard by a large audience. His discourse was remarkable for plainness and 
 perspicuity ; all his illustrations, whether by experiment, or by reference to the 
 processes of nature, were quite apposite ; his hearers rested with the most entire 
 confidence on his conclusions, and even the most illiterate could not mistake his 
 sentiments. 
 
 Dr Black's conduct in private life was marked by a striking degree of deco- 
 rum, without the slightest approach to formality. His habit of studying physical 
 science rendered him very much a man of facts and demonstrations : he is said 
 to have been so entirely destitute of fancy, or to have so effectually repressed 
 that faculty, that he never was known to utter a joke. In his domestic affairs, 
 he was rigidly frugal and methodical ; yet his house was open to an enlightened 
 hospitality, in which he enjoyed as much of the society of his friends as his deli- 
 cate health would permit. His chief friends were Smith, Hume, Carlyle, Home, 
 and Hutton. The last was closely connected with him in philosophical pursuits, 
 as well as in the bonds of private friendship notwithstanding that there were 
 some striking points of difference between the two men. In the latter days of 
 Dr Black, he sunk into a low state of health, and only preserved himself from 
 the shocks of the weather in this variable climate by a degree of care almost fan- 
 tastic. Thus he spun out the thread of life to the last fibre. It was his gene- 
 rous and manly wish that he might never live to be a burden to his friends ; and 
 never was the wish more completely gratified. On the 26th of November, 1799, 
 and in the seventy-first year of his age, he expired, without any convulsion, shock, 
 or stupor, to announce or retard the approach of death. Being at table with 
 his usual fare some bread, a few prunes, and a. measured quantity of milk, 
 diluted with water, and having the cup in his hand when the last stroke of the 
 pulse was to be given, he had set it down upon his knees, which were joined 
 together, and kept it steady with his hand in the manner of a person perfectly 
 at ease, and in this attitude expired, without spilling a drop, and without a 
 writhe in his countenance ; as if an experiment had been required, to show to 
 his friends the facility with which he departed. His servant opened the door to 
 tell him that some one had left his name, but getting no answer, stepped about 
 half-way towards him, and seeing him sitting in that easy posture, supporting his 
 basin of milk with one hand, he thought that he had dropped asleep, which lie 
 had sometimes seen happen after his meals. The man went back and shut the 
 door, but before he got down stairs, some anxiety that he could not account for, 
 made him return, and look again at his master. Even then, he was satisfied, 
 after coming pretty near, and turned to go away, but again returned, and com- 
 ing quite close, found his master without life. Dr Black, who had never been mar- 
 ried, left more money than any one had thought he could have acquired in the 
 course of his career. It was disposed of by his will in a manner highly charac- 
 teristic. Being divided into ten thousand shares, it was parcelled out to a nu- 
 merous list of relations in shares, in numbers, or fractions of shares, according 
 to the degree in which they were proper objects of his care or solicitude. 
 
 BLACKADDER, JOHN", a distinguished preacher of the time of the persecution, 
 was the representative of an ancient but decayed family Blackadder of Tullial- 
 lan and was born in the year 1615. He was nephew to principal Strang of 
 (jlasgOAV, and grand-nephew to the famous chorographer Timothy Font. His 
 theological education took place under the eye of the former of these eminent 
 men, and having been duly licensed by the presbyterian church, then in its high- 
 est purity and most triumphant domination, he received a call, in 1652, to the 
 parish-church of Troqueer, in the neighbourhood of Dumfries. Previous to this 
 period, he had married the daughter of a wealthy merchant of that town, named 
 Haning. Mr Blackadder commenced his ministerial labours with a zeal which
 
 JOHN BLACKADDER. 223 
 
 seems to have been singular even in those times. He, in the first place, gathered 
 around him a very active body of elders, whom he set to work in every direc- 
 tion, upon the task of cultivating the religious mind of the parish. He also instituted 
 a very strict system of moral discipline among his flock. Not content with the 
 weekly sermons on Sunday, he instituted lectures on the ordinary days, which were 
 attended by many persons from a distance. He also projected a plan for occasion- 
 ally interchanging duty with the neighbouring parochial clergy, which was carried 
 into effect within the entire limits of the presbytery, and is said to have been 
 attended with the best results. The church at this time rested undisturbed under 
 the sway of Cromwell, who gave it toleration in every respect except as a collective 
 body ; 3Ir IBlnckadder, therefore, found no bar to his progress, which was so 
 exceedingly rapid, that in less than two years he had the satisfaction of seeing a 
 thorough reformation in the devotional habits of his parishioners. Evil days, 
 however, came at last. In 1662, the episcopal form of church-government was 
 forced by the restored house of Stuart upon a people who were generally repug- 
 nant to it Mr Blackadder, so far from complying with the new system, employed 
 himself for several successive Sundays in exposing what he considered its un- 
 lawfulness, and, in his own words, " entered his dissent in heaven " against it. 
 The presbytery of Dumfries, upon which the influence of so zealous a mind was 
 probably very great, gave a positive refusal to an order of the parliament to 
 celebrate the anniversary of the restoration at a festival. A party of fifty horse 
 was accordingly sent to bring the whole of this refractory band of churchmen to 
 Edinburgh. On the day of their arrival at Dumfries, Mr Blackadder was engaged 
 to preach in the town church. He was entreated not to appear in the pulpit, 
 lest he should exasperate the soldiers against him ; but instead of taking this 
 advice, he desired the gallery to be cleared, in order that the military might 
 attend his sermon. They did so, and listened decorously to the denunciations 
 which he could not help uttering against all who had been concerned in the late 
 religious defections. He, and some of his brethren, were next day conducted in an 
 honourable captivity to the capital, where he underwent some examinations, but 
 was speedily released, by the interest of his friends. He was now, however, 
 obliged to demit his charge, in favour of an episcopal incumbent On the last 
 Sunday of October, he preached a farewell sermon to his attached flock. 
 
 ''This," we are informed, " was a day of anxious expectation throughout the 
 country, and made an impression on the minds of those who witnessed it never to 
 be forgotten. The church of Troqueer stood (as it now does) upon a gentle emi- 
 nence on the banks of the Nith, commanding an extensive view of the surround- 
 ing country, which, in the neighbourhood of Dumfries, presents a delightful 
 variety of local scenery. On the morning of that memorable Sabbath, Mr Black- 
 adder had risen early from prayer and private communion. He stepped forth 
 to meditate on the subject of the day. There was a gloom and heaviness in the 
 atmosphere that seemed to correspond with the general melancholy. A fog, or 
 ihick haze, that covered the face of the earth, as with a grey mantle, had retired 
 from the vale of Nith towards the mountains. As he paced his little garden 
 with a slow and pensive step, his contemplations were suddenly interrupted by 
 the tolling of the morning bells, several of which, in the adjacent parishes, were 
 distinctly audible from the uncommon stillness of the air. These hallowed 
 chimes, once the welcome summons to the house of prayer, now sounded like 
 the knell of their expiring liberties, reminding him how many of his brethren 
 were, like himself, preparing to bid their last adieu, amidst the tears and bless- 
 ings of their people. At this signal of retirement, he betook himself to the du- 
 ties of the closet, to hold nearer intercourse with heaven, and fortify himself for 
 the solemn occasion.
 
 224 
 
 JOHN BLACKADDER. 
 
 " The people, at an early hour, had been straggling on the heigH, but kept 
 aloof from the church, unwilling to put their minister to hazard by convening in 
 multitudes, which had been discharged as a breach of peace and good order. 
 They collected by degrees in small scattered groups about the church-yard, occu- 
 pied in dark conjectures, and waiting the minister's approach with extreme 
 anxiety. Mr Blackadder made his appearance with his wonted firmness and 
 composure, and with the same placid serenity of countenance for which he was 
 remarkable. The audience was not numerous, but every feature appeared set- 
 tled into a deep and earnest concern. Most of them were dissolved in tears, 
 and at many parts of the discourse, there were loud and involuntary bursts of 
 sorrow. 
 
 " Towards the middle of the sermon, an alarm Mas given that a party of sol- 
 diers from Dumfries were on their march to seize him, and had crossed the 
 bridge. Upon this he closed hastily, pronounced the blessing, and retired to 
 his chamber. The military surrounded the church-yard, and, as the people de- 
 parted, they took down the names of all those who belonged to Dumfries, or any 
 of the other parishes, as the law had affixed a penalty of twenty shillings Scots 
 on every person absent from his own church. They offered violence to none, 
 and went away without entering the manse, being assured that no strangers were 
 there. When they were gone, the minister assembled the remains of the congre- 
 gation in his own house, and finished the sermon, ' standing on the stair-head, 
 both the upper and lower flat being crowded to the fulL 
 
 "The people seeird very loath to depart, lingering in suspense about the 
 door, expressing their concern for his safety, and their willingness to shed their 
 blood in his defence. Mr Blackadder conjured them to have regard to the 
 peace of the country, and give no handle to their adversaries by any disturbance. 
 ' Go,' said he, and fend [provide] for yourselves : the hour is come when the 
 shepherd is smitten, and the flock shall be scattered. Many are this day mourn- 
 ing for the desolations of Israel, and weeping, like the prophet, between the 
 porch and the altar. God's heritage has become the prey of the spoiler ; the 
 mountain of the house of the Lord as the high places of the forest When the 
 faithful pastors are removed, hirelings shall intrude, whom the great Shepherd 
 i^ever sent, who will devour the flock, and tread down the residue with their 
 teet. As for me, I have done my duty, and now there is no time to evade. I 
 recommend you to Him, who is able to keep you from falling, and am ready, 
 through grace, to be disposed of as the Lord pleases.' '' l 
 
 After this solemn and affecting scene, Mr Blackadder went, witli his wife and 
 numerous family, to reside at Caitloch in the parish of Glencairn, a wilder and 
 more central part of the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, Here he soon attracted 
 the attention of the authorities by the crowds which he collected to hear his oc- 
 casional preachings, and he was therefore obliged to remove. For some years 
 ifter this period, he appears to have wandered through the country, preaching 
 whenever he could find a proper opportunity. In 1670, having performed wor- 
 ship at a conventicle near Dunfermline, where the people had armed themselves 
 for self-defence, he was summoned before the privy council, but contrived to 
 elude their power. When the search was a little slackened, he renewed his 
 practice of itinerant preaching, which he not only conceived to be no offence 
 against human laws, but a duty solemnly enjoined by the word of God. On one 
 occasion, he preached at Kinkell, near St Andrews: the people flocked From 
 that metropolitan city to hear him, notwithstanding all the injunctions and sur- 
 I'eillance of Archbishop Sharpe. It is said, that, on Sharpe desiring the provost 
 to send out the militia to disperse the congregation, he was informed that it was 
 1 Crichton's Life of John Blackadder, 12mo, 1S23.
 
 EtgWod 
 
 flOKflAS i{LACML(DK B Po : 

 
 THOMAS BLACKLOCK. 225 
 
 impossible the militia had gone already as worshippers. In 1674, he was out- 
 lawed, and a reward of a thousand merks was offered for his apprehension ; but 
 he nevertheless continued to preach occasionally to large assemblages in the 
 fields. What may appear surprising, he often resided in the capital, without 
 undergoing any annoyance, and contrived, notwitlistanding the migratory nature 
 of his life, to rear a large and well-instructed family. It does not appear that he 
 approved of the insurrection of his friends, which was suppressed at BothwelL 
 Though engaged in duty immediately before this event, he fortunately was con- 
 fined during the whole period of its continuance, by a rheumatism, and therefore 
 escaped all blame on that account In 1680, he made a voyage to Holland, and 
 settled his son at Leyden, as a student of medicine ; a circumstance which proves 
 that the persecution to which tbese clergymen were subjected was not uniformly 
 attended by pecuniary destitution. After spending several months in Holland, 
 lie returned to Scotland, and, in the succeeding year, was apprehended, and con- 
 fined in the state-prison upon the Bass. He remained here for four years, when 
 at length his health declined so much, on account of the insalubrious nature of 
 liis prison, that his friends made interest to procure his liberation upon the plea 
 that he must otherwise sink under his malady. The government at first mocked 
 him Mith a proposal to transfer him to Haddington orDunbar jail, but at length, 
 on a more earnest and better attested remonstrance, offered to give him liberty to 
 reside in Edinburgh, under a bond for five thousand merits. Ere this tender 
 mercy could be made available, he died in his islet prison. December, 1685, hav- 
 ing nearly completed his seventieth year. John Blackadder lies interred in 
 North Berwick church-yard, where there is an epitaph to his memory, containing, 
 among others, the following characteristic lines : 
 
 Grace formed him in the Christian hero's mould ; 
 
 Meek in his own concerns in's Master's bold ; 
 
 Passions to reason chained, prudence did lead, 
 
 Zeal warmed his breast, and prudence cooled his head. 
 
 Five years on this lone rock, yet sweet abode, 
 
 He Enoch-like enjoyed and walked with God ; 
 
 Till by long-living on his heavenly food, 
 
 His soul by love grew up, too great, too good, 
 
 To be confined to jail, or flesh, or blood. 
 
 BLACKLOCK, THOMAS, an ingenious blind poet, was born, November 10th, 
 1721, at Annan; his parents were natives of Cumberland, his father a brick- 
 layer, and his mother the daughter of Mr Richard Rae, an extensive cattle 
 dealer. Before he was six months old, he lost his sight in the small-pox ; and 
 was thus rendered incapable of learning a mechanical trade, while the poor cir- 
 cumstances to which a series of misfortunes had reduced his father, placed equally 
 beyond his reach an education for any of those professions where the exercise of 
 the mental faculties is principally required. His affectionate parent seems to 
 have been aware, however, that the happiness of his son, shut out from so many 
 of the enjoyments afforded by the external world, must mainly depend upon his 
 intellectual resources; and in order to form these, he devoted part of his leisure 
 hours to such instruction as his poor blind boy was susceptible of he read to 
 him, at first the books adapted to the understanding of a child, and afterwards 
 those fitted for a maturer capacity, such as Milton, Spenser, Prior, Pope, and 
 Addison. His companions also, who pitied his want of sight, and loved him for 
 his gentle disposition, lent their assistance in this task of kindness ; and by their 
 help he acquired some little knowledge of Latin. Thomson and Allan Ramsay 
 were his favourite authors ; and it was as early as his twelfth year that he evinced 
 still more decidedly his love of the poetical art by the composition of an ode. ad- 
 
 I. o V
 
 226 THOMAS BLACKLOCK. 
 
 dressed " To a little Girl whom I had offended," a production not remarkable 
 solely on account of the future celebrity of its author, but because it displays at 
 once his mildness of temper and lively fancy. The argument that shrewishness 
 spoils a young lady's looks, and ought therefore to be avoided, coming as it <lors 
 from a little fellow of twelve to a girl about his own age, is adroitly managed : 
 
 " Should but thy fair companions view- 
 How ill that frown becomes thy brow, 
 With fear and grief in every eye, 
 Each would to each, astonished, cry, 
 Heavens! where is all her sweetness flown ! 
 How strange a figure now she's grown ! 
 Hun, Nancy, let us run, lest we 
 Grow pettish awkward things as she." 
 
 Thus early did Blacklock show, that in the course of reading chosen for him, 
 his father had not mistaken the bent of his inclination. But though, as we have 
 mentioned, some of his comrades delighted to forward his favourite studies, and, 
 by their assiduous attentions, to make him forget the deprivation under which 
 he laboured, there were others who took pleasure in rendering him bitterly con- 
 scious of his misfortune, and exulted in the success of such practical jokes, as it 
 was easy to make him the subject of. It is but too obvious that his own experi- 
 ence at this period, when exposed to the insults of unfeeling boys, suggested the 
 reflection introduced in the article " Blind," afterwards written by him for the 
 Encyclopedia Britannica : " Parents of middle or of higher rank," he there 
 remarks, " who are so unfortunate as to ha\-e blind children, ought by all possi- 
 ble means to keep them out of vulgar company. The herd of mankind have a 
 wanton malignity which eternally impels them to impose upon the blind, and to 
 enjoy the painful situations in which these impositions place them. This is a 
 stricture upon the humanity of our species, which nothing but the love of truth 
 and the dictates of benevolence could have extorted from us. But we have 
 known some," he adds, evidently referring to himself, " who have suffered so 
 much from this diabolical mirth in their own persons, that it is natural for us, by 
 all the means in our power, to prevent others from becoming its victims." The 
 very means taken to alleviate Blacklock's misfortune in some sort increased its 
 force ; for as his mind expanded, it taught him to feel with greater keenness his 
 own dependent condition : familiar with some of the noblest flights of genius, 
 and himself become a poet, he would probably have exchanged all his intellec- 
 tual stores for the ability of earning his bread by handicraft labour. Lamenting 
 his blindness, he thus closes an enumeration of the miseries it entailed upon him: 
 
 ' Nor end my sorrows here : The sacred fane 
 Of knowledge, scarce accessible to me, 
 With heart-consuming anguish I behold : 
 \ Knowledge for which my soul insatiate burns 
 
 With ardent thirst. Nor can these useless hands, 
 Untutor'd in each life-sustaining art, 
 Nourish this wretched being, and supply 
 Frail nature's wants, that short cessation know." 
 
 Alternately depressed by a sense of his own helplessness, and comforted by 
 chat piety with which he seems to have been from first to last most deeply im- 
 bued, Blacklock lived at home till his nineteenth year. A fresh misfortune then 
 overtook him in the loss of his father, who was crushed to death by the fall of o 
 ir.alt-kiln, with eighty bushels of grain upon it, belonging to his son-in-law. 
 Blacklock's affection for his parents must have exceeded that of other children ; 
 for that anxious solicitude about his safety and comfort which oilier boys begin
 
 THOMAS BLACKLOCK. 227 
 
 to forget, when the business of the world removes them from its immediate influ- 
 ence, had been to him extended over those years when to the helplessness of a 
 child he added the sense and feelings of a man. To his keenly susceptible 
 mind this stroke must therefore have been peculiarly afflicting. And it was at- 
 tended not only with regret on account of remembered benefits, but also by the 
 inticipation of future evils. A means of livelihood was indeed suggested by 
 Blacklock's love of music : as he played well on the violin and flute, and even 
 composed pieces with taste, it was proposed that he should follow this art as a 
 profession. u But the unhappy situation in which he was then placed," says the 
 authority upon which this statement is given, 1 " made him dread consequences 
 to which he could never reconcile his mind. The very thought that his time 
 and talents should be prostrated to the forwarding of loose mirth and riot in- 
 spired him with an honest indignation." Unable to bring down his mind to 
 this occupation, the only one which seemed within his reach, deprived of the 
 stay on which he had hitherto leaned, blind and feeble, no wonder that the fate 
 of a houseless beggar sometimes presented itself as what might possibly happen 
 to himself. Burns occasionally indulged in similar forebodings ; but when he 
 depicts his unhappy fortune, and doggedly exclaims, 
 
 " The last o't, the warst o't, 
 Is only but to beg!" 
 
 we must be excused for iron-heartedly recollecting that he was an able-bodied 
 man, who, as his brother Gilbert records, never met with his match in mowing 
 the hardest of all rustic labour. A man so gifted, yet so complaining, meets with 
 little sympathy, as he is entitled to none : but with poor Blacklock the dread of 
 dying a houseless wanderer was more than a mere rhetorical flourish or the in- 
 dulgence of a groundless querulousness. While we read the lines in which he 
 unfolds his fears, we perceive that anguish wrung his heart in writing them, and 
 we know that his situation justified his apprehensions. 
 
 " Dejecting prospect ! soon the hapless hour 
 May come perhaps this moment it impends 
 Which drives me forth to penury and cold, 
 Naked, and beat by all the storms of heaven, 
 Friendless and guideless to explore my way ; 
 Till on cold earth this poor unsheltered head 
 Reclining, vainly from the ruthless blast 
 Respite I beg, and in the shock expire." 
 
 Although gloomy anticipations like these sometimes intruded, Blacklock did 
 not permit them to overwhelm him, but calming his fears, and resting with a 
 pious confidence in the awards of a protecting Providence, he continued to live 
 with his mother for a year after his father's death. 
 
 Some of his poems had by this time got abroad and made him known beyond 
 his own immediate circle of friends. We shall not pretend to deny that the cir- 
 cumstance of his blindness had some effect, in addition to the intrinsic merits of 
 these productions, in making them be sought after and dispersed among literary 
 persons. On account of their being the verses of a blind poet, they were no 
 doubt read by many who were little able to appreciate their real excellencies, and 
 who, having gratified their curiosity, did not concern themselves about the con- 
 
 1 An article in the Gentleman's Magazine, which, after being read over to Dr Blacklock, 
 slightly altered, and two notes added at his request, was reprinted in the Scots Magazine for 
 1754, The authority may therefore be considered to be that of Dr Blaeklock himself. 
 From internal evidence it appears very certain, that this article was a contribution to Mr 
 Urban from his frequent correspondent Dr Johnson.
 
 223 THOMAS BLACKLOCK. 
 
 dition of the author : but still by this means the fame of Blacklock's genius was 
 extended ; and at last it reached a gentleman, who to curiosity added benevo- 
 lence of heart. This was Dr John Stevenson, a physician in Edinburgh, who, 
 while on a professional visit in Dumfries, saw some of our author's pieces, and 
 resolved to afford the young man's talents the opportunity of expanding in avo- 
 cations and amid society more congenial to one so much restricted to pleasures 
 of an intellectual kind. Accordingly Blacklock was, in 1741, induced tore- 
 move to the metropolis, where he attended a grammar-school for some time, and 
 afterwards entered as a student in the college, Dr Stevenson supplying him with 
 the means necessary for the prosecution of his studies. To the friend who thus 
 so efficaciously patronized him, he afterwards inscribed an imitation of the ode to 
 Macenas, which occupies the first place in his poems, as it does in those of Horace ; 
 and that he never forgot the benefits bestowed upon himself is manifested by the 
 ready zeal which his future life at all times displayed for the encouragement of 
 unnoticed genius. 
 
 Blacklock's studies were interrupted by the expedition of the Highlanders, in 
 1745 ; and during the distractions consequent upon that memorable campaign 
 he resided in Dumfries with Mr M'Murdo, his brother-in-law. On the re-estab- 
 lishment of peace, he returned to college, and studied six years more. In this 
 period he acquired a good knowledge of all those branches of education where 
 he was not hindered by the want of sight ; and became better skilled than \\as 
 common in the French language, from being on habits of intimacy with the 
 family of provost Alexander, whose wife was a Parisian. It may well inspire 
 wonder that latterly there was no science with which Blacklock had not made 
 himself acquainted no learned language which he did not master and no mo- 
 dern tongue, of any acknowledged use to a man of general literature, with which 
 he was not more or less familiar. 
 
 Amid the severer studies of classical learning, philosophy, and theology, his 
 attachment to poetry was not forgotten. In 1746, a volume of his verses in Svo. 
 was published at Glasgow. A second edition followed at Edinburgh, in 1754 ; 
 and two years afterwards, a quarto edition, with an account of his life by Mr 
 Spence, professor of poetry at Oxford, came out by subscription in London. 
 In the selection of pieces for the press, Blacklock was by his friends considered 
 to be over fastidious ; and by persisting to exclude what he himself thought un- 
 worthy of a place, he greatly limited the size of his books. By the London edi- 
 tion a considerable sum was realized for the authors advantage. Besides these 
 editions of his poems, another in 4 to. was published in 1793, with a life elegant- 
 ly written by Henry Mackenzie. They have also been reprinted in the col- 
 lections of Anderson and Chalmers. Of all these the edition of Dr Anderson, 
 though not the latest, is the most complete. 
 
 Hume the historian was among the friends who early interested themselves in 
 die fortunes of Blacklock, and was of considerable service in promoting the sub- 
 scription to the London edition of his poems ; but all intercourse between them 
 was subsequently broken off. When at a later period Beattie submitted to our 
 author's judgment his " Essay on the Immutability of Moral Sentiment," and 
 acquainted him with the more extensive plan of the " Essay on Truth,' 1 stating 
 that, in the prosecution of that design, he should think it his duty to treat Mr 
 Hume with freedom, he alluded to that eminent philosopher as " a friend of 
 yours." This drew from Blacklock a long account of the intercourse between 
 himself and Hume, from its commencement to its close. The interruption of 
 their good understanding took place, as Sir William Forbes, who saw the letter 
 among Beattie's papers, informs us, " through no fault on the part of Dr Black- 
 lock;" but the letter itself has never been published, which is to be regretted.
 
 THOMAS BLACKLOCK. 229 
 
 because it might afford some farther insight than we possess into a character 
 round which Hume has drawn the screen of an impenetrable autobiography. It 
 is also desirable that the real circumstances of the connexion should be known, 
 as it has been the means, in the hands of Hardy, author of the Memoirs of Lord 
 Charleraont, of throwing a most disagreeable reflection upon the memory of 
 Blacklock. This writer affirms that Hume conferred upon him the salary which 
 he derived from an office in the university meaning, probably, the Advocates' 
 Library ; while, from the numerous impossibilities and obvious errors of the 
 statement, it may be pretty confidently assumed, that the whole is destitute of 
 truth. 
 
 The course of study followed by Blacklock at college was that usually gone 
 through for the purpose of entering upon the ministry ; but it was not till after 
 the abandonment of a project, (which he began to entertain in 1757, and from 
 which he was dissuaded by Mr Hume, after making considerable preparations to- 
 wards it,) for delivering lectures on oratory, that he finally adopted the resolu- 
 tion of becoming a clergyman. Having applied himself for some time exclu- 
 sively to the necessary studies, he was licensed as a preacher by the presbytery 
 of Dumfries, in 1759. He soon acquired considerable reputation as a pulpit 
 orator, and took great delight in composing sermons, a considerable number of 
 which he left behind him : these it was at one time the intention of his friends 
 to publish ; but for some reason or other this has never been done. 
 
 The Rev. Mr Jameson, Blacklock's intimate companion, to whom allusion is 
 more than once made in his poems, has given the following account of his habits 
 about this time : 
 
 " His manner of life was so uniform, that the history of it during one day, or 
 one week, is the history of it during the seven years that our intercourse lasted. 
 Reading, music, walking, conversing, and disputing on various topics, in theo- 
 logy, ethics, &c., employed almost every hour of our time. It was pleasant to 
 hear him engaged in a dispute ; for no man could keep his temper better than 
 he always did on such occasions. I have known him frequently very warmly 
 engaged for hours together, but never could observe one angry word to fall from 
 him. Whatever his antagonist might say, he always kept his temper, ' sem- 
 per paratus, et refellere sine pertinacia, et refelli sine iracundia ?' He was, how- 
 ever, extremely sensible to what he thought ill usage, and equally so whethei 
 it regarded himself or his friends. But his resentment was always confined to a 
 few satirical verses, which were generally burnt soon after. The late Mr 
 Spence (the editor of the 4to. edition of his poems) frequently urged him to write 
 a tragedy, and assured him that he possessed interest enough with MrGarrick to 
 get it acted. Various subjects were proposed to him, several of which he ap- 
 proved, yet he never could be prevailed on to begin any thing of that kind. It 
 may seem remarkable, but as far as I know, it was invariably the case, that he 
 never could think or write on any subject proposed to him by another. I have 
 frequently admired with what readiness and rapidity he could make verses. I 
 have known him dictate from thirty to forty verses, and by no means bad ones, 
 as fast as I could write them ; but the moment he was at a loss for a rhyme or a 
 verse to his liking, he stopt altogether, and could very seldom be induced to 
 finish what he had begun with so much ardour." 
 
 '' All those who ever acted as his amanuenses," says Mackenzie, " agree in 
 this rapidity and ardour of composition which Mr Jameson ascribes to him. He 
 never could dictate till he stood up ; and as his blindness made walking about 
 without assistance inconvenient or dangerous to him, he fell insensibly into a 
 vibratory sort of motion of his body, which increased as he warmed with his 
 subject, and was pleased with the conceptions of his mind. This motion at last
 
 230 THOMAS BLACKLOCK. 
 
 became habitual to him ; and though he could sometimes restrain it when on 
 ceremony, or in any public appearance, such as preaching, he felt a certain un- 
 easiness from the effort, and always returned to it when he could indulge it with- 
 out improprity. This is the appearance which he describes in the ludicroup 
 picture he has drawn of himself : 
 
 " As some vessel tossed by wind and tide 
 
 Bounds o'er the waves, and rocks from side to side, 
 In just vibration thus I always move." 
 
 Much of the singularity in the gestures of poor Blacklock must have proceed- 
 ed from his inability to observe the carriage of others, and to regulate his own 
 in conformity with theirs : a tree will accommodate its growth to the restraints 
 imposed upon it, but where a single branch escapes from the artificial training, 
 flinging itself abroad in all the wild vigour of nature, its tufted luxuriance ap- 
 pears more striking from the contiguity of a well-clipt and orderly neighbour- 
 hood. Such was Blacklock's manner: he could not know with how little out- 
 ward discomposure the world has taught men to accompany the expression of 
 their emotions ; and with him ardent feeling produced an unrestrained effect 
 upon the countenance and gestures. The author of Douglas, in one of his let- 
 ters, has given a curious picture of his singular appearance when under strong 
 excitement : " I went to a companion's," says Home, " and sent for the blind 
 poet, who is really a strange creature to look at a small weakly under thing a 
 chilly, bloodless animal, that shivers at every breeze. But if nature has cheated 
 him in one respect, by assigning to his share forceless sinews, and a ragged 
 form, she haa made him ample compensation on the other, by giving him a mind 
 endued with the most exquisite feelings the most ardent, kindled-up affections; 
 a soul, to use a poet's phrase, that's tremblingly alive all over : in short, he is 
 the most flagrant enthusiast I ever saw ; when he repeats verses, he is not able 
 to keep his seat, but springs to his feet, and shows his rage by the most animat- 
 ed motions. He has promised to let me have copies of his best poems, which I 
 will transmit to you whenever he is as good as his word," 
 
 This letter, besides the description of Blacklock's exterior and carriage, opens 
 to us one source of his acutest sufferings : we have already adverted to the un- 
 thinking insults to which his blindness exposed him while a boy, and it appears 
 but too certain that many who had arrived at manhood in respect of their out- 
 ward frame, did not treat him with greater tenderness in his mnturer years. 
 They did not, perhaps, decoy him to the edge of a ditch that they might have tlie 
 satisfaction of seeing him flounder into it, or offer prickles to his grasp that they 
 might be diverted by the contortions of countenance which the unexpected 
 wounds occasioned; but they went to see the blind poet, and induced him to 
 recite his verses, from the same kind of motive that takes people to witness the 
 exhibition of a learned pig. Blacklock's position in regard to such visitors was 
 peculiarly painful : he was in a great measure dependant upon his talents for 
 support ; and to have indignantly refused to display them, would have been to 
 raise up obstacles to his own success. His feelings were at the same time the 
 most nicely wrought, and even the triumphs of genius did not afford him perfect 
 gratification ; for he knew that his hearers were not carried away by his enthu- 
 siasm, but listened with a cold and critical attention, noting every peculiarity of 
 *one, look, and gesture. He has himself told us how exquisitely painful was the 
 consciousness of being the object of such unfeeling curiosity: 
 
 " the supercilious eye 
 
 Oft, from the noise and glare of prosperous lift-, 
 On my obscurity diverts its gaze,
 
 THOMAS BLACKLOCK. 231 
 
 Exulting; and with wanton pride elate 
 Felicitates its own superior lot : 
 Inhuman triumph !'" 
 
 A letter of Blacklock, written from Dumfries about the time when he re- 
 ceived his licence as a preacher, admits us to a very near view of his remarkable 
 sensibility of temperament. It does not appear what were the circumstances 
 alluded to in this letter ; but probably the connexion mentioned as having just 
 been formed, was a declaration of mutual attachment and promise of marriage 
 between our poet and his future wife, which he calls ill-fated, on account of his 
 gloomy prospects, and his regret for having involved one whom he loved in his 
 own unhappy fortunes. This letter is as follows : 
 
 " DEAR SIR, I received your last inclosed to Mr ; and so far as my 
 
 situation was capable of being consoled, I was happy in the tenderness and sym- 
 pathy which you express for me. Beneath those exalted pleasures which we are 
 taught to expect in an eternal state ; beneath the enjoyment of God himself ; I 
 know no happiness which deserves the attention of a wise man, but such as we 
 derive from conscious virtue, benevolence, or friendship. These alone are at 
 present the cordial drops with which heaven has thought proper to mix my cup 
 of bitterness. Since every object of my former pursuit eludes my embrace, or 
 grows insipid by enjoyment, it is time to anticipate such pleasures as are subject 
 to neither of these misfortunes, and to cultivate a relish for them. Fate and na- 
 ture tell me that I must quickly make my exit from this present scene ; they never 
 could send this information to a heart less intimidated by it I approach the 
 verge of my present existence, not with the reluctance of inexperienced youth, not 
 with the horrors of guilt and superstition, but with the cheerfulness of a wearied 
 traveller, in prospect of the chamber destined for his repose. From this account 
 it will be easy to judge how much I would prize, or how eagerly pursue any 
 civil or ecclesiastical employment were it in my power ; but far from being so, 
 it is beyond my remotest hopes ; all access to every resource whence these ad- 
 vantages are derived is denied to me. I have neither power nor influence in life, 
 and am consequently incapable of interesting any who have it. There are evils 
 which may be suffered without mortification ; yet, let me confess it, there are 
 others which I cannot think of without being melted to infantine weakness. In 
 my former I told you that I had projected one last resource, and made one lasl 
 effort for happiness : had I then foreseen the weakness of my constitution, and 
 the unhappiness of my circumstances, sooner would I have run any hazard which 
 this or any future scene can present, than have ventured to form such an ill-fated 
 connexion. It is true that those who are interested in me, persuaded either by my 
 looks, or the present degree of strength which I seem to possess, flatter themselves, 
 or are willing to flatter me, that my present indisposition will not prove decisive ; 
 such is the opinion of the lady formerly mentioned. I have endeavoured to im- 
 press her with contrary sentiments, that the friendship between us might be 
 dissolved without tearing : but I had reason to lament my success ; for in pro- 
 portion to her sense of my danger, which, after my return from Edinburgh, was 
 [>retty high, her whole manner, not to me only, but to all her other friends, 
 appeared expressive of dejection and misery. I had not resolution to continue 
 my former plan, but used every possible argument to persuade her of my return- 
 ing health ; and though conscious of acting a wrong part in this, I have not suf- 
 ficient strength of mind to act a right one. This is my present situation of mind: 
 1 know it is what I ought not to have discovered to one of your humanity, nor 
 can I pretend any other apology, but that I apply to the last and most natural 
 resource of wretchedness, the sympathy of a friend. It is all I ask ; it is all I 
 hope ; and it is what I am sure to obtain. Pray, tell me whether your bro-
 
 232 THOMAS BLACKLOCK. 
 
 ther prosecutes the same business with you, or whether friends in the country 
 may not have it in their power to serve him ? 'Die precaution in my former 
 concerning the balance of accounts between us was not taken from any fear of 
 its appearing against my relations, but that you might recover it with greater 
 case from myself during mine own life. Once more I must ask pardon for the 
 length and subject of this letter ; but if you continue to favour me as a corres- 
 pondent, my future answers shall be less tedious and more cheerful. As you are 
 now more disengaged from secular business, the demands of your friends to hear 
 from you will proportionably increase ; and as you have now long taught me to 
 think myself of that number, I can no more resign the claim which it gives than 
 the tenderness which it inspires, a tenderness which shall ever be felt in the 
 highest degree, by your most sincere friend, and humble servant, 
 
 "Dumfries, 15th April, 1759. THOMAS BLACKLOCK." 
 
 In 1762, the Earl of Selkirk procured from the Crown a presentation to the 
 parish of Kirkcudbright in favour of Mr Blacklock ; who, having thus the pros- 
 pect of a competent income, married Mrs Sarah Johnston, daughter of Mr 
 Joseph Johnston, surgeon in Dumfries. But though not disappointed in the 
 happiness he expected to derive from this union, the gleam of fortune which 
 seems to have induced him to form it, forsook him immediately after the step 
 was taken. He was ordained a few days after his marriage ; but the people of 
 the parish refused, on account of his blindness, to acknowledge him as their 
 pastor, and a lawsuit was commenced, which, after two years, was compromised 
 by Blacklock retiring upon a moderate annuity. From the first moment of op- 
 position, it had been his wish to make this arrangement, not from any conviction 
 of incompetency to the duties of a parish minister, but because he saw it was 
 needless to contend against a prejudice so strongly maintained. " Civil and eccle- 
 siastical employments," he says, " have something either in their own nature, or 
 in the invincible prejudices of mankind, which renders them almost entirely in- 
 accessible to those who have lost the use of sight No liberal and cultivated 
 mind can entertain the least hesitation in concluding that there is nothing, either 
 in the nature of things, or even in the positive institutions of genuine religion, 
 repugnant to the idea of a blind clergyman. But the novelty of the phenome- 
 non, while it astonishes vulgar and contracted understandings, inflames their 
 zeal to rage and madness." His own experience, it is evident, suggested this 
 observation. Blindness is certainly not in itself a sufficient reason for debarring 
 those afflicted with it from the ministerial office ; it does not incapacitate a man 
 for the acquirement of the requisite knowledge, nor exclude from his bosom the 
 glow of holy zeal. On the contrary, worldly cares and ambition are not so ap- 
 to intrude. " The attention of the soul, confined to those avenues of perception 
 which she can command, is neither dissipated nor confounded by the immense 
 multiplicity, or the rapid succession of surrounding objects. Hence her con- 
 templations are more uniformly fixed upon herself, and the revolution of her 
 own internal frame," ] and hence a greater fitness in her for the growth of de- 
 votion. The want of sight would, indeed, put inconveniences in the way of a 
 clergyman's intercourse with his parishioners, but they are small ; and it is not 
 easy to conceive any thing more affecting and impressive than for those in the 
 full enjoyment of their faculties to hear lessons of submission to the divine will, 
 and of gratitude for the blessings of providence, from the mouth of one upon 
 whom the hand of God has been laid. Such were not, however, the opinions of 
 those with whom Blacklock had to deal ; and he acquiesced. This effort could 
 not but be painful ; the sense of exclusion from all the business of life had long 
 oppressed him, and the moment that patronage was extended towards him, and 
 > Encyclopaedia Britajinica, article Blind, 10.
 
 THOMAS BLACKLOCK. 233 
 
 opened the prospect of public usefulness, he was assailed by a persecution, which 
 rejected liini ;is incompetent to the duties for which other men are fit, and drove 
 him back to his former state of dependence and seclusion. It is probably to 
 the period when lie experienced so determined an opposition from the people oi 
 Kirkcudbright, that we are to refer the composition of his Paraclesis ; for he 
 informs us in the preface that his motive for writing that work was " to alleviate 
 the pressure of repeated disappointments, to soothe his anguish for the loss of 
 
 departed friends, to elude the rage of implacable and unprovoked enemies, in 
 
 a word, to support his own mind, which, for a nuniber of years, besides its lite- 
 rary difficulties and its natural disadvantages, had maintained an incessant con- 
 flict with fortune." At no other period but that above referred to, are we 
 aware that Blacklock was the object of any thing like an angry feelinjr. 
 
 On the day of Mr Blacklock's ordination was afforded, in his person, an in- 
 stance of sleep-walking, perhaps the most remarkable and complicated on record. 
 As such the reader may be pleased to see an account of it as it is preserved 
 in Dr Cleghorn's thesis De Somno, which was published in Blacklock's own life- 
 time (in 1783). The facts Mere authenticated by Mrs Blacklock, Mr Gilbert 
 Gordon, 2 and a numerous party of friends Avho dined with him at the inn of 
 Kirkcudbright on the occasion in question. " Harassed by the censures of the 
 populace," says Dr Cleghorn, "whereby not only his reputation, but his very 
 subsistence was endangered, and fatigued with mental exertion, Blacklock fell 
 asleep after dinner. Some hours afterwards he was called by a friend, answered 
 his salutation, rcse and went into the dining-room, where his friends were met. 
 He joined with two of them in a concert, singing tastefully as usual, and without 
 missing a word. He ate an egg to supper, and drank some wine, and other 
 liquors. His friends, however, observed him to be a little absent. Ey and bye 
 he began to speak to himself; but in so low a tone, and so confusedly, as to be 
 unintelligible. At last, being pretty forcibly roused, he awoke with a sudden.start, 
 unconscious of all that had happened." We have no example of a person in 
 sleep performing so many of the functions of one awake, and in so exact a man- 
 ner, as Blacklock is here stated to have done. He spoke, walked, sung, took 
 wine, and must have observed with accuracy many of the little courtesies of so- 
 cial life ; for his friends did not suspect that he was asleep till he began to talk 
 to himself. The time, however, was convenient for so unusual an exhibition ; 
 and perhaps many other somnambulists would join in the occupations or amuse- 
 ments of those around them, if the world Mere astir when they make their rounds. 
 Circumstances, however, are quite different in ordinary cases ; the person gets 
 up Mhen all others are at rest, and performs one or two acts, to which his half- 
 :<wakened fancy impels him, M'ithout being involved, as it Mere, in any current 
 of events extraneous to himself, which, by the habit of association, might have 
 led him on to other mechanical exertions of the mental or bodily faculties : thus 
 tue original excitement, receiving no casual addition, soon expends itself, and 
 allows him to relapse into slumber. Blacklock, on the contrary, Mhen partially 
 roused, found the business of life in progress, and Mas drawn on from one act to 
 another in the usual course, no excitement occurring strong enough wholly to 
 burst the bonds of sleep. This intermediate state between sleeping and waking, 
 when part of the faculties are alert and active, and the ether part entirely dor- 
 mant, may be approached from either confine ; and whether from sleeping we 
 become half awake, or from Making fall half asleep, the effects are strikingly si- 
 milar. Many instances of what is called absence, or reverie, disclose phenomena 
 equally surprising with those of somnambulism ; and a comparison between them 
 
 2 Author of the Short Account of the Life and \Vriiings of Blacklock, prefixed to the 
 lecoml edition of his poems, 1754. Q
 
 234 THOMAS BLACKLOCK. 
 
 would probably afford the best means of explaining both. A contemporary of 
 Blacklock, the autlior of the " Wealth of Nations," was in the habit, when awake, 
 of doing things as unaccountable as the blind poet is above stated to have douo 
 when asleep. 
 
 In 1764, after the connexion between him and the parish of Kirkcudbright 
 was dissolved in the manner we have mentioned, Bladdock removed to Edin- 
 burgh, where he received boarders into his house, 2 superintending the studies of 
 those who chose to have such assistance. " In this occupation," says Mackenzie, 
 " no teacher was perhaps ever more agreeable to his pupils, nor master of a 
 family to its inmates, than Dr Blacklock. The gentleness of his manners, the 
 benignity of his disposition, and that warm interest in the happiness of others 
 which led him so constantly to promote it, were qualities that could not fail to 
 procure him the love and regard of the young people committed to his charge ; 
 while the society which esteem and respect for his character and his genius 
 often assembled at his house, afforded them an advantage rarely to be found in 
 establishments of a similar kind. The writer of this account has frequently been 
 a witness of the family scene at Dr Blacklock's ; has seen the good man amidst 
 the circle of his young friends, eager to do him all the little offices of kindness 
 which he seemed so much to merit and to feel. In this society he appeared en- 
 tirely to forget the privation of sight, and the melancholy which, at other times, 
 it might produce. He entered with the cheerful playfulness of a young man in- 
 to all the sprightly narrative, the sportful fancy, the humorous jest, that rose 
 around him. It was a sight highly gratifying to philanthropy to see how much 
 a mind endowed with knowledge, kindled by genius, and above all, lighted up 
 with innocence and piety, like Blacklock's, could overcome the weight of its own 
 calamity, and enjoy the content, the happiness, the gaiety of others. Several of 
 those inmates of Dr Blacklock's house retained, in future life, all the warmth of 
 that impression which his friendship at this early period had made upon them ; 
 and in various quarters of the world he had friends and correspondents from 
 whom no length of time, or distance of place, had ever estranged him." 
 
 In these hours of social relaxation, Blacklock found one of the greatest plea- 
 sures of his existence. Music also afforded him a lively gratification ; for he 
 auig with taste, and performed tolerably well on several instruments, particularly 
 on the flute. He had learned to play on the flageolet in consequence of a 
 dream in which he supposed himself to listen to the most enchanting melody, 
 produced by a shepherd on a hillside from that instrument ; and he always car- 
 ried one in his pocket, on which he was by no means averse from being asked to 
 perform, " a natural feeling," says Mackenzie, " for a blind man, who thus 
 adds a scene to the drama of his society." We have already alluded to his skill 
 in composition, which was begun early at least, if it was not very assiduously 
 cultivated. There is a specimen of his abilities in this way in the Edinburgh 
 Magazine and Review for 1774, under the title of " Absence, a Pastoral, set to 
 music, by Dr Blacklock." 
 
 Blacklock's friendship with Bealtie commenced about a year after his reti:rn 
 from Kirkcudbright to Edinburgh. The first letter from the opponent of Hume, 
 dated in 1765, expresses satisfaction that the present of a copy of our author's 
 poems had at last afforded the opportunity of establishing an acquaintance. The 
 correspondence was for some time kept up with great regularity by Beattie, who 
 when the composition of the " Minstrel " had not advanced beyond a few 
 stanzas, explained his plan tothe blind bard. The progressofa work of still greater 
 importance was confided to Blacklock. The <l Essay on the Immutability of 
 
 2 He occupied the two tipper flats of a house at the west cud of West Nicolson Street, 
 li-uking towards St Cuthbcrl's < Jhapel of Ease burying ground.
 
 THOMAS BLACKLOCK. 235 
 
 Moral Sentiment " having been perused and approved by him, the more exten- 
 sive plan and object of the " Essay on Truth was also disclosed ; and that he 
 was pleased with the design, and encouraged the author to proceed, may be un- 
 derstood from what afterwards took place : on the publication of the work, it 
 was thought necessary, by Beattie's friends, that an analysis of it, giving a brief 
 and popular view of the manner in which the subject was treated, should be in- 
 serted in the newspapers : and " this task," Sir William Forbes says, " Dr 
 Black lock undertook, and executed l with much ability." On Bfacklock's part 
 this literary intercourse was cultivated by allowing Beattie the perusal of a 
 translation of the " Cenie " of D'Happoncourt de Grafigny, which he had made 
 under the title of " Seraphina." This play was not intended to be either 
 printed or brought on the stage ; but the translator appears to have been under 
 ome apprehensions, in consequence of the proceedings in regard to " Douglas," 
 that, if his having engaged in such a work should come to be known, it might 
 draw upon him the censure of the church courts, or at least, of the more rigid 
 ecclesiastics. We find Dr Beattie exhorting him not to be afraid of meeting 
 with Mr Home's treatment ; for that " to translate a dramatic poem could never 
 be made to be on a footing with composing one and bringing it on the stage." 
 This is but indifferent logic, we are afraid, and marvellously resembles that of 
 certain schoolboys, who, ambitious of rendering their discourse more emphatic by 
 the admixture of oaths, yet dreading to swear the common English kind, think 
 themselves secure in adopting a few out of the learned languages, or in spelling if 
 they do not pronounce them. Whether Blacklock was satisfied with his friend's 
 reasoning, or if he took a different view of the case, and considered that, though 
 there might be some risk, there was no harm in the dramatic form of composi- 
 tion, does not appear; but he ventured beyond translation, and actually wrote a 
 tragedy, of which, however, the subject and merits are alike unknown, as it had 
 been put into the hands of Mr Andrew Crosbie, advocate, and could never be 
 recovered. It is probable that the suggestion of Dr Beattie procured for our 
 author from the college of Aberdeen the degree of D. D. in 1767. After the 
 publication of the " Essay on Truth" and of the " Minstrel" had introduced 
 him to a literary acquaintance much more extensive than be previously enjoyed, 
 we do not find that Beattie cultivated Blacklock's correspondence with the same 
 assiduity as before ; but he never ceased to love and respect him, which is mani- 
 fested by the epitaph which the afflictions of his own Liter years did not prevent 
 him from writing for his friend. 
 
 Finding that his increasing years and infirmities required repose, Dr Black- 
 lock discontinued the keeping of boarders in 1787. But though his bodily 
 vigour began to fail, he experienced no diminution of that benevolence which 
 liad ever characterised him. His own genius having been greatly indebted to 
 patronage, he was ever ready to acknowledge it in others, and especially to cul- 
 tivate and bring it into reputation where he found it struggling with obscurity. 
 Nor were his efforts for this purpose confined to occasional acts of liberality 
 they were laborious and long-continued. He had taken a boy from a village 
 near Carlisle to lead him, and perceiving in the youth a willingness to learn, 
 taught him Latin, Greek, and French, and having thus fitted him for a station 
 superior to that in which he was born, procured for him the situation of secre- 
 tary to Lord Milton, who was chief active manager of state affairs in Scotland for 
 many years. This young man was Richard Hewitt, known to the admirer of 
 Scottish song as the author of " Roslin Castle." Hewitt testified his gratitude 
 to his instructor by a copy of complimentary verses, in every line of which may 
 be traced the chief excellence of compositions of that description sincerity; 
 * Edinburgh Evening Courant, 2d June, 1770.
 
 TUOJLVS BLACKLOCK. 
 
 but lie did not long enjoy his change of fortune, having died in 1764 from the 
 fatigue of the office to which he had been elevated. 
 
 But \ve find a still more eminent example of Blacklock's sr>licitude to pro- 
 mote the interests of the sons of genius, in his being the first man among the 
 literary circles of Edinburgh who appreciated the poetry of Burns, (perhaps, in- 
 deed, because lie had the earliest opportunity of becoming acquainted with it,) 
 and kindled in the author the ambition of a prize beyond that of provincial 
 fame. The Rev. Mr Lawrie of Newiuills had transmitted to Blacklock a copy of 
 the Kilmarnock edition of Burns' poems. It is not easy for a modern reader to 
 understand with what wonder and delight Blacklock must have perused them. 
 In our time, the pleasure felt from his most perfect pieces is damped by the re- 
 collection of their author's melancholy fate. What reflecting mind can turn 
 from the perusal of the "Mountain Daisy" with any other feeling than one of 
 sorrow that Burns was not a better and a happier man ? But while his career 
 was yet to run, with what enviable anticipations must such a perusal have inspired 
 a generous heart ! Here was poetry the purest and most genuine : he who pro- 
 duced it was of no note ; but to what a high place in his country's esteom might 
 he not rise! The world was then all before him, and he capable of attaining 
 whatever fame the most ardent imagination could desire. With calmness, yi 
 with energy, the enthusiastic Blacklock indicated his own admiration and the 
 certainty of the poet's future fame : " many instances," he wrote to Mr Lawrie. 
 " have I seen of nature's force and beneficence exerted under numerous and 
 formidable disadvantages; but none equal to that with which you have been 
 kind enougli to present me. There is a pathos and delicacy in his serious poems, 
 & vein of wit and humour in those of a more festive turn, which cannot be too 
 much admired nor too warmly approved. I think I shall never open the book 
 without feeling my astonishment renewed and increased. It were much to be 
 wished, for the sake of the young man, that a second edition, more numerous 
 than the former, could immediately be printed ; as it appears certain that its in- 
 trinsic merit, and the exertion of the author's friends, might give it a more uni- 
 versal circulation than any thing of the kind which has been published within 
 my memory." " I had taken the last farewell of my few friends," says Burns ; 
 " my chest was on the road to Greenock ; I had composed the last song I should 
 ever measure in Scotland ' The Gloomy night is gathering fast ' when a letter 
 from Dr Blacklock to a friend of mine overthrew all my schemes, by opening 
 new prospects to my poetic ambition. The Doctor belonged to a set of critics 
 for whose applause I had not dared to hope. His opinion that I would meel 
 with encouragement in Edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so much, that 
 away I posted for that city, without a single acquaintance, or a single letter of 
 introduction." " Blacklock received him," says Dr Currie, " with all the ar 
 dour of affectionate admiration ; he eagerly introduced him to the respectable 
 circle of his friends ; he consulted his interest ; he emblazoned his fame ; he 
 lavished upon him all the kindness of a generous and feeling heart, into which 
 nothing selfish or envious ever found admittance." " In Dr Blacklock," Burns 
 himself writes to Mr Lawrie, " In Dr Blacklock, whom I see very often, I have 
 found what I would have expected in our friend, a clear head and an excellent 
 heart" It is not our business, in this place, to trace Burns's career farther. 
 Dr Blacklock's duty towards him was performed, when he had bestowed upon 
 him every mark of private regard, and consigned him to the care of more influ- 
 ential patrons. After Burns retired to the country, some letters passed between 
 them, which, on Dr Blacklock's part, show how very poorly a remarkably sensible 
 man could write when he had little to say, and thought to compensate for the 
 meagreness of his subject by elevating it into rhyme.
 
 THOMAS BLACKLOCK. 237 
 
 Besides the miscellaneous poems by which Dr Blacklock is best known as an 
 author, he published several other works. In 17 56 he gave to the world an 
 " Essay towards Universal Etymology ;" in 1760, " The Right Improvement of 
 Time, a Sermon ;" in the ensuing year another sermon, entitled " Faith, Hope, 
 and Charity compared." In 1767 appeared his "Paraclesis; or Consolations 
 deduced from Natural and Revealed Religion," in two dissertations, the first 
 supposed to be Cicero's, translated by Dr Blacklock, the other written by him- 
 self. This work, to use the author's own touching words, " was begun and pur- 
 sued by its author, to divert wakeful and melancholy hours, which the recollec- 
 tion of past misfortunes, and the sense of present inconveniences, would other- 
 wise have severely embittered." He endeavours, but without success, to prove 
 the authenticity of the dissertation ascribed to Cicero, which he has translated 
 with fidelity and elegance : the object of the original discourse is to prove the 
 superiority of the consolations afforded by revealed religion. In 1768, he 
 printed " Two Discourses on the Spirit and Evidences of Christianity," trans- 
 lated from the French of Mr James Armand. To this work he prefixed a long* 
 dedication to the 'Moderator of the General Assembly. In 1773 appeared his 
 ' Panegyric on Great Britain," which shows him to have possessed considerable 
 talents for satire had lie chosen to pursue that species of writing. His last pro- 
 duction was in 1774, "The Graham, an Heroic Ballad, in Four Cantos;" in- 
 tended to promote a good understanding between the natives of England and 
 Scotland. He contributed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in 1783, the article 
 Blind a little treatise of peculiar interest, which we have had occasion to 
 quote in the present account of its author. He is also said to have written the 
 Essay on Poetry, and others on various subjects in the same work. Dr Black- 
 lock left behind him in manuscript some volumes of sermons, and a Treatise on 
 Morals. 
 
 In his latter years our author was occasionally afflicted with deafness in his 
 case a double calamity, as at the periods when it visited him, he was in a manner 
 shut out from all communication with the external world. In this forlorn con- 
 dition old, blind, and sometimes deaf it was more difficult for him than for- 
 merly to bear up against the depression of spirits to which he had always been 
 more or less subject; but his gentleness of temper never forsook him, and 
 though he could not altogether avoid complaint, he was not loath to discover 
 and state some alleviating circumstance along with it. He died from fever after 
 a week's illness, on the 7th July, 1791, and was buried in the ground of St 
 Cuthbert's Chapel of Ease, where there is a tombstone erected, with the folJow- 
 ing inscription by Dr Beattie : " Viro Revei-endo Thomas Blacklock, D. D. 1 
 Probo, Pio, Benevolo, Omnigena Doctrina Erudito, Poetse sublimi; ab incunabu- 
 lis usque oculis capto, at hilari, faceto, amicisque semper carissimo ; qui natus 
 xxi Novemb. MDCCXX. obiit vn Julii, MDCCXCI : Hoc Monumentum Vidua ejus Sai i 
 Johnston, moerens P." 
 
 It has been said of Dr Blacklock that " he never lost a friend, nor made a 
 foe ;" and perhaps no literary man ever passed through life so perfectly free 
 from envious feeling, and so entirely respected and beloved. His conversa- 
 tion was lively and entertaining ; his wit was acknowledged, but it had no tinge 
 of malice; his temper was gentle, his feelings warm intense; his whole cha- 
 racter was one to which may be applied the epithet amiable, without any quali- 
 faation. We do not deny him the merit of this ; but he was placed in circum- 
 stances favourable for the development of such a character: his blindness, 
 together with his genius, prepossessed all in his favour, and procured him many 
 
 i The classical reader will easily detect a fault hereDivinitatis Doctor! which, it may Ixj 
 remaiked, was also committed on one occasion by Dr Adam.
 
 238 THOMAS BLACKLOCK. 
 
 warm friends ; while he was never in hazard of creating enemies, because, being 
 incapacitated for any of the more active pursuits of life, his interests did not 
 come into collison with those of any other aspirant in a similar pntlu He was 
 thus enabled to " live pleasant," as far as his intercourse with the world was con- 
 cerned. In his own mind, lie did not at all times enjoy the cheerfulness which his 
 excellent temper and his piety might seem to promise ; lie laboured under a dc 
 pression of spirits, which grew upon him, as the buoyancy of youth and the energy 
 of manhood declined. When we consider how much more we are liable to super- 
 stitious fears and alarms of every kind during the night than in the day, it docs 
 not appear surprising, that those condemned to ceaseless darkness should find it 
 impossible to subdue their sense of loneliness and destitution. No variety of 
 visible objects, no beauty of colour or grace of motion, ever diverts tho mind 
 of the blind man from brooding over its own phantasmata ; the .ear may be said 
 to be the only inlet by which he can receive cheering ideas, and hence, when 
 companionless, he becomes liable to the intrusion of doubts and dreads in an 
 endless train. The bodily inactivity to wlu'ch the want of sight compels hiiu- 
 and his exclusion from business, unhappily promote the same morbid sensibility ; 
 and though society may afford him many gleams of delight, the long hours of so- 
 litude bring back the prevailing gloom. From this disease of the mind, Dr 
 Blacklock's varied stores of acquired knowledge, the native sweetness of his tem- 
 per, and the tender cares of an affectionate wife, could not preserve him. It 
 might be the cause of uneasiness to himself, however, but never influenced his 
 behaviour to others ; it made him melancholy, but not morose. Even they 
 who look upon it as being, in ordinary instances, a fantastic and blameable 
 weakness, must pity the present sufferer, in whom so many causes concurred to 
 render it irresistible. 
 
 To Dr Blacklock as a poet, the rank of first-rate excellence has not been as- 
 signed, and is not claimed; but his works posses; solid merits, which will al- 
 ways repay a perusal The thoughts are, for the most part, vigorous, seldom less 
 than just ; and they are conveyed with a certain intensity of expression, which 
 shows them, even when not uncommon in themselves, to be the offspring of a 
 superior genius. As the productions of a blind man, they present a study of the 
 rery highest interest, and have frequently been viewed as a problem in the 
 science of mind. The author himself seems to have been not unwilling to invest 
 (hem with a certain character of mystery: " It is possible," he says, "for the 
 blind, by a retentive memory, to tell you, that the sky is an azure ; that the sun, 
 moon, and stars, are bright ; that the rose is red, the lily white or yellow, and 
 the tulip variegated. By continually hearing these substantives and adjectives 
 joined, he may be mechanically taught to join them in the same manner ; but ns 
 he never had any sensation of colour, however accurately he may speak of 
 coloured objects, his language must be like that of a parrot, without meaning, 
 or without ideas. Homer, Milton, and Ossian, had been long acquainted with 
 the visible world before they were surrounded with clouds and ever-during dark- 
 ness. They might, therefore, still retain the warm and pleasing impressions of 
 what they had seen. Their descriptions might be animated with all the rapture 
 and enthusiasm which originally fired their bosoms when the grand or delight- 
 ful objects which they delineated were immediately beheld. Nay, that enthusiasm 
 might still be heightened by a bitter sense of their loss, and by that regret which 
 a situation so dismal might naturally inspire. But how shall we account for the 
 same energy, the same transport of description, exhibited by those on whose 
 minds visible objects were either never impressed, or have been entirely obliter- 
 ated ? Yet, however unaccountable this fact may appear, it is no less certain 
 than extraordinary. But delicacy, and other particular circumstances, forbid us
 
 THOMAS BLACKLOCK. 239 
 
 to enter into this disquisition with that minuteness and precision which it re- 
 quires." 
 
 " Mr Spenco observes," says the writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1 '' that 
 Blacklock's notion of day may comprehend the ideas of warmth, variety ot 
 sounds, society, and cheerfulness ; and his notion of night, the contraiy ideas ot 
 dullness, silence, solitude, melancholy, and, occasionally, even of horror: that 
 no substitutes the idea of glory for that of the sun; and of glory in a less de- 
 gree for those of the moon and stars : that his idea of the beams of the sun may 
 bo composed of this idea of glory, and that of rapidity : that something of soli- 
 dity, too, may perhaps be admitted both into his idea of light and darkness ; 
 but that what his idea of glory is, cannot be determined. Mr Spence also re- 
 marks, that Mr Blacklock may attribute paleness to grief, brightness to the eyes, 
 cheerfulness to green , and a glow to gems and roses, without any determinate ideas ; 
 as boys at school, when, in their distress for a word to lengthen out a verse, they 
 find parpureus olor, or purpureum mare, may afterwards use the epithet purpu- 
 reus with propriety, though they know not what it means, and have never seen 
 either a swan or the sea, or heard that the swan is of a light, and the sea of a 
 lark colour. But he supposes, too, that Mr Blacklock may have been able to 
 distinguish colours by his touch, and to have made a new vocabulary to himself, 
 by substituting tangible for visible differences, and giving them the same names ; 
 so that green, with him, may seem something pleasing or soft to the touch, and 
 red, something displeasing or rough. In defence of this supposition, it has been 
 said, Avith some plausibility, that the same disposition of parts in the surfaces ot 
 
 1 We have already staled our belief that this writer was Dr Johnson. Besides the evi- 
 dence which the passages quoted in the text afford, there is much of the spirit of Johnson 
 m the summary of Blacklock's personal character: "This gentleman has one excellence 
 which outvalues all genius, and all learning he is truly and eminently a good man. He 
 imssexses great abilities with, modesty, and wants almost eoery tiling else with content." The pro- 
 bability is farther heightened by the kindness which Johnson manifested to Blacklock when 
 lie visited Scotland. On being introduced at Mr Boswell's, the English moralist " received 
 him with a most humane complacency 'Dear Dr Blacklock, I am glad to see you!'" 
 Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides. We are also told by Mr Bos\vell,that Dr Johnson, on his re- 
 turn from the Western Islands, breakfasted once at Dr Blacklock's house. We esteem the ver- 
 bal criticism in the article we have just spoken of, as equally characteristic of the illustrious 
 lexicographer: " Some passages," it is remarked, "appear to have something wrong in them 
 at the first view, but upon a more accurate inspection, are found to be right, or at least only 
 to be wrong as they reflect the faults of others. In these verses, 
 
 'What cave profound, what star sublime, 
 Shall hide me from thy boundless view,' 
 
 there seems to be an improper connexinn of ideas ; but the impropriety is in a great degree 
 of our own making. We have joined ideas which Mr Blacklock, without any absurdity, 
 nas here separated. We have associated the idea of darkness with that of profundity, and 
 
 can separate good men from the love of God ; neither, says Mr Blacklock, can ^height^or 
 
 depth conceal a 
 
 effect of obscur 
 
 view which he supposes to cornpreh' 
 
 'any being from his sight. And that he did 110! here suppose concealment the 
 irity, appears plainly from the epithet boundless, which he has given to that 
 ,,.,. ,. .,e supposes to comprehend all height and depth, or, in other words, universal 
 space. It must, however, be granted, that as height and depth are relative to a mide 
 puint, there is no proportion between the depth of a cave and the height of a star. 
 " There is certainly a mistake in the last line of this couplet : 
 
 inly 
 
 ' So fools their flocks to sanguine wolves resign, 
 So trust the cunning fox to prune the vine.' 
 
 were sour. Blacklock explained this latter passage by saying, " that he alluded t 
 known passage of the Scripture: ' Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil 
 for our vines have tender grapes.' Cant. ii. 15." 
 
 that he alluded to that 
 the vii
 
 240 THOMAS ELACKLOCK. 
 
 bodies, which makes them reflect different rays of light, may make them feel as 
 differently to the exquisite touch of a blind man. But there is so much differ- 
 ence in the tangible qualities of things of the same colour, so much roughness and 
 smoothness, harshness and softness, arising from other causes, that it is more dif- 
 ficult to conceive how that minute degree arising from colour should be distin- 
 guished, than how a blind man should talk sensibly on the subject without havin"- 
 made such distinction. We cannot conceive how a piece of red velvet, woollen 
 cloth, camblet, silk, and painted canvass, should have something in common, 
 which can be distinguished by the touch, through the greatest difference in all 
 qualities which the touch can discover ; or in what mode green buckram should 
 be more soft and pleasing to the touch than red velvet If the softness peculiar 
 to green be distinguished in the buckram, and the harshness peculiar to red in 
 the velvet, it must be by some quality with which the rest of mankind are as 
 little acquainted as the blind with colour. It may perhaps be said, that a blind 
 111:111 is supposed to distinguish colours by his touch, only when all things are equal. 
 But if this be admitted, it would as much violate the order of his ideas to call 
 velvet red, as to call softness harsh, or, indeed, to call green red ; velvet being 
 somewhat soft and pleasing to the toucji, and somewhat soft and pleasing to the 
 touch being his idea of green." 
 
 The acuteness of these remarks leaves us to regret that the author eluded (he 
 discussion of the most difficult part of the subject, and fixed upon that concern- 
 ing which there is no dispute: Blacklock himself acknowledged what is li -iv 
 said about distinguishing colours by the touch, to be true as far as he was con- 
 cerned, that being a nicety of perception which, though reported to be possessed 
 by others, he in vain endeavoured to attain. " We have known a person," he 
 says, in his article on Blindness, " who lost the use of liis sight at an early pe- 
 riod of infancy, who, in the vivacity or delicacy of his sensations, was not, per- 
 haps, inferior to any one, and who had often heard of others in his own situation 
 capable of distinguishing colours by touch with the utmost exactness and proni]>- 
 titude. Stimulated, therefore, partly by curiosity, to acquire a new train of 
 ideas, if that acquisition were possible, but still more by incredulity with respect 
 to the facts related, he tried repeated experiments by touching the surfaces of 
 different bodies, and examining whether any such diversities could be found in 
 them as might enable him to distinguish colours ; but no such diversity could he 
 ever ascertain. Sometimes, indeed, he imagined that objects which had no co- 
 lour, or, in other words, such as were black, were somewhat different and 
 peculiar in their surfaces ; but this experiment did not always, nor universally 
 hold." 
 
 But even supposing Dr Blacklock to have possessed the power of distinguish- 
 ing colours by the touch, and that by handling the coat which he wore he could 
 have told whether it was blue or black, the stock of ideas that he might thereby 
 have obtained, would have contributed little to fit him for describing external 
 nature. He could have formed no conception of a landscape from the repre- 
 sentation of it on canvass, which, at the most, could only convey the idea of a 
 plain surface covered with a variety of spots, some of which were smoother and 
 more pleasant to the touch than others. The pomp of groves and garniture of 
 fields would never have been disclosed to his yearning fancy by so slow and im- 
 perfect a process. Nor could his notions of scenery be much improved by what- 
 ever other conventional method he endeavoured to form them. Granting that 
 he framed his idea of the sun upon the model of that of glory, it was still but an 
 abstract idea, and could bring him no nearer to a distinct apprehension of the 
 tplendour with which light covers the face of the earth ; nor could his idea of
 
 ALEXANDER AND ELIZABETH BLACKWELL. 241 
 
 the obscuration of glory enable him to understand the real nature of the appear- 
 ances he describes when he says 
 
 " Clouds peep on clouds, and as they rise, 
 Condense to solid gloom the skies.'' 
 
 All these suppositions fail to aftbrd a solution of the difficulty concerning the 
 nature of his ideas of visible objects. In order to arrive at the proper explana- 
 tion, let us inquire whence he derived them : that the sky is blue and the fields 
 green, he could only learn from the descriptions of others. What he learned 
 from others he might combine variously, and by long familiarity with the use ol 
 words, he might do so correctly, but it was from memory alone that he drew his 
 materials. Imagination could not heighten his pictures by stores of any kind 
 but those supplied by his recollection of books. We wonder, indeed, at the ac- 
 curate arrangement of the different parts in his delineations, and that he should 
 ever have been led to peruse what he could not by any possibility understand 
 how, for instance, he should have studied with ardour and delight such a work 
 as the " Seasons," the appreciation of whose beauties one would suppose to depend 
 almost entirely on an acquaintance with the visible forms of creation. But 
 when we consider how deeply he must have regretted the want of the most de- 
 lightfid of our senses, it will appear most natural, that he should strive by every 
 means to repair the deficiency, and to be admitted to some share of the pleasure 
 which he had heard that sight conveys. From his constant endeavours to ar- 
 rive at some knowledge of the nature of visible objects, he obtained a full com- 
 mand of the language proper to them ; and the correct application of what he 
 thus learned, is all that can be claimed for the descriptive parts of his poetry. 
 These never present any picture absolutely original, however pleasing it may be, 
 and however much it may enhance the effect of the sentiment it is introduced to 
 assist. 
 
 Besides the earlier notices of Mr Gilbert Gordon, of Spence, and, we may 
 add, of Johnson, Blacklock'g life has been written by Mackenzie with great 
 elegance, by Chalmers, and by Dr Anderson. The last biographer mentions 
 that " some memoirs of his life, written by himself, are now (1795) in the pos- 
 session of Dr Beattie." It is not improbable that this statement refers merely to 
 the " long letter" from Blacklock to Beattie, already alluded to. If other do- 
 cuments of this kind were in the hands of the latter in 1795, as he had not 
 thought proper to communicate them to any of Dr Blacklock's biographers, the 
 probability is, that he would have retained them till his death, and that they would 
 have appeared among his papers. Sir William Forbes, however, makes no mention 
 of any such discovery ; although, besides frequent allusions to him in the course 
 of the life of Dr Beattie, he has, in the appendix to that work, given a brief 
 sketch of that of Dr Blacklock. If such memoirs are, nevertheless, in existence, 
 and could be recovered, they would form a most interesting addition to our stock 
 of autobiography. 
 
 BLACKWELL, ALEXANDER and ELIZABETH, husband and wife. The former 
 was brother to the more celebrated Dr Thomas Blackuell, the subject of the fol- 
 lowing article. His father, Thomas Black well, was at first minister of Paisley, 
 whence he was removed, in 1700, to be one of the ministers of Aberdeen. He 
 was there appointed to be Professor of Divinity in the Marischal college, and 
 afterwards, in 1717, raised by the crown to the rank of Principal, which he 
 held till his death in 172S. Alexander, his son, exhibited at an early period 
 such symptoms of genius as induced his father to employ great personal care in 
 his education. At fifteen, he was a perfect Greek and Latin scholar, and he 
 afterwards distinguished himself very highly at college. It would appear that
 
 242 ALEXANDER AND ELIZABETH BLA.CKWELL. 
 
 his union to Elizabeth Block well, who was the daughter of a merchant at Aber- 
 deen, took place under clandestine circumstances, and was connected with n step 
 which gave a direction to all his future fortunes. This was a secret elopement 
 to London, where he arrived before any of his friends knew where lie was. 
 Blockwell appears, to have been a man of mercurial and adventurous tempera- 
 ment ; possessing, wit'.i these qualities, exactly that degree of ability and accom- 
 plishment, which h:is enabled s.> many of his countrymen to prosecute a s 
 ful career in London. His first employment was that of corrector of the press to 
 Mr Wilkjns, an eminent printer. Afterwards, he was enabled to set up as a prin- 
 ter on his own account, and for this purpose he occupied a large house in the 
 Strand. But he did not long p :rs ;e this business before an action was brought 
 against him for not having served a regular apprenticeship to it. The unsuc- 
 cessful defence of this action ruined him, and one of his creditors threw him into 
 jail, where he remained two years. 
 
 Hitherto we hear nothing of liis wife and, perhaps, but for the misfortunes 
 of the husband, the virtues of this noble woman might have only decorated a 
 private station, and never emerged into the light of public fame. Like the 
 ilower, however, which blooms most by night, the better quality of woman's na- 
 ture is chieily developed under the cloud of sorrow ; and it is only when the 
 powers of man hive been prostrated, or found of no avail, that her weakness 
 shines forth in its real character latent strength. Elizabeth Blackwell hap- 
 pened to possess a taste for drawing flowers; a taste then so very rare, that 
 tiiere was hardly any engraved work in existence, containing representations of 
 this interesting department of creation. The acknowledged want of a good 
 herbal occurred to her as affording the means of exerting this gift in a useful 
 way ; and some of her first attempts being submitted to Sir Hans Sloane, Ur 
 Mead, and other eminent physicians, she soon received sufficient encouragement to 
 proceed in her work. A document, attesting their satisfaction with Mrs lilack- 
 well'j specimens, and recommending her contemplated work to public attention, 
 was signed by six eminent physicians, including these gentlemen, and bears 
 date, " October 1, 1735." By the advice of Mr Rand, an eminent apothecary, 
 demonstrator to the Company of Apothecaries in die Botanic Garden at Chelsea, 
 Mrs Blackwell hired a house near that establishment, where she had an oppor- 
 tunity of receiving the necessary flowers and plants in a fresh state, as she 
 wanted them ; she also received great encouragement and assistance from Mr 
 i j hilip Miller, so well known for his publications connected with horticulture. 
 
 Mrs Blackwell not only made drawings of the flowers, but she also engraved 
 them on copper, and coloured the prints with her own hands. Her husband lent 
 all the aid in his power, by attaching the Latin names of the plants, together 
 with a short account of their principal characters and uses, chiefly taken, by per- 
 mission, from Miller's " Botanicum Officinale." The first volume of the work 
 appeared in 1737, in large folio, containing two hundred and fifty-two plates, 
 each of which is occupied by one distinct flower or plant ; and was dedicated to 
 Dr Mead, with the following address ; " As the world is indebted to the eii- 
 couragers of every public good, if the following undertaking should prove such, 
 it is but justice to declare who have been the chief promoters of it ; and as you 
 was the first who advised its publication, and honoured it with your name, give 
 me leave to tell the readers how much they are in your debt for this work, and 
 to acknowledge the honour of your friendship." The second volume, complet- 
 ing the number of plates to five hundred, appeared in 1739, and was inscribed 
 lo Mr Hand, in an address breathing as fervent a spirit of gratitude, and acknow- 
 ledging that, in her own ignorance of Botany, she w;is entirely obliged to him 
 far the completeness of the work, so far as it went The drawings are in gene-
 
 ALEXANDER ANP ELIZABETH BLACKWELL. 243 
 
 nil faitliful ; and if there is wanting that accuracy which modern improvements 
 have rendered necessary, in delineating the more minute parts, yet, upon the 
 whole, the figures are sufficiently distinctive of the subjects. The style of the 
 engravings is what would now be called hard, but it is fully on a level with the 
 prevailing taste of the age; and, as a piece of labour, executed, it would ap- 
 pear, in the space of four years, by the hands of one woman, the whole work is 
 entitled alike to our wonder and admiration. While Mrs Blackwell was pro- 
 ceeding in her task, she attracted the attention of many persons of eminent rank 
 and character, and also a great number of scientific persons, who visited her at 
 Chelsea, and afforded her many marks of kindness. On the completion of the 
 first volume, she was permitted in person to present a copy to the College of 
 Physicians, who acknowledged her extraordinary merit by a handsome present, 
 as well as a testimonial, under the hands of the president and censors of the in- 
 stitution, characterising her work as " most useful," and recommending it to the 
 public. It seems to have been at this period of her labours, that, after having 
 nil along supported her family by her own exertions, she was enabled to redeem 
 her husband from confinement. 
 
 Blackwell, after his release, lived for some time at Chelsea with his wife, and, 
 on her account, was much respected. He attempted to perfect himself in the 
 study of physic, and also formed schemes for the improvement of waste lands. 
 This latter subject he studied to such a degree, as to be enabled to write nn 
 agricultural treatise, which attracted some attention. Among his other occupa- 
 tions, for some time, was a prosecution which he entered into against some 
 I -rintsellevs, for pirating his wife's botanical plates. By his success in this aflhir, 
 he revenged in some measure the persecution to which he had been subjected for 
 his inadvertent breach of another exclusive law. His agricultural knowledge 
 gradually became known, and he was often consulted on difficult points con- 
 nected with that science, and received handsome fees for his trouble. At one 
 time he was employed by the Duke of Chandos in superintending some agricul- 
 tural operations at Cannons. His work on agriculture, which was published at 
 this time, recommended him to the attention of a still higher patronage the 
 Swedish ambassador, who, having transmitted a copy to his court, was directed 
 to engage the author, if possible, to go to Stockholm. Blackwell accepted this 
 engagement, and sailed for the Swedish capital, leaving his wife and one chi d 
 in England, with a promise that he would soon send for them. He was received 
 in the kindest manner at the court of Stockholm, was lodged in the house of 
 the Prime Minister, and was allowed a pension. The king of Sweden happen- 
 ing soon after to be taken dangerously ill, Blackwell was permitted to prescribe 
 for him, and had the good fortune to eflect a cure. He was consequently ap- 
 pointed one of the king's physicians, and styled Doctor, though it does not 
 .ippear that he ever took a degree in medicine. While enjoying all this good 
 fortune, he was not forgetful of his wife, but sent her several sums of money, and 
 she was on the point of sailing to join him at Stockholm, when iril his prospects, 
 and life itself, were overwhelmed at one blow. It is probable, from the chair.c- 
 ter of his brother Thomas, that he was a fervent admirer of the principles cf 
 civil liberty. Nothing, moreover, can be more probable than that a man, ac- 
 customed to all the freedom of speech which is so harmlessly permitted in Bri- 
 tain, might not very readily accommodate himself to that prudence of the tongue 
 which is demanded from the subjects of an arbitrary monarchy. It is at least 
 certain, that he was apprehended on suspicion of being connected with a plot, 
 which had been formed by one Count Tessin, for overturning the constitution of 
 the kingdom, and altering the line of succession. Being put to the torture, he 
 is alleged to have confessed a concern in this conspiracy. Every reader, how
 
 244 THOMAS BLACKWELL. 
 
 ever will acknowledge, that confessions under the torture form historical docu- 
 ments of a very questionable nature. Being tried for his supposed otfence before 
 a royal commission, he was sentenced to be broken alive on the wheel, and put 
 to the death of a traitor. In the course of his trial, some imputations were 
 thrown ut>on his Britannic Majesty, for which, in conjunction with other circum- 
 stances, the British ambassador was recalled from Stockholm. The unfortunate 
 Blackwell was executed, July 29th, 1747, but not, it would appear, with the 
 tortures assigned by his sentence. On the scaffold, he protested to the people 
 his entire innocence of tiie crimes laid to his charge, and, as the best proof of 
 what he stated, pointed out his utter want of all motive for engaging in an at- 
 tempt against the government. He prayed with great devotion, but happening 
 10 lay his head wrong upon the block, he remarked good-humouredly, that, as 
 ihis was his first experiment, no wonder lie required a little instruction. The 
 late of Mrs Blackwell's death is not ascertained. ' Her work was afterward* iv- 
 published on the continent. 
 
 BLACKWELL, THOMAS, the restorer of Greek literature in the North of Scot- 
 land, and a learned writer of the eighteenth century, was brother to the subject 
 of the preceding article. He was born at Aberdeen, August 4th, 1701, and 
 after receiving the rudiments of his education at the Grammar School of his na- 
 tive city,' entered his academical course at the Marischal College, where he took 
 the degree of A. M. in 1718. A separate professorship of Oireek had not ex- 
 isted in this seminary previous to 1700, and the best of the ancient languages 
 was at that period very little cultivated in Scotland. Blackwell, having turned 
 his attention to Greek, was honoured, in 1723, when only twenty-two years of 
 age, with a crown appointment to this chair. He entered upon the discharge of 
 the duties of his office with the utmost ardour. It perfectly suited his inclination 
 and habits. He was an enthusiastic admirer of the language and literature of 
 Greece, and the whole bent of his studies was exclusively devoted to the cultiva- 
 tion of polite learning. He had the merit of rearing some very eminent Greek 
 scholars, among whom may be mentioned Principal George Campbell, Dr Alex- 
 ander Gerard, and Dr James Beattie. The last has borne ample testimony to 
 the merit of his master, in his "Essay on the Utility of Classical Learning.' 1 
 where he styles Principal BJackwell " a very learned author." 
 
 Dr Blackwell first appeared before the public, as an author, in 1737. His In- 
 quiry into the Life and Writings of Homer was published at London during the 
 course of that year, but without his name. It has been positively ailirmed 
 
 1 Soon after the death of Bhickvvcll, appeared " a genuine copy of u letter from a mer- 
 e-haul in Stockholm, to his correspondent in London, containing mi impartial account of Dr 
 Alexander Blackw, -II, his plot, trial, character, and behaviour, both under examination and 
 at the place of execution, together with a copy of a paper delivered to a friend upon the 
 scaffold, in which In: denied the crime imputed to him. ' Tin's publication docs not appear 
 to have been genuine, and as it contains some particulars of the life of Blackwell totally at 
 variance with the above more authentic and probable account, which is chiefly derived from 
 a letter signed G. J. and dated from Bath, in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1747, we have 
 entirely rejected it. This spurious work is, nevertheless, chiefly used by Mr Nichols, in an 
 account of Blackwell given in the Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century. 
 
 2 The history of the origin of what are technically, in Scotland, denominated Grainnmr 
 Schools, is involved in considerable obscurity. The probability is, that they were in most 
 cases founded by generous individuals, who wi>hcd well to the cause of literature, and who, 
 to secure that proper care should be taken in the management of the funds by which the 
 establishment was supported, vested the money appropriated for that purpose in some public 
 body, or corporation, ft does not admit of a doubt, thai this took place in several of theprin- 
 ei pal Scottish burghs ; but it is very singular, that those schools were limited to the Latin 
 a nguage alone. This proceeded from the dread that there was a design in the founders of 
 such seminaries to supersede Universities, where Latin, Greek, and Hebrew were tau.nln. 
 The Grammar School of Aberdeen was founded by Dr Patrick Dun, Principal of Mari- 
 schal Collese, who was a native of the city, and had resided at Padua, when- he took his 
 degree of Doctor of Medicine.
 
 THOMAS BLACKWELL. 245 
 
 with what truth it is impossible to say, that its being anonymous, was in imita- 
 tion of Lord. Shaftesbury, of whom he was a warm admirer, and whose works 
 were published after that manner. The style, also, is vitiated by a perpetual 
 effort at the Shaftesburian vein, which is, perhaps, the principal fault in the 
 writing of Blackwell. A second edition of the work appeared in 1746, and 
 shortly after, " Proofs of the Inquiry into Homer's Life and Writings." These 
 proofs chiefly consisted of a translation of tlie Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, 
 and French notes subjoined to the original work. The Inquiry contains a 
 i;reat deal of research, as well as a display of miscellaneous learning. Per- 
 haps its principal defect consists in the author's discovering an over anxiety 
 in regard to both ; at least, he has not been sufficiently careful to guard 
 against the imputation of sometimes going out of his way to show what labour he 
 had bestowed in examining every source of information, both ancient and 
 modern, foreign and domestic. Though the lije of Homer has been writ- 
 ten by Herodotus, by Plutarch, and by Suidas, among the Greeks, and by an 
 innumerable host of writers scattered through other nations, yet there is hardly 
 onw point in his history about which they are agreed, excepting the prodigious 
 merit of his poems, and the sophist Zoilus would not even grant this. Ho\v 
 great uncertainty prevailed respecting the time and place of his birth, abundantly 
 appears from seven Grecian cities contending in regard to the latter point. 
 When the field was so extensive, and so great diversity of opinion prevailed, it 
 cannot fail to be perceived how arduous an enterprise Dr Blackwell had under- 
 taken. His criticisms on the poems themselves "are alwajs encomiastic, often 
 ingenious, and delivered in language that can give no reasonable ground of 
 offence. The work will be read, with both pleasure and profit by all who are 
 prepared to enter upon such inquiries. It is generally esteemed the best of his 
 performances. 
 
 He published, in 1748, "Letters concerning Mythology," without his name 
 also. In the course of the same year, he was advanced to be principal of his 
 College, succeeding Dr John Osbome, who died upon the 19th of August. 
 Dr Blackwell, however, was not admitted to the exercise of his new office till the 
 subsequent 9th of November. The first object of his attention respected the dis- 
 cipline of the College. Great irregularities had crept into the institution, not in 
 his predecessor's time only, but probably almost from its foundation. Through 
 the poverty of the generality of the students in those days, their attendance, 
 short as the session was allowed to be, was very partial ; to correct this, he con- 
 sidered to be indispensably necessary. Accordingly, about the middle of Octo- 
 ber, 1749, previous to the commencement of the session, an advertisement in the 
 public papers informed the students, that a more regular attendance was to be 
 required. This, it would appear, did not produce the intended effect Accord- 
 ingly, to show that the Principal and Professors were perfectly in earnest when . 
 they gave this public notice, three of the Bursars who had not complied with the 
 terms of the advertisement, were, on the I Oth of November, expelled. This deci- 
 sion gave general satisfaction, and indeed deserved high commendation. 
 
 But, that the Professors themselves might be more alert and attentive to their 
 duty, he revived a practice which, it is likely, had at an early period been com- 
 mon, for every Professor in the University to deliver a discourse in the public 
 school upon some subject connected with his profession. He himself set the ex- 
 ample, and delivered his first oration upon the 7th of February, 1749. When 
 Blackwell was promoted to the principality, instead of sinking in indolence, he 
 seems to have considered it rather as affording an excitement to exertion. In 
 February, 1750, he opened a class for the instruction of the students in ancient 
 history, geography, and chronology. Prelections on these branches of education,
 
 246 ADAM BLACKWOOD. 
 
 lie thought necessary to render more perfect the course .at Mnrischnl College. He, 
 therefore, himself undertook the fcisk. The design of his opening this class evi- 
 dently was to pare the way for the introduction of a new plan of teaching into 
 Mnrischal College, which, accordingly, he soon after accomplished. At tho 
 commencement of the session 1752, public notice was given that, "the Prin- 
 cipal, Professors, and Blasters, having long had under their consideration the 
 present method of academical education, the plan of which, originally intro- 
 duced by the scholastic divines in the darkest times, is more calculated for dis- 
 putes and wrangling than to fit men for the duties of life, therefore have 
 resolved to introduce a new order in teaching the sciences." The order which 
 was then adopted, is what still continues in force in that University. Three 
 years afterwards, when the new plan had been put to the trial for as many 
 sessions, the faculty of the college ordered an account of the plan of education 
 which was followed to be printed. This formed a pamphlet of thirty-five pages. 
 It concludes thus : " They have already begun to experience the public ap- 
 probation by the increase of the number of their students." So that he had tiie 
 agreeable pleasure of witnessing the success of the plan he had proposed. 
 
 In 1752 he took the degree of Doctor of Laws, and in the subsequent 
 year, was published, in quarto, the first volume of " Memoirs of the Court of 
 Augustus." A second volume appeared in 1755, and a third, which was posthu- 
 mous, and left unfinished by the author, was prepared for the press by .lohn 
 Mills, Esq. and published in 1764. In this work, the author has endeavoured to 
 give an account of Roman literature as it appeared in the Augustan age, and he 
 has executed the task with no small share of success. Objections might easily be 
 started to some of his theories and opinions, but every classical scholar who is 
 fond of literary history will peruse the work with pleasure as well as profit 
 
 Dr Blackwell died, at Edinburgh, upon the (3th of March, 1757. lie was 
 certainly a very extraordinary person, and like every man of acknowledged 
 talents, formed a very general subject of conversation. He was formal, and even 
 pompous. His dress was after the fashion of the reign of Queen Anne. '1 he 
 portly mien and dignified manner in which he stepped through the public school, 
 impressed all the students with a deep sense of his professional importance. He 
 was, nevertheless, kind and indulgent to them, and of a benevolent disposition. 
 He left a widow, but no children. Mrs Blackwell, in 1793, founded a chemical 
 professorship in Mnrischal College, and appointed a premium often pounds starling 
 to be annually bestowed on the person who should compose, and deliver, in (he 
 English language, the best discourse upon a given literary subject. 
 
 ill/ACKWOOD, ADAM, a learned writer of the sixteenth century, was Ix-rn 
 at Dunfermline, in 1 53!). He was descended from an ancient and respectable 
 family ; his father, William Blackwood, was slain in battle ere he was ten years 
 
 .of age, (probably at Pinkie-field); his mother, Helen Reid, who \\as niece to 
 Hobert lieid, Bishop of Orkney, died soon after, of grief for the loss of her bus. 
 band. By his uncle, the Bishop, he was sent to the university of Paris, but was 
 soon obliged to return, on account of the death of his distinguished relation. 
 
 'Scotland, at this time, was undergoing the agonies of the reformation, under the 
 regency of Mary of Lorrain. Blackwood found it no proper sphere for his edu- 
 cation ; and therefore soon returned to Paris, where, by the liberality of his 
 youthful sovereign, Queen Mary, then residing at the court of 1' Vance, he was 
 milled tn complete his studies, and to go through a course of civil law at the 
 university of 'J houlonse. Having now acquired some reputation for learning and 
 talent, he was patronized by James Beaton, the expatriated Archbishop of <lns- 
 gow, who recommended him very warmly to Queen 3Inry and her husband, the
 
 ADAM BLACKWOOD. 
 
 247 
 
 Dauphin, by whose influence he was chosen a member of the parliament of Poi- 
 tiers, and afterwards appointed to be professor of civil law at that court. 
 
 Poitiers was henceforth the constant residence of Blackwood, and the scene ot' 
 all his literary exertions. His first work was one entitled, " De Vinculo Reli- 
 gionis et Imperii, Libri Duo," Paris, 1575, to which a third book was added in 
 lo'l^. The object of this work is to show the necessity under which rulers 
 are laid, of preserving the true i. e. the Catholic, religion, from the innovations 
 of heretics, as all rebellions arise from that source. Blackwood, by the native 
 tone of his mind, the nature of his education, and the whole train of his associa- 
 tions, was a faithful adherent of the church of Rome, and of the principles of 
 monarchical government His next work developed these professions in a more 
 perfect manner. It was entitled, '* Apologia pro Regibus," and professed to be 
 an answer to George Buchanan's work, " De Jure Regni apud Scotos." Both 
 of these works argue upon extreme and unfair principles. Buchanan seeks to 
 apply to the simple feudal government of Scotland a monarchical aristocracy 
 all the maxims of the Roman republicans. Blackwood, on the other hand, is a 
 slavishly devout advocate for the divine right of kings. In replying to one of 
 Buchanan's positions, the apologist of kings says, very gravely, that if one of 
 the scholars at St Leonard's College were to argue in that manner, he would 
 richly deserve to be whipt. Both of the above works are in Latin. He next 
 published, in French, an account of the death of his benefactress, Queen Mary, 
 under the title, " Martyre de Maria Stuart, Heyne d'Escosse," Antwerp, 8vo., 
 1588. This work is conceived in a tone of bitter resentment regarding the 
 event to which it refers. He addresses himself, in a vehement strain of passion, 
 to all the princes of Europe, to avenge her death ; declaring that they are un- 
 worthy of royalty, if they are not roused on so interesting and pressing an occa- 
 sion. At the end of the volume, is a collection of poems in Latin, French, and 
 Italian, upon Mary and Elizabeth; in which the former princess is praised for 
 every excellence, while her murderess is characterised by every epithet expres- 
 sive of indignation and hate. An anagram was always a good weapon in those 
 days of conceit and false taste ; and one which we find in this collection was no 
 doubt looked upon as a most poignant stab at the Queen of England : 
 
 ELIZABETA TKUDERA 
 VADK, JKZKBEL TETRA. 
 
 Iii 1598, Blackwood published a manual of devotions under the title, "Sanc- 
 tarum precationum proemia," which he dedicated to his venerable patron, the 
 Archbishop of Glasgow. The cause of his writing this book was, that by read- 
 ing much at night he had so weakened his eyes, as to be unable to distinguish 
 his own children at the distance of two or three yards : in the impossibility 01' 
 employing himself in study, he was prevailed upon, by the advice of the Arch- 
 bishop, to betake himself to a custom of nocturnal prayer, and hence the com- 
 position of this book. In 1606, Blackwood published a Latin poem on the 
 inauguration of James VI., as king of Great Britain. In 1609, appeared al 
 Poitiers, a complete collection of his Latin poems. He died, in 1623, in the 
 74th year of his age, leaving four sons (of whom one attained to his own sena- 
 torial dignity in the parliament of Poitiers), and seven daughters. He was most 
 splendidly interred in St Porcharius' church at Poitiers, where a marble monumen, 
 was reared to his memory, charged with a long panegyrical epitaph. In 1644, 
 appeared his " Opera Urania,'' in one volume 4to., edited by the learned Naudeus, 
 who prefixes an elaborate eulogium upon the author. Blackwood was not only 
 a man of consummate learning and great genius, but is allowed to have also fill- 
 tilled, in life, ah 1 the duties of a go..d man.
 
 248 HENRY BLACKWOOD. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. 
 
 BLACKWOOD, HENRY, brolher to t\\e subject of the preceding article, and 
 his senior by some years, was educated under nearly similar circumstances, and, 
 in 1551, taught philosophy in the university of Paris. Having afterwards nj>- 
 plied himself to the study of medicine, he rose to be dean of that facility at 
 Paris, an office of the very highest dignity which "could then be reached by a 
 member of the medical profession. He appears to have been one of the earliest 
 modern physicians who gave a sanction to the practice of letting blood. He 
 published various treatises on medicine, and also upon philosophy, of which a list 
 is preserved in Mackenzie's Lives of Scots Writers. He acted at one time as 
 physician to the Duke of Longueville, with a salary of two h mdred pistoles. At 
 another time, when the plague prevailed at Paris, he remained in the city, and 
 exerted himself so zealously in the cure of his numerous patients, as to gain 
 universal applause. He died, in 1613 or 1614, at a very advanced airv. 
 
 BLACKWOOD, WILLIAM, an eminent publisher, and originator of the 
 magazine which bears his name, was born in Edinburgh, November 20, 1776, 
 of parents who, though in humble circumstances, bore a respectable character, 
 and were able to give this and their other children an excellent elementary 
 education. At the age of fourteen, he commenced an apprenticeship with 
 Messrs Bell and Jiradfute, booksellers in his native city, with whom he con- 
 tinued six years. During this time, he stored his mind with a large fund of 
 miscellaneous reading, which was of great service to him in after life. It is 
 probable tint he at the same time manifested no common talents for business, 
 as, soon after the expiration of his apprenticeship, [1797,] he was selected by 
 Messrs J. Mundell and Company, then carrying on an extensive publishing 
 business in the Scottish capital, to take the charge of a branch of their concern 
 which they had resolved to establish in Glasgow. Mr Black wood acted as the 
 Glasgow agent of Mundell and Company for a year, during which time lie im- 
 proved greatly as a man of business. Thrown in a great measure upon Ins own 
 resources, he here acquired habits of decision, such as are rarely formed at so 
 early an age, and which were afterwards of the greatest importance to him. 
 Having also occasion to write frequently to his constituents, he formed a styla 
 for commercial correspondence, the excellence of which was a subject of fre- 
 quent remark in his later years. 
 
 At the end of the year, when the business he had conducted at Glasgow was 
 given up, Mr Black wood returned to Messrs Bell and Bradfute, with whom he 
 continued about a year longer. He then (1800) entered into partnership 
 with Mr Robert Ross, a bookseller of some standing, who also acted as 
 ai auctioneer of books. Not long after, finding the line of business pursued 
 by Mr Ross uncongenial to his taste, he retired from the partnership, and. pro- 
 ceeding to London, placed himself, for improvement in the antiquarian depart- 
 ment of his trade, under Mr CuthilL Reluming once more to Edinburgh in 
 1 804, he set up on his own account in a shop in South Bridge street, 
 where for several years he confined his attention almost exclusively tc 
 the department just alluded to, in which he was allowed to have no rival 
 of superior intelligence in Scotland. The catalogue of old books which 
 he published in 1812, being the first of the kind in which the books 
 were classified, and which referred to a stock of uncommon richness and 
 variety, continues till the present day to be a standard authority for the prices 
 of old books. At this period of his career, Mr Blackwood became agent for 
 several of the first London publishing houses, and also began to publish exten- 
 sively for himself. In 1816, having resolved to throw a larger share of his 
 energies into the latter department of business, he sold off his stock of 
 old books, and removed to a shop in the New Town, soon to become one of 
 the most memorable localities connected with modern literary history.
 
 "WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. 249 
 
 For a considerable time, Mr Blackwood had been of opinion tlmt something 1 
 like the same regeneration whi<;h the Edinburgh Review had given to 
 periodical criticism, might be communicated to that species of miscellaneous 
 literature which chiefly assumed the monthly form of publication. At this time, 
 the Scots Magazine of his native city, which had never pretended to any merit 
 above that of a correct register, was scarcely in any respect more flat and 
 insipid than the publications of the same kind in London. It was reserved for 
 the original and energetic mind of the subject of this memoir, to raise this 
 department of popular literature from the humble state in which it had hitherto 
 existed, or to which, when we recollect the labours of Johnson and Goldsmith, 
 we may rather say it had sunk, and to place it on the eminence for which it 
 was evidently fitted. The first number of Blackwood's Magazine appeared in 
 April, 1817, and, though bearing more resemblance to preceding publications 
 of the same kind than it afterwards assumed, the work was from the first acknow- 
 ledged by the public to possess superior merit. The publishers of the elder 
 magazines made an almost immediate, though indirect confession to this effect, by 
 attempts to put new and more attractive faces upon their publications, and stimu- 
 late the lagging energies of those who conducted them. The two young men 
 who were chiefly engaged upon the work of Mr Blackwood, having disagreed with 
 him, were employed by Mr Constable to take the charge of the Scots Magazine, 
 which he, like others in similar circumstances, was endeavouring to resuscitate 
 from the slumbers of a century. Mr Blackwood was already more than inde- 
 pendent of these gentlemen, in consequence of the aid which he was receiving 
 from other quarters ; but bitter feelings had nevertheless been engendered, 
 and these found vent, through the fancy of some of his new contributors, in the 
 celebrated article in the seventh number of his magazine, styled " Translation 
 of a Chaldee Manuscript." In this jeu d' esprit, the circumstances of the late 
 feud, and the efforts of Mr Constable to repair the fortunes of his ancient 
 mngazine, were thrown into a form the most burlesque that ever imagination 
 conceived, though certainly with very little of the ill nature which the article 
 unfortunately excited in the most of those who figured in it. In consequence 
 of the painful feelings to which it gave rise, Mr Blackwood cancelled it from 
 all the copies within his reach ; and it is now, consequently, very rarely to be 
 met with. 
 
 Blackwood's Magazine, as already hinted, had not been in progress for many 
 months, before it obtained the support of new and unexpected talent Mr 
 John Wilson, already distinguished by his beautiful poetry, and Mr John 
 (r. Lockhart, whose more regular, though perhaps less brilliant genius has since 
 found a fitting field in the management of the Quarterly Review, were at this 
 time young men endeavouring to make their way at the Scottish bar. Having 
 formed an attachment to Mr Blackwood, they threw into his literary repertory 
 the overflowing bounties of two minds, such as rarely rise singly, and much 
 more rarely together; and soon enchained the attention of the public to a series 
 of articles not more remarkable for their ability, than for an almost unexampled 
 recklessness of humour and severity of sarcasm. It is not to be denied that much 
 offence was thus occasionally given to the feelings of individuals ; but, in ex- 
 tenuation of any charge which can be rested on such grounds, it may be pointed 
 out that, while Mr Blackwood had his own causes of complaint in the ungen- 
 erous hostility of several of his commercial brethren, the whimsical genius of his 
 contributors had unquestionably found a general provocation in the overweening 
 pretensions and ungracious deportment of several of their literary seniors, some 
 of whom had, in their own youth, manifested equal causticity, with certainly no 
 greater show of talent. To these excuses must be added the relative one of
 
 250 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. 
 
 politics. Mr Blackwood from the first took a strong part with the existing 
 Tory government, which in Edinburgh had been powerfully supported hereto- 
 fore in every manner except by the pen, while the opposition had long pos- 
 sessed a literary organ of the highest authority. In treating, therefore, of some 
 of the juvenile indiscretions of this extraordinary work, and those connected 
 with it, we must, if willing to preserve impartiality, recollect the keenness witli 
 which politics and political men were then discussed. 
 
 In the management of the magazine, Mr Blackwood at all times bore in his 
 own person the principal share. The selection of articles, the correspondence 
 with contributors, and other duties connected with editorship, were performed 
 by him during a period of seventeen years, with a degree of skill, on \\hich it 
 is not too much to say that no small portion of the success of the work de- 
 pended. In its earlier years he contributed two or three articles himself; but 
 to this, as a practice, he had a decided objection, as he could easily perceive 
 that an editor, especially one like himself not trained to letters, is apt to be 
 biassed respecting his own compositions. It may easily be conceived, however, 
 that, in the management of the literary and mercantile concerns of such a work, 
 there was sufficient employment for even a man of his extraordinary energies. 
 And no small praise must it ever be to the subject of this brief memoir, that, 
 during so long a period, he maintained in his work so much <>i the vivid spirit 
 with which it set out; kept up so unfailing a succession of brilliant articles in 
 general literature, altogether exclusive of the regular papers of Mr Wilson, as 
 if he were exhausting mind after mind among the literary men of his country, 
 and still at no loss to discover new ; and never, throughout his whole career, 
 varied in a single page from the political key-note which he had struck at the 
 commencement. To have done these things, and with so much apparent ease 
 to himself, and so little ostentation,- for these were features in his masterly 
 career argues in our opinion a character of unwonted vigour, as well as no 
 small share of intellectual power. 
 
 The magazine eventually reached a circulation not much short of ten thousand 
 copies, and, while reprinted in North America, found its way from the pub- 
 lisher's warehouse into every other part of the world where the English language 
 was spoken. Notwithstanding the great claims it made upon his time, Mr 
 Blackwood continued till his death to transact a large share of business as a 
 general publisher. Not long before that event, he completed the Edinburgh 
 Encyclopedia in eighteen volumes quarto, and, among his other more important 
 publications, may be reckoned Kerr's Collection of Voyages and Travels, in 
 eighteen volumes octavo. The chief distinct works of Messrs Wilson, Lockhart, 
 Hogg, Moir, dalt, and other eminent persons connected with his magazine, and 
 some of the writings of Sir Walter Scott, were published by Mr Blackwood. 
 He also continued till the close of his career to carry on an extensive trade in 
 retail bookselling. 
 
 Mr Blackwood died, September 16, 1834, after a painful illness of four 
 months. His disease, a tumour in the groin, had in that time exhausted his 
 physical energies, but left his temper calm and unruffled, and his intellect en- 
 tire and vigorous even to the last. 
 
 In the words of his obituarist, " No man ever conducted business in a 
 more direct and manly manner than Mr Blackwood. His opinion was on all 
 occasions distinctly expressed ; his questions were ever explicit ; his answers 
 conclusive. His sincerity might sometimes be considered as rough, but no 
 human being ever accused him either of flattering or. of shuffling ; and those 
 men of letters who were in frequent communication with him, soon conceived a 
 respect and confidence for him, which, save in a very few instances, ripened
 
 HUGH BLAIR, D.D. 
 
 251 
 
 into cordial regard and friendship. The masculine steadiness, and impertur- 
 bable resolution of his character, were impressed on all his proceedings ; and it 
 will be allowed by those who watched him through his career, as the publisher 
 of a literary and political miscellany, that these qualities were more than once 
 very severely tested. He dealt by parties exactly as he did by individuals. 
 Whether his principles were right or' wrong, they were his, and he never com- 
 promised or complimented away one tittle of them. No changes, either of men 
 or of measures, ever dimmed his eye, or checked his courage." 
 
 Mr Blackwood was twice a magistrate of his native city, and in that capacity 
 distinguished himself by an intrepid zeal in the reform of burgh management, 
 singularly in contrast with his avowed sentiments respecting constitutional 
 reform. 
 
 BLAIR, HUGH, D.D. one of the most eminent divines and cultivators of polite 
 literature, of the eighteenth century, was born at Edinburgh, April 7, 1718. 
 His father, John Blair, a merchant of Edinburgh, and who at one time occupied 
 a respectable office in the magistracy, was grandson to Robert Blair, an eminent 
 divine of the seventeenth century, whose life is commemorated in its proper place 
 in this work. John Blair was thus cousin-german to the author of the Grave, 
 whose life follows, in the present work, that of his distinguished ancestor. John 
 Blair, having impaired his fortune by engaging in the South Sea scheme, 
 latterly held an office in the excise. He married Martha Ogston, and the first 
 child of this marriage was the subject of the following memoir. 
 
 Hugh Blair was early remarked by his father to possess the seeds of genius. 
 For this reason, joined to a consideration, perhaps, of his delicate constitution, he 
 was educated for the church. He commenced his academic career at the univer- 
 sity 01 Edinburgh, October, 1730, and as his weakly health disabled him from 
 enjoy i.ig the usual sports of boyhood, his application to study was very close. 
 Amony- the numerous testimonies to his proficiency, which were paid by his in- 
 structors, one deserves to be particularly mentioned, as, in his o\vn opinion, it 
 determined the bent of his genius towards polite literature. An essay, HSPI TO* 
 x.ct'hot,, that is, upon the BEAUTIFUL,' written by him when a student of logic in 
 the usual course of academical exercises, had the good fortune to attract the 
 notice of proiessor Stevenson, and, with circumstances honourable to the author, 
 was appointed to be read in public at the conclusion of the session. This mark 
 of distinction, which occurred in his sixteenth year, made a deep impression on 
 his mind ; and the essay which merited it, he ever after recollected with partial 
 alfection, and preserved to the day of his death, as the first earnest of his fame. 
 At this time Dr Blair commenced a method of study, which contributed much 
 to the accuracy and extent of his knowledge, and which he continued to practise 
 occasionally even after his reputation was fully established. It consisted in mak- 
 ing abstracts of the most important works which he read, and in digesting them 
 according to the train of his own thoughts. History, in particular, hs resolved 
 to study in this manner; and in concert with some of his youthful associates, he 
 constructed a very comprehensive scheme of chronological tables, for .receiving 
 into its proper place every important fact which should occur. The scheme de- 
 vised by this young student for his own private use was afterwards improved, 
 filled up, and given to the public, by his learned relative Dr John Blair, Preben- 
 dary of Westminster, in his valuable work, " The Chronology and History of 
 the World." 
 
 1 A technical Greek phrase, expressing the abstract idea of the perfection of beaur.A 
 in objects of taste. A devotion to the " To kulon ' in that nation, was similar to what ciu 
 moderns understand by a correct taste.
 
 252 HUGH BLAIR, D.D. 
 
 In 173U, on taking the degree of Master of Arts, Blair printed Iris thesis, 
 " De Fundameutis et Obligations Legis Naturae," which contains a brief outline 
 of these moral principles afterwards developed in his sermons, and displays the 
 first dawnings of that virtuous sensibility, by which he was at all periods of his 
 public life so highly distinguished. On the 21st of October, 1741, he \\as 
 licensed as a preacher by the presbytery of Edinburgh, and soon began, in the 
 usual manner, to exhibit himself occasionally in the pulpit. Heretofore, the 
 only popular style of preaching in Scotland was that of the evangelical party, 
 which consisted chiefly in an impassioned address to the devotional feelings of the 
 audience. The moderate party, who were of course least popular had neither 
 lost the practice of indulging in tedious theological disquisitions, nor acquired 
 that of expatiating on the moral duties. The sermons of this young licentiate, 
 which presented sound practical doctrines, in a style of language almost un- 
 known in Scotland, struck the minds of the audience as something quite 
 new. In the course of a very few months, his fame had travelled far beyond 
 the bounds of his native city. A sermon which he preached in the West 
 Church, produced an extraordinary impression, and Mas spoken of in highly- 
 favourable terms to the Earl of Leven. His lordship accordingly present- 
 ed the preacher to the parish church of Colessie in Fife, which happened to be 
 then vacant He was ordained to this charge, September 23, 1742, but was 
 not long permitted to labour in so confined a scene. In a few months, he was 
 brought forward by his friends as candidate for the second charge of the church 
 of Canongate, which may almost be considered a metropolitan situation. In the 
 popular election which followed, he was successful against a very formidable com- 
 petitor, Mr Robert Walker, then a favourite preacher. He was inducted to this 
 charge, July 14, 1743, when he had little more than completed his twenty-fifth 
 year. On the occasion of the insurrection of 1745, Blair preached a sermon, in 
 the warmest strain of loyalty to the existing government, and which he after- 
 wards printed. During the eleven years which he spent in the Canongate, his 
 sermons attracted large audiences from the adjoining city, and were alike admir- 
 ed for their eloquence and piety. They were composed with uncommon care ; 
 and, occupying a middle place between the dry metaphysical discussion of one 
 class of preachers, and the loose incoherent declamation of the other, they blend- 
 ed together in the .happiest manner the light of argument with the warmth of 
 exhortation, and exhibited captivating specimens of what had hitherto been rarely 
 Heard in Scotland, the polished, well-compacted, and regular didactic oration. 
 
 On the 11 th of October, 1754, he was called by the town council of Edin- 
 burgh to accept of one of the city charges, that of Lady Yester's church, and OP 
 the 15th of June, 1758, he was promoted by the same body to the highest 
 situation attainable by a Scottish clergymen, one of the charges of the High 
 Churclu This latter removal took place, according to the records of the town- 
 council, " because they had it fully ascertained, that his translation would bo 
 highly acceptable to persons of the most distinguished character and eminent 
 rank in this country, who had seats in said church.'' In truth, this place of wor- 
 ship might have been styled, in the absence of an episcopal system, the metro- 
 politan church of Scotland. In it sat the lords of Session, and all the other great 
 law and state officers, besides the magistrates and council, and a large congrega- 
 tion of the most respectable inhabitants of the town. It might now, therefore, 
 be said, that the eloquence of Blair had at last reached a fit theatre for its dis- 
 play. In the year previous to this last translation, he had been honoured by 
 the university of St Andrews with the degree of D. D. which was then very rare 
 in Scotland, 
 
 Hitherto, Blair's attention seems to have been chiefly devoted to his profession.
 
 HUGH BLAIR, D.D. 253 
 
 No production of his pen had yet been given to the world by himself, except 
 two sermons preached on particular occasions, some translations of passages of 
 Scripture, for the psalmody of the church, and the article on Hutcheson's system of 
 Moral Philosophy for the Edinburgh Review, a periodical work begun in 1755, 
 by Hume, Robertson, and others, and which only extended to two numbers. 
 Standing, as he now did, at the head of his profession, and released by the la- 
 bour of former years from the drudgery of weekly preparation for the pulpit, he 
 began to think seriously on a plan for teaching to others the art which had contribut- 
 ed so much to his own fame. Some years before, Dr Adam Smith had delivered in 
 Edinburgh a series of lectures on rhetoric and elegant literature, which had been 
 well received. In 1759, Dr Blair commenced, with the approbation of the uni- 
 versity, a course upon the principles of literary composition. The most zealous 
 friends to this undertaking were David Hume and Lord Kames, the latter of 
 whom had devoted much attention to the subject. The approbation bestowed 
 upon the lectures was so very high, and their fame became so generally diffused, 
 that the town-council resolved to institute a rhetorical class in the university, 
 under his direction ; and, in 1762, this professorship was taken under the pro- 
 tection of the crown, with a salary of seventy pounds a year. Dr Blair continu- 
 ed to deliver his lectures annually till 1783, when he published them for the 
 more extensive benefit of mankind. They are not by any means, nor were they 
 ever pretended to be, a profound or original exposition of the laws of the belles 
 lettres. They ate acknowledged to be a compilation from many different sources, 
 and only designed to form a simple and intelligible code for the instruction of 
 youth in this department of knowledge. Regarded in this light, they are entitled 
 to very high praise, which has accordingly been liberally bestowed by the public. 
 These lectures have been repeatedly printed, and still remain an indispensable 
 monitor in the study of every British scholar. 
 
 In 1763, Dr Blair made his first appearance before the world as an author or 
 critic. He had, in common with his friend John Home, taken a deep interest 
 in the exertions of Macpherson, for the recovery of the Highland traditionary 
 poetry. Relying without suspicion upon the faith of the collector, he prefixed 
 to the " Poems of Ossian ' a dissertation pointing out the beauties of those 
 compositions. The labour must of course be now pronounced in a great mea- 
 sure useless ; but nevertheless it remains a conspicuous monument of the taste of 
 Dr Blair. 
 
 It was not till 1777, that he could be prevailed upon to offer to the world any 
 of those sermons with which- he had so long delighted a private congregation. 
 We have his own authority for saying that it was his friend Lord Kames who 
 was chiefly instrumental in prompting him to take this step. For a long period, 
 hardly any sermons published either in England or Scotland, had met with suc- 
 cess. The public taste seemed to have contracted an aversion to this species of 
 composition. We are informed by Bos well in his life of Johnson, that when 
 Blair transmitted a volume to Mr Strahan, the King's printer, that gentleman, 
 rfter letting it lie beside him for some time, returned a letter discouraging the 
 I ublication. It is probable that this opinion, which seems to have been given 
 only on general grounds, might have caused Dr Blair to abandon his intention ; 
 but fortunately, 31r Strahan had sent one of the sermons to Dr Johnson for his 
 opinion, and after his unfavourable letter to Dr Blair had been sent off, he re- 
 ceived from Johnson, on Christmas eve, 1770, a note, of which the following is 
 a paragraph : " I have read over Dr Blair's first sermon, with more than appro- 
 bation; to say it is good is to say too little.'' Mr Strahan had very soon alter 
 this time a conversation withDr Johnson, concerning the sermons; and then he 
 very candidly wrote again to Dr Blair, enclosing Johnson's note, and agreeing 
 
 _
 
 254 HUGH BLAIR, D.D. 
 
 to purchase the volume, with Mr Cadell, for one hundred pounds. The sale was 
 so rapid and extensive, and the approbation of the public so high, that, to their 
 honour be it recorded, the proprietors made Dr Blair a present, first of one sum, 
 and afterwards of another, of fifty pounds ; thus voluntarily doubling the stipu- 
 lated price. Perhaps, in no country, not even in his own, were these composi- 
 tions so highly appreciated as in England. There they were received with the 
 keenest relish, not only on account of their abstract excellence, but partly from 
 a kind of surprise as to the quarter from which they came no devotional work, 
 produced by Scotland, having ever before been found entitled to much atten- 
 tion in the southern section of the island. The volume speedily fell under the 
 attention of George III., and his virtuous consort, and was by them very highly 
 admired. His majesty, with that wise and sincere attention to the interests o! 
 religion and virtue, which has given to his reign a respectability above all th.M 
 military or political glory can purchase, was graciously pleased to judge the au- 
 thor worthy of a public reward. By a royal mandate to the exchequer in Scot- 
 land, dated July 25, 1780, a pension of 200 a-year, was bestowed on la- 
 Blair. It is said that the sermons were first read in the royal closet, by the Earl 
 of Mansfield; and there is little reason to doubt that they were indebted in some 
 degree to the elocution of the " elegant Murray" for the impression which they 
 produced upon the royal family. 
 
 During the subsequent part of his life, Dr Blair published three other volumes 
 of sermons; and it might safely be said that each successive publication only 
 tended to deepen the impression produced by the first. These compositions, 
 which were translated into almost every language in Europe, formed only a small 
 part of the discourses which he prepared for the pulpit The number of those 
 which remained, was creditable to his professional character, and exhibited a 
 convincing proof that his fame as a public teacher had been honourably pur- 
 chased, by the most unwearied application to the private and unseen labours of 
 his office. Out of his remaining manuscripts, he had prepared a fifth volume, 
 which appeared after his death ; the rest, according to an explicit injunction in 
 his will, were committed to the flames. The last sermon which he composed 
 was one in the fifth volume, " on a life of dissipation and pleasure." Though 
 written at the age of eighty-two, it is a dignified and eloquent discourse, and 
 may be regarded as his solemn parting admonition to a class of men whose con- 
 duct is highly important to the community, and whose reformation and virtue he 
 had long laboured most zealously to promote. 
 
 The SERMONS of BLAIR, are not now, perhaps, to be criticised with that blind 
 admiration which ranked them, in their own time, amidst the classics of English 
 literature. The present age is now generally sensible that they are deficient in 
 that religious unction uhich constitutes the better part of such compositions, and 
 are but little calculated to stir and rouse the heart to a sense of spiritual duty. 
 Every thing, however, must be considered more or less relatively. Blairs mind 
 was formed at a time when the fervours of evangelical divinity were left by the 
 informed classes generally, to the lowly and uninstructed hearts, which, after all, 
 are the great citadels of religion in every country. A certain order of the 
 clergy, towards the end of the eighteenth century, seemed to find it necessary, 
 in order to prevent an absolute revolt of the higher orders from the standards of 
 religion, to accommodate themselves to the prevailing taste, and only administer 
 moral discourses, with an insinuated modicum of real piety, where their proper 
 purpose unquestionably is to maintain spiritual grace in the breasts of the people, 
 by all the means which the gospel has placed within their reach. Thus, as 
 Blair preached to the most refined congregation in Scotland, he could hardly 
 have failed to fall into this prevalent fashion ; and he perhaps considered, with
 
 HUGH BLAIR, D.D. 255 
 
 perfect sincerity, that he was justified by the precept of St Paul, which com- 
 mands the ministers of religion to he "all things to all men." Religious feeling 
 is modified by time and place ; and I do not apprehend it to be impossible 
 th.it the mind of Hugh Blair, existing at the time of his celebrated ancestor, 
 might have exerted itself in maintaining the covenant, and inspiring the popu- 
 lace with the energy necessary for that purpose ; while the intellect and heart of 
 his predecessor, if interchanged, might have spent their zeal in behalf of Henry 
 Viscount Melville, and in gently pleasing the minds of a set of modern indifier- 
 ents, with one grain of the gospel dissolved into a large cooling-draught of moral 
 disquisition. 
 
 The remaining part of the life of Blair hardly affords a single additional inci- 
 dent. He had been married, in 1748, to his cousin, Katherine Bannatyne, 
 daughter of the ttev James Bannatyne, one of the ministers of Edinburgh. By 
 this lady he had a son who died in infancy, and a daughter, who survived to her 
 twenty-first year, the pride of her parents, and adorned with all the accomplish- 
 ments which belong to her age and sex. Mrs Blair, herself a woman of great 
 good sense and spirit, was also taken from him a few years before his death, after 
 she had shared with the tenderest affection in all his fortunes, and contributed 
 nearly half a century to his happiness and comfort. The latter part of his life 
 was spent in the enjoyment of a degree of public respect which falls to the lot 
 of few men, but which was eminently deserved by him, both on account of his 
 high literary accomplishments, and the singular purity and benevolence of his 
 private character. He latterly was enabled, by the various sources of income 
 which he enjoyed, to set up a carriage ; a luxury enjoyed, perhaps, by no pre- 
 decessor in the Scottish church, and by very few of his successors. He also 
 maintained an elegant hospitality, both at his town and country residences, 
 which were much resorted to by strangers of distinction who happened to visit 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 It may be curious to know in what manner those discourses were delivered 
 from the pulpit, which have so highly charmed the world in print As might be 
 easily supposed, where there was so much merit of one kind, there could scarcely, 
 without a miracle, be any high degree of another and entirely different kind. 
 In truth, the elocution of Dr Blair, though accompanied by a dignified and im- 
 pressive manner, was not fit to be compared with his powers of composition. 
 His voice was deformed by a peculiarity which I know not how to express by 
 any other term than one almost too homely for modern composition, a burr. He 
 also wanted all that charm which is to be derived Irom gesticulation, and, upon 
 the whole, might be characterized as a somewhat formal preacher. 
 
 In what is called church politics, Dr Blair was a strenuous moderate, but never 
 took an active share in the proceedings of the church. A constitutional delicacy 
 of organization unfitted him for any scene where men have to come into strong 
 and personal collision. In temporal politics, he was a devout admirer of the 
 existing constitution, and a zealous supporter of the tory government which flour- 
 ished during the greater part of the reign of George III. With Viscount Mel- 
 ville, to whose father he had dedicated his thesis in early youth, he maintained 
 a constant interchange of civilities. At the breaking out of the French revolu- 
 tion, he exerted himself in the most energetic manner to stop the tide of disaffec- 
 tion and irreligion, which at one particular crisis seemed to threaten all existing 
 institutions, lie declared in the pulpit that none but a good subject could be a 
 good Christian ; an expression so strongly akin to the ancient doctrines of pas- 
 sive obedience and non-resistance, that it can only be excused by the particular 
 circumstances of the time. The mind of Blair was too fastidiously exact and 
 elegant to display any thing of the majestic. Possessing more taste than genius,
 
 256 JAMES BLAIR. 
 
 he never astonished in conversation by any original remark. In company, he 
 made a far less striking appearance than the half-instructed peasant Burns, who 
 at his first visit to Edinburgh, was warmly patronized by Dr Blair. In some 
 points of view, his mind bore an unprepossessing aspect. He Mas content tr 
 read, and weak enough to admire the wretched fictitious compositions which ap- 
 peared in that age under the denomination of novels. He would talk profusely 
 of the furniture of the room in which he was sitting, criticising every object with 
 a sincere and well-weighed attention, which would not have been ill-bestowed 
 upon the most solemn subjects. In his dress, and in almost all points of mere 
 externe and ceremonial form, he was minutely fastidious. He was also so fond 
 of the approbation of his fellow-creatures in moderation, a most useful feature 
 of character that even very marked flattery was received by him not only with- 
 out displeasure, but with an obviously keen relish, that said little either for his 
 discrimination or his modesty. Yet, with these less worthy points of charac- 
 ter, Blair had no mean moral feelings. He was incapable of envy ; spoke 
 liberally and candidly of men whose pursuits and opinions differed from his own, 
 and was seldom betrayed into a severe remark upon any subject unconnected 
 with actual vice. 
 
 Though his bodily constitution was by no means robust, yet by habitual t m- 
 perance and by attention to health, his life was happily prolonged beyond the 
 usual period. For some years he had felt himself unequal to the fatigue of in- 
 structing his very large congregation from the pulpit; and under the impression 
 which this feeling produced, he has been heard to say, with a sigh, that, " he 
 was left almost the last of his contemporaries." Such, nevertheless, was the vigour 
 of his mind, that, in 1799, when past the eightieth year of his age, he composed 
 and preached one of the most effective sermons he ever delivered, on behalf of 
 the fund for the benefit of the sons of the clergy. He was also employed during 
 the summer of 1 800, in preparing his List volume for the press ; and for this 
 purpose, he copied the whole with his own hand. He began the winter, pleased 
 with himself on account of this exertion ; and his friends were flattered with the 
 hope that he might live to enjoy the accession of emolument and fame which he 
 expected it would bring. But the seeds of a mortal disease were lurking within 
 him. On the 24th of December, he felt slight pain in his bowels, with which 
 neither he nor his friends were alarmed. On the afternoon of the 2<>th, this 
 pain encreased, and violent symptoms began to appear ; the causes of which 
 were then unfortunately unknown both to himself and his physician. He had 
 for a few years laboured under an inguinal hernia. This malady, which he was 
 imprudently disposed to conceal, he considered as trifling; and he understood 
 that by taking the ordinary precautions, nothing was to be apprehended from it 
 It settled, however, into a stoppage of the bowels, and ere the physician was 
 made aware of his condition, an inflammation had taken place, and he conse- 
 quently survived only till the morning of the 27th, thus expiring almost at the 
 same time with that century of the Christian epoch, of which he had been one of 
 the most distinguished ornaments. He died in the eighty-third year of his age, 
 and the fifty-ninth of his profession as a minister of the gospel. 
 
 BLAIR, JAMBS, an eminent divine, was reared for the episcopal church of Scot- 
 land, at the time when it was struggling with the popular dislike in the reign of 
 Charles II. Discouraged by the equivocal situation of that establishment in 
 Scotland, he voluntarily abandoned his preferments, and removed to England, 
 where he was patronized by Compton, Bishop of London. By this prelate he 
 was prevailed upon to go as a missionary to Virginia, in 1G85, and, having given 
 the greatest satisfaction by his zeal in the propagation of religion, he was, in 
 1689, preferred to the office of commissary to the bishop, whidi was the high
 
 JOHN BLAIR. JOHN BLAIR, LL.D. 257 
 
 est ecclesiastical dignity in that province. His exertions were by no means 
 confined to his ordinary duties. Observing the disadvantage under which 
 the province laboured through the want of seminaries for the education of 
 a native clergy, he set about, and finally was able to accomplish, the honourable 
 work of founding the college of Williamsburgh, which was afterwards, by his 
 personal intervention, endowed by king William III., with a patent, under the 
 title of the William and Mary College. He died in 1743, after having been 
 president of this institution for about fifty, and a minister of the gospel for 
 above sixty years. He had also enjoyed the office of president of the council of 
 Virginia. In the year before his death, he had published at London, his great 
 work, entitled, " Our Saviour's Divine Sermon on the Mount Explained, and the 
 Practice of it Recommended, in divers sermons and discourses," 4 vols. 8vo., 
 which is styled by Dr Waterland, the editor of a second edition, a " valuable 
 treasure of sound divinity and practical Christianity." 
 
 BLAIR, JOH\, a churchman of noble family, who, being compelled by the 
 tyranny of Edward I. in Scotland to join the bands of Sir William Wallace, be- 
 came chaplain to that hero, and did not scruple also to take a share in his 
 battles. He wrote an account of the deeds of Wallace, Avhich is now lost, but is 
 supposed to have furnished materials to Blind Harry. Another work of Blairs 
 was styled, " De Liberata Tyrannide Scotia." 
 
 BLAIR, JOHN, L.L.D. an eminent chronologist, was, as already mentioned in the 
 memoir of Dr Hugh Blair, a relative of that distinguished personage. He received 
 a clerical education at Edinburgh, and afterwards went in search of employment 
 to London, along with Mr Andrew Henderson, author of a " History of the 
 Rebellion of 1745," and many other works, and who, for some years, kept a 
 bookseller's shop in Westminster Hall. As Henderson describes himself as re- 
 siding in Edinburgh at the time of the battle of Prestonpans, it is probable that 
 Blair's removal to London took place after that event Henderson's first em- 
 ployment was that of an usher at a school in Hedge Lane, in which he was 
 succeeded by Blair. The attention of the latter had probably been directed to 
 chronology by the example of Dr Hugh Blair, who, as already mentioned, com- 
 menced a series of tables of events, for his own private use, which ultimately formed 
 the groundwork of the work given to the world, in 1754, under the title of "The 
 Chronology and History of the World, from the Creation to the year of Christ, 
 1753; illustrated in fifty-six tables, of which four are introductory, and con- 
 tain the centuries prior to the first Olympiad, and each of the remaining fifty- 
 two contain, in one expanded view, fifty years, or half a century. By the Rev. 
 John Blair, LL. D." This large and valuable work was published by subscrip- 
 tion, and was dedicated to Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. In January, 1755, Dr 
 John Blair was elected F. R. S. and in 1761, F. A. S. In 1756, he published 
 a new edition of his " Chronology," In September, 1757. he was appointed 
 chaplain to the Dowager Princess of Wales, and mathematical tutor to the Duke 
 of York, (brother to George III ) ; and on Dr Townshend's promotion to the 
 deanery of Norwich, the services of Dr Blair were rewarded, March, 1761, with a 
 prebendal stall in Westminster abbey. Such a series of rapidly accumulating honours 
 has fallen to the lot of very few Scottish adventurers. But this was not destined 
 to be the end of his good fortune. He had only been prebend of Westminster 
 six days, when the death of the vicar of Hinckley, in Leicestershire, enabled the 
 Dean and Chapter to present him to that valuable living, to which was soon after 
 added, the rectory of Burtoncoggles in Lincolnshire. In 1763-4, he made 
 the tour of the continent, in company with his royal pupiL A new and enlarged 
 edition of his " Chronology" appeared in 1768, and in 1771 he was presented, 
 by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, to the vicarage of St Bride's in the
 
 2jS PATRICK BLAIR, M.D. 
 
 city of London, which made it necessary for him lo resign Hinckley. In 1776, 
 he resigned St Bride's, in order to succeed to the rectory of St John the Evan- 
 gelist in Westminster; and in June that year, he obtained a dispensation to hold 
 this benefice along with that of Horton, near Colebrooke, in Buckinghamshire. 
 In the memorable sea-fight of the 12th of August, 1782, his brother, Captain 
 Blair, in the command of the Anson, was one of three distinguished officers who 
 fell, and to whom the country afterwards voted a monument. This event gave 
 such a shock to the venerable doctor, who at that time suffered under influenza, 
 that he died, at his house in Derm's Yard, Westminster, on the 24th of June 
 following. A work entitled, " Lectures on the Canons of the Old Testament," 
 appeared after his death ; but his best monument unquestionably will be his 
 Chronology, the value of which has been so amply acknowledged by the world. 
 
 BLAIR, PATRICK, M. D. an eminent botanist in the earlier period of the exis- 
 tence of that science in Britain, was first known as a practitioner of surgery and 
 physic at Dundee, where he brought himself into prominent notice as an anato- 
 mist, 1706, by the dissection of an elephant which died near that place. He 
 was a non-juror or Scottish episcopalian, and so far attached to the exiled family 
 of Stuart, as to be imprisoned during the insurrection of 1715, as a suspected 
 person. He afterwards removed to London, where he recommended himself to 
 the attention of the Royal Society by some discourses on the sexes of flowers. 
 His stay in London was short, and after leaving it, he settled at Boston in Lin- 
 colnshire, where Dr Pulteney conjectures that he practised physic during the 
 remainder of his life. The same writer, in his " Historical and Biographical 
 Sketches of English Botany," supposes that his death happened soon after the 
 publication of the seventh Decad of his Pharmacobotanoloyia, in 1728. 
 
 Dr Blair's first publication was entitled, " Miscellaneous Observations in Phy- 
 sic, Anatomy, Surgery, and Botanicks, 8vo, 1718." In the botanical part of 
 this work, he insinuates some doubts relating to tbe method suggested by Petion 
 and others, of deducing the qualities of vegetables from the agreement in natu- 
 ral characters ; and instances the Cynoglosswm, as tending to prove the fallacy 
 of tin's rule. He relates several instances of the poisonous effects of plants, and 
 thinks the Echium Marinum (Pulmonaria Maritima of Linnaeus) should be 
 ranked in the genus Cynoglossum, since it possesses a narcotic power. He de- 
 scribes and figures several of the more rare British plants, which he had dis- 
 covered in a tour made into Wales ; for instance, the Rumex Digynus, Lobelia 
 Dortmanna, Alisma Ranunculoides, Pyrola Rotundifolia, Alchemilla Alpina, etc. 
 But the work by which he rendered the greatest service to botany, originated 
 with his "Discourse on the Sexes of Plants," read before the Royal Society, and 
 afterwards greatly amplified, and published, at the request of several members of 
 that body, under the title of "Botanical Essnys, 8vo, 1720." This treatise is 
 divided into two parts, containing five essays ; the three first respecting what is 
 proper to plants, and the two last, what is proper to plants and animals. This 
 is acknowledged, by an eminent judge, to have been the first complete work, at 
 least in the English language, on that important department of botanical science, 
 the sexes of the plants. 'I he author shows himself well acquainted, in general, 
 with all the opinions and arguments which had been already circulated on the 
 same subject. The value of the work must not be estimated by the measure of 
 modern knowledge, though even at this day it may be read by those not criti- 
 cally versed in the subject, with instruction and improvement. A view of the 
 several methods then invented, cannot be seen so connectedly in any other Eng- 
 lish author. Dr Blair strengthened the arguments in proof of the sexes of 
 plants, by sound reasoning and some new experiments. His reasons against 
 Morland's opinion of the entrance of the Farina into the Vasculum Senunale,
 
 ROBERT BLAIR. 259 
 
 and his refutation of the Lewenhcekian theory, have met with the sanction of the 
 greatest names in modern botany. Dr Blair's last distinct publication, which he 
 did not live to complete, was " Parmacobotanologia, or an Alphabetical and Clas- 
 sical Dissertation on all the British indigenous and garden plants of the New 
 Dispensatory," 4to, 1723 28. In this work, which was carried no furtherthan 
 the letter H, the genera and species are described, the sensible qualities and 
 medicinal powers are subjoined, with the pharmnceutical uses, and the author 
 tlso notices several of the more rare English plants, discovered by himself in 
 the environs of Boston. Dr Blair's fugitive writings consist of various papers in 
 the Philosophical Transactions, of which one of the most remarkable is an ac- 
 count of the Anatomy and Osteology of the Elephant, drawn up from his obser- 
 vations in dissecting the animal above alluded to at Dundee. 
 
 BLAIR, ROBERT, an eminent divine of the seventeenth century, was the sixth 
 and youngest son of John Blair of Windyedge in Ayrshire, and Beatrix 3Iuir 
 a lady of the honourable house of Rowallan. He was born at Irvine in 1593, 
 and received his education at the college of Glasgow. After acting for some 
 time as assistant to a teacher in that city, he was appointed, in the twenty-second 
 year of his age, to be a regent or professor in the college. In 1616, he was 
 licensed as a minister of the gospel. Happening soon after to preach before the 
 celebrated Robert Bruce, and being anxious to have the judgment of so great 
 and good a man upon his discourse, he took the liberty of directly asking him 
 how he liked the sermon : Bruce said, " I found your sermon very polished and 
 well digested, but there is one thing I did miss in it to wit, the spirit of God ; 
 1 found not that." This criticism made a deep and useful impression upon the young 
 preacher. The prospects of Mr Blair at Glasgow were clouded in 1622, by the 
 accession of Cameron to the office of Principal in the College. This divine, 
 having been imbued in France with the tenets of Arminius, became a zealous 
 promoter of the views of the court, for the introduction of Episcopacy into Scot- 
 land. Blair speedily became obnoxious to his evil offices, and found it necessary 
 to resign his charge. For some years he officiated to a Presbyterian congregation 
 at Bangour in Ireland, but, in 1632, was suspended, along with the equally 
 famous preacher Livingstone, by the Bishop of Down. He then went over to 
 court, to implore the interference of the King, who at length gave a favourable 
 answer to his petition, writing with his own hand upon the margin, " Indulge 
 these men, for they are Scotsmen ;" an expression certainly honourable to the 
 heart of the unfortunate monarch. Blair was one of those divines, who were 
 reputed in Scotland to have direct communications with heaven, and a power of 
 prophetic vision. While waiting anxiously for the return of his petition, he 
 asked, and, as it is recorded by his biographer, received, a sign irom heaven, 
 assuring him that his wishes would be realised. He also " had from Ezekiel 
 xxiv. 16. a strange discovery of his wife's death, and the very bed whereon she 
 was lying, and the particular acquaintances attending her ; and although she was 
 in good health at his return home, yet in a little all this came to pass," 1 He 
 had not been long re-established at Bangour, when the bishop found further 
 fault with him, and again sentenced him to be expelled. He now joined in a 
 scheme set on foot by various Presbyterian clergymen in similar circumstances, for 
 fitting up a ship, and emigrating to New England. But being driven back by a 
 storm, they conceived that the Almighty will was opposed to their resolution, and 
 accordingly abandoned the scheme. Blair returned to Scotland to mingle in the 
 tumultuous scenes of the covenant He preached for some time at Ayr, and was 
 afterwards settled by the General Assembly at St Andrews. In 1610, he accom- 
 panied the Scottish army into England, and assisted at the negotiations for the 
 i Scots Worthies, new edition, 1827, p. 302.
 
 260 ROBERT BLAIR. 
 
 peace of Kippon. After the first burst of the Irish rebellion of 1641, when the 
 Presbyterians supplicated the General Assembly for a supply of ministers, Blair 
 was one of those who went over. He soon returned, however, to liis charge at 
 St Andrews. In autumn 1645, when the Scottish estates and General Assembly 
 were obliged by the prevalence of the plague at Edinburgh to sit in St Andrews, 
 Blair took a conspicuous part in the prosecution of Sir Robert Spottiswoode and 
 other adherents of Montrose, who had been taken prisoners at Philiphaugh. Sir 
 Robert, who had accompanied Montrose as a mere civilian, upon an embassage 
 from the King, was sentenced, by a flagrant violation of the law, to be beheaded 
 as a traitor. In reality this dignified and respectable person was sacri filled as 
 an atonement for the exertions of his father, Archbishop Spottiswoode, to intro- 
 duce Episcopacy. At this period, when toleration was sincerely looked upon as 
 a fatal and deadly error, it was conceived, that to permit this person to escape 
 would draw down the wrath of God upon the land. Blair, who entertained all 
 these notions in the most earnest manner, was nevertheless anxious that an exer- 
 tion should be made to turn Sir Robert from the errors of his faith, so that bo 
 might at least die in the profession of the true religion. He therefore attended 
 him in jail, and even at the scaffold, trying all his eloquence to work a conver- 
 sion. Spottiswoode, who was one of the most learned and enlightened men of 
 his age, appears to have looked upon these efforts in a different spirit from that 
 in which they were made. He was provoked, upon the very scaffold, to reject 
 the prayers of his pious monitor, in language far from courtly. 3Ir. Blair was 
 equally unsuccessful with Captain Guthrie, son of the ex-bishop of Moray, who 
 was soon after executed at the same place. 
 
 Blair was one of the Scottish divines appointed, in 1645, to reason the King 
 out of his Episcopal prepossessions at Newcastle, The celebrated Cant, one of 
 his co-adjutors in this task, having one day accused his 3Iajesty of favouring 
 Popery, Mr Blair interrupted him, and hinted that this was not a proper time 
 or place for making such a charge. The unfortunate monarch, who certainly 
 had a claim to this amount upon the gratitude of Blair, appears to have felt the 
 kindness of the remark. At the death of Henderson, his Majesty appointed 
 Blair to be his successor, as chaplain for Scotland. In this capacity, he had 
 much intercourse with the King, who, one day, asked him if it was warrantable 
 in prayer to determine a controversy. Blair, taking the hint, said, that in the 
 prayer just finished, he did not think that he had determined any controversy. 
 " Yes," said the King, " you determined the Pope to be Antichrist, which is a 
 controversy among divines." Blair said he was sorry that this should be disputed 
 by his 3Iajesty; for certainly it was not so by his father. This remark showed 
 great acuteness in the divine, for Charles, being a constant defender of the 
 opinions of his father, whose authority he esteemed above that of all professional 
 theologians, was totally unable to make any reply. The constancy of the 
 King in his adherence to a church, which his coronation oath had obliged him 
 to defend, rendered, as is well known, all the advices of the Scottish divines 
 unavailing. After spending some months with his Majesty, in his captivity at 
 Newcastle, Mr Blair returned to Scotland. 
 
 In 1648, when Cromwell came to Edinburgh for the first time, the Commis- 
 sion of the Church sent three divines, including Mr Blair, to treat with him for 
 a uniformity of religion in England. The sectarian general, who looked upon 
 the Scottish Presbytery as no better than English Episcopacy, but yet was anxi- 
 ous to conciliate the northern divines, entertained this legation wi:li smooth 
 speeches, and made many solemn appeals to God, as to the sincerity of his inten- 
 tions. Blair, however, had perceived the real character of Cromwell, and thought 
 it necessary to ask explicit answers to the three following categories: I, What
 
 EGBERT BLAIR. 261 
 
 was his opinion of monarchical government ? To this he answered, that he was 
 for monarchial government ; which exactly suited the views of the Scottish Pres- 
 byterians. 2, What was his opinion anent toleration? He answered confi. 
 dently that he was altogether against toleration ; which pleased, if possible, still 
 better. 3, What was his opinion concerning the government of the church? 
 " Oh, now," said Cromwell, *' Mr Blair, you article me too severely ; you must 
 pardon me that I give you not a present answer to this." When the deputation 
 left him Mr David Dickson said to Mr Blair, " I am glad to hear this man 
 speak no worse ; " to which the latter replied, " If you knew him as well as I, 
 you would not believe a word he says ; for he is an egregious dissembler." 
 
 Blair continued to be a zealous and useful minister during the usurpation of 
 Cromwell, but after the Restoration, fell speedily under the censure of his 
 metropolitan, Archbishop Sharpe. For some years, he had no regular place of 
 worship, but preached and ministered when he met with a favourable opportunity. 
 During his later years, being prohibited from coming within twenty miles of 
 St Andrews, he lived 'at Meikle Couston, in the parish of Aberdour, where he 
 died, August 27, 1666, in the 73d year of his age. He was buried in the 
 church-yard of Aberdour, where there is a small tablet to his memory. 
 
 Robert Blair was the author of a Commentary on the Book of Proverbs, and 
 also of some political pieces, none of which have come down to modern times. 
 His abilities were singularly revived in more than one branch of his numerous 
 progeny, particularly in his grandson, the author of " The Grave," and his two 
 great-grandsons, Dr Hugh Blair, and the late Robert Blair, President of the 
 Court of Session. 
 
 BLAIR, ROBERT, author of " The Grave, a Poem," was the eldest son of the 
 Rev. David Blair, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and chaplain to the 
 King, who, in his turn, was son to the subject of the preceding article. The 
 mother of the author of " The Grave," was a Miss Nisbet, daughter of Mr Nis- 
 bet of Carfin. He was born in the year 1699, and after the usual preparatory 
 studies, was ordained in 1731, minister of Athelstaneford, in East Lothian, 
 where he spent the remainder of his life. Possessing a small fortune in addition 
 to his stipend as a parish-clergyman, he lived, we are told, rather in the style 
 of a country gentleman than of a minister, keeping company with the neigh- 
 bouring gentry, among whom Sir Francis Kinloch of Gilmerton, patron of the 
 parish, was one of his warmest friends. Blair, we are further informed, was at 
 once a man of learning, and of elegant taste and manners. He was a botanist 
 and florist, which he showed in the cultivation of his garden ; and was also 
 conversant in optical and microscopical knowledge, on which subjects he carried 
 on a correspondence with some learned men in England. He was a man of sin- 
 cere piety, and very assiduous in discharging the duties of his clerical functions. 
 As a preacher, he was serious and warm, and discovered the imagination of a 
 poet. He married Miss Isabella Law, daughter of Mr Law of Elvingston, who 
 had been Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh ; by 
 his lady, who survived him, he had five sons and one daughter. His fourth 
 son, who bore his own name, arose, through various gradations of honour at the 
 Scottish bar, to be President of the Court of Session. 
 
 Blair had turned his thoughts, at at early period of life, to poetry. While 
 still very young, he wrote some verses to the memory of his future father-in-law, 
 Mr Law, who was also his blood relation. We have his own testimony for say- 
 ing, that his " Grave" was chiefly composed in that period of his life which 
 preceded his ordination as a parochial clergyman. An original manuscript of the 
 poem, in the possession of his son the Lord President, was dated 1741-2; and 
 it appears, from a letter written by the author to Dr Doddridge, in February
 
 262 HECTOR EOECE. 
 
 that year, that he had just been endeavouring, through the influence of his cor- 
 respondent, Dr Isaac Watts, to induce the London booksellers to publish it. It 
 was rejected by two of these patrons of literature, to whom it had been recom- 
 mended by Dr Watts; but was finally printed at London, in 1743, "for 
 Mr Cooper." The author appears to have been seriously anxious that it 'should 
 become a popular work, for he thus writes to Dr Doddridge : " In order to 
 make it more generally liked, I was, obliged sometimes to go cross to my own 
 inclination, well knowing that, whatever poem is written upon a serious argu- 
 ment, must, upon that very account, be under serious disadvantages ; arid there- 
 fore proper arts must be used to make such a piece go down with a licentious 
 age, which cares for none of those things." This is not very clearly intelligible, 
 but perhaps alludes to the plain, strong, rational, and often colloquially familiar 
 language of the poem, which the plurality of modern critics will allow to be its 
 best feature. " The Grave " is now to be esteemed as one of the standard clas- 
 sics of English poetical literature, in which rank it will probably remain longer 
 than many works of greater contemporary, or even present fame. 
 
 BOECE, HECTOR, whose name was otherwise spelled Boyis, Boyes, Boiss, and 
 Boice, an eminent, though credulous, historian, was born about the year 14o'5-6, 
 at Dundee, and hence he assumed the surname of Deidonanus. His family were 
 possessed of the estate of Panbride, or Balbride, in the county of Angus, which had 
 been acquired by his grandfather, Hugh Boece, along with the heiress in marriage, 
 in consequence of his services to David II. , at the battle of Dupplin. The rudiments 
 of his education he received in his native town, which at that time, and for a 
 long time after, Mas celebrated for its schools : he afterwards studied at Aber- 
 deen, and finally at Paris, where, in 1497, he became a professor of philosophy 
 in the college of Montacute. Of a number of the years of his life about this 
 period, there is evidently nothing to be told. The garrulous and sometimes 
 fabling Dr Mackenzie has filled up this part of his life with an account of his 
 fellow-students at Paris, all of whose names, with one exception, have sunk into 
 oblivion. That exception is the venerated name of Erasmus, who, as a mark of 
 affection for Boece, dedicated to him a catalogue of his works, and maintained 
 with him in after life as regular a correspondence as the imperfect communication 
 of those times would permit. In the year 1500, Bishop Elphinstone, who had 
 just founded the College of Aberdeen, invited Boece home to be the principal. 
 The learned professor, reluctant to quit the learned society he enjoyed at Paris, 
 was only persuaded to accept this invitation, as he informs us himself, "by means 
 of gifts and promises ; the principal inducement must of course have been the 
 salary, which amounted to forty merks a-year equal to two pounds three shil- 
 1 lings and fourpence sterling a sum, however, which Dr Johnson remarks, was 
 then probably equal, not only to the needs, but to the rank of the President of 
 King's College. 
 
 On his arrival at Aberdeen he found, among the Chanon Begulars, a great 
 many learned men, and became a member of their order. From this order, 
 indeed, the professors seem to have been selected. As colleague in his new 
 office, Hector Boece associated with himself Mr William Hay, a gentleman or 
 the shire of Angus, who had studied along with him under the same masters both 
 at Dundee and Paris. Alexander Hay, a Chanon of Aberdeen, was the first 
 teacher of scholastic theology in that university. David Guthry and James Ogilvy 
 are mentioned as professors of civil and canon Law; but whether they were 
 contemporary teachers or succeeded each other in the same chair, is not quite 
 dear. Henry Spital was the first who taught philosophy at Aberdeen, and for 
 this purpose he wrote An Easy Introduction to the philosophy of Aristotle. Ano- 
 ther of the learned professors was Alexander Galloway, rector of Kinkell, who
 
 HCIPAI, OK KING'S COLLEGE . ABERDEEN. 
 FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING IN THAT COLLEGE. 

 
 HECTOR BOECE. 263 
 
 was author of a treatise on the ./Ebudae or Western Isles, with an account of the 
 Clag or Claik Geese, and the trees upon which they were found to grow a work 
 no longer to be found, but the best parts of which are probably embodied in Bosce's 
 history of Scotland. Arthur Boece, brother to the principal, was also one of his 
 assistants. He was a tutor of the canon law, and a licentiate in the civil ; a 
 man of great eloquence and singular erudition. Besides these, Boece has com 
 memorated several others, who were his assistants, and reflected lustre upon the 
 dawn of learning in the north. Some of them were, according to the learned 
 principal's account, men of high eminence, whose influence was great in the days 
 in which they lived, and whose example extended even to after ages. He par- 
 ticularly refers to John Adam, who was the first to receive the degree of Doctoi 
 of theology in the University ; after which he was made principal of the Domini- 
 can order, which, from the vicious lives, the poverty, and the ignorance of itt 
 members, had sunk into great contempt, but which he raised into high respecta- 
 bility, both for piety and learning. On the death of his patron Bishop Elphin- 
 stone, in 1514, Boece, out of gratitude for his friendship, and respect for hit 
 great learning and exemplary virtue, resolved to give to the world an account oi 
 his life, in composing which he was so struck with the exemplary conduct of 
 others who had filled that see, that he determined to write the history of the 
 lives of the whole of the bishops of Aberdeen. This laborious undertaking he 
 completed in Latin, after the custom of the age, and gave to the world in the 
 year 1522. It was printed at Paris by Badius Ascensius. 
 
 His next, and by far his greatest work, was a history of Scotland, from the 
 earliest accounts. To this work he Mas probably stimulated by the example of 
 John Mair or Major, a tutor of the Sorbonne, and principal of the college of 
 St Salvadore at St Andrews, whose history of Scotland, in six books, was pub- 
 lished at Paris in the year 1521. The Scotichronicon had been originally 
 written by John Fordun a canon of Aberdeen and continued by Walter Bower 
 or Bowmaker to the death of James I., nearly a century previous to this, as had 
 also the metrical CJironykil of Scotland by Andrew Winton prior of Lochleven. 
 but all of them written in a style beneath the dignity of history, and disguised 
 by the most contemptible fables. Mair was more studious of truth, but his narra- 
 tive is meagre and his style loose and disjointed. Boece was a man of high 
 talent, and one of the best Latin scholars which his country has at any period 
 produced ; but he was credulous in a high degree, and most unquestionably has 
 given his authority, such as it was, to many fables, if he did not himself abso- 
 lutely invent them ; and he has rested the truth of his facts upon authors that 
 never existed except in his own imagination. Of the " Inglis lyis," which 
 Buchanan complains had cost him so much trouble to purge out of the " story of 
 Scotland," perhaps he had not preserved the greatest number, but he certainly had 
 more of the " Scottis vanitie " than even that great man was willing to part with. 
 In imitation of some other historians he has introduced his history with the cos- 
 mography of the country, in which he has been followed by Buchanan. Some 
 passages we have selected from this part of the work, illustrative of his taste for, 
 and his knowledge of, natural history, The extracts are taken from the transla- 
 tion of John Bellenden archdeacon of Murray, which was made for the benefit 
 of King James V., who, from a defective education, was unable to read the ori- 
 ginal. That they may afford the reader a genuine specimen of our ancient 
 Scottish prose, we have given these few extracts in their original orthography 
 The first is the result of the inquiries of Hector Boece into the claicks or clag- 
 geese that were supposed to grow upon trees. 
 
 " Sum men belevis that thir claiks grows on treis by the nobbis, hot thair 
 opinion is vane. And because the nature and procreation of thir claikis is
 
 2G4 HECTOR BOECE. 
 
 strange, we have maid na little laubore and diligence to serch the truth and veri- 
 lie thairof. AVe have sailit throw the seis quhare they ar brede, and find by 
 grit experience that the nature of the seis is inaire relevant cause of their pro- 
 creation than ony other thyng ; for all treis that are ctissen in the seis be process 
 of tynie apperis first worine etin, and in the small hollis and boris thairof growls 
 small wormis. First they schaw thair heid and feit, and last of all they schaw 
 thair pluiuis and wingis. Finally, quhen they are cumin to the just measure and 
 (jiiantitie of gels, they fle in the aire as othir fowl is. Thairfore because the rude 
 and ignorant pepyll saw oftymes the fruitis that fell off the treis quhilk stude 
 nair the see, convertit within short tyme in geis, they belevit that thir geis grew 
 upon the treis hingand be thair nobbis, sic like as apillis and uthir fruitis, bot 
 thair opinion is nocht to be sustainit" This absurd nonsense is by the vulgar 
 in some places believed to this day. The Barnacle has somewhat the appearance 
 of a fowl in miniature inclosed in a shell, and this they suppose to be the young 
 of the claik-goose. The following will not appear less wonderful to the greater 
 part of readers than the procreation of the claiks. " The wolflis ar richt noy- 
 sum to the tame bestial in all pairts of Scotland, except ane pairt thairof, named 
 Glenmore ; in quhilk the tame bestial gets lytill damage of wyld bestial, espe- 
 cially of toddis. For ilk hous nurises ane young todd certane days, and mengis 
 the llcsho thairof after it be slane, with sic meit as they gif to thair fowlis or 
 uthir small beistis, and sae mony as eits of this meit ar preservit twa months 
 after fra ony damage be the toddis, for toddis will gust na fleshe that gusts of 
 thair ain kynd ; and be thair bot ane beist or fowl that has nocht gustit of this 
 meit the todd will chais it out amang ane thousand.'' 
 
 Could the following art be re-discovered it would be a great saving in the 
 article barley, and would besides render the malt duty of non-effect. " In 
 all the desertis and muires of this realme growis an herbe namit hadder, bot 
 [without] ony seid, richt nutritive baith to beistis and fowlis, spnciallie to beis. 
 This herbe in the month of Julie has ane floure of purpure hew, als sueet as 
 honey. The Pychts maid of this herbe sum tyme ane richt delicious and hal- 
 sume drynk, nochtheless the manier of the making of it is perist be the exter- 
 mination of the said Pychtis, for they schaw nevir the craft of the making of 
 this drink bot to thair awn blude." 
 
 The following particular description of gum found among the isles, probably 
 ambergrese, is singularly characteristic of the author. " Amang the cragges of 
 the islis growis ane maneir of goum, hewit like gold, and sa attractive of nature 
 that it drawis strae, flax, or hemmis of claithis, to it, in the samin maneir as 
 does ane adamant stane. This goum is general of see froth quhilk is cussin up 
 be the continual repercussion of the w avis againis the see wallis, and throw ithand 
 motion of the see it growis als teuch as glew, ay mair and mair, quhill at last it 
 falls down of the crag in the see. Twa yeir afore the cumin of this beuk to 
 light, arriwit ane grit lump of this goum in Buchquhane, als meikle as ane hors, 
 and was brocht hame by the herdis, quhilkis war kepand thair beistis to thair 
 housis and cussen in the fire, and because they fand ane smell and odour thair- 
 with, they schaw to thair maister, that it was ganand for the sens [incense] that 
 is maid in the kirks. Thair maister WITS ane rude man, as they war, and tuke bot 
 ane lytill pairt thairof. The maist pairt was destroyit afore it cum to ony wyse 
 maneiris, and sa the proverb was verifyit, ' The sou curis na balme.' " 
 
 Of the miraculous the two following are tolerable specimens. " In Orkney is 
 ane grit tische, mair than onie hors, of marvelous and incredible sleip. This 
 fische, whan she begins to sleip, fesnis hir teith fast on ane crag abave the water. 
 Als soon as the marineris fynis hir on sleip, they come with ane stark cabill in 
 ane boat, and efter they have borit ane hole threw hir tail, they fesne hir to the
 
 HECTOR BOECE. 265 
 
 samyn. Als soon as this fische is awalknit, s v e maks her to loup with grit fure 
 into the see, and fra she fynd hirseft' fast she wrythis hir out of hir awn skin 
 and deis. Of the fatness that scho hes is maid oulie in grit quantitie, and of 
 hir skin is maid strang cabills.'' 
 
 " In Murrayland, in the kirke of Pette, the bains of lytill John remains in 
 grit admiration of the pepilL He has been fourteen feit of hight, with square 
 members effeiring thairto. Sax yeirs afore the cumin of this werk to lijjht, wa 
 saw his hansh bain als meikle as the haill bain of ane man, for we shut our arm 
 in the mouth thairof, by quliilk appeirs how strang and square pepill grew in 
 our reyion afore they war effeminat with lust and intemperance of mouth.'? 
 Spare diet seems to have been, in the estimation of our author, the all in all of 
 human excellence, whether mentally or corporeally, and its disuse has certainly 
 never been more eloquently bewailed than in the following paragraph : " I 
 belief nane hes now sic eloquence nor fouth [plenty] of language that can suffi- 
 ciently declare how far we in thir present dayis ar different fra the virtew and 
 temperance of our eldaris. For quhare our eldaris had sobreatie, we have 
 ebreitie and drunltness ; quhare they had plentie with sufficence, we have immo- 
 derate desiris with superfluities ; as he war maist nobyl and honest that could 
 devore and swelly maist ; throw quhilk we engorge and fillis ourself day and 
 nycht sa full of meitis and drinkis, that we can nocht abstane quhill our wambe 
 be sa swon, that it is unable to ony virtewous occupation, and nocht allanerly 
 may surfect denners and sowpar suffice, bot also we must continue our shameful 
 vorasitie with dubell denners and sowpars, throw quhilk mony of us gangis to na 
 uthir bisines bot to fill and tuine our wambe. Na fische in the see, nor fowle 
 in the aire, nor beist in the Avood, may half rest, bot ar socht here and thair to 
 satisfy the hungry appetitis of gluttonis. Nocht allanerly are wynis socht in 
 France, bot in Spayne, Italy, and Greece, and sumtyme baith Aphrick and 
 Asya ar socht for new delicious meitis and wynis to the samyn effect. The 
 young pepill and bairnis follow thir unhappie customes of thair faderis, and 
 givis themself to lust and insolence, havind all vertewous craftis in contemption, 
 and sa whan tyme of weir occurris, they are sa effeminat and soft, that they pass 
 on hors as heavie martis, and are sae fat and grown that they may do na thing 
 in compare of the soverane manheid of thair antecessors. Als sun as they ar 
 returnit hame becaus thair guddis ar not sufficient to nuris them in voluptuous 
 life and pleasur of thair wambe, they are given to all maneir of avarice, and 
 outhir castis them to be strang and maisterful theves, or else sawers of dissention 
 amang the nobyllis." 
 
 Perhaps, after all, the last paragraph of Boece's Cosmography of Scotland 
 might have been sufficient to attest his character : " Thus it were needful to put 
 an end to our Cosmographie, were not an uncouth history tarryis a litill my pen. 
 Mr Jame Ogilby, with uther nobylmen, wes send as ambassatouris frae the maist 
 nobill prince king James the feird to the kyng of France, and be tempest of see 
 they war constrainit to land in Norway, quhare they saw nocht far fra thaim 
 mony wild men nakit and ruch, on the sam maner as they war painted. At 
 last they got advertising by land wart pepill that they war doum beestis under the 
 figur of men, quha in tyme of nicht usit to come in grit companies to lamhvrirt 
 villages, and quhan they fand na dosfgis they brek up doris, and slays all the 
 pepill that they fynd thair intilL They are of sa huge strenth that they pull up 
 treis by the rutis and fechts thairwith amang tliaimself. The ambassatouris war 
 astonist at thir monstouris, and made strick watches with grit fyres birnand all 
 nicht, and on the morrow they pullit up sails and depairtit. Forther the Nor- 
 way men schow that there wes also nocht far fra thaim an pepill that swomit all 
 the symer, like fische in the see, leifand on fische, bot in the winter, because the
 
 200 HECTOR BOECE. 
 
 water is cauld, they leif upon wild beistis that descendis fra the moiintainis, and 
 sa endis here the Cosmography of Scotland." Such are specimens of what passed 
 for veritable history in Scotland scarcely three centuries ago, and sucli was the 
 weakness of a man who was certainly in his own day, even by foreigners, 
 reckoned an ornament to his country. The truth is, knowledge in those da>s 
 was most deplorably limited hy the difficulty of travelling, and the paucity of 
 books. A geographical writer sat in his study, ignorant personally of every 
 thing except what was immediately around him, and liable to be imposed upon 
 by the stories of credulous or lying travellers, which he had no means of correct- 
 in? or disproving. The philosophical writer was equally liable to be im- 
 posed upon by false and superstitious systems, which the age produced in great 
 abundance. 
 
 Boece's history was published at Paris in 1526, in a folio volume, under the 
 title of " Scotorum Historian, a prima gentis origine, cum aliarum et rerum et 
 gentium illustratione non vulgari." This edition, which was printed by Badius, 
 contains seventeen books. A second was printed at Lausanne, and published at 
 Paris in 1574, about forty years after the death of Boece. In this, were added 
 the eighteenth and part of a nineteenth book, written by himself; and a con- 
 tinuation of the history to the end of the reign of James III., by Ferrarius. a 
 learned Piedmontese, who came to Scotland in 1528, in the train of Robert 
 lleid, Abbot of Kinloss, and afterwards Bishop of Orkney. 
 
 Soon after the publication of his history, (1527,) James V. bestowed upon 
 Boece a pension of 50 Scots yearly, which was to be paid by the sheriff ot 
 Aberdeen out of the king's casualties. Two years afterwards, a new precept was 
 issued, directing this pension to be paid by the customers of Aberdeen, until the 
 king should promote him to a benefice of 100 nierks Scots of yearly value. Hy 
 a subsequent regulation, the pension was partly paid by the king's comptmller, 
 and partly by the treasurer. 
 
 As the payment appears for the last time in the treasurer's books for 15.31, it 
 is probable that about that time the king carried into effect his intention of ex- 
 changing the pension for a benefice. The benefice so given was the Rectory or 
 Fyvie in Aberdeenshire, which he held at his death in 1536, as appears from 
 the record of the presentation of his successor. According to Gordon of Straloch, 
 the death of the reverend historian happened at Aberdeen ; he was then about 
 seventy years of age. 
 
 In estimating the character of Hector Boece, many circumstances must be 
 taken into account It is certainly impossible to read his history without feeling 
 contempt for his understanding as well as for his veracity ; yet when we consi- 
 der the night of ignorance, imbecility, and error, in which he lived, contempt 
 gives place to strong compassion, and we feel disposed to apologize for, rather 
 than to blame him. Lord Hailes has bitterly remarked that the Scots were re- 
 formed from popery, but not from Boece, and Pinkerton inveighs against him, 
 as " the most egregious historical impostor that ever appeared in any country.'" 
 It is enough, however, for the vindication of this elegant writer, that he fulfilled 
 all the duties that could be demanded from a historian in his own time, and 
 could not be expected, to use a more just expression of Dalrymple, to be a phi- 
 losopher before philosophy revived. That he was incapable of designed impos- 
 ture, appears incontestibly proved by the testimonies of his contemporaries ; 
 Erasmus, in particular, styling him a man who " knew not what it was to make 
 a lie." 
 
 The highest honours have been bestowed upon the learning and genius of 
 Boece. The same distinguished friend says, that he was a man of an extraor- 
 dinary and happy genius, and possessed of great eloquence. Ferrarius, who
 
 HECTOR BOECE. 267 
 
 continued his history, styles him a man of singular learning and erudition, and 
 one who had transmitted to posterity, in a most decent style, the noble and 
 heroic achievements of our kings and predecessors, and he believes that there is 
 no man on the like subject could have done it more significantly, or to better 
 purpose. Paul Jovius, in his description of Britain, says, that Boece wrote the 
 history of the Scots kings down to James III. " with equal eloquence and dili- 
 gence." Of his description of Scotland, the rery subject upon which we have 
 animadverted, he says that he made it his business, being led on by curiosity and 
 the love of his country, to leave nothing unobserved that was praiseworthy, either 
 in our deserts or mountains, or in our lakes and seas. Joannes Gualterius says, 
 that he was exquisitely versed in all the parts of philosophy and thoology, and a 
 most eminent historian. Bishop Lesly affirms that his style has the purity or 
 Cfesar's, and that for the nervousness of his words and reasonings, he seems to 
 have transferred to himself that of Livy. Bishop Spotswood says, that he was a 
 great philosopher, and much commended by Erasmus for his eloquence, and 
 though he has been by some English writers traduced for a fabulous and partial 
 historian, they who take the trouble to peruse his history will perceive this to 
 be spoken out of passion and malice, not from any just cause. Even Buchanan, 
 though he charges him with having, in his description of Scotland, delivered 
 some things not true, and with having drawn others into mistakes, as well as 
 with being over credulous of those to whom he committed the inquiry after many 
 of his matters, and in consequence published their opinions in preference to the 
 truth, admits that he was not only notably learned in the liberal sciences above 
 the condition of those times, but also of an exceeding courteous and humane 
 inclination." Bartholomew Latomas, a well known annotator on Cicero, 
 Terence, and Horace, honoured his memory by the following very beautif ' 
 epitaph : 
 
 QuisquU ad turaulum obstupescis istum, 
 Taedas perpetua tnicare luce, 
 Lucem perpetuis adesse taedis ; 
 Et quis sic statuit cupis doceri ? 
 Fiat : hie recubat Boethius Hector 
 Ille qui patriae sure tenebras, 
 Atque illas patrias nitore linguae 
 Invecto Latiae fugavit ultra 
 Thulen et vitrei vigoris Arcton. 
 Persolvent Scotides proin Carnoenae, 
 Cum passim incipiant queantque haberi, 
 Romanae meritas suo Parent! 
 Gratias, et tumulum volunt ad istum, 
 Tsedas perpetua micare luce, 
 Lucem perpetuis adesse taedis. 
 
 To the merely English scholar, the following imitation will give some faint 
 idea of this epitaph. 
 
 That in this tomb the never-fading light 
 
 Streams bright from blazing torches unconsumeH. 
 
 Art thou amazed, and woultl'st tliou read aright? 
 
 Hector Boethius, know, lies here inhumed. 
 
 He who his country's hills and vales illumed 
 
 With all the lustre of the Latian lore, 
 
 Chasing the shades of darkness deep, fore-doonvd, , 
 
 Beyond the freezing pole and Thule's shore.
 
 268 DAVID BOGUE. 
 
 For this adorn'd, graceful in Roman dress, 
 
 Deserved thanks the Scotian Muses pay 
 
 To him who gave them life decreeing thus 
 
 Upon his tomb unfading light shall play, 
 
 From torches burning bright, that ne'er shall know demy. 
 
 )GUE, DAVID, the Father, as he has been called, of the London Missionary 
 Society, was born at Hallydown in the Parish of Coldingham, Berwickshire, on 
 the ISth February, 1750. His father, who farmed his own estate, was descended 
 of a respectable family which had been long settled in the county. His studies 
 are said to have been carried on at Dunse under the superintendence of 
 the distinguished Cruikshanks, not less remembered for the success of his 
 tuition, than lor the severity of his discipline. He afterwards removed to 
 the university of Edinburgh, and studied moral philosophy under Adam Fergu- 
 son, the well-known author of the " History of Civil Society." After undergo- 
 ing the usual course of study, and being licensed as a preacher in connection 
 with the church of Scotland, from want, perhaps, of very flattering prospects in 
 his native country, he removed to London (1771), and was for some time em- 
 ployed in the humble, but meritorious, capacity of usher in an academy at 
 Edmonton, afterwards at Hampstead, and finally with the Kev. Mr Smith of Cam- 
 berwell, whom he also assisted in the discharge of his ministerial duties both at 
 Camberwell and at Silver Street, London, where he held a lectureship, the duties 
 of which were at one timo performed by the celebrated John Home. The zeal 
 with which Mr Bogue discharged his duties in both of these capacities, contri- 
 buted not less to the satisfaction of Mr Smith, than to the increase of his own 
 popularity. At length, on the resignation of the minister of an independent 
 chapel at Gosport, Mr Bogue was unanimously chosen to fill the vacant charge. 
 The duties of his new situation were such as to require all the strength of judg- 
 ment and uncompromising inflexibility, tempered with Christian meekness, which 
 entered so largely into his character. The charge was one of great difficulty, 
 and of peculiar importance. The members of the congregation were divided 
 among themselves, and part of them had indeed withdrawn from the communion 
 altogether, during the ministry of his predecessor, and formed themselves into a 
 separate congregation, under a rival minister ; but the exemplary conduct of 
 Mr Bogue, and his zeal in the discharge of his duties, were such, that he had 
 scarce occupied the pulpit twelve months when a re-union was effected. His 
 fame, as a solid and substantial scholar, and an evangelical and indefatigable 
 minister, now spread rapidly ; and, early in March 1780, he entered into the 
 design of becoming tutor to an establishment for directing the studies of young 
 men destined for the Christian ministry in connexion with the Independent 
 communion. For the ability with which this establishment was conducted, both 
 now and when it afterwards became a similar one for those destined for mission- 
 ary labours, his praise is indeed in all the churches. It was in this period, 
 though occupied with the details of what most men would have felt as a full 
 occupation of their time, that his ever-active mind turned its attention to the 
 formation of a grand missionary scheme, which afterwards resulted in the Lon- 
 don Missionary Society. The influence which the establishment of this institu- 
 tion was calculated to have on the public mind was grand and extensive, and the 
 springing tip of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the Religious Tract 
 Society at short intervals, proves how much good was effected by the impetus thus 
 given by one master-mind. In the establishment of both of these he likewise 
 took an active part, contributing to the latter body the first of a series of pub- 
 lications which have been of great usefulness. In the year 1796, Mr Bogue 
 was called upon to show whether he, who had professed himself such a friend
 
 DAVID BOGUE. 209 
 
 to missionary enterprise, was sufficiently imbued with the spirit of the gospel 
 to enable him to forsake home and the comforts of civilized society, to 
 devote himself to its sacred cause. The call alluded to, was made and it 
 was not made in vain by Robert Haldane, Esq. of Airdrie, who, to furnish 
 funds for this grand enterprise, sold his estate. Their design was, in con- 
 junction with two other divines, who had recently left the established church of 
 Scotland, and become Independent ministers, to preach the gospel to the natives 
 of India, and likewise to form a seminary for the instruction of fellow-labourers 
 in the same field. The names of the two other ministers who intended to join 
 in this, perhaps the noblest enterprise of Christian philanthropy of which our 
 age can boast, and which will ever reflect a lustre on the church with which it 
 originated, were the Rev. Greville Ewing of Glasgow, and the Rev. W. Innes of 
 Edinburgh. But the design was frustrated by the jealousy of the East India 
 Company, who refused their sanction to the undertaking a most fortunate cir- 
 cumstance, as it afterwards appeared, in as far as the missionaries were indivi- 
 dually concerned ; for a massacre of Europeans took place at the exact spot 
 where it was intended the mission should have been established, and from which 
 these Christian labourers could scarcely have hoped to escape. In 1815, Mr 
 Bogue received the diploma of Doctor of Divinity, from the Senatus academicus 
 of Vale college, North America, but such was the modesty of his character that 
 he always bore this honour meekly and unwillingly. 
 
 His zeal for the cause of missions, to which he consecrated his life, continued 
 to the last : he may truly be said to have died in the cause. He annually made 
 tours in different parts of the country in behalf of the Missionary Society ; and 
 it was on a journey of this kind, in which he had been requested to assist at a 
 meeting of the Sussex Auxiliary Society, that he took ill at the house of the 
 Rev. Mr Goulty of Brighton, and, in spite of the best medical advice, departed this 
 life in the morning of the 25th of October, 1825, after a short illness. The 
 effect of this event upon the various churches and religious bodies with which 
 Dr Bogue was connected, was great : no sooner did the intelligence reach Lon- 
 don, than an extraordinary meeting of the Missionary Society was called, (Octo- 
 ber 26,) in which resolutions were passed expressive of its sense of the bereave- 
 ment, and of the benefits which the deceased had conferred upon the society, by 
 the active part he had taken in its projection and establishment, and subsequently 
 " by his prayers, his writings, his example, his journeys, and, above all, by his 
 direction and superintendence of the missionary seminary at Gosport" 
 
 The only works of any extent for which we are indebted to the pen of Dr 
 Bogue, are, " An Essay on the Divine Authority of the New Testament" " Dis- 
 courses on the Millennium," and a " History of Dissenters," which he undertook 
 in conjunction with- his pupil and friend Dr Bennet. The first of these he 
 commenced at the request of the London 3Iissionary Society, with the purpose of 
 its being appended to an edition of the New Testament, which the society intended 
 ta circulate extensively in France. In consideration of the wide diffusion of infide- 
 lity i'n that country, he wisely directed his attention to the evidence required by 
 this class of individuals addressing them always in the language of kindness and 
 persuasion, " convinced," as he characteristically remarks, " that the wrath of 
 man worketh not the righteousness of God," and if usefulness be taken as a 
 test of excellence, this work is so in a very high degree. No work of a religious 
 character, if we except perhaps the Pilgrim's Progress, has been so popular and 
 so widely circulated: it has been translated into the French, Italian, German, 
 and Spanish languages, and has been widely circulated on the continent of 
 Europe, where, under the divine blessing, it has been eminently useful. In 
 France, in particular, and on the distant shores of America, its influence has been
 
 270 THOMAS BOSTON. 
 
 felt in the convincing and converting of many to the cause of Christ. It is, in- 
 deed, the most useful of all his works. The discourses on the millennium are 
 entirely practical and devotional, and though they want the strain ing for effort, 
 and the ingenious speculations with which some have clothed this subject, and 
 gained for themselves an ephemeral popularity for to all such trickery Dr 
 Bogue had a thorough aversion they will be found strikingly to display the en- 
 larged views and sterling good sense of their venerable author. 
 
 BOSTON, THOMAS, an eminent doctrinal writer, was born in the town of 
 Dunse, March 7th, 1676, and received the rudiments of his education at his 
 native town, first under a woman who kept a school in his father's house, and 
 afterwards under Mr James Bullerwill, who taught what is called the grammar 
 school. His father was a nonconformist, and, being imprisoned for his recusancy, 
 retained the subject of this memoir in prison along with him, for the sake of 
 company ; which, notwithstanding his youth, seems to have made a lasting im- 
 pression on the memory of young Boston. Whether the old man was brought at 
 length to conform, we have not been able to learn ; but during his early years, 
 Mr Boston informs us that he was a regular attendant at church, " where he 
 heard those of the episcopal way, that being then the national establishment," 
 He was then, as he informs us, living without God in the world, and uncon- 
 cerned about the state of his soul. Toward the end of summer, 1(>S7, upon the 
 coming out of king James's indulgence, his father carried him to a presbyterian 
 meeting at A\ hitsoine, where he heard the Rev. Mr Henry Erskine, who, before 
 the Restoration, was minister of Comhill, and father to the afterwards celebrated 
 Messrs Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine. It was through the ministrations of this 
 celebrated preiicher, that Boston waj first brought to think seriously about the 
 state of his soul, being then going in the twelfth year of his age. After this he 
 went back no more to the church till the curates were expelled, with whom, it 
 was the general report of the country, no one remained after he became serious 
 and in earnest about the salvation of his soul. While at the grammar school, 
 he formed an intimacy with two boys, Thomas Trotter and Patrick Gillies, who 
 regularly met with him, at stated times, in a chamber of his father's house, for 
 reading the Scriptures, religious conference, and social prayer, " whereby," he 
 says, " they had some advantage, both in point of knowledge and tenderness." 
 Mr Boston made a rapid progress at the school, and before he left it, which was 
 in the harvest of 1689, had gone through all the books commonly taught in such 
 seminaries, and had even begun the Greek, in which language he had read part 
 of John's gospel, Luke, and the Acts of the apostles, though he was then but in 
 his fourteenth year. After leaving the grammar school, two years elapsed before 
 he p r oceeded farther in his studies, his father being doubtful if he was able to 
 defray the expense. This led to several attempts at getting him into a gra- 
 tuitous course at the university, none of which had any success. In the mean 
 time he was partly employed in the composing and transcribing law papers by a 
 Mr Cockburn, a public notary, from which he admits that he derived great 
 benefit in after life. All his plans for a gratuitous academical course having 
 failed, and his father having resolved to strain every nerve to carry him through the 
 classes, he entered the university of Edinburgh as a student of Greek, December 
 1st, 1691, and studied for three successive sessions. He took out his laureation 
 in the summer of 1694, when his whole expenses for fees and maintenance, 
 were found to amount to one hundred and twenty eight pounds, fifteen shillings 
 and eight pence, Scots money, less than eleven pounds sterling. That same sum- 
 mer he had the bursary of the presbytery of Dunse conferred on him as a 
 student of theology, and in the month of January, 1695, entered the theological 
 class in the college of Edinburgh, then taught by IMr George Campbell, " a
 
 THOMAS BOSTON. 
 
 271 
 
 man," says Boston, "of great learning, but excessively modest, undervaluing 
 himself, and much valuing the tolerable performances of his students. During 
 this session, the only one Boston appears to have regularly attended in divinity, 
 he also for a time attended the Hebrew class, taught by Mr Alexander Rule, but 
 remarks that he found no particular advantage from it. After returning from 
 the university, Mr Boston had different applications made to him, and made 
 various attempts to settle himself in a school, but with no good effect, and in the 
 spring of 1696, he accepted of an invitation from Lady Mersington to superin- 
 tend the education of her grand-child, Andrew Fletcher of Aberlady, a boy oi 
 nine years of age, whose father having died young his mother was married again 
 to lieutenant-colonel Bruce of Kennet, in Clackmannanshire. This he was the 
 rather induced to undertake, because the boy being in Edinburgh at the High 
 School, it gave his preceptor the power of waiting upon the divinity lectures in 
 the college. In less than a month, however, his pupil was taken home to Ken- 
 net, whither Boston accompanied him, and never had another opportunity of 
 attending the college. In this situation Mr Boston continued for about a year, 
 and during that period was pressed, once and again, by the united presbyteries oi 
 Stirling and Dumblane, to take license as a preacher, which, for reasons not very 
 obvious, he declined. In the month of March, 1697, he returned to Dunse, and 
 by his friend Mr Golden, minister of that place, was induced to enter upon trials 
 for license before the united presbyteries of Dunse and Churnside, by which he 
 was licensed as a probationer in the Scottish church, June 15th, 1697. In this 
 character Mr Boston officiated, as opportunity offered, for two years and three 
 months, partly within the bounds of his native presbytery, and partly within the 
 bounds of the presbytery of Stirling. It was first proposed by his friends of the 
 presbytery of Dunse to settle him in the parish of Foulden, the episcopal incum- 
 bent of which was recently dead, and, on the first day he officiated there, he gave 
 a remarkably decisive proof of the firmness of his principles. The episcopal 
 precentor was, under the protection of the great men of the parish, still con- 
 tinued. Boston had no freedom to employ him without suitable acknowledge- 
 ments, which, not being clothed with the ministerial character, he could not 
 take. On the morning, therefore, of the first Sabbath, he told this official, that 
 he would conduct the psalmody himself, which accordingly he did, and there was 
 nothing said about it. In the parish of Foulden, however, he could not be 
 settled without the concurrence of Lord Ross, who had had a great hand in the 
 enormous oppressions of the preceding period. A personal application on the 
 part of the candidate was required by his lordship, and the presbytery were ur- 
 gent with Boston to make it, but to this he could not bring his mind, so the pro- 
 ject came to nothing. He was next proposed for the parish of Abbey ; but this 
 scheme also was frustrated through the deceitfulness of the principal heritor, who 
 was a minister himself, and found means to secure the other heritors, through 
 whose influence he was inducted by the presbytery to the living, though the 
 parishioners were reclaiming, and charging the presbytery with the blood of their 
 souls, if they went on with the settlement. " This," remarks Boston, " was the 
 ungospel-like way of settling, that even then prevailed in the case of planting of 
 churches, a way which I ever abhorred." After these disappointments, Mr Bos- 
 ton removed to his former situation in Clackmannanshire, where he remained for 
 a twelvemonth, and in that time was proposed for Carnock, for Clackmannan, 
 and for Dollar, all of which proposals were fruitless, and he returned to Dunse in 
 the month of May, 1699. 
 
 Mr Boston had no sooner returned to his native place, than he was proposed 
 by his friend Mr Golden for the parish of Simprin, where, after a great deal of 
 hesitation on his part, and some little chicanery on the part of the presbytery
 
 272 THOMAS BOSTON. 
 
 and the people, he was ordained minister, September 21, 1699. In Simprin 
 he continued conscientiously performing- the duties of his calling till the year 
 1707, when, by synodical authority, he was transported to Ettrick. Ills intro- 
 duction to his new charge took place on the 1st of May that year, the very day 
 when the union between Scotland and England took effect; on which ac- 
 count he remarks that he had frequent occasion to remember it, the spirits of 
 the people of Ettrick being imbittered on that event against the ministers of 
 the church, which was an occasion of much heaviness to him, though he had never 
 been for the union, but always against it from the very beginning. Simprin, 
 now united to the parish of Swinton, both of which make a very small parish, 
 contained only a few families, to whose improvement he was able greatly to con- 
 tribute with comparatively little exertion, and the whole population seem to have 
 been warmly attached to him. Ettrick, on the contrary, is a parish extending 
 nearly ten miles in every direction, and required much labour to bring the 
 people together in public, or to come in contact with them at their own house. 
 Several of them, too, were society men or old dissenters, who had never joined 
 the Revolution church from what they supposed to be radical defects in her con- 
 stitution, as well as from much that had all along been offensive in her general 
 administration. Of her constitution, perhaps, Mr Boston was not the warmest 
 admirer, for he has told us in his memoirs, that, .after having studied the subject, 
 of baptism, he had little fondness for national churches, strictly and properly so 
 called, and of many parts of her administration he has again and again expressed 
 decided disapprobation ; but he had an undefined horror at separation, common 
 to the greater part of the presbyterians of that and the preceding generation, 
 which led him to regard almost every other ecclesiastical evil as trifling. Of 
 course, he was shocked beyond measure with the conduct of a few of the families 
 of Ettrick, who chose to adhere to Mr John Macmillan, or Mr John Hepburn, 
 and lias left on record accounts of some interviews with them, shortly after enter- 
 ing upon his charge, which, we have no hesitation in saying, bring not only his 
 candour, but his veracity, very strongly into question, lie was, however, a con- 
 scientious and diligent student, and had already made great progress in the 
 knowledge of the doctrine of grace, which seems to have been but imperfectly 
 understood by many very respectable men of that period. In this he was grcally 
 forwarded by a little book, " The Marrow of Modern Divinity," which he found 
 by accident in the house of one of his parishioners in Simprin, and which had 
 been brought from England by a person who had been a soldier there in the 
 time of the civil wars. Of this book he says, " I found it to come close to the 
 points I was in quest of, and showed the consistency of those which I could not 
 reconcile before, so that I rejoiced in it as a light which the Lord had seasonably 
 struck up to me in my darkness." The works of Jerome Zanchrius, Luther on 
 the Galatians, and Beza's Confession of Faith, which he seems to have fallen in 
 with at the same period, (that is, while he was yet in Simprin, about the year 
 1700,) also contributed greatly to the same end, niul seems to have given a cast 
 of singularity to his sermons, which was highly relished, and which rendered 
 them singularly useful in promoting the growth of faith arid holiness among his 
 hearers. In 1702, he took the oath of allegiance to queen Anne, the sense of 
 which, he says, he endeavoured to keep on his heart, but never after took an- 
 other oath, whether of a public or private nature. He was a member of the 
 first general assembly held under that queen in the month of March, 1703, of 
 which, as the person that was supposed to be most acceptable to the commissioner, 
 the earl of Seafield, Mr George Meldrum was chosen moderator. The declara- 
 tion of the intrinsic power of the church was the great object of the more fnitb- 
 ful part of her ministers at this time; but they were told by the leading party,
 
 THOMAS BOSTON. 273 
 
 that they already possessed it, and that to make an act asserting what they pos- 
 sessed, was only to waste time. While this very assembly, however, was in 
 the midst of a discussion upon an overture for preventing the marriage of Pro- 
 testants with papists, the commissioner, rising from his seat, dissolved the assem- 
 bly in her majesty's name. " This having come," Boston remarks, " like a clap of 
 thunder, there were from all corners of the house protestations offered against it, 
 and for asserting the intrinsic power of the church, with which," he adds, " I 
 joined in : but the moderator, otherwise a most grave and composed man, being in 
 as much confusion as a schoolboy when beaten, closed with prayer, and got away 
 together with the clerk, so that nothing was then got marked. This was one of 
 the heaviest days," he continues, " that ever I saw, beholding a vain man tramp- 
 ling under the privileges of Christ's house, and others crouching under the bur- 
 den ; and I could not but observe how Providence rebuked their shifting the 
 act to assert as above said, and baffled their design in the choice of the modera- 
 tor, never a moderator since the revolution to this day, so far as I can guess, 
 having been so ill-treated by a commissioner." This reflection in his private 
 journal, however, with the exception of an inefficient speech in his own synod, ap- 
 pears to be all that ever Boston undertook for the vindication of his church on this 
 occasion. It does not indeed appear that his feelings on this subject were either 
 strong or distinct, as we find himat Ettrick, in the month of January, 1708, declar- 
 ing that he had no scruple in observing a fast appointed by the court, though he 
 thought it a grievance that arose from the union, and the taking away of the 
 privy council. On this occasion he acknowledges that many of his hearers broke 
 off and left him, several of whom never returned, but he justifies himself from 
 the temper of the people, who, had he yielded to them in this, would have dic- 
 tated to him ever afterwards. This same year he was again a member of the 
 General Assembly, where application was made by persons liable to have the 
 abjuration oath imposed upon them for an act declaring the judgment of the 
 Assembly regarding it. The Assembly refused to do any thing in this matter ; 
 which was regretted by Mr Boston, and he states it as a just retribution which 
 brought it to ministers' own doors in 1712, only four years afterwards. On 
 this occasion also he was in the Assembly, but whether as a spectator or a mem- 
 ber he does not say. The lawfulness of the oath was in this Assembly keenly 
 disputed, and Boston failed not to observe that the principles on which the 
 answers to the objections Mere founded were of such latitude, that by them any 
 oath might be made passable. They were indeed neither more nor less than 
 the swearer imposing his own sense upon the words employed, which renders an 
 oath altogether nugatory. In this manner did Principal Carstairs swear it before 
 the justices in Edinbui-gh, to the great amusement of the Jacobites, and being 
 clear for it, he, in the assembly, by his singular policy, smoothed down all 
 asperities, and prevented those who had not the same capacity of conscience 
 from coming to any thing like a rupture with their brethren, for which cause, 
 says Boston, I did always thereafter honour him in my heart! Boston, nevertheless, 
 abhorred the oath, and could not bring his mind to take it, but determined to 
 keep his station in the church, till thrust out of it by the civil authorities. He 
 made over to his eldest son a house in Dunse, which he had inherited from his 
 father, and made an assignation of all his other goods to his servant, John Cur- 
 rie, so that, when the law took effect, he might elude the penalty of five hundred 
 pounds sterling, that was attached to the neglect or the refusal to take the oath 
 within a prescribed period. The memory of the late persecuting reigns was, 
 however, still fresh, and no one appeared willing to incur the odium of imitat- 
 ing them; and, so far as we know, the penalty was never in one single instance 
 i. 2 M
 
 274: THOMAS BOSTON. 
 
 exacted. The subject of this memoir, at least, was never brought to any real 
 trouble respecting it 
 
 Amid all 31r Boston's attention to public affairs he was still a most diligent 
 minister; and instead of relaxing any thing of his labours since leaving Sinij>- 
 rin, had greatly increased, them by a habit he had fallen into of writing out his 
 sermons in full, which in the earlier part of his ministry he scarcely ever did. 
 This prepared the way for the publication of his sermons from the press, by 
 which they have been made extensively useful. The first suggestion of this kind 
 seems to have come from his friend Dr Trotter, to whom he paid a visit at Dunse, 
 after assisting at the sacrament at Kelso, in the month of October, 1711; on 
 which occasion the notes of the sermons he had preached on the state of nt:'.n 
 were left with the Doctor for his perusal, and they formed the foundation of that 
 admirable work, the Fourfold State, which was prepared for publication before 
 the summer of 1714, but was laid aside for fear of the Pretender coming in and 
 rendering the sale impossible. In the month of August, the same year, he 
 preached his action sermon from Hosea ii, I'J; which met with so much accep- 
 tance, that he was requested for a copy with a view to publication. 'Ihis he 
 complied with, and in the course of the following winter, it was printed under 
 the title of the Everlasting Espousals, and met with a very good reception, 
 twelve hundred copies being sold in a short time, which paved the way for the 
 publication of the Fourfold State, and was a means of urging him forward in the 
 most important of all his public appearances, that in defence of the Marrow of 
 Modern Divinity. 
 
 During the insurrection of 1715, he was troubled not a little with the want 
 of military ardour among his parishioners of Ettrick, and, in the year 1717, with 
 an attempt to have him altogether against his inclination transported to the parish 
 of Closeburn, in Dumfries-shire. In the meantime, the Fourfold State had been 
 again and again transcribed, and had been revised by Mr John Flint at Edin- 
 burgh ; and, in 1718, his friends, Messrs Simson, Gabriel Wilson, and Henry 
 Davidson, offered to advance money to defray the expense of its publication. 
 The MS., however, was sent at last to Mr Robert \Vightman, treasurer to the 
 city of Edinburgh, who ultimately became the prefacer and the publisher of the 
 book, with many of his own emendations, in consequence of which there Mas 
 a necessity for cancelling a number of sheets and reprinting them, before the 
 author could allow it to come to the public ; nor was it thoroughly purged till 
 it came to a second edition. The first came out in 1720. 
 
 The oath of abjuration, altered, in a small degree, at the petition of the greater 
 part of the presbyterian nonjurors, was again imposed upon ministers in the 
 year 1719, when the most of the ministers took it, to the great grief of many of 
 their people, and to the additional persecution of the few who still wanted free- 
 dom to take it, of which number Mr Boston still continued to be one. Mr Bos- 
 ton Mas at this time employed by the synod to examine some overtures from the 
 assembly regarding discipline ; and having been, from his entrance on the min- 
 istry, dissatisfied Mith the manner of admitting to the Lord's table, and planting 
 vacant churches, he set himself to have these matters rectified, by remarks upon, 
 and enlargements of these customs. The synod did not, hoMever, even so much 
 as call for them, and, though they Mere by the presbytery laid before the com- 
 mission, they were never taken into consideration. " And I apprehend," says 
 Boston, " that the malady Mill be incurable till the present constitution be vio- 
 lently thrown down.'' ITiotigh the judicatures M'ere thus careless of any im- 
 provement in discipline, they were not less so M - ith regard to doctrine. The 
 Assembly, in 1717, had dismissed professor Simson without censure, though he 
 had gone far into the regions of error; and they condemned the whole presby-
 
 THOMAS BOSTON. 275 
 
 tery of Auchterardcr, for denying that any pre-requisite qualification was necessary 
 on tlie part of the sinner for coming to Christ; and this year, 1719, they, at the 
 instigation of Principal Haddow of St Andrews, commenced a prosecution against 
 Mr James Hog of Carnock, who had published an edition of the Marrow, Alex- 
 ander Hamilton minister of Airth, James Brisbane minister at Stirling, and John 
 Warden minister at Gargunnock, who had advocated its principles: which ended 
 in an act of the General Assembly forbidding all under their inspection in time 
 coming to teach or preach any such doctrines. This act of Assembly was by- 
 Boston and his friends brought before the pi-esbytery of Selkirk, who laid it 
 before the synod of Merse and Teviotdale. Nothing to any purpose was done 
 in the synod ; but the publicity of the proceedings led to a correspondence with 
 Mr James Hog, Mr Ralph Erskine, and others, by whom a representation and peti- 
 tion was given into the Assembly, 1721. This representation, however, was 
 referred to the commission. When called before the commission, on Thuisday, 
 May 1 8, Mr Hog not being ready, and Mr Bonar of Torphichen gone home, 
 Mr Boston had the honour of appearing first in that cause. On that day they 
 were borne down by universal clamour. Next day, however, Principal Had- 
 dow was hardly pushed in argument by Mr Boston, and Logan of Culcross was 
 completely silenced by Mr Williamson of Inveresk. The commission then gave 
 out to the twelve representing brethren twelve queries, to which they were 
 required to return answers against the month of March next These answers, 
 luminous and brief beyond any thing of the kind in our language, were begun 
 by Mr Ebenezer Erskine, but greatly extended and improved by Mr Gabriel 
 Wilson of Maxton. For presuming thus to question the acts of Assembly, the 
 whole number were admonished and rebuked. Against this sentence they gave 
 in a protestation, on which they took instruments in due form; but it was not 
 allowed to be read. In the meantime, Mr Boston prepared an edition of the 
 Marrow, illustrated by copious notes, which was published in 1726, and has 
 ever since been well known to the religious public. The Assembly, ashamed, 
 after all, of the act complained of, remodelled it in such a way as to abate some- 
 what its grossness, though, in the process, it lost little of its venom. 
 
 Following out his plan of illustrating gospel truth, Boston preached to his peo- 
 ple a course of sermons on the covenants of works and of grace, which have long 
 been in the hands of the public, and duly prized by judicious readers. His last 
 appearance in the General Assembly was in the year 1729, in the case of Pro- 
 fessor Simson, where he dissented from the sentence of the Assembly as being no 
 just testimony of the church's indignation against the dishonour done by the said 
 Mr Simson to our glorious Redeemer, the Great God and our Saviour, nor agree- 
 able to the rule of God's word in such cases, nor a fit means to bring the said 
 Mr Simson himself to repentance, of which, he added, he had yet given no evi- 
 dence. This dissent, however, for the sake of the peace of the church, which 
 some said it m ight endanger, he did not insist to have recorded on the Assembly's 
 books. His last public work was a letter to the presbytery, which met at Sel- 
 kirk, May 2, 1732, respecting the overture for settling vacant parishes ; which 
 breathes all the ardour and piety of his more early productions, and in vhich he 
 deprecates the turning of that overture into a standing law, as what cannot fail 
 to be the ruin of the church, and he prays that his letter may be recorded as a 
 testimony against it. His health had been for a number of years declining ; he 
 was now greatly emaciated ; and he died on the twentieth of May, 1732, in the 
 fifty-sixth year of his age. Mr Boston was married shortly after his settlement 
 at Simprin to Katharine Brown, a worthy pious woman, by whom he had ten 
 children, four of whom only survived him. Thomas, the youngest, was ordained 
 to the pastoral care of the parish of Oxnam ; but removing thence to Jedburgh
 
 276 JAMES BOSWELL. 
 
 without a presentation from the patron, or the leave of his presbytery, became 
 one of the fathers of the Relief church. Of the fortunes of his other children 
 we have not been informed. Of the character of Boston thei'e can be but one 
 opinion. Ardent and pious, his whole life was devoted to the promoting' of the 
 glory of God and the best interests of his fellow-men. As an author, though he 
 has been lowered by the publication of too many posthumous works, lie must 
 yet be admitted to stand in the first class. Even the most incorrect of his pieces 
 betray the marks of a highly original and powerfid mind, and his Fourfold 
 State of Man cannot fail to be read and admired so long as the faith of 
 the gospel continues to be taught and learned in the language in which it is 
 written. 1 
 
 BOSWELL, JAMES, the friend aiid biographer of Dr Samuel Johnson, was born 
 at Edinburgh, October 2U, 1740. 
 
 The Boswells, or Bosvilles, are supposed to have " come in with the Con- 
 queror," and to have migrated to Scotland in the reign of David I. [1124-53], 
 The first man of the family, ascertained by genealogists, was Robert Boseville, 
 who figured at the court of William the Lion, and became proprietor of some 
 lands in Berwickshire. Roger de Boswell, sixth in descent from tbjs person, 
 lived in the reign of David II., and acquired lands in Fife. His descendant, 
 Sir John Boswell, who flourished in the end of the fourteenth or beginning of 
 the fifteenth century, acquired the lands of Balmuto in Fife, which was after- 
 wards the principal title of the family. David Boswell of Balmuto, the eleventh 
 representative of the family in succession, had, besides his heir, Alexander, who 
 succeeded to the family estates, a son named Thomas, who became a servant of 
 James IV., and was gifted by that monarch with the Lands of Auclunleck, in 
 Ayrshire, which were then in the crown by recognition. 2 The charters, one of 
 which is dated in 1504, the other in 1505, bear that the lands were granted, 
 " pro bono et gratuito servitio nobis per dilectum nostrum familiarem Thomam 
 Boswell impensis," and " pro bono servitio, et pro singular! favore quern erga 
 ipsum Thomam gerimus." The lands of Auchinleck had previously belonged to 
 a family of the same name. Thomas Boswell, first of Auchinleck, married a 
 daughter of Sir Hugh Campbell of Loudoun ; and fell bravely fighting with his 
 master at Flodden. The estimation and quality of his descendants may be 
 exemplified by the dignity of the families into which they married in succession. 
 The following are the fathers of their respective brides: James Earl of Arran, 
 
 1 Mr Boston's name is still held in great reverence by the people of the south of 
 Scotland. The editor of this work well recollects two questions which, in bis jouth, used to 
 pass among the boys at a town not far from Ettrick "who was the best, and who 
 the worst man that ever lived?'' their minds evidently reflecting only upon modern 
 times. The answer to the first query gave, "Mr Boston, the minister of I'.ttrick :" the 
 wortt man, I regret to say, was the Earl of March, father of the last Duke of Queensberry, 
 whose fame, it may be guessed, was purely local. 
 
 * Thomas Boswell is frequently mentioned in the Treasurer's books under the reign of 
 James IV. On the 15th May, 1604, is an entry, " Item, to Thomas Boswell, he laid downe 
 in I,eith to the wife of the kingis innis, and to 'the boy rane the kingis hors, 18.'' On the 
 2nd August, is the following: * Item, for twa hidis to be jakkis to Thomas Bosrrell and 
 Watte Trumbull, agane the Raid of Eskdale, [an expedition against the border thieves,] 
 66i." On the 1st of January, 1504-5, " Item, to Thomas Hoswell and Pate Sinclair to 
 by thaim daunsing geir, 28*." Under December 31st, 1505, " Item, to 30 dosane of bellis 
 for dansaris, delyverit to Thunuis Bonuelt, 4/. 10s." Mr Pitcainie, from whose valuable 
 " Collection of Criminal Trials" these extracts are made, seems to think that Thomas Bos- 
 well was a minstrel to King James : it is perhaps as probable that he was chief of the royal 
 train of James. If such he really was nd if the biographer of Johnson had been aware (if 
 the fact, he would have perhaps considered it a reason for moderating a little his family 
 pride though we certainly must confess that there is not altogether wauling some analogy 
 between the professions of Laird Thomas and Laird James.
 
 
 
 Fl (1 
 Ik It. i 
 
 OF AUCHINLECK.
 
 JAMES BOSWELL; 277 
 
 who uurried the Princess Mary, daughter of king James II., and was ancestor 
 of the Hamilton family ; Sir Robert Dalzell of Glenae, ancestor of the Earls of 
 Carmvath [the same gentleman had for his second wife, a daughter of Lord 
 Ochiltree ;] Crawford of Kerse ; Sir John Wallace of (Jairnhill [2nd wife, a 
 daughter of Sir Archibald Stewart of Blackball ] ; Cunningham of Glengarnock ; 
 Hamilton of Dalzell ; Earl of Kincardine ; Colonel John Erskine, grandson of 
 the lord treasurer Earl of Mar. 
 
 James Boswell was the eldest son of Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck, and 
 of Euphemia Erskine. 1 The father was an advocate in good practice at the Scot- 
 tish har; who was, in 1751, elevated to the bench, taking, on that occasion, the 
 designation of Lord Auchinleck. James Boswell, father of Lord Auchinleck, 
 had also been a Scottish barrister, and, as we learn from Lord Kames, on 
 of the best of his time ; his wife was a daughter of Alexander Bruce, second 
 Earl of Kincardine, whose mother was Veronica, a daughter of the noble house 
 of Sommelsdyk in Holland. For an account of Auchinleck, reference may be 
 made to Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands. 
 
 The father of the biographer was a stern and rigid presbyterian, and a zeal- 
 ous supporter of the Hqpse of Hanover : young Boswell, on the contrary, from 
 his earliest years, showed a disposition favourable to the high church and the 
 family of Stuart. Dr Johnson used to tell the following story of his biographer's 
 early years, which Boswell has confessed to be literally true. " In 1745, Bos- 
 well was a fine boy, wore a white cockade, and prayed for King James, till one 
 of his uncles (General Cochran) gave him a shilling, on condition that he would 
 pray for King George, which he accordingly did." "So you see, "adds Bos- 
 well, who has himself preserved the anecdote, " whigs of all ages are made in 
 the same way." 
 
 He received the rudiments of his education at the school of Mr James Mun- 
 dell, in Edinburgh, a teacher of considerable reputation, who gave elemental 
 instruction to many distinguished men. He afterwards went through a complete 
 academical course at the college of Edinburgh, where he formed an intimacy 
 with Mr Temple of Allardeen in Northumberland, afterwards vicar of St Gluvies 
 in Cornwall, and known in literary history for a well- written character of Gray, 
 which has been adopted both by Dr Johnson and 31ason in their memoirs of that 
 poet Mr Temple and several other young English gentlemen were fellow-stu- 
 dents of Boswell, and it is supposed that his intercourse with them was the ori- 
 ginal and principal cause of that remarkable predilection for English society and 
 manners, which characterized him through life. 
 
 Boswell very early began to show a taste for literary composition ; in which 
 lie was encouraged by Lord Somerville, of whose flattering kindness he ever 
 preserved a grateful recollection. His lively and sociable disposition, and pas- 
 sion for distinguishing himself as a young man of parts and vivacity, also led 
 him, at a very early period of life, into the society of the actors in the theatre, 
 with one of whom, Mr David Ross, he maintained a friendship till the death of 
 that individual, in 1791, when Boswell attended as one of the mourners at his 
 funeral. While still at college, Lady Houston, sister of Lord Cathcart, put 
 under his care a comedy, entitled, " The Coquettes, or the Gallant in the Clo- 
 set," with a strict injunction that its author should be concealed. Boswell 
 exerted his interest among the players to get this piece brought out upon the 
 stage, and made himself further conspicuous by writing the prologue, which was 
 spoken by Mr Parsons. It was condemned at the third performance, and not 
 unjustly, for it was found to be chiefly a bad translation of one of the worst plays 
 
 1 He had two brothers; John, a lieutenant in the army ; David, a merchant at Valencia 
 In Spain.
 
 276 JAMES BOSWELL. 
 
 of Corneille. Such, however, was the fidelity of Boswell. that, though universally 
 believed to be the author, and consequently laughed at in the most unmerciful 
 manner, he never divulged the name of the fair writer, nor was it known till 
 she made the discovery herself. 
 
 After studying civil law for some time at Edinburgh, Boswell went for one 
 Vii nter to pursue the same study at Glasgow, where he, at the same time, attended 
 the lectures of Dr Adam Smith on moral philosophy and rhetoric. Here he con- 
 tinued, as at Edinburgh, to adopt his companions chiefly from the class of Eng- 
 lish students attending the university; one of whom, Mr Francis Gentleman, on 
 publishing an altered edition of Southern's tragedy of Oroonoko, inscribed it to 
 Bosvrell, in a poetical epistle, which concludes thus, in the person of his IVIuse : 
 
 " But where, with honest pleasure, she can find, 
 Sense, taste, religion, and good nature joined, 
 There gladly will she raise her feeble voice, 
 Nor fear to tell that BOSWELL is her choice." 
 
 Inspired, by reading and conversation, with an almost enthusiastic notion of 
 London life, Boswell paid his first visit to that metropolis in 1760, and his 
 ardent expectations were not disappointed. The society, amusements, and 
 general style of life which he found in the modern Bab) Ion, and to which lie 
 was introduced by the poet Derrick, were suited exactly to his taste and temper. 
 He had already given some specimens of a talent for writing occasional essays 
 and poetical jeux d'esprit, in periodical works, and he therefore appeared before 
 the wits of the metropolis as entitled to some degree of attention, lie was 
 chiefly indebted, however, for their friendship, to Alexander, Earl of Eglintoune, 
 one of the most amiable and accomplished noblemen of his time, who, being 
 of the same county, and from his earliest years acquainted with the family 
 of Auchinleck, insisted that young Boswell should have an apartment in his 
 house, and introduced him, as Boswell himself used to say, " into the circle 
 of the great, the gay, and the ingenious.'' Lord Eglintoune carried his young 
 friend along with him to Newmarket ; an adventure which seems to have made 
 a strong impression on Boswell's imagination, as he celebrated it in a poem 
 called " the Cub at Newmarket," which was published by Dodsley, in 1762, in 
 4to. The cub was himself, as appears from the following extract : 
 " Lord Eglintoune, who loves, you know, 
 
 A little dash of whim or so, 
 
 By chance a curious cub had got, 
 
 On Scoija's mountains newly caught. 1 ' 
 
 In such terms was Boswell content to speak of himself in print, even at this early 
 period of life, and, what adds to the absurdity of the whole affair, he could not 
 rest till he had read " the Cub at Newmarket " in manuscript to Edward Uuke 
 of York, and obtained permission from his royal highness to dedicate it to him. 
 It was the wish of Lord Auchinleck that his son should apply himself to the 
 law, a profession to which two generations of the family had now been devoted, 
 and in which Lord Auchinleck thought that his own eminent situation would be 
 of advantage to the success of a third. Boswell himself, though, in obedience 
 to his father's desire, he had studied civil law at the colleges of Edinburgh and 
 Glasgow, was exceedingly unwilling to consign himself to the studious life of a 
 barrister at Edinburgh, where at this time the general tone of society was the 
 very reverse of his own temperament, being (if we are to believe Provost Creech) 
 characterized by a degree of puritanical reserve and decorum, not much removed 
 from the rigid observances of the preceding century, while only a very small 
 circle of men of wit and fashion an oasis in the dreary waste carried on a
 
 JAMES BOSWELL. 279 
 
 clandestine existence, under the ban, as it were, of the rest of the world. Bos- 
 well had already cast his eyes upon the situation of an officer in the foot-guards, 
 as calculated to afford him that indulgence in London society, which he so much 
 desired, while it was, at the same time, not incompatible with his prospects as a 
 Scottish country gentleman. 
 
 It was with some difficulty that his father prevailed upon him to return to 
 Scotland, and consult about the choice of a profession. The old judge even 
 took the trouble to put his son through a regular course of instruction in the law, 
 in the hope of inspiring him with an attachment to it But though he was 
 brought the length of standing his trials as a civilian before a committee of the 
 Faculty, he could not be prevailed upon to enter heartily into his father's views. 
 
 During part of the years 1761 and 176-2, while confined to Edinburgh, and 
 to this partial and unwilling study of the law, he contrived to alleviate the irk- 
 someness of his situation by cultivating the society of the illustrious men who now 
 cast a kind of glory over Scotland and Scotsmen. Kames, Blair, Robertson, Hume, 
 and Dalrymple, though greatly his seniors, were pleased to honour him with their 
 friendship ; more, perhaps, on account of his worthy and dignified parent, than 
 on his own. He also amused himself at this time in contributing jeux d'esprit 
 to " a Collection of Original Poems by Scottish Gentlemen,'' of which two volumes 
 were successively published by Alexander Donaldson, an enterprising bookseller ; 
 being an imitation of the " Miscellanies " of Dodsley. Several of the pieces in 
 this collection were noticed very favourably in the Critical Review ; and the 
 whole is now valuable as a record of Scottish manners at a particular era. Bos- 
 well's pieces were distinguished only by his initials. In one, he characte rises 
 himself, saying, as to la belle passion, 
 
 Boswell does women adore. 
 
 And never once means to deceive ; 
 He's in love with at least half a score, 
 
 If they're serious, he laughs in his sleeve. 
 
 With regard to a more prominent trait of his character, he adds 
 
 Boswell is modest enough, 
 
 Himself not quite Phoebus he thinks, 
 * * * * 
 
 He has all the bright fancy of youth, 
 
 With the judgment of forty and five ; 
 In short to declare the plain truth, 
 
 There is no better fellow alive ! 
 
 At this tima, he cultivated a particular intimacy with the Hon. Andrew Ers- 
 kine, a younger brother of the nvisical Earl of Kelly, and who might be said to 
 possess wit by inheritance, his father being remarkable for this property, (though 
 not for good sense,) while his mother was the daughter of Dr Pitcairne. Ers- 
 kine and Boswell were, in frivolity, Arcades ambo ; or rather there seemed to be 
 a competition betwixt them, which should exhibit the greater share of that 
 quality. A correspondence, in which this contest seems to be carried on, was 
 published in 1763, and, as there was no attempt to conceal names, the two let- 
 ter-writers must have been regarded, in that dull and decorous age, as little bet- 
 ter than fools fools for writing in such a strain at all, but doubly fools for 
 laying their folly in such an unperishable shape before the world. 
 
 At the end of the year, 1762, Boswell, still retaining his wish to enter the 
 guards, repaired once more to London, to endeavour to obtain a commission. 
 For this purpose he carried recommendations to Charles Duke of Queensberry 
 the amiable patron of Gay who, he believed, was able to obtain for him what
 
 280 JAMES BOSWEI.L. 
 
 lie wished. Owing, however, ( as is understood,) to the backwardness of Loixl 
 Aucliinleck to enforce his claims, his patrons put him off from time to time, till 
 he was again obliged to return to Scotland. At length, in the spring of 1763, 
 a compromise was made between the father and his son, the latter agreeing to 
 relinquish his favourite project, and resume the study of the civil law for one 
 winter at Utrecht, with the view of ultimately entering the legal profession, on 
 the condition that, after the completion of his studies, he should be permitted to 
 make what was then called " the grand tour." 
 
 Bos well set out for this purpose early in 1763 ; and, according to the recol- 
 lection of an ancient inhabitant of Glasgow, his appearance, in riding through 
 that city, on his way from Aucliinleck, was as follows : " A cocked hat, a brown 
 wig, brown coat, made in the court fashion, red vest, corduroy small clothes, and 
 long military-looking boots. He was on horseback, with his servant at a most 
 aristocratic distance behind, and presented a fine specimen of the Scottish coun- 
 try gentleman of that day." Edin. Lit. Jour, ii, 327. 
 
 In Boswell's previous visits to London, lie had never had the good fortune to 
 make the acquaintance of Dr Samuel Johnson. He had now that pleasure. On 
 the 16th of 3Iay, as he himself takes care to inform us, while sitting in the back- 
 shop of Thomas Davies, the bookseller, No. 8, Russell-street, Covent Garden, 
 Johnson came in, and Boswell was introduced, by Davies, as a young gentleman 
 " from Scotland." Owing to the antipathy of the lexicographer to that country, 
 his conversation with Boswell was not at first of so cordial a description as at all 
 to predicate the remarkable friendship they afterwards formed. Boswell, how- 
 ever, by the vivacity of his conversation, soon beguiled the doctor of his preju- 
 dices ; and their intimacy was confirmed by a visit which he soon after paid to 
 Johnson at his apartments in the Temple. During the few months which Bos- 
 well spent in town before setting out for Utrecht, he applied himself assidu- 
 ously to cultivate this friendship, taking apartments in the Temple in order that 
 he might be the oftener in the company of the great man. Even at this early 
 period, he began that practice of noting down the conversation of Johnson, which 
 eventually enabled him to compose such a splendid monument to their common 
 memory. 
 
 He set out for Utrecht* in August 1763, and, after studying for the winter 
 under the celebrated civilian Trotz, proceeded, according to the compact with 
 his father, upon the tour of Europe. In company with the Earl 3Iarischal, 
 whose acquaintance he had formed, he travelled through Switzerland and Ger- 
 many, visiting Voltaire at Ferney, and Rousseau in the wilds of Neufchatel ; 
 men whom his regard for the principles of religion might have taught him to 
 avoid, if his itch for the acquaintance of noted characters one of the most 
 remarkable features of his character had not forced him into their presence. He 
 afterwards crossed the Alps, and spent some time in visiting the principal cities 
 in Italy. Here he formed an acquaintance with Lord Mountstuart, the eldest 
 son of the Earl of Bute ; to whom he afterwards Dedicated his law thesis on 
 being admitted to the bar. 
 
 At this time, the inhabitants of the small island of Corsica were engaged in 
 their famous struggle for liberty, against the Genoese, and Pasquale de Paoli, 
 their heroic leader, was, for the time, one of the most noted men in Europe. 
 Boswell, struck by an irrepressible curiosity regarding this person, sailed to Cor- 
 sica, in autumn 1765, and introduced himself to Paoli at his palace, by means 
 of a letter from Rousseau. He was received with much distinction and kindness, 
 and noted down a good deal of the very striking conversation of the Corsicnn 
 chief. After a residence of some weeks in the island, during which he made 
 himself acquainted with all its natural and moral features, he returned through
 
 France, and arrived in London, February 1766, his journey being hastened by 
 intelligence of the death of his mother. Dr Johnson received him, as he passed 
 through London, with renewed kindness and friendship. 
 
 Boswell now returned to Scotland, and, agreeably to the treaty formed with 
 Lord Auchinleck, entered (July 25, 1766) as a member of the faculty of advo- 
 cates. His temper, however, was still too volatile for the studious pursuit of 
 the law. and he did not make that progress in his profession, which might have 
 been expected from the numerous advantages witli which he commenced. The 
 Douglas cause was at this time pending, and Boswell, who was a warm partizan 
 of the young claimant, published (November 1767) a pamphlet, entitled, "The 
 Essence of the Douglas Cause," in answer to one, entitled " Considerations on 
 the Douglas Cause," in which a strenuous effort had been made to prove the 
 claimant an impostor. It is said that Mr Bos well's exertions on this occasion 
 were of material service in exciting a popular prepossession in favour of the 
 doubtful heir. This, however, was the most remarkable appearance made by Mr 
 Boswell, as a lawyer, if it can be called so. 
 
 His Corsican tour, and the friendship of Paoli, had made a deep impression 
 on Boswell's mind. He conceived that he had seen and made himself acquainted 
 with what had been seen and known by few ; and he was perpetually talking of 
 the islanders and their chief! This mania, which was rather, perhaps, to be at- 
 tributed to his vain desire of showing himself off in connection with a subject of 
 popular talk, than any appreciation of the noole character of the Corsican 
 struggle, at length obtained him the nick-name of Paoli, or Paoli Boswell. 
 Resolving that the world at large should participate in what he knew of Corsica, 
 he published, in the spring of 1768, his account of that island, which was 
 printed in iSvo by the celebrated brothers, Foulis, at Glasgow, and ' was well re- 
 ceived. The sketches of the island and its inhabitants, are lively and amusing ; 
 and his memoir of Paoli, which follows the account of the island, is a spirited 
 narrative of patriotic deeds and sufferings. The work was translated into the Ger- 
 man, Dutch, French, and Italian languages, and every where infected its readers 
 with its own enthusiastic feeling in behalf of the oppressed islanders. Dr John- 
 son thus expressed himself regarding it: "Your journal is curious and delight- 
 ful ; I know not whether I could name any narrative by which curiosity is 
 better excited or better gratified." On the other hand, Johnson joined the 
 rest of the world in thinking that the author indulged too much personally in 
 his enthusiasm upon the subject, and advised him, in a letter, dated March 23, 
 1768, to "empty his head of Corsica," Boswell was so vain of his book, as to 
 pay a visit to London, in the spring court vacation, chiefly for the purpose of 
 seeking Dr Johnson's approbation more at large. 
 
 In the following winter, a patent was obtained, for the first time, by Ross, 
 the manager of the Edinburgh theatre ; but, nevertheless, a violent opposition 
 was still maintained against this public amusement by the more rigid portion of 
 the citizens. Ross, being anxious to appease his enemies, solicited Boswell to 
 write a prologue for the opening of the house, which request was readily com- 
 plied with. The verses were, as Lord 3Iansfield characterised them, witty and 
 conciliating; and their effect, being aided by friends properly placed in differ- 
 ent parts of the house, was instantaneous and most triumphant ; the tide of op- 
 position was turned, the loudest plaudits were given, and Ross at once entered 
 upon a very prosperous career. 
 
 In 176'J, Boswell paid a visit to Ireland, where he spent six or seven weeks, 
 chiefly at Dublin, and enjoyed the society of Lord Charlemont, Dr Leland, Mr 
 Flood, Dr Macbride, and other eminent persons of that kingdom, not forgetting 
 the celebrated George Falconer, the friend of Swift and Chesterfield. Viscount,
 
 282 JAMES BOSNVELL. 
 
 afterwards 31arquis Townshend, was then Lord Lieutenant, and the congeniality 
 of their dispositions united them in the closest friendship. He enjojed a great 
 advantage in the union of one of his female cousins to Mr Sibthorpe, of the 
 county of Down, a gentleman of high influence, who was the means of introduc- 
 ing him into much good society. Another female cousin, Miss -Margaret 31ont- 
 gomery, daughter of Mr Montgomery of Lainshaw, accompanied him on the 
 expedition ; and not only added to his satisfaction by her own delightful company, 
 but caused him to be received with much kindness by her numerous and respecta- 
 ble relations. This jaunt was the means of converting Boswell from a resolu- 
 tion, which he appears to have formed, to live a single life. He experienced so 
 much pleasure from the conversation of Miss Montgomery, that he Mas tempted 
 to seek her society for life in a matrimonial engagement. He had resolved, he said, 
 never to marry had always protested, at least, that a large fortune would be in- 
 dispensable. He was now, however, impressed with so high an opinion of her 
 particular merit, that he would wave that consideration altogether, provided she 
 would wave his faults also, and accept him for better for worse. 31iss 31ontgomery, 
 who was really an eligible match, being related to the noble family of Eglin- 
 toune, while her father laid claim to the dormant peerage of Lyle, acceded to 
 his proposal with corresponding frankness; and it was determined that they 
 should be married at the end of the year, after he should have paid one parting 
 visit to London. 
 
 Before tin's visit was paid, Mr Boswell was gratified in the highest degree, by 
 the arrival of General Faoli, who, having been forced to abandon his native 
 island, in consequence of the French invasion, had sought that refuge on the 
 shores of Britain, which has never yet been refused to the unfortunate of any 
 country. In autumn, 1769, General Paoli visited Scotland and Boswell; an 
 account of his progress through the country, with Boswell in his train, is given 
 in the Scots Magazine of the time. Both on this occasion, and on his 
 subsequent visit to London, Boswell attended the exiled patriot with an ob- 
 sequious fidelity, arising no doubt as much from his desire of appearing in the 
 company of a noted character, as from gratitude for former favours of a similar 
 kind. Among other persons to whom he introduced his Corsican friend, was Ur 
 Johnson ; an entirely opposite being, in destiny and character, but who, never- 
 theless, was at some pains to converse with the unfortunate stranger Boswell 
 acting as interpreter. It would be curious to know in what light Paoli, who 
 HJIS a high-minded man, beheld his eccentric cicerone. 
 
 During the tune of his visit to London, September, 1709, the jubilee took 
 place at Stratford, to celebrate the birth of Shakspeare. As nearly all the lite- 
 rary, and many of the fashionable persons of the day were collected at this 
 solemnity, Boswell entered into it with a great deal of spirit, and played, it is 
 said, many fantastic tricks, more suited to a carnival scene on the continent, 
 than to a sober festival in England. To pursue a contemporary account, " One of 
 the most remarkable masks upon this occasion was James Boswell, Esq. in the 
 dress of an armed Corsican chief. He entered the amphitheatre about 12 
 o'clock. He wore a short, dark-coloured coat of coarse cloth, scarlet waist- 
 coat and breeches, and black spatterdashes ; his cap or bonnet was of black 
 cloth ; on the front of it was embroidered in gold letters, Viva la Liberia ; and 
 on one side of it was a handsome blue feather and cockade, so that it had an 
 elegant as well as a warlike appearance. On the breast of his coat was sewed 
 a Moor's head, the crest of Corsica, surrounded with branches of laurel. He 
 had also a cartridge-pouch, into which was stuck a stiletto, and on his left side 
 a pistol was hung upon the belt of his cartridge-pouch. He had a fusee slung 
 across his shoulder, wore no powder in his hair / but had it plaited at lull
 
 JAMES BOSWELL. 283 
 
 length, with a knot of blue ribbons at the end of it He had, by way of staff, 
 a very curious vine all of one piece, with a bird finely carved upon it, emblema- 
 tical of the sweet bard of Avon. He wore no mask ; saying, that it was not pro- 
 per for a gallant Corsican. So soon as he came into the room, he drew univer- 
 sal attention. The novelty of the Corsican dress, its becoming appearance, and 
 the character of that brave nation, concurred to distinguish the armed Corsican 
 chief. He was first accosted by Mrs Garrick, with whom he had a good deal of 
 conversation. Mr Boswell danced both a minuet and a country dance with a 
 very pretty Irish lady, Mrs Sheldon, wife to captain Sheldon of the 38th regi- 
 ment of foot, who was dressed in a genteel domino, and before she danced, threw 
 o'Fher mask." London Magazine, September, 1769, where there is a portrait 
 of the modern Xenophon in this strange guise. 1 
 
 On the 25th of November, he was married, at Lainshaw, in Ayrshire, to Miss 
 Montgomery, 2 and what is rather a remarkable circumstance, his father was mar- 
 ried on the same day, at Edinburgh, to a. second wife. With admirable sense, 
 affection, and generosity of heart, the wife of James Boswell possessed no com- 
 mon share of wit and pleasantly. One of her bon mots is recorded by her hus- 
 band. Thinking that Johnson had too much influence over him, she said, with 
 some warmth, " I have seen many a bear led by a man, but I never before saw a 
 man led by a bear." Once, when Boswell was mounted upon a horse which he 
 had brought pretty low by riding the country for an election, and was boasting 
 that he was a horse of blood, " I hope so," said she, drily, " for I am sure he has 
 no flesh." Her good-humoured husband kept a collection of her good things, un- 
 der the title of Uxoriana. Perhaps her best property was her discretion as a 
 housewife and a mother ; a quality much needed on her side of the house, since 
 it was so deficient on that of her husband. In a letter from Auchinleck, 23d 
 August, 1773, Dr Johnson thus speaks of her: "Mrs Boswell has the mien and 
 manner of a gentlewoman, and such a person and manner as could not in any 
 place be either admired or condemned. She is in a proper degree inferior to 
 
 1 Mr Croker has mentioned, in his edition of the life of Johnson, that on this occasion he 
 had the words " CORSICA BOSWELL" in a scroll of gilt letters round his hat. But perhaps the 
 above account somewhat invalidates the statement. Boswell, however, is known to have 
 been ambitious of some such prenomen as CORSICA, from an idea he entertained, that every 
 man, aiming at distinction, should be known by a soubriquet, derived from the thing or place 
 by which he had gained celebrity. He seems to have adopted this fancy from the Roman 
 fashion, of which Sci/iio Africanus is an instance. Thus, he encouraged a proposal for call- 
 ing Johnson by the epithet DICTIONARY JOHNSON. 
 
 2 It has been already mentioned, that Boswell's courtship took place, or at least com- 
 menced in Ireland. I cannot help thinking that the following composition, published in 
 his name by his son, must have had a reference to this transaction. It is stated by Sir 
 Alexander to have been written to an Irish air : 
 
 O Larghan Clanbrassil, how sweet is thy sound ! 
 To my tender remembrance as Love's sacred ground ; 
 For there Marg'ret Caroline first charm'd my sight, 
 And fill'd my young heart with a flutt'ring delight. 
 
 When I thought her my own, ah ! too short seem'd the day 
 For a jaunt to Downpatrick, or a trip on the sea; 
 To express what I felt then, all language were vain, 
 'Twas in truth what the poets have studied to feign. 
 
 But, too late, I found even she could deceive, 
 And nothing was left but to sigh, weep, and rave; 
 Distracted, I flew from mv dear native shore, 
 Resolved to see Larghan Clanbrassil no more. 
 
 Yet still in some moments enchanted I find 
 A ray of her fondness beams soft on my mind ; 
 While thus in bless'd fancy my angel 1 see, 
 All the world is a Larghan Cianbrassil to me.
 
 284 JAMES BOSXVELL. 
 
 her husband ; she cannot rival him, nor can he ever be ashamed of her." She 
 died in June, 1789, leaving two sons, Alexander and James, and three daugh- 
 ters, Veronica, Euphemia, and Elizabeth. 
 
 For two or three years after his marriage, Boswell appears to have lived a 
 quiet professional life at Edinburgh, paying only short occasional visits to Lor- 
 don. In autumn, 1773, Dr Johnson gratified him by coming to Edinburgh, and 
 proceeding in his company on a tour through the north of Scotland and the 
 Western Islands. On this occasion, Boswell kept a journal, as usual, of every 
 remarkable part of Dr Johnson's conversation. The journey being made rather 
 late in the season, the two travellers encountered some hardships, and a few 
 dangers; but they were highly pleased with what they saw, and the reception 
 they every where met with; Boswell, for his own part, declaring that he would 
 not have missed the acquisition of so many new and delightful ideas as he had 
 gained by this means, for five hundred pounds. Dr Johnson published an ac- 
 count of their trip, and the observations he made during its progress, under the 
 title of a "Journey to the Western Islands;" and Boswell, after the death of his 
 friend, (1785), gave to the world the journal he had kept, as a " Tour to the 
 Hebrides," 1 volume 8vo. The latter is perhaps one of the most entertaining 
 works in the language, though only rendered so, we must acknowledge, at the 
 expense of the author's dignity. It ran through three editions during the first 
 twelvemonth, and has since been occasionally reprinted. 
 
 For many years after the journey to the Hebrides, Boswell only enjnyed such 
 snatches of Johnson's company and conversation, as he could obtain by occa- 
 sional visits to London, during the vacations of the Court of Session. Of these 
 interviews, however, he has preserved such ample and interesting records, as 
 must make us regret that he did not live entirely in London. It appears that, 
 during the whole period of his acquaintance with Johnson, he pr.id only a dozen 
 visits to London, and spent with him only a hundred and eighty days in all; 
 which, added to the time which they spent in their northern journey between 
 August 1 8th and November 23d, 1773, makes the whole period during which 
 the biographer enjoyed any intercourse with his subject, only two hundred and 
 seventy-six days, or one hundredth part of Johnson's life. 
 
 The strangely vain and eccentric conduct of Boswell had, long ere this period, 
 rendered him almost as notable a character as any of those whom he was so 
 anxious to see. His social and good-humoured character gained him universal 
 friendship; but this friendship was never attended with perfect respect. 3Ien of 
 inferior qualifications despised the want of natural dignity, which made him go 
 about in attendance upon every great man, and from no higher object in life 
 than that of being the commemorator of their conversations. It is lain ntable to 
 state that, among those who despised him, was his own father ; and even other 
 relations, from whom respect might have been more imperatively required, were 
 fretted by his odd habits. " Old Lord Auchinleck," says Sir Walter Scott, 
 " was an able lawyer, a good scholar, after the manner of Scotland, and highly 
 valued his own advantages as a man of good estate and ancient family, and, 
 moreover, he was a strict presbyterian and whig of the old Scottish cast." To 
 this character, his son presented a perfect contrast a light-headed lawyer, an 
 aristocrat only in theory, an episcopalian, and a tory. But it was chiefly with 
 the unsettled and undignified conduct of his son, that the old gentleman found 
 fault. " There's nae hope for Jamie, man," he said to a friend about the time 
 of the journey to the Hebrides; " Jamie's gane clean gyte : What do ye think, 
 man? he's atVwi' the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican ; and whase tail do 
 ye think he lias pinned himself to now, man ?" Here the old judge summoned 
 up a sneer of most sovereign contempt. " A dominie, man, (meaning Johnson)
 
 JAMES BOSWELL. 285 
 
 an auld dominie, that keepit a schule, and ca'd it an academy!" By the death 
 of Lord Anchinleck, in 1782, Boswell was at length freed from what he had 
 always felt to be a most painful restraint, and at the same time became 
 possessed of his paternal estate 
 
 Boswell's mode of life, his social indulgences, and his frequent desertion of 
 business for the sake of London literary society, tended greatly to embarrass his 
 circumstances ; and he was induced to try if they could be repaired by exer- 
 tions in the world of politics. In 1784, when the people were in a state oi 
 most alarming excitement in consequence of Mr Fox's India Bill, and the eleva- 
 tion of Mr Pitt, he wrote a pamphlet, entitled, " A Letter to the People of Scot- 
 land, on the Present State of the Nation." Of this work Dr Johnson has thus 
 pronounced his approbation : " I am very much of your opinion, and, like 
 you, feel great indignation at the style in which the King is every day treated. 
 Your paper contains very considerable knowledge of history and of the constitution, 
 very properly produced and applied." The author endeavoured, by means of this 
 pamphlet, to obtain the favourable notice of Mr Pitt ; but we are informed that, 
 though the youthful minister honoured the work with his approbation, both on 
 this occasion, and on several others, his efforts to procure an introduction to 
 political life were attended with a mortifying want of success. He was, never- 
 theless, induced to appear once more as a pamphleteer in 1785, when he pub- 
 lished a second " Letter to the People of Scotland," though upon an humbler 
 theme, namely, " on the alarming attempt to infringe the articles of Union, and 
 introducing a most pernicious innovation, by diminishing the numbers of the 
 Lords of Session." This proposal had been brought forward in the House of 
 Commons ; the salaries of the judges were to be raised, and, that the expense 
 might not fall upon the country, their number was to be reduced to ten. 
 Boswell (to use a modern phrase) immediately commenced a vehement agitation 
 in Scotland, to oppose the bill ; and among other measures which he took for 
 exciting public attention, published this letter. His chief argument was, that 
 the number of the judges was established immutably by the act of union ; an act 
 which entered into the very constitution of parliament itself, and how then could 
 parliament touch it ? He also showed that the number of fifteen, which Buchanan 
 had pronounced too small to form a free or liberal institution, was little enough 
 to avoid the character of a tyrannical junto. He further argued the case in the 
 following absurd, but characteristic terms : " Is a court of ten the same with a 
 court of fifteen? Is a two-legged animal the same with a four-legged animal? 
 I know nobody who will gravely defend that proposition, except one grotesque 
 philosopher, whom ludicrous fable represents as going about avowing his hunger, 
 and wagging his tail, fain to become cannibal, and eat his deceased brethren." 
 The agitation prevailed, and the court remained as it had been, for another 
 generation. 
 
 Boswell, whose practice at the Scottish bar w r as never very great, had long 
 wished to remove to the English, in order that he might live entirely in London. 
 His father's reluctance, however, had hitherto prevented him. Now that the old 
 gentleman was dead, he found it possible to follow his inclination, and accord- 
 ingly he began, from time to time, to keep his terms at the Inner Temple. His 
 resolution was thus sanctioned by a letter to him from Dr Johnson, which exhibits 
 at once a cautious and encouraging view of the mode of life he proposed to 
 enter upon : 
 
 " I remember, and entreat you to remember, that virtus est vitium fugere ; 
 the first approach to riches is security from poverty. The condition upon which 
 you have my consent to settle in London, is that your expense never exceeds 
 your annual income. Fixing this basis of security, you cannot be hurt, and
 
 286 JAMES BOSWELL. 
 
 you may be Tery much advanced. The loss of your Scottish business, which is 
 all you can lose, is not to be reckoned any equivalent to the hopes and possi- 
 bilities that open here upon you. If you succeed, the question of prudence is at an 
 end ; any body will think that done right which ends happily ; and though your 
 expectations, of which I would not advise you to talk too much, should not be 
 totally answered, you can hardly fail to get friends who will do for you all that 
 your present situation allows you to hope ; and if, after a few years, you should 
 return to Scotland, you will return with a mind supplied by various conversations 
 and many opportunities of inquiry, with much knowledge and materials for 
 reflection and instruction." 
 
 At Hilary Term, 1786, he was called to the English bar, and in the ensuing 
 winter removed his family to London. His first professional effort is said to have 
 been of a somewhat ominous character. A few of the idlers of Westminster 
 Hall, conspiring to quiz poor Bozzy, as he was familiarly called, made up an 
 imaginary case, full of all kinds of absurdities, which they caused to be presented 
 to him for his opinion. He, taking all for real, returned a bona-fide note of 
 judgment, which, while it almost killed his friends with laughter, covered him- 
 self with ineffaceable ridicule. 
 
 It is to be regretted that this decisive step in life was not adopted by Boswell 
 at an earlier period, as thereby he might have rendered his Life of Johnson still 
 more valuable than it is. Johnson having died upwards of a year before his 
 removal, it was a step of little importance in a literary point of view ; nor did 
 it turn out much better in respect of professional profit. 
 
 So early as 1781, when Mr Burke was in power, that great man had endea- 
 voured to procure an extension of the government patronage to wards Boswell. 
 " We must do something for you," he said, " for our own sakes," and recom- 
 mended him to General Conway for a vacant place, by a letter, in which his 
 character was drawn in gloving colours. The place was not obtained ; but 
 Boswell declared that he vaiued the letter more. lie was now enabled, by the 
 interest of Lord Lowther, to obtain the situation of Recorder of Carlisle; a 
 circumstance which produced the following 
 
 WORDS TO BE SET FOR A RECORDER. 
 
 Boswell once flamed with patriot zoai, 
 
 His bow was never bent ; 
 Now he no public wrongs ran feel 
 
 Till LOWTHER nods assent. 
 
 To seize the throne while faction tries 
 
 And would the Prince command, 
 The Tory Boswell coolly cries, 
 
 My King's in Westmoreland. 
 
 The latter verse is an allusion to the famous Regency question ; while, in the 
 former, Boswell is reminded of his zealous exertions in behalf of monarchy in 
 the pamphlet on the India Bill. It happening soon after that Dr John Douglas, 
 a fellow-countryman of Boswell's, was made Bishop of Carlisle, a new and hap- 
 pier epigram appeared : 
 
 Of old, ere wise concord united this isle, 
 
 Our neighbours of Scotland were foes at Carlisle; 
 
 But now wh.it a change have we here on the Border, 
 
 When Douglas is Bishop and Boswell Recorder! 
 
 Findin"- this recordership, at so great a distance from London, attended with 
 
 many inconveniences, Boswell, after holding it for about two years, resigned it. 
 
 It was well known at this time that he Mas very anxious to get into parliament ;
 
 JAMES BOSWELL. 287 
 
 and many wondered that so sound a tory should not have obtained a seat at the 
 hands of some great parliamentary proprietor. Perhaps this wonder may be 
 explained by a passage in his last Letter to the People of Scotland. " Though 
 ambitious," he says, " I am uncorrupted ; and I envy not high situations which 
 are attained by the want of public virtue in men bora without it, or by the 
 prostitution of public virtue in men born with it Though power, and wealth, 
 and magnificence, may at first dazzle, and are, I think, most desirable, no wise 
 man will, upon sober reflection, envy a situation which he feels he could not en- 
 joy. My friend my ' Maecenas atavis edite regibus' Lord Mountstuart, 
 flattered me once very highly without intending it. ' I would do any thing for 
 you,' he said, ' but bring you into parliament, for I could not be sure but you 
 would oppose me in something the very next day.' His lordship judged well. 
 Though 1 should consider, with much attention, the opinion of such a friend 
 before taking my resolution, most certainly I should oppose him in any measure 
 which I was satisfied ought to be opposed. I cannot exist with pleasure, if I 
 have not an honest independence of mind and of conduct; for, though no man 
 loves good eating and drinking better than I do, I prefer the broiled blade-bone 
 of mutton and humble port of ' downright Shippen,' to all the luxury of all the 
 statesmen who play the political game all through." 
 
 He offered himself, however, as a candidate for Ayrshire, at the general elec- 
 tion of 1790; but was defeated by the interest of the minister, which was 
 exerted for a more pliant partizan. On this and all other proper occasions, he 
 made no scruple to avow himself a Tory and a royalist ; saying, however, in 
 the words of his pamphlet just quoted, " I can drink, I can laugh, I can con- 
 verse, in perfect good humour, with Whigs, with Republicans, with Dissenters, 
 with Moravians, with Jews they can do me no harm my mind is made up 
 my principles are fixed but I would vote with Tories, and pray with a Dean 
 and Chapter." 
 
 If his success at the bar and in the political world was not very splendid, ht 
 consoled himself, so far as his own fancy was to be consoled, by the grateful 
 task of preparing for the press his magnum opus the Life of Dr Johnson. 
 This work appeared in 1791, in two volumes, quarto, and was received with an 
 avidity suitable to its entertaining and valuable character. Besides a most 
 minute narrative of the literary and domestic life of Johnson, it contained notes 
 of all the remarkable expressions which the sage had ever uttered in Mr Boswell's 
 presence, besides some similar records from other hands, and an immense store 
 of original letters. As -decidedly the most faithful biographical portraiture in 
 existence, and referring to one of the most illustrious names in literature, it is 
 unquestionably the first book of its class ; and not only so, but there is no other 
 biographical work at all approaching to it in merit. While this is the praise 
 deserved by the work, it happens, rather uncommonly, that no similar degree 
 of approbation can be extended to the writer. Though a great work, it is only 
 so by accident, or rather through the persevering assiduity of the author in a 
 course which no man fit to produce a designedly great work could have submitted 
 to. It is only great, by a multiplication and agglomeration of little efforts. 
 The preparation of a second edition of the life of Dr Johnson, was the last literary 
 performance of Boswell, who died, May 19, 1795, at his house in Great Poland 
 Street, London, in the 55th year of his age; having been previously ill for five 
 weeks of a disorder which had commenced as an intermitting fever. He was 
 buried at the family seat of Auchinleck. 
 
 The character of Boswell is so amply shadowed forth by the foregoing account 
 of his life, that little more need be said about it That he was a good-natured 
 social man, possessed of considerable powers of imagination and humour, and
 
 ALEXANDER AND JAMES BOSWELL. 
 
 well acquainted with literature and the world of common life, is universally 
 acknowledged. He has been, at the same time, subjected to just ridicule for his 
 total want of that natural dignity by which men of the world secure and main- 
 tain the respect of their fellow-creatures in the daily business of life. He want-.'d 
 this to such a degree, that even those relations whose respect was most necessary, 
 according to the laws of nature, could scarcely extend it ; and from the same 
 cause, his intellectual exertions, instead of shedding a lustre upon his name, have 
 proved rather a kind of blot in his pedigree. IDs unmanly obsequiousness to 
 great men even though some of these were great only by the respect due to 
 talent his simpleton drollery his degrading employment as a chronicler of 
 private conversations his mean tastes, among which was the disgusting one of a 
 fondness for seeing executions and the half folly, half vanity, with which he 
 could tell the most delicate tilings, personal to himself and his family, in print 
 1 ave altogether conspired to give him rather notoriety than true fame, and, 
 though perhaps leaving him affection, deprive him entirely of respect. It was 
 a remarkable point in the character of such a man, that, with powers of enter- 
 tainment almost equal to Shakspeare's description of Yorick, he was subject to 
 grievous fits of melancholy in private. One of his works, not noticed in the 
 preceding narrative, was a series of papers under the title of " The Hypochon- 
 driac," which appeared in the London Magazine for 1782, and were intended 
 to embody the varied feelings of a man subject to that distemper. 
 
 Perhaps, it is only justice to Boswell, after expressing the severe character 
 which the world has generally pronounced upon him, 1 to give his own descrip- 
 tion and estimate of himself, from his Tour to the Hebrides. " Think of a 
 gentleman of ancient blood, the pride of which was his predominant passion. 
 He was then in his 33d year, and had been about four years happily married : 
 his inclination was to be a soldier; but his father, a respectable judge, had 
 pressed him into the profession of the law. He had travelled a good deal, and 
 seen many varieties of human life. He had thought more than any body sup- 
 posed, and had a pretty good stock of general learning and knowledge. He 
 had all Dr Johnson's principles, with some degree of relaxation. He had rather 
 too little than too much prudence ; and, his imagination being lively, he often 
 said things, of which the effect was very different from the intention. He 
 resembled sometimes ' the best-natured man with the worst-natured muse.' He 
 cannot deny himself the vanity of finishing with the encomium of Dr Johnson, 
 whose friendly partiality to the companion of his tour, represents him as one 
 ' whose acuteness would help any inquiry, and whose gaiety of conversation, 
 and civility of manners, are sufficient to counteract the inconveniencies of travel, 
 in countries less hospitable than we have passed.' " 
 
 BOSWELL, ALEXANDER and JAMES, sons of the preceding. It has been remarked, 
 as creditable to the memory of James VI.. that he educated two sons, who were 
 both, in point of personal and intellectual character, much above the standard 
 of ordinary men. The same remark will apply to tiie biographer of Johnson, 
 who, whatever may be thought of his own character, reared two sons who stood 
 forth afterwards as a credit to his parental care. A wish to educate his children 
 in the best manner, was one of the ruling passions of this extraordinary littera- 
 
 l Sir William Forbes, in his Life of Beattie, thus speaks of Boswell: " His warmth of 
 heart towards his friends was very great ; and I have known few men who possessed a 
 stronger sense of piety, or more fervent devotion, (tinctured, no doubt, with a little share of 
 superstition, which had probably been in some degree fostered by his habits of intimacy with 
 Dr Johnson) perhaps not always sufficient to regulate his imagination or direct his conduct, 
 yet still genuine, and founded both in his understanding and his heart. For Mr Boswell 1 
 entertained a sincere regard, which he returned by the strongest proof in his power to con- 
 for, by leaving me the guardian of his children."
 
 ALEXANDER BOSWELL. 289' 
 
 leur in his latter years. He placec both his sons at Westminster school, and 
 afterwards in the university of Oxford, at an expense which appears to hare been 
 not altogether justified by his own circumstances. 
 
 Alexander Boswell, who was born, October 9, 1775, succeeded his father in 
 the possession of the family estate. He was distinguished as a spirited and 
 amiable country gentleman, and also as a literary antiquary of no inconsiderable 
 erudition. Perhaps his taste, in the latter capacity, was greatly fostered by the 
 possession of an excellent collection of old manuscripts and books, which was 
 gathered together by his ancestors, and has acquired the well-known title of the 
 " AUCHINLECK LIBRARY." From the stores of this collection, in 1804, Sir 
 Walter Scott published the romance of " Sir Tristram," which is judged by its 
 learned editor to be the earliest specimen of poetry by a Scottish writer now in 
 existence. Besides this invaluable present to the literary world, the Auchinleck 
 Library furnished, in 1812, the black letter original of a disputation held be- 
 tween John Knox and Quentin Kennedy at Maybolein 15G2, which was printed 
 at the time by Knox himself, but had latterly become so scarce, that hardly 
 another copy, besides that in the Auchinleck Library, was known to exist. Mr 
 Boswell was at the expense of printing a fac-simile edition of this curiosity, 
 which was accepted by the learned, as a very valuable contribution to our stock 
 of historical literature. 
 
 The taste of Alexander Boswell was of a much manlier and more sterling 
 character than that of his father; and instead of being alternately the active 
 and passive cause of amusement to his friends, he shone exclusively in the former 
 capacity. He possessed, indeed, a great fund of volatile talent, and, in p.irti- 
 cular, a most pungent vein of satire, which, while it occasionally inspired fear 
 and dislike in those who were liable to become its objects, produced no admira- 
 tion which was not also accompanied by respect. At an early period of his life, 
 some of his poetical jeux d'esprit occasionally made a slight turmoil in that 
 circle of Scottish society in which he moved. He sometimes also exercised 
 his pen in that kind of familiar vernacular poetry which Burns again brought 
 into fashion ; and in the department of song-writing he certainly met witli 
 considerable success. A small volume, entitled, " Songs chiefly in the Scottish 
 Dialect," was published by him, anonymously, in 1803, with the motto, 
 " Xulla venenato litera mixta joco," a motto which it would have been well for 
 him if he had never forgot. In a brief note on the second folio of this little 
 work, he mentioned that he was induced to lay these trivial compositions in an 
 authentic shape before the public, because corrupted copies had previously made 
 their appearance. The truth is, some of his songs had already acquired a wide 
 acceptation in the public, and were almost as familiar as those of Burns. 1 The 
 volume also contains some English compositions, which still retain a popularity 
 such as " Taste Life's Glad Moments," which, he tells us, he translated at Leipsig, in 
 1795, from the German song, " Freu't euch des Libens." Mr Boswell also 
 appears, from various compositions in this little volume, to have had a turn for 
 writing popular Irish songs. One or two of his attempts in that style, are replete 
 with the grotesque character of the nation.* 
 
 l We may instance ' Auld Gudeman, ye're a Drucken Carle," * Jenny's Bawbee," and 
 " Jenny Dang the Weaver." 
 
 * It is hardly worth while to say more of a few fugitive lyrics; but fat we cannot help 
 pointing out a remarkably beautiful antithesis, in one styled " The Old Chieftain to his 
 Sons:" 
 
 " The auld will speak, the young maun hear, 
 
 Be canty, but be gude and leal ; 
 Your ain ills aye hae heart to bear, 
 Anither's aye hae heart to feel.' 1 
 In another he thus ludicrously adverts, in a fictitious character, to the changes which modern
 
 290 ALEXANDER BOS\YJ:i,L. 
 
 In 1810, Mr Boswell published a small volume under the title, "Edinburgh, 
 or the Ancient Royalty, a Sketch of former Manners, by Simon Gray.'' It is 
 a kind of city eclogue, in which a farmer, who knew the town in a past age, is 
 supposed to converse regarding its modern changes, with a city friend. It con- 
 tains some highly curious memorials of the simple manners which obtained in 
 Edinburgh, before the change described in the song just quoted. At a subse- 
 quent period, Mr Boswell established, a private printing-press at Auchinlcck, 
 from which he issued various trifles in prose and verse, some of which are 
 characterised by much humour. In 1816, appeared a poetical tale, somewhat 
 like Burns's " Tarn o Shanter," entitled, " Skeldon Haughs, or the Sow is 
 Flitted !" being founded on a traditionary story regarding an Ayrshire feud of 
 the fifteenth century. 1 In 1821, Mr Boswell was honoured with, what had been 
 the chief object of his ambition for many years, a baronetcy of Great Britain. About 
 this period, politics ran very high in the country, and Sir Alexander, who had 
 inherited all the Tory spirit of his father, sided warmly with the ministry. In 
 
 manners, rather than time, have produced upon the external and internal economy of the 
 Scottish capital : 
 
 Hech ! what a change hae we now in this town ! 
 
 A' now are braw lads, the lasses a' glancin' ; 
 Folk maun be dizzy gaun aye in this roun', 
 
 For deil a hae't 's done now but fuastin' and dancin'. 
 Gowd's no that scanty in ilk siller pock, 
 
 Whan ilka bit laddie maun hae his bit staigie; 
 But I kent the day when there was na a Jock, 
 
 But trotted about upon honest shanks-naigie. 
 Little was stown then, and less gaed to waste, 
 
 Barely a mullin for mice or for rattens ; 
 The thrifty gudewife to the flesh-market pared, 
 
 Her equipage a' just a gude pair o' pattens. 
 Folk were as gude then, and friends were as leal ; 
 
 Though coaches were scant, wi' their cattle a' cantrin' ; 
 Right aire we were tell't by the housemaid or chiel, 
 
 ' Sir, an ye please, here's yer lass and a lantern. ' 
 The town may be cloutit and pieced till it meets, 
 
 A' neebors penorth and besouth without haltin' 
 Brigs may be biggit ower lums and ower streets, 
 
 Tne Nor- Loch itsel' heap'd as heigh as the Gallon. 
 But whar is true friendship, and whar will you see 
 
 A' that is gude, honest, modest, and thrifty ? 
 Tak gray hairs and wrinkles, and hirple wi' me, 
 
 And think on the seventeen-hundred and fifty. 
 
 1 Kennedy of Bargeny tethered a sow on the lands of his feudal enemy Crawford of Ke.rse, 
 and resolved"^ that the latter gentleman, with all his vassals, should not be permitted to remove 
 or " flit " the animal To defeat this bravado at the very first, the adherents of Grawford 
 assembled in great force, and entered into active fight with the Kennedies, who, with tlieir 
 sow, were at length driven back with great slaughter, though not till the son of the laird of 
 }\, no, who had led his father's forces, wa< slain. The point of the poem lies in the dia- 
 logue which passed between the old laird and a messenger who came to apprise him of the 
 evtnt : 
 
 ' ' Is the sow fiittit? tell me, loon ! 
 
 Is au'id Kyle up and Garrick down?' 
 
 Mingled wi' sobs, his broken tale 
 
 The youth began; Ah, Kerse, bewail 
 
 This luckless day ! Your blythe son, John, 
 
 Ah, waes my heart, lies on the loan 
 
 And he could sing like only merle! 
 
 ' Is the sow flitted?' cried the carle; 
 
 ' Gie me my answer short and plain, 
 
 Is the sow flitted, yammerin wean !' 
 
 ' The sow (deil tak her) 's ower the water 
 
 And at their backs the Grawfords batter 
 
 The Carrick couts are cowed and bitted !' 
 
 ' My thumb for Jock! THE sow is FUTTKD.' "
 
 JAMES BOSWELL. 291 
 
 the beginning of the year 1821, a few gentlemen of similar prepossessions, 
 conceived it to be not only justifiable, but necessary, that the fervour of the 
 radical press, as it was called, should be met by a corresponding fervour on the 
 other side, so that the enemies of the government might be combated with their 
 own weapons. Hence arose a newspaper in Edinburgh styled the Beacon, to 
 which Sir Alexander Boswell contributed a few jeux d'esprit, aimed at the lead- 
 ing men on the other side, and alleged to have far exceeded the proper line of 
 political sarcasm. These being continued in a subsequent paper, which was pub- 
 lished at Glasgow, under the name of the Sentinel, at length were traced to 
 Mieir author by James Stuart, Esq. younger of Dunearn, who had been the object 
 of some of the rudest attacks, and repeatedly accused of cowardice. The 
 consequence of this discovery was a challenge from Mr Stuart to Sir Alexander, 
 and the hostile parties having met near Auchtertool in Fife, March 26, 1822, 
 the latter received a shot in the bottom of the neck, which terminated his exist- 
 ence next day. 3Ir Stuart was tried for this offence, by the High Court of Justi- 
 ciary, but most honourably acquitted. Sir Alexander left a widow and several 
 children. 
 
 BOSWELL, JAMES, the second son of the biographer of Johnson, was, as already 
 mentioned, educated at Westminster School. He was afterwards entered of 
 Brazen-nose College, Oxford, and there had the honour to be elected fellow upon 
 the Vinerian foundation. Mr Boswell possessed talents of a superior order, 
 sound classical scholarship, and a most extensive and intimate knowledge of our 
 early literature. In the investigation of every subject he pursued, his industry, 
 judgment, and discrimination, were equally remarkable; his memory was unusu- 
 ally tenacious and accurate ; and he was always as ready, as he was competent, 
 to communicate his stores of information for the benefit of others. Mr Malone 
 was influenced by these qualifications, added to the friendship which he entertain- 
 ed for Mr Boswell, to select him as hh literary executor; and to his care this 
 eminent commentator intrusted the publication of an enlarged and amended 
 edition of Shakspeare, which he had long been meditating. As Mr Malone's papers 
 were left in a state scarcely intelligible, it is believed that no man but one of 
 kindred genius like Mr Boswell, could have rendered them at all available. 
 This, however, Mr Boswell did in the most efficient manner ; farther enriotiing 
 the work with many excellent notes of his own, besides collating the text with 
 all the earlier editions. This work, indeed, which extends to twenty-one 
 volumes, 8vo, must be considered as not only the most elaborate edition of 
 Shakspeare, but perhaps the greatest edition of any work in the Eng- 
 lish language. In the first volume, Mr Boswell has stepped forward to de- 
 fend the literary reputation of Mr Malone against the severe attacks made by a 
 writer of distinguished eminence, upon many of his critical opinions and state- 
 ments ; a task of great delicacy, and which Mr Boswell performed in so spirited 
 and gentlemanly a manner, that his preface may be fairly quoted as a model of 
 controversial writing. In the same volume are inserted " Memoirs of Mr Malone," 
 originally printed by Mr Boswell for private circulation ; and a valuable essay 
 on the metre and phraseology of Shakspeare, the materials for which were partly 
 collected by Mr Malone, but which was entirely indebted to Mr Boswell for 
 arrangement and completion. 
 
 Mr Boswell inherited from his father a keen relish of the society of the 
 metropolis, and accordingly he spent his life almost exclusively in the Middle 
 Temple. Few men were better fitted to appreciate and contribute to the plea- 
 sures of social intercourse ; his conversational powers, and the unfailing cheerful- 
 ness of his disposition, rendered him everywhere an acceptable guest ; but it 
 was the goodness of his heart, that warmth of friendship which knew no bounds
 
 292 ARCHIBALD BOWER. 
 
 when a call was made upon his services, which formed the sterling- excellence, 
 and the brightest feature of Mr Boswcll's character. Mhis amiable man and 
 excellent scholar died, February 24, 1822, in the forty-third year of his age, 
 and was buried in the Temple Church, by a numerous train of son-owing friends. 
 It is a melancholy circumstance, that his brother, Sir Alexander, had just 
 returned from performing the last offices to a beloved brother, when he himself 
 was summoned from existence in the manner above related. 
 
 BOWER, ARCHIBALD, a learned person, but of dubious fame, was born on the 
 17th of January, 1C 86, near Dundee. He was a younger son of a respectable 
 Catholic family, which, for several centuries, had possessed an estate in Forfar- 
 shire. In 1702, he was sent to the Scots College at Douay, where he studied 
 for the church. At the end of the year 1706, having completed his iirst year 
 of philosophy, he went to Koine, and there, December 9, was admitted into the order 
 of Jesus. After his noviciate, he taught classical literature and philosophy, for 
 two years, at Fano, and subsequently he spent three years at Fermo. In 1717, 
 he was recalled to Rome, to study divinity in the Roman College. His last vows 
 were made at Arezzo, in 1722. 
 
 Bower's fame as a teacher was now, according to his own account, spread over 
 all the Italian states, and he had many invitations to reside in different places, 
 to none of which he acceded, till the College of Macerata chose him for their 
 professor. He was now arrived at the mature age of forty ; and it was not to 
 have been expected that any sudden change, either in his religious sentiments or in 
 his moral conduct, would take place after that period of life. Probably, however, 
 Bower had never before this time been exposed to any temptation. Being now 
 appointed confessor to the nunnery of St Catherine at Macerata, he is alleged to 
 have commenced a criminal intercourse with a nun of the noble family of Buon- 
 acorsi. Alarmed, it is said, for the consequences of his imprudence, he deter- 
 mined upon flying from the dominions of the Pope ; a step which involved the 
 greatest danger, as he had previously become connected, in the capacity of coun- 
 sellor, with the Holy Inquisition, which invariably punished apostasy with death. 
 Bower's own account of his flight sets forth conscientious scruples on the score 
 of religion, as having alone urged him to take that step ; but it is hardly credible 
 that a man in his situation could expose his life to imminent danger from a sud- 
 den access of scrupulosity. The circumstances of his flight are given in the fol- 
 lowing terms by himself: 
 
 " To execute that design with some safety, I purposed to beg leave of the 
 Inquisitor to visit the virgin at Loretto, but thirteen miles distant, and to pass a 
 week there, but, in the meantime, to make the best of my way to the country of 
 the Grisons, the nearest country to Macerata out of the reach of the Inquisition. 
 Having, therefore, after many conflicts with myself, asked leave to visit the 
 neighbouring sanctuary, and obtained it, I set out on horseback the very next 
 morning, leaving, as I purposed to keep the horse, his full value with the owner. 
 I took the road to Loretto, but turned out of it at a small distance from Recenati, 
 after a most violent struggle with myself, the attempt appearing to me, at that 
 juncture, quite desperate and impracticable ; and the dreadful doom reserved for 
 me, should I miscarry, presenting itself to my mind in the strongest light. But 
 the reflection that I had it in my power to avoid being taken alive, and a per- 
 suasion that a man in my situation might lawfully avoid it, when every other 
 means failed him, at the expense of his life, revived my staggering resolution , 
 and all my fears ceasing at once, I steered my course to Calvi in the dukedom 
 of Urbino, and from thence through the Romagna into the Bolognese, keeping 
 the by-roads, and at a good distance from the cities of Fano, Pisaro, Rimini, Forli, 
 Faenza. and Tivola, through which the high road passed. Thus I advanced very
 
 ARCHIBALD BOWER. 293 
 
 slowly, travelling, generally speaking, in rery bad roads, and often in places 
 where there was no road at all, to avoid, not only the cities and towns, but even 
 ihe villages. In the meantime, I seldom had any other support than some coarse 
 provisions, and a very small quantity even of them, that. the poor shepherds and 
 wood-cleavers could spare me. My horse fared not better than myself; but, in 
 choosing my sleeping-place, I consulted his convenience as much as my own ; 
 passing the night where I found most shelter for myself, and most grass for him. 
 In Italy there are very few solitary farm-houses or cottages, the country people 
 there all living together in villages ; and I thought it far safer to lie where I could 
 be any way sheltered, than to venture into any of them. Thus I spent seventeen 
 days before I got out of the ecclesiastical state ; and I very narrowly escaped 
 being taken or murdered on the very borders of that state. It happened thiw : 
 
 " I had passed two whole days without any kind of subsistence whatever, meeting 
 nobody in the by-roads that would supply me with any, and fearing to come near 
 any house. As I was not far from the borders of the dominions of the Pope, I 
 thought I should be able to hold out till I got into the Modenese, where I be- 
 lieved I should be in less danger than while I remained in the papal dominions ; 
 but finding myself, about noon of the third day, extremely weak and ready to 
 taint, I came into the high road that leads from Bologna to Florence, at a few 
 miles distance from the former city, and alighted at a post-house that stood quite 
 by itself. Having asked the woman of the house whether she had any victuals 
 ready, and being told that she had, I went to open the door of the only room in 
 the house, (that being a place where gentlemen only stop to change horses,) and 
 saw, to my great surprise, a placard pasted on it, with a most minute description 
 of my whole person, and the promise of a reward of 800 crowns, about j200 
 English money, for delivering me up alive to the inquisition, being a fugitive 
 from the holy tribunal, and 600 crowns for my head. By the same placard, all 
 persons were forbidden, on pain of the greater excommunication, to receive, 
 harbour, or entertain me, to conceal or to screen me, or to be any way aiding 
 or assisting to me in making my escape. This greatly alarmed me, as the rea- 
 der may well imagine ; but I was still more affrighted when entering the room 
 I saw two fellows drinking there, who, fixing their eyes upon me as soon as 1 
 came, continued looking at me very steadfastly. I strove, by wiping my face, by 
 blowing my nose, by looking out at the window, to prevent their having a full 
 view of me. But one of them saying, ' The gentleman seems afraid to be seen,' 
 I put up my handkerchief, and turning to the fellow, said boldly, ' What do you 
 mean, you rascal ? Look at me, I am not afraid to be seen.' He said nothing, 
 but, looking again stedfastly at me, and nodding his head, went out, and his com- 
 panion immediately followed him. I watched them, and seeing them with two 
 or three more in closa conference, and no doubt consulting whether they should 
 apprehend me or not, I walked that moment into the stable, mounted my horse 
 unobserved by them ; and, while they were deliberating in the orchard behind 
 the house, rode off at full speed, and in a few hours got into the Modenese, where 
 I refreshed, both with food and rest, as I was there in no immediate danger, my 
 horse and myself. I was indeed surprised that those fellows did not pursue me ; 
 nor can I any other way account for it, but by supposing, what is not improba- 
 ble, that, as they were strangers as well as myself, and had all the appearance 
 of banditti or ruffians flying out of the dominions of the pope, the woman of the 
 house did not care to trust them with her horses." 
 
 Bower now directed his course through the cantons of Switzerland, and as 
 some of these districts were Catholic, though not under the dominion of the 
 inquisition, he had occasionally to resume themode of travelling above described, 
 in order 10 avoid being taken. At length, May 1726, he reached the Scots
 
 294 ARCHIBALD BOWER. 
 
 College at Douay, where he threw himself upon the protection of the rector. 
 Accoiding to his owi: narrative, which, however, has been contradicted in many 
 points, he thus proved, that, though he had fled from the horrors of the holy 
 tribunal, and had begun to entertain some doubts U|,on several parts of the 
 Catholic doctrines, he was not disposed to abandon entirely the j rolession of faith 
 in which he had been educated. He even describes a correspondence which he 
 entered into with the superior of his order in France, who at length recommended 
 him to make the best of his way to England, in order that he might get fairly 
 beyond the reach of the inquisition. This he did under such circumstances of 
 ron .-wed danger, that he would haie been detained at Calais, but for the kind- 
 ness of an English nobleman. Lord Baltimore, who conveyed him over to Dover 
 in his own yacht. He arrived at London in July or August 17^6. 
 
 His first friend of any eminence in England was Dr Aspimvall, who, like him- 
 self, had formerly belonged to the order of Jesus. His conversations with this 
 gentleman, and with the more celebrated DrClarke, and Berkeley bishop of Cloyne, 
 produced, or appeared to produce, such a change in his religious sentiments, 
 that he soon after abjured the Catholic faith. For six years, he continued a 
 protestant, but of no denomination. At length he joined the communion of the 
 church of England, which he professed to consider " as free in her service as any 
 reformed church from the idolatrous practices and superstitions of popery, and 
 less inclined, than many others, to fanaticism and enthusiasm.'' By his friomls 
 he was recommended to Lord Aylmer, who wanted a person to rssist him in 
 reading the classics. While thus employed, he conducted a review or magazine, 
 which was started in 1730, under the title " Historia Literaria," and was fin- 
 ished in eight volumes, in 1734. Being little acquainted with the English 
 tongue, he composed the early part of this work in Italian, and had it translated 
 by an English student ; but before the work was concluded, he had made him- 
 self sufficiently acquainted with English, to dispense with Hs translator. After 
 its conclusion, he was engaged by the publishers of the Ancient Universal His- 
 tory, for which work he wrote during a space of nine years, contributing, in 
 particular, the article Roman History. It is said that the early part of this 
 production is drawn out to an undue length, considering that there were various 
 other abridgments of that portion of the history of Rome ; while the latter part, 
 referring to the Eastern empire, though comparatively novel and valuable, was, 
 from the large space already occupied, cut down into as many paragraphs as it 
 ought to have occupied pages. The second edition of the Universal History was 
 committed for revisal to J\lr Bower's care, and it is said that, though he received 
 300 from the publishers, he performed his task, involving though it did a very 
 large commercial interest, in the most superficial and unsatisfactory manner. 
 His writings had been so productive before the year 1740, that he then possessed 
 \ 100 in South Sea annuities. It is alleged that he now wished to be restored 
 to the bosom of the church, in order that he might share in its bounty as a mis- 
 sionary. In order to conciliate its favour, and attest his sincerity, he is said to 
 have offered to it, through father Shirburn, then provincial of England, the whole 
 of his fortune on loan. The money was received on the conditions stipulated 
 by himself, and was afterwards augmented to 1350, for which, in August 1743, 
 a bond was given, allowing him an annuity equal to seven per cent, upon the 
 principal. He is said to have been so far successful in his object that, in 1744 
 or 1745, he was re-admitted into, or rather reconciled to the order of Jesus 
 though it does not appear that he ever received the employment which he 
 expected. In 1747, having been tempted by a considerable otter to write a 
 history of the popes in a style Jigreeable to protestant feeling, he is alleged to 
 hare commenced a oorrtspondence with father Shirburn for the purpose of get-
 
 ARCHIBALD BOWER. 295 
 
 ting back his money, lest, on breaking again with the church, the whole should 
 be forfeited. He pretended that he had engaged in an illicit intercourse with a 
 lady, to whom the money in reality belonged, a;id that, in order to disengage 
 himself from a connection which lay heavily upon his conscience, he wished to 
 refund the money. Accordingly, on the 20th of June, 1747, he received it 
 back. If we are to believe himself, he did not lend the money to Shirburn, but to 
 Mr Hill, a Jesuit, who transacted money affairs in his capacity as an attorney. He 
 retracted it, he said , in order to be able to marry. The letters shown as having been 
 written by him to father Shirburn, were, he said, forgeries prepared by catholics 
 in order to destroy his popularity with the protestants. But the literary world 
 has long settled the question against Bower. The letters were published in 
 1756, by his countryman Dr John Douglas, afterwards bishop of Salisbury, along 
 with a commentary proving their authenticity. The replies of Bower, though 
 ingenious, are by no means satisfactory, and it is obvious that the whole transac- 
 tion proves him to have been a man who little regarded principle, when he had 
 the prospect of improving his fortune. 
 
 The first volume of his History of the Popes, was published in 1748 ; and he 
 was soon after, by the interest of Lord Lyttleton, appointed librarian to Queen 
 Caroline. It must be remarked that this irreproachable nobleman remained the 
 friend of Bower, while all the rest of the world turned their backs upon him ; 
 and it must be confessed, that such a fact is calculated to stagger the faith of many 
 even in the acuteness of Bishop Douglas. On the 4th of August, 1749, when he 
 had just turned the grand climacteric, he married a niece of Bishop Nicholson , 
 with a fortune of ;4000. In 1751, he published his second volume, and, in 
 175.3, his third, which brought down the history to the death of Pope Stephen. 
 This work, partly from the circumstances of the author, appears to have been 
 received with great favour by the dissenters and more devout party of the church. 
 Bower is alleged by his enemies to have kept up the interest of the publication, 
 by stories of the danger in which he lay from the malignity of the Catholics, 
 who, as he gave out, attempted on one occasion to carry him off by water from 
 Greenwich. Lord Lyttleton, in April 1754, appointed him clerk of the buck 
 warrants. It was in 1756, that his personal reputation received its first grand 
 shock from the exposure of Dr Douglas, who next year published a second tract, 
 as fully condemnatory of his literary character. This latter production, entitled, 
 " Bower and T illemont Compared," showed that a great part of his History of 
 the Popes was nothing more than a translation of the French historian. He 
 endeavoured to repel the attack in three laboured pamphlets; but Dr Douglas, in 
 a reply, confirmed his original statements by unquestionable documents. Before 
 the controversy ended, Bovver had issued his fourth volume, and, in 1757, an 
 abridgment of what was published appeared at Amsterdam. The fifth volume ap- 
 peared in 1761, during which year he also published " Authentic Memoirs con- 
 cerning the Portuguese Inquisition, in a series of letters to a friend," 8vo. 
 The History of the Popes was finally completed in seven volumes ; and on the 
 3rd of September, 176U, the author died at his house in Bond Street, in the 
 eighty-first year of his age. 1 He was buried in Mary-le-bone church-yard, 
 where there is a monument to him, bearing the following inscription : 
 
 " A man exemplary for every social virtue. Justly esteemed by all who knew 
 him for his strict honesty and integrity. A faithful friend and a sincere Chris- 
 tian. 
 
 " False witnesses rose up against him, and laid to his charge things that he 
 
 1 A letter written at the request of his widow to notify his death to his nephew in Scotland 
 (which 1 have seen,) mentions that he bore a final illness of three weeks " in every way 
 suitable to the character of a good Christian "
 
 296 WALTER BOWER. MARK BOYD. 
 
 knew not ; they imagined wickedness in their hearts and practised it : their 
 delight is in lies : they conspired together, and laid their net to destroy him 
 guiltless : the very abjects came together against him, they gaped upon him with 
 their mouths, they sharpened their tongues like a serpent, working deceitfully ; 
 they compassed him about with words of malice, and hated, and fought against 
 him without a cause. 
 
 " He endured their reproach with fortitude, suffering wrongfully." 
 
 "Unhappy vanity !" exclaims Samuel Ayscough, who preserves the inscrip- 
 tion, " thus endeavouring, as it were, to carry on the deception with God, which 
 he was convicted of at the bar of literary justice : how much better would it have 
 been to let his name sink in oblivion, than thus attempt to excite the pity of 
 those only who are unacquainted with the history of his life ; and, should it 
 raise a desire in any person to inquire, it must turn their pity into contempt." 
 
 In Bower, we contemplate a man of considerable merit in a literary point of 
 view, debased by the peculiar circumstances in which he entered the world. A 
 traitor to his own original profession of faith, he never could become a good sub- 
 ject to any other. His subsequent life was that of an adventurer and a hypo- 
 crite ; and such at length was the dilemma in which he involved himself by his 
 unworthy practices, that, for the purpose of extricating himself, he was reduc- 
 ed to the awful expedient of denying upon oath the genuineness of letters 
 which were proved upon incontestable evidence to be his. Even, however, from 
 the evil of such a life, much good may be extracted. The infamy in which his 
 declining years were spent, must inform even those to whom good is not good 
 alone for its own sake, that the straight paths of candour and honour are the only 
 ways to happiness, and that money or respect, momentarily enjoyed at the ex- 
 pense of either, can produce no permanent or effectual benefit, 
 
 BOWER, WALTER, an historical writer of the fifteenth century, was born at 
 Haddington, in 1385. At the age of eighteen, he assumed the religious habit; 
 and after finishing his philosophical and theological studies, visited Paris in order 
 to study the laws. Having returned to his native country, he was unanimously 
 elected Abbot of St Colm, in the year 1418. After the death of Fordoun, the 
 historian, (see that article,) he was requested, by Sir David Stewart of Rossyth, 
 to undertake the completion of the Scotichronicon, or Chronicles of Scotland, 
 which had been brought up by the above writer only to the 23d chapter of the 
 fifth book. In transcribing the part written by Fordoun, Bower inserted large 
 interpolations. He completed the work in sixteen books, which brought the 
 narrative to the death of James the First; and he is said to have been much 
 indebted for materials to the previous labours of Fordoun. Bower, like Fordoun, 
 wrote in a scholastic and barbarous Latin; and their work, though it must be 
 considered as one of the great fountains of early Scottish history, is characterised 
 by few of the essential qualities of that kind of composition. 
 
 BOYD, MARK, an extraordinary genius, who assiMned the additional name of 
 ALEXANDER, from a desire of assimilating himself to liio illustrious hero of Mace- 
 don, was a younger son of Robert Boyd of I'inkell in Ayrshire, who was great- 
 grandson to Robert Boyd, great Chamberlain of Scotland. Mark Boyd was 
 born on the 13th of January, 15(52. His father having died while he was a 
 child, he was educated under the care of his uncle, James Boyd of Trochrig, 
 titular Archbishop of Glasgow. His headstrong temper showed itself in early 
 youth, in quarrels with his instructors, and before he had finished his academical 
 course, he left the care of his friends, and endeavoured to obtain some notice at 
 court. It affords a dreadful picture of the character of Boyd, that, even in a scene 
 ruled by such a spirit as Stuart, Earl of Arran, he was found too violent : one duel 
 and numberless broils, in which he became engaged, rendered it necessary that he
 
 MARK BOYD. 297 
 
 should try his fortune elsewhere. By the advice of his friends, who seem to have 
 given up all hope of his coming to any good in his own country, he travelled to 
 France, in order to assume the profession of arms. While lingering at Paris, he lost 
 his 'little stock of money at dice. This seems to have revived better feelings in 
 his breast. He began to study under various teachers at Paris ; then went to the 
 university of Orleans, and took lessons in civil law from Kobertus ; lastly, he 
 removed to Bourges, where he was received with kindness by the celebrated Cu- 
 jacius. This great civilian happening to have a crazy fondness for the writings 
 of the early Latin poets, Boyd gained his entire favour by writing a few poems 
 in the barbarous style of Ennius. The plague breaking out at Bourges, he was 
 obliged to fly to Lyons, whence he was driven by the same pestilence into Italy. 
 After spending some time in this country, he returned to France, and is supposed 
 to have there acted for some time as private tutor to a young gentleman named 
 Dauconet. In 1587, commenced the famous wars of the League. Boyd, though 
 a protestant, or afterwards professing to be so, joined with the Catholic party, 
 in company with his pupil, and for some time led the life of a soldier of fortune. 
 His share in the mishaps of war, consisted of a wound in the ankle. In 15S8, 
 the Germans and Swiss being driven out of France, the campaign terminated, 
 and Boyd retired to Thoulouse, where he re-commenced the study of civil law. 
 liis studies were here interrupted by a popular insurrection in favour of the 
 Catholic interest, but in which he took no part. Having fallen under some sus- 
 picion, probably on account of his country, he was seized by the insurgents, and 
 thrown into prison. By the intercession of some of his learned friends, he was 
 relieved from this peril, and permitted to make his escape to Bourdeaux. He 
 has left a most animated account of the insurrection, from which it may be 
 gathered that the expedients assumed in more recent periods of French history, 
 for protecting cities by barricades, chains, and other devices, were equally fami- 
 liar in the reign of Henry the Great. For several years, Boyd lived a party- 
 coloured life, alternating between study and war. He had a sincere passion for 
 arms, and entertained a notion that to live entirely without the knowledge and 
 practice of military affairs was only to be half a man. It is to be regretted, 
 that his exertions as a soldier were entirely on the side adverse to his own and 
 his country's faith ; a fact which proves how little he was actuated by principle. 
 In the midst of all the broils of the League, he had advanced considerably in the 
 preparation of a series of lectures on the civil law ; but he never found an oppor- 
 tunity of delivering them. He also composed a considerable number of Latin poems, 
 which were published in one volume at Antwerp, in 1592. Having now turned his 
 thoughts homewards, he endeavoured, in this work, to attract the favourable atten- 
 tion of James VI., by a very flattering dedication. But it does not seem to have 
 had any effect. He does not appear to have returned to his native country for 
 some years after this period. In 1595, when his elder brother died, he was 
 still in France. Returning soon after, he is said to have undertaken the duty 
 of travelling preceptor to John, Earl of Cassillis ; and when his task was rccom- 
 plished, he returned once more. He died of a slow fever, April 10th, 1601, 
 and wcs buried in the church of Daily. 
 
 Mark Alexander Boyd left seveial compositions behind him, of which a few 
 have been published. The most admired are his " Epistolas Heroidum," and 
 liis " Hymni," which are inserted in the " Delicias Poetarum Scotorum," published 
 at Amsterdam, in 1637. His style in Latin poetry is shown by Lord Hailes to 
 be far from correct, and his ideas are often impure and coarse. \et when 
 regarded rs the effusions of a soaring genius, which seems to have looked upon 
 every ordinary walk of human exertion as beneath it, we may admire the gene- 
 ral excellence, while we overlook mean defects. The Tears of Venus on the 
 
 i. 2 P
 
 298 ROBERT BOYD. 
 
 Death of Adonis, which has been often extracted from his Epistola?, seems to me 
 to be a beautiful specimen of Latin versification, and in impassioned feeling 
 almost rivalling Pope's liloise. An exact list of the remainder of his compost, 
 tions, which still lie in manuscript in the Advocates' Library, is given in his life 
 by Lord Haiies, which was one of the few tentamina contributed by thai 
 antiquary towards a Scottish Biographical Dictionary. Lord Haiies represents 
 the vanity of Boyd as having been very great ; but it is obvious that he could 
 offer as high incense to others as to himself. He has the hardihood to compli- 
 ment the peaceful James VI. ns superior to Pallas or Mars : in another place, he 
 speaks ol that monarch as having distinguished himself : t battles and sieges. It 
 is well known that neither the praise nor the facts were true ; and we can only 
 account for such inordinate flattery, by supposing, what there is really n.urh 
 reason to believe, that p; negyric in those days was a matter of course, and not 
 expected to contain any truth, or even vraisemblance. This theory receives 
 some countenance from a circumstance mentioned by Lord Haiies. 'I ho dedica- 
 tion, it seems, in which King James was spoken of us a hardy warrior, was ori- 
 ginally written for a real warrior; but the name being afterwards changed, it 
 was not thought necessary to alter the praise ; and so the good Solomon, \vho 
 is said to have shrunk from the very sight of cold iron, stands forth rs a second 
 Agamemnon. 
 
 BOYD, ROBERT, of Trochrig an eminent divine of the seventeenth century, was 
 born at Glasgow in 1578. He was the son of James Boyd, "Tulchan-nrchbishop" 
 of Glasgow, and Margaret, daughter of James Chalmers of Gaitgirth, chief of that 
 n.-iiue. On the death of his father, which happened when he was only three 
 years old, his mother retired to the family residence in Ayrshire, and Boyd, 
 along with Thomas, his younger brother, was in due time sent to the grammar 
 school of the county town. From thence he was removed to the university of 
 Edinburgh, where he studied philosophy under Mr Charles Ferme, (or Fairholm.) 
 one of the regents, and afterwards divinity under the celebrated Robert Rollock. 
 In compliance with the custom of the times, he then went abroad for the pur- 
 pose of pui-suing his studies, and France was destined to be the first sphere of 
 his usefulness. He taught various departments of literature in the schools of 
 Tours and Montauban, at the first of which places he became acquainted with 
 the famous Dr Rivet In 1604, he was ordained pastor of the church at Vrr- 
 teuil, and in I 600 he was appointed one of the Professors in the university of 
 Saumur, which had been founded in 15 1 J3, by the amiable Philip de Mornay, 
 better known by the title of Du Plessis. Boyd also discharged the duties of a 
 pastor in the church at the same town, and, soon after, became Professor of 
 Divinity. As he had now the intention of remaining for some years abroad, he 
 bethought himself of entering into the married state, and having met with " an 
 honest virgin of the family of Malivern," says Wodrow, ' he sought her parents 
 for their consent, who having received a satisfactory testimonial of the nobility 
 of his birth, and the competency of his estate, they easily yielded, and so he 
 took her to wife, with the good liking of the church and the university, who 
 hoped that by this means he would be fixed among them, so as never to enter- 
 tain thoughts of returning to Scotland to settle there." But in this they were 
 soon disappointed, for king James having heard through several noblemen, re- 
 lations of Mr Boyd, of his worth and talents, offered him the principalship of 
 the university of Glasgow. 
 
 The duties of principal in that college were, by the charter of this monarch, 
 not confined even to those connected with that institution, lie was required to 
 teach theology on one day, and Hebrew and Syriac the next, alternately ; but 
 this was not all. The temporalities of the rectory and vic::rage of Govan had
 
 TjT J. -Rogers . 
 
 .
 
 ROBERT BOYD. 299 
 
 been annexed to it, under the condition that die principal should preach on 
 Sunday in the church of that parish. Under these circumstances, it could not 
 be expected that Mr Boyd could have much leisure to premeditate his lectures. 
 Wodrovv informs us, that he did not read them, " but uttered all in a continued 
 discourse, without any hesitation, and with as much ease and freedom of speech, 
 as the most eloquent divine is wont to deliver his sermons in his mother tongue." 
 It will be remembered, that the prelections were then delivered in Latin, and 
 Principal Baillie, who studied under Mr Boyd, mentions that, at a distance of 
 thirty years, the tears, the solemn vows, and the ardour of the desires produced 
 by the Principal's Latin prayers, were still fresh in his memory.' 
 
 From the assimilation which was then rapidly taking' place to the episcopalian 
 form of church government, Mr Boyd felt his situation peculiarly unpleasant. 
 He could not acquiesce in the decisions of the Perth assembly, and it could not 
 be expected that he would be allowed to retain his office under any other condi- 
 tion than that of compliance. He therefore preferred voluntarily resigning his 
 office, and retiring to his country residence. Soon after this period, he was ap- 
 pointed Principal of the university of Edinburgh, and one of the ministers of 
 that city ; but there he was not long allowed to remain. His majesty insisted 
 upon his compliance with the Perth articles, and an intimation to that effect 
 having been made to him, he refused, and, to use the quaint expression of the 
 historian, " swa took his leave of them." He was now ordered to contiue him- 
 self within the bounds of Carrick. His last appointment was to Paisley, but a 
 quarrel soon occurred with the widow of the Earl of Abercorn, who had lately 
 turned papist, and this was a source of new distress to him. Naturally of a 
 weakly constitution, and worn down by a series of misfortunes, he now laboured 
 under a complication of diseases, which led to his death at Edinburgh, whither 
 he had gone to consult the physicians, on the 5th of January, 1627, in the 49th 
 year of his age. 
 
 Of his works, few of which are printed, the largest and best known is his 
 " Praslectiones in Epistolam ad Ephesios." From the circumstances which oc- 
 curred in the latter part of his life, he was prevented getting it printed as he in- 
 tended. After his death, a copy of the MS. was sent to Dr Rivet, who agreed 
 with Chouet of Geneva for the printing, but when returning to that place with 
 the MS. in his possession, the ship was taken by the Dunkirkers, and the work 
 was seized by some Jesuits, who would part with it " nee prece nee pretio." 
 Fortunately the original still remained, and it was, after many delays, printed 
 " Impensis Societatis Stationariorum," in 1652, folio. To the work is prefixed 
 a memoir of the author, by Dr Rivet ; but as their acquaintance did not com- 
 mence till 1598 or 1599, there are several errors in his account of the earlier 
 part of Boyd's life, all of which Wodrow has with great industry and accuracy 
 corrected. The only other prose work of Mr Boyd, ever published, is his 
 ' ; Monita de filii sui primogeniti Institutione, ex Authoris MSS. autographis per 
 R(obertum) S(ibbald), M. D. edita," Svo, 1701. The style of this work, accord- 
 ing to Wodrow, is pure, the system perspicuous ; and prudence, observation, and 
 piety, appear throughout Besides these, the " Hecatombe ad Christum," the 
 ode to Dr Sibbald, and the laudatory poem on king James, are in print, 
 two first are printed in the " Delicia; Poetarum Scotorum." The Hecatombe h 
 been reprinted at Edinburgh in 1701, and subsequently in the ' 
 Scotorum Musaj Sacra." The verses to king James have been prm 
 Adamson's " Muses' Welcome ; and it is remarkable, that it seems to have 
 altogether overlooked by Wodrow. All these poems justify the opinion, that 1 
 
 i Bodli Prselecviones in Epist. ad Ephes. Prafat. ad Leetorem.
 
 3UU ZACHARY BOYD. 
 
 Boyd devoted more of his attention to the composition of Latin poetry, he might 
 have excelled in that elegant accomplishment. 
 
 In the time of Wodrow, several MSS. still remained in the possession of the 
 family of Trochrig, consisting of Sermons in English and French, his Philo- 
 theca, a kind of obituary, extracts from which have lately been printed in the 
 second part of the Miscellany of the Bannatyne Club. His lite has been written 
 at great length by the venerable historian of the sufferings of the Scottish church, 
 already frequently quoted, 'Ihose who wish to know more of this learned man, 
 than the limits of our work will permit, are referred to the very interesting 
 series of the Wodrow biographies in the library of the university of Glasgow 
 article Boyd. 
 
 BOYD, ZACHARY, an eminent divine <nnd religious writer of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, was born before the year I 51)0, and was descended from t he family of the Bends 
 of Pinkell in Carrick (Ayrshire). He was cousin to Mr Andrew Boyd, bishop of 
 Argyle, and Mr Robert Boyd of Trochrig, whose memoirs have already bei'ii 
 embodied in this work. He received the rudiments of his education at the 
 school of Kilmarnock, and passed through an academical course in the college of 
 Glasgow. About the year 1607, he had finished his studies in his native coun- 
 try. He then went abroad, and studied at the college of Saturn r in France, 
 under his relation Robert Boyd. He was appointed a regent in this University, 
 in 1611, and is said to have been offered the principalship, which he declined. 
 According to his own statement, he spent sixteen years in 1 ranee, during four of 
 which he was a preacher of the gospel. In consequence of the persecution of 
 the protestants, he was obliged, in 1621, to rett.ru to his native country. He 
 relates, in one of his sermons, the following anecdote of the voyage : " In the 
 time of the French persecution, I came by sea to Flanders, and as I was sailing 
 from Flanders to Scotland, a fearfull tempest arose, which made our mariners 
 reele to and fro, and stagger like drunken men. In the mean time, there w;;s 
 a Scots papist who lay near mee. While the ship gave a great shake, I observed 
 the man, and after the Lord had sent a c<ilme I said to him, ' .^ir, now ye see the 
 weaknesse of your religion ; as long as yee are in prosperitie, yee cry to this 
 sainct and that sainct : in our great danger, I heard yee cry often, Lord, Lord ; 
 but not a word yee spake of our Lady.' On his reaching Scotland, he further 
 informs us that he " remained a space a private man at Edinburgh, with Uocto.- 
 Sibbald, the glory and honour of all the physitians of our land.'' Afterwards, 
 he lived successively under the protection tf Sir William Scott of Elie. and of 
 the 3Iarquis of Hamilton and his lady at Kinneil ; it being then the fashion for 
 pious persons of quality in Scotland, to retain one clergyman at least, as a mem- 
 ber of their household. In 1623, he w;s appointed minister of the large dis- 
 trict in the suburbs of Glasgow, styled the Barony Parish, for which the crypts 
 beneath the cathedral church then served as a place of worship ; a scene well 
 fitted by its sepulchral gloom, to add to the impressiveness of his Calvinistic elo- 
 quence. In this charge he continued all the remainder of his life. In the years 
 163 i-35 and 15, he filled the office of Rector of the University of Glasgow ; an 
 office which appears from its constituency to Jiave then been very honourable. 
 
 In 162!), 3ir Za chary to use the common mode of designating a clergyman 
 in that age published 1 is principal prose work, " The Last Battell of the Soule 
 in Death; whereby are shown the diverse skirmishes tbat are between the soule 
 of man on his death-bed, and the enemies of our salvation, carefully digested for 
 the comfort of the Sicke, by &c. Printed at Edinburgh for the heires of Andro 
 Hart." 'Ihis is one of the few pious works not of a controversial nature, pro- 
 duced by the Scottish church before a very recent \ eriod; and it is by no means 
 the meanest in the list It is of a dramatic, or at least a conversational form ; 
 and the dramatis persona, such as, " Pastour, Sicke Man, S{ irituall Friend,
 
 ZAOHARY BOYD. 
 
 301 
 
 Carnal Friend, Sathan, Michael," &c., sustain their parts \\Hh such spirit, as tc 
 show, in connexion with his other works of the like nature, that he might have 
 excelled in a department of profane literature, for which, no doubt, he enter- 
 tained the greatest horror, namely, writing for the stage. The first volume of 
 the work is dedicated, in an English address to King Charles L, and then in a 
 French one, to his consort Henrietta Maria. It says much for the dexterity of 
 Mr Zachary, that he inscribes a religious work to a Catholic Princess, without 
 any painful reference to her own unpopular faith. He dedicates the seci:d 
 volume to the I.lectress Palatine, daughter of James VI., and adds a short piece, 
 which he styles her "Lamentations for the death of her son." who was drowned 
 while crossing in a ferry-boat to Amsterdam. The extravagant grief which he 
 describes in this little work is highly amusing. It strikes him that the Electress 
 must have conceived a violent antipathy to water, in consequence of the mode of 
 her son's death, and he therefore makes her conclude her lamentations in the 
 following strain : 
 
 " O cursed waters! O waters of Marnh, full bitter are yee to me! O element 
 which of all others shall be most delestable to my soule, I shall never wash 
 mine hands with thee, but I shall remember what thou hast done to my bext 
 beloved ftonne, the darling of my soul ! / shall for ever be a friend to the 
 fire, which is thy greatest foe. Away rivers! away seas! Let me see you no 
 more. If yee were sensible creatures, my dear brother Charles, Prince of the 
 European seas, should scourge you with his royal slu'ps ; with his thundering 
 cannons, he should pierce you to the bottom. 
 
 " O seas of son-owes, O fearfull floodes, O tumbling tempests, O wilfull waves, 
 O swelling surges. O wicked waters, O dooleful deepes, O feartest pooles, O botch- 
 ful butcher boates, was there no mercy among you for such an hopefull Prince ? 
 O that 1 could refraine from teares, and that because they are salt like your- 
 selves .'" &c. 
 
 Childish as this language is in spirit, it is perhaps in as good taste as most of 
 the elegies produced either by this or by a later age. 
 
 Mr Zachary appears to have been naturally a high loyalist. In 1633, when 
 Charles I. visited his native dominions, to go through the ceremony of his corona- 
 tion, Mr Zachary met him, the day after that solemnity, in the porch of Holy- 
 rood Palace, and addressed him in a Latin oration couched in the most exalted 
 strains of panegyric and affection. He afterwards testified this feeling under 
 circumstances more apt to test its sincerity. When the attempt to impose the 
 episcopal mode of worship upon Scotland, caused the majority of the people to 
 unite in a covenant for the purpose of maintaining the former system, the whole 
 of the individuals connected with Glasgow college, together with Mr Zachary, set 
 themselves against a document, which, however well-meant and urgently neces- 
 sary, was certainly apt to become a stumbling-block in the subsequent proceed- 
 ings of the country. These divines resolved rather to yield a little to the wishes 
 of their sovereign, than fly into open rebellion against him. Mr Robert B 
 paid them a visit, to induce them to subscribe the covenant, but was not success- 
 ful : " we left them," says he, "resolved to celebrate the Communion on Pascl 
 in the High Church, kneeling." 1 This must have been about a month after 
 subscription of the covenant had commenced. Soon afterwards, most ot these 
 recusants, including Mr Zachary, found it necessary to confonn, for whe 
 majority is very powerful or very violent, no minority can exist. L'ailhe says, 
 in a subsequent' letter,- " At our townsmen's desire, 3 r Andrew Cant and 3,r J. 
 Rutherford were sent by the nobles to preach in the Figh Kirk, ar.d receive i 
 oaths of that people to the covenant. Lord Fglintoune was appoint* 
 i JJaillie's Letters, i, 46. * lbid ' ' G '
 
 302 ZACHARY BOYD. 
 
 witness there. With many .1 sigh and tear, by all that people the oath was made- 
 Provost, bailies, council, all, except three men, held up their hands; Mr Zac/ia- 
 rias, and Mr John Bell younger, has put to their hands. The College, it is 
 thought; will subscribe, and almost all who refused before." 
 
 Though Boyd was henceforth a faithful adherent of this famous bond, lie did 
 not take the same active share with some of his brethren, in the military proceed- 
 ings by which it was supported. While Baillie and others followed tlie army, 
 ' its the fashion was, with a sword and pair of Dutch pistols at their saddles," he 
 remained at home in the peaceful exercise of his calling, and was content to 
 sympathize in their successes by hearsay. He celebrated the light at New burn* 
 tord, August 28, 1640, by which the Scottish covenanting army gained posses- 
 sion of Newcastle, in a poem of sixteen 8vo. pages, which is written, however, 
 in such a homely style of versification, that we would suppose it to be among the 
 very earliest of his poetical efforts. It opens with a panegyric on the victorious 
 Lesly, and then proceeds to describe the battle. 
 
 The Scots cannons powder and hall did spew, 
 Which with terror the Canterburiuns slrw. 
 Bals rushed at random, which most fearfully 
 Menaced to break the portals of the sky. 
 * * * * 
 
 In this conflict, which was both sowre and surly, 
 Bones, blood, and braines went in a hurly-burly. 
 All was made hodge-poil"e, &c. 
 
 The pistol bullets were almost .is bad as the cannon balk. They 
 
 in squadrons came, like fire and thuwlcr, 
 
 Men's hearts and heads both for to pierce and plunder; 
 Their errand was, (when it was understood,) 
 To bnthe men's bosoms in a scarlet flood. 
 
 At last comes the wail for the fallen 
 
 In this conflict, which was a great pitfe, 
 We lost the son of Sir Patrick Makgie. 
 
 In 1643, he published a more useful work in his "Crosses, Comforts, and 
 Councels, needfull to be considered and carefully to be laid up in the hearts of 
 the Godly, in these boysterous broiles, and bloody times." We also find from 
 tiie titles of many of his manuscript discourses that, with a diligent and affection- 
 ate zeal for the spiritual edification of the people under his charge, he had im- 
 proved the remarkable events of the time as they successively occurred. 
 
 That the reluctance of Mr Zachary to join the Covenanters did not arise from 
 timidity of nature, seems to be proved by an incident which occurred at a later 
 period of his life. After the death of Charles I. it is well known that the Scot- 
 tish presbyterians made a gallant effort to sustain the royal authority against the 
 triumphant party of independents. They invited home the son of the late king, 
 and rendered him at least the limited monarch of Scotland. Cromwell, having 
 crossed the Tweed with an army, overthrew the Scottish forces at Dunbar, Sep- 
 tember 3, 1650 ; and gained possession of the southern portion of the country. 
 Glasgow was, of course, exposed to a visit from this unscrupulous adversary. 
 " Cromwell," says Baillie, " with the whole body of his army, comes peaceably to 
 Glasgow. The magistrates and ministers all fled away ; I got to the isle of 
 Ctimray, with my Lady Montgomery, but left all my family and goods to Crom- 
 well's courtesy, which indeed was great, for he took such measures with the sol- 
 8 liaillie'a Letters, i, 174.
 
 ZACHARY BOYD. 303 
 
 diers, that they did less displeasure at Glasgow than if they had been at London, 
 though Mr Zachari/ Boyd railed on them all to their very face in the High 
 Church." This was on the 13th of October, and we learn from a manuscript 
 note upon the preacher's own bible, that the chapter which he expounded on 
 this occasion, was the eighth of the book of Daniel In this is detailed the 
 vision of the ram with two horns, which is at first powerful, but at length over- 
 come and trampled down by a he-goat ; being an allegory of the destruction of 
 the kings of Media and Persia by Alexander of Macedon. It is evident that 
 Mr Zachary endeavoured to extend the parable to existing circumstances, and of 
 course made out Cromwell to be the he-goat. The preacher f irther chose for 
 a text the following passage in the Psalms. " But I as a deaf man heard not ; 
 and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth. Thus I was as a man 
 that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs. For in thee, O Lord, 
 do I hope: thou wilt hear, O Lord my God." Ps. xxxviii, 13, 14, 15. This 
 sermon was probably by no means faithful to its text, for certainly Mr Zachary 
 was not the man to keep a mouth clear of reproofs when he saw occasion fur 
 blame. The exposition, at least, was so full of bitter allusions to the sectarian 
 General, that one of his officers is reported to have whispered into his ear for 
 permission " to pistol the scoundrel.'' Cromwell had more humanity and good 
 sense than to accede to such a request. " No, no," said he, " we will manage 
 him in another way.'' He asked Mr Zachary to dine with him, and gained his 
 respect by the fervour of the devotions in which he spent the evening. It is 
 said that they did not finish their mutual exercise till three in the morning. 4 
 
 Mr Zachary did not long survive this incident. He died about the end of the 
 year, 1G53, or the beginning of 1654, when the famous 3Ir Donald Cargill was 
 appointed his successor. " In the conscientious discharge of his duty as a 
 preacher of God's word, which he had at the same time exercised with humility, 
 he seems whether in danger or out of it, to have been animated with a-heroic 
 firmness. In a mind such as his, so richly stored >\ith the noble examples fur- 
 nished by sacred history, and with such a deep sense of the responsibility attached 
 to his office, we are prepared to expect the same consistency of principle, and 
 decision of conduct in admonishing men, even of the most exalted rank. * * * 
 We have every reason to suppose that the tenor of his conduct in life became the 
 high office of which he made profession. From the sternness with which he 
 censures manners and customs prevalent in society, the conforming to many of 
 which could incur no moral guilt, it is to be presumed that he was of the most 
 rigid and austere class of divines. * * * We are ignorant of any of the 
 circumstances attending his last moments, a time peculiarly interesting in the 
 life of every man ; but from what we know of him, we may venture to say, with- 
 out the hazard of an erroneous conclusion, that his state of mind, at the trying 
 hour, was that of a firm and cheerful expectation in the belief in the great doc- 
 trines of Christianity, which he had so earnestly inculcated, both from the pul- 
 pit and the press, with the additional comfort and support of a long and labo- 
 rious life in his Master's sen-ice. About twenty-five years before his death, he 
 was so near the verge of the grave, that his friends had made the necessary pre- 
 paration for his winding sheet, which he afterwards found among his books. 
 He seems to have recovered from the disease with a renewed determination to 
 
 * The accurate editor of a new edition of " The Last Battell of the Soule," (Glasgow, 
 lasi,) truni wiiose memoir of Mr Zachary most of these fac.s art- taken, blames 3Ir Baiilic 
 in iii\ opinion, unjustly, for having tied on this occasion, while 31 r Zachary had the supe- 
 rior courage to remain. It should be recollected that Mr Baillie had particular reason to 
 dread the vengeance of Cromwell and his army, having been one of the principal indivi- 
 duals concerned in the bringing home of the King, and consequently in the provocation of 
 the present war.
 
 304 ZACIIARY BOYD. 
 
 employ the remainder of his life in the cause to which he h;;d been previously 
 devoted : he pursued perseveringly to near its termination, this happy course 
 and just lived to complete an extensive manuscript work, hearing for its title. 
 ' The Notable places of the Scripture expounded,' at the end of which he adds, 
 in a tremulous and indistinct hand-writing, ' Heero the .author was neere his 
 end, and was able to do no more, .March 3d, 1(353.' ' 5 
 
 ."Mr Xachary had been twice married, first, to l.lizabeth Fleming-, of whom r,o 
 memorial is preserved, and secondly, to .Margaret Mure, third daughter of Wil- 
 liam Mure of Glanderston, ( near Neilston, Renfrewshire.) By neither of his 
 wives had he any offspring. The second wife, surviving him, married for her 
 second husband the celebrated Durham, author of the Commentary on the Re- 
 velation -to whom, it would appear, she had betrayed some partiality even 
 in her first husband's lifetime. There is a traditional anecdote, that, when Mr 
 Zachary was dictating his last will, his spouse made one modest request, namely, 
 that he would bequeath something to Mr Durham. He answered, with a sarcastic 
 reference to herself, " Ml lea' him what I canna keep frae him.'' He seems to 
 have possessed an astonishing quantity of worldly goods for a Scottish clergy- 
 man of that period. He had lent eleven thousand merks to Mure of Rowallan, 
 five thousand to the Earl of Glencairn, and six thousand to the Karl of London ; 
 which sums, with various others, swelled his whole property in money to .4527 
 Scots. This, after the deduction of certain expenses, was divided, in terms of 
 his will, between his relict and the college of Glasgow. About --20,000 Scots is 
 said to have been the sum realized by the College, besides his library and man- 
 uscript compositions; but it is a mistake that he made any stipulation as to the 
 publication of his writings, or any part of them. To this splendid legacy, we 
 appear to be chiefly indebted for the present elegant buildings of the College, 
 which were mostly erected under the care of Principal Gillespie during the 
 period of the Commonwealth. In gratitude tor the munificent gift of .Mr Zachary, 
 a bust of his figure was erected over the gateway within the court, with an appro- 
 priate inscription. There is also a portrait of him in the Divinity Hall of the 
 College. Nineteen works, chiefly devotional and religious, and none of them of 
 great extent, were published by Mr Zachary during his lifetime ; but these bore 
 a small proportion to his manuscript writings, which are no less than eighty-six 
 in number, chiefly comprised within thirteen quarto volumes, written in a very 
 close hand, apparently for the press. Besides those contained in the thirteen 
 volumes, are three others " /ion's Flowers, or Christian Poems for Spiritual 
 Edification." 2 vols. 4to. " The English Academic, containing precepts and 
 purpose for the weal both of Soul and Body," 1 vol. 12mo. and "The Four 
 Evangels in English verse.'' 
 
 " Mr Boyd appears to have been a scholar of very considerable learning. He 
 composed in Latin, and his qualifications in that language may be deemed 
 respectable. His works also bear the evidence of his having been possessed of 
 a critical knowledge of the Greek, Hebrew, and otlior languages. As a prose 
 writer, he will bear comparison with any of the Scottish divines of the same age. 
 He is superior to Rutherford, and, in general, more grammatically correct than 
 even Baillie himself, who was justly esteemed a very learned man. His style 
 may be considered excellent for the period. Of his characteristics as a writer, 
 his originality of thought is particularly striking. He discusses many of his sub- 
 jects with spirit and ingenuity, and there is much which must be acknowledged 
 as flowing from a vigorous intellect, and a fervid, and poetical imagination. 'Ihis 
 latter tendency of his genius is at all times awake, and from which may be 
 inferred his taste for metaphor, and love of colouring, so conspicuous in his 
 8 Lifts prefixed to new edition of "The 1-asi Bitttell of the Jbule."
 
 ZACHARY BOYD. 305 
 
 writings. He has great fertility of explication, amounting often to diftiiseuess, 
 and, in many cases, it would have been well had he known where to have 
 paused. With extensive powers of graphic delineation, he is an instructive and 
 interesting writer, though dwelling too much upon minute circumstances. He 
 seems naturally to have been a man of an agreeable temperament, and as a con- 
 sequence, at times, blends, with the subject on which he dilates, a dash of his 
 own good nature, in some humorous and witty observations. His irony, often 
 well-timed and well-turned, comes down with the force of illustration, and the sneer 
 of sarcastic rebuke. A close observer of mankind and their actions, the judg- 
 ment he forms respecting them, is that of a shrewd, sagacious, and penetrating 
 mind. Like a skilful master of his profession, he discovers an intimate know- 
 ledge of the manifold, and secret workings of the depravity of the human 
 heart ; and though some of the disclosures of its wickedness may not be con- 
 veyed in the most polished terms, we commend the honesty and simplicity of 
 his heart, who had invariably followed the good old practice of a sincere and 
 wholesome plainness. His prayers breathe the warm, and powerfid strains of a 
 devotional mind, and a rich vein of feeling and piety runs through the matter 
 of all his meditations. We have now to notice Mr Boyd in the character in 
 which he has hitherto been best known to the world, namely, in that of a poet 
 One of his most popular attempts to render himself serviceable to his country was 
 in preparing a poetical version of the Book of Psalms for the use of the church. 
 It had been previous to 1646 that he engaged in this, as the Assembly of 1647, 
 when appointing a committee to examine Rous's version, which had been trans- 
 mitted to them by the Assembly at Westminster, ' recommended them to avail 
 themselves of the psalter of Rowallan, and of Mr Zachary Boyd, arid of any 
 other poetical writers.' It is further particularly recommended to Mr Zachary 
 Boyd to translate the other Scriptural Songs in metre, and to report his travails 
 therein to the commission of that Assembly : that after their examination thereof 
 they may send the same to the presbyteries to be there considei-ed until the next 
 General Assembly. (Assembly Acts, Aug. 28, 1647.)' Mr Boyd complied 
 with this request, as the Assembly, Aug. 10, 1648, 'recommends to Mr John 
 Adamson aii(j Mr Thomas Crawfurd to revise the labours of Mr Zachary Boyd 
 upon the other Scripture Songs, and to prepare a report thereof to the said com- 
 mission for publick affairs,' who, it is probable, had never given in any ' report 
 of their labours.' Of his version, Baillie had not entertained a high opinion, as 
 he says, ' Our good friend, Mr Zachary Boyd, has put himself to a great deal ot 
 piins and charges to make a psalter, but I ever warned him his hopes were 
 groundless to get it received in our churches, yet the flatteries of his unadvised 
 neighbours makes him insist in his fruitless design.' There seems to have been 
 a party who did not undervalue Mr Boyd's labours quite so much as Baillie, and 
 who, if possible, were determined to carry their point, as, according to Baillie's 
 statement, ' The Psalms were often revised, and sent to presbyteries,' and , ' had 
 it not been for some who had more regard than needed to Mr Zachary Boyd'a 
 psalter, I think they (Rous's version) had passed through in the end of last 
 Assembly ; but these, with almost all the references from the former Assemblies, 
 were remitted to the next.' On 23d November, 1649, Rous's version, revised 
 and improved, was sanctioned by the commission with authority of the General 
 Assembly, and any other discharged from being used in the churches, or its 
 families. Mr Boyd was thus deprived of the honour to which he aspired with 
 some degree of zeal, and it must have been to himself and friends, a source of 
 considerable disappointment. 
 
 " Among other works, he produced two volumes, under the title of ' Zion's 
 Flowers, or Christian Poems for Spiritual! Edification,' and it is ihese which 
 i. 2 a
 
 306 
 
 ZACHARY BOYD. 
 
 arc usually shown as his bible, and have received that designation. These 
 volumes consist of a collection of poems on select subjects in Scripture history, 
 such as that of Josiah, Jephtha, David and Goliah, &c. rendered into the drama* 
 tic form, in which various ' speakers ' are introduced, and where the prominent 
 facts of the Scripture narrative are brought forward, and amplified. We have a 
 pretty close parallel to these poems, in the '* Ancient Mysteries " of the thirteenth 
 and fourteenth centuries, and in the sacred dramas of some modern writers." 
 
 The preceding criticism and facts which we have taken the liberty to borrow 
 from Mr Neil, 1 form an able and judicious defence of the memory of this distin- 
 guished man. As some curiosity, however, may reasonably be entertained 
 respecting compositions which excited so much vulgar and ridiculous misrepre- 
 sentation, we shall make no apology for introducing some specimens of Mr Jioyd's 
 poetry both of that kind which seems to have been dictated when his Pegasus 
 was careering through " the highest heaven of invention," and of that other sort 
 which would appear to have been conceived while the sacred charger was canter- 
 ing upon the mean soil of this nether world, which it sometimes did, 1 must 
 confess, very much after the manner of the most ordinary beast of burden. 
 The following Morning Hymn for Christ, selected from his work entitled, " The 
 English Academie,'' will scarcely fail to convey a respectful impression of the 
 wriier : 
 
 O Day Spring from on high, O, of all lights the light, 
 
 Cause pass away our night; The Light that is most true, 
 
 Clear first our morning sky, Now banish thou our night, 
 
 And after shine thou bright. And still our light renew. 
 
 Of lights thou art the light, 
 Of righteousness the sun ; 
 
 Thy beams they are most bright, 
 Through all the world they run. 
 
 The day thou hast begun 
 Thou wilt it clearer make; 
 
 We hope to see this Sun 
 High in our Zodiak. 
 
 O make thy morning dew 
 To fall without all cease ; 
 
 Do thou such favour show 
 As unto Gideon's fleece. 
 
 O do thou never cease 
 To make that dew to fall 
 
 The dew of grace and peace, 
 And joys celestial. 
 
 This morning we do call 
 
 Upon thy name divine, 
 That thou among us all 
 
 Cause thine Aurora shine. 
 Let shadows all decline, 
 
 And wholly pass away, 
 That light which is divine, 
 
 May bring to us our day. 
 A day to shine for aye, 
 
 A day that is most bright, 
 A day lh.it never may 
 
 Be folloiixtl with a night. 
 
 Thy 1'acc now to us show 
 
 () son of God most dear; 
 O Morning Star, most true, 
 Make thou our darkness clear. 
 
 Nothing at all is here, 
 
 That with thee may compare ; 
 O unto us draw near, 
 
 And us thy children spare ! 
 
 Thy mercies they are rare, 
 If they were understood; 
 
 Wrath due to us thou bare, 
 And for us shed thy blood. 
 
 Like beasts they are most rude, 
 Whom reason cannot move 
 
 Thou most perfytely good, 
 Entirely for to love. 
 
 Us make mind things above, 
 
 Even things that most txcoll ; 
 Of thine untainted love, 
 
 Give us the sacred seal. 
 O that we light could see 
 
 That shineth in thy i'ac! 
 So. at the last, should we 
 
 From glory go to grace. 
 Within thy sacred place 
 
 Is only true content, 
 When God's seen face to face, 
 
 Above the firmament. 
 
 1 Life of Zachary Boyd, prefixed to the new Edition of his "Last Battellof the Soule.
 
 JAMES BROWN. 307 
 
 O that our hours were spent, 
 
 Among the sons of men, 
 To praise the Omnipotent, 
 
 Amen, yea, and Amen ! 
 
 The ludicrous passages are not many in number. The following is one which 
 Pennant first presented to the world ; being the soliloquy of Jonah within the 
 whale's belly ; taken from " The Flowers of Zion : 
 
 Here apprehended I in prison ly ; 
 
 What goods will ransom my captivity ? 
 
 What house is this, where's neither coal nor candle, 
 
 Where I nothing but guts of fishes handle? 
 
 I and my table are both here within, 
 
 Where day neere dawned, where sunne did never shine, 
 
 The like of this on earth man never saw, 
 
 A living man within a monster's maw. 
 
 Buried under mountains which are high and steep, 
 
 Plunged under waters hundreth lathoms deep. 
 
 Not so was Noah in his house of tree, 
 
 Fur through a window he the light did see ; 
 
 hee sailed above the highest waves a wonder; 
 
 I and my boat are all the waters under; 
 
 Hee in his ark might goe and also come. 
 
 But 1 sit still in such a straitened roome 
 
 As is most uncouth, head and feet together, 
 
 Among such grease as would a thousand smother. 
 
 1 find 110 way now for my shrinking hence, 
 
 But heere to lie and die for mine offence ; 
 
 Eight prisoners were in Noah's hulk together 
 
 Comfortable they were, each one to other. 
 
 Jn all the earth like unto mee is none, 
 
 Far from all living, I heere lye alone, 
 
 Where I entombed in melancholy sink, 
 
 Choakt, suffocal, &c, 
 
 And it is strange that, immediately after this grotesque description of his situa- 
 tion, Pegasus again ascends, and Jonah begins a prayer to God, conceived in a 
 fine strain of devotion. 
 
 BROWN, JAMES, a traveller and scholar of some eminence, was the son of 
 James Brown, M. D. who published a translation of two " Orations of Isocrates," 
 without his name, and who died in 1733. The subject of this article was born 
 at Kelso, May 23d, 1709, and was educated at Westminster School, where he 
 made great proficiency in the Latin and Greek classics. In the year 1722. 
 when less than fourteen years of age, he accompanied his father to Constanti- 
 nople, where, having naturally an aptitude for the acquisition of languages, he 
 made himself a proficient in Turkish, modern Greek, and Italian. On his re- 
 turn in 1725, he added the Spanish to the other languages which he had already 
 mastered. About 1732, he was the means of commencing the publication of 
 the London Directory, a work of vast utility in the mercantile world, and which 
 has since been imitated in almost every considerable town in the empire. After 
 havino- laid the foundation of this undertaking, he transferred his interest in it 
 to Mr Henry Kent, a printer in Finch-Lane, Cornhill, who carried it on for 
 many years, ai:d eventually, through its means, acquired a fortune and an estate. 
 In 1741, Brown entered into an engagement with twenty-four of the principal 
 merchants in London, to act as their chief agent in carrying on a trade, through 
 Russia, with Persia. Having travelled to that country by the Wolga and the
 
 31)8 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 Crispian Sea, he established a factory at Reshd, where he continued nearly four 
 years. During this time, he travelled in state to the camp of the famous Kouli 
 Khan, with a letter which had been transmitted to him by George II. for that 
 monarch. He also rendered himself such a proficient in the Persic language, as 
 to be able, on his return, to compile a copious dictionary and grammar, with 
 many curious specimens of Persic literature, which, however, was never published. 
 A sense of the dangerous situation of the settlement, and his dissatisfaction with 
 some of his employers, were the causes of his return ; and his remonstrances on 
 these subjects were speedily found to be just, by the factory being plundered of 
 property to the amount of L.80,000, and a period being put to the Persian 
 trade. From his return in 1746 to his death, which took place in his house at 
 Stoke Newington, November 30, 1788, he appears to have lived in retirement 
 upon his fortune. In the obituary of the Gentleman's Magazine, he is charac- 
 terised as a person of strict integrity, unaffected piety, and exalted but unosten- 
 tatious benevolence. 
 
 BROWN, JOHN, author of the "Self-Interpreting Bible," and many popular 
 religious works, was born in the year 1722 at Carpow. a village in the parish 
 of Abernethy and county of Perth, His father, for the greatest part of his lii'e, 
 followed the humble occupation of a weaver, and was entirely destitute of the 
 advantages of regular education, but, nevertheless, seems to have been a man of 
 superior intelligence and worth, and even to have possessed some portion of that 
 zeal in the pursuit of knowledge, and that facility in acquiring it without the ordi- 
 nary helps, which his son so largely inherited. In consequence of the circum- 
 stances of his parents, John Brown was able to spend but a very limited time at 
 school in acquiring the elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic. " One 
 month," he has himself told us, " without his parent's allowance, he bestowed 
 upon Latin." His thirst for knowledge was intense, and excited him even at 
 this early period to extraordinary diligence in all departments of study, but 
 particularly to religious culture. The strong direction of his mind from the be- 
 ginning to scholarship in general, and to that kind of it more closely connected 
 with divinity in particular, seems to have early suggested to his mother the pos- 
 sibility of his one day finding scope for the indulgence of his taste in the service 
 of the church, and made her often picture, in the visions of maternal fondness, 
 the day when she should, to use her own homely expression, " see the crows 11 y- 
 ing over her bairn's kirk." 
 
 About the eleventh year of his age he was deprived by death of his father, and 
 soon after of his mother, and was himself reduced, by four successive attacks of 
 fever, to a state which made it probable that he was about speedily to join his 
 parents in the grave. But having recovei-ed from this illness, he had the good 
 fortune to find a friend and protector in John Ogilvie, a shepherd venerable for 
 age, and eminent for piety, who fed his flock among the neighbouring mountain?-. 
 This worthy individual was an elder of the parish of Abernethy, yet, though a 
 person of intelligence and religion, was so destitute of education as to be unable 
 even to read a circumstance which may appear strange to these accustomed to 
 hear of the universal diffusion of elementary education among the Scottish 
 peasantry, but which is to be accounted for in this case, as in that of the elder 
 Brown, by the disordered state of all the social institutions in Scotland previous 
 to the close of the seventeenth century. To supply his own deficiency, Ogilvie 
 was glad to engage young Brown to assist him in tending his flock, and read to 
 him during the intervals of comparative inaction and repose which his occupa- 
 tion afforded. To screen themselves from the storm and the heat, they built n 
 /ittle lodge among the hills, and to this their mountain tabernacle (long after 
 pointed out under this name by the peasants) they frequently repaired to cele-
 
 JOHN BROWN. 309 
 
 brate their pastoral devotions. Often " the wilderness and the solitary place 
 were glad for them, and the desert rejoiced even with joy and singing." 
 
 Ere long it happened that Ogilvie retired from his occupation as a shepherd, 
 and settled in the town of Abernethy. In consequence of this change, young 
 Brown entered the service of a neighbouring farmer, who maintained a more 
 numerous establishment than his former friend. This step he laments as having 
 been followed by much practical apostasy from God, and showed itself in a sensi- 
 ble decline of religious attainments, and a general lukewannness in religious 
 duty. Still, however, during the season of backsliding which he himself saw 
 reason thus to deplore, his external character was remarkably distinguished by 
 many virtues, and especially by the rare and truly Christian grace of meekness. 
 In the year 1733, four ministers of the Church of Scotland, among whom was 
 3Ir 3Ioncrieff of Abernethy, declared a secession from its judicatures, alleging as 
 their reasons for taking this step the following list of grievances ; " The suf- 
 ferance of error without adequate censure ; the infringement of the rights of the 
 Christian people in the choice and settlement of ministers under the law of 
 patronage ; the neglect or relaxation of discipline ; the restraint of ministerial 
 freedom in opposing mal-administration, and the refusal of the prevailing party 
 to be reclaimed." To this body our young shepherd early attached himself, and 
 ventured to conceive the idea of one day becoming a shepherd of souls in that 
 connection. He accordingly prosecuted his studies with increasing ardour and 
 diligence, and began to attain considerable knowledge of Latin and Greek. 
 These acquisitions he made entirely without aid from others, except that he was 
 able occasionally to snatch an hour when the flocks were folded at noon, in order 
 to seek the solution of such difficulties as his unaided efforts could not master, from 
 two neighbouring clergymen the one Mr Moncrieff of Abernethy, who has just 
 been mentioned as one of the founders of the Secession, and the other Mr Johnston of 
 Arngask, father of the late venerable Dr Johnston of North-Leith ; both of whom 
 were very obliging and communicative, and took great interest in promoting 
 the progress of the studious shepherd-boy. An anecdote has been preserved of 
 this part of his life and studies which deserves to be mentioned. He had now 
 acquired so much knowledge of Greek as encouraged him to hope that he might 
 at length be prepared to reap the richest of all rewards which classical learning 
 could confer on him, the capacity of reading, in the original tongue, the blessed 
 New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Full of this hope, he 
 became anxious to possess a copy of the invaluable volume. One night, accord- 
 ingly, having folded his flocks in safety, and his fellow-shepherd, whose senti- 
 ments towards him were now those of friendship and veneration, having under- 
 taken to discharge his pastoral duties for the succeeding day, he set out on 
 a midnight-journey to St Andrews, a distance of twenty-four miles. Having 
 reached his destination in the morning, he repaired straightway to the nearest 
 bookseller, and asked for a copy of the Greek New Testament The master of 
 the shop, though, situated as he was in a provincial Scottish University, he must 
 have been accustomed to hear such books inquired for by youths whose appear- 
 ance and habiliments were none of the most civilized, was nevertheless somewhat 
 astonished by such an application from so unlikely a person, and was rather 
 disposed to taunt him with its presumption. Meanwhile a party of gentlemen, 
 said to have been professors in the university, entered the shop, and having un- 
 derstood the matter, questioned the lad about his employment and studies. 
 After hearing his tale, one of them desired the bookseller to bring the volume, 
 who accordingly produced it, and throwing it down upon the table, " Boy," said 
 he, " read that book, and you shall have it for nothing." The offer was too 
 good to be rejected, and yo'ung Brown, having acquitted himself to the adiuira-
 
 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 tion of his judges, carried oft* his cheaply-purchased Testament in triumph, and, 
 ere the evening arrived, was studying it in the midst of his flock upon the hills 
 of Abernethy. 
 
 His extraordinary acquisitions about this time subjected him to a suspicion, 
 which was more generally entertained than would now appear credible, that lie 
 received a seci'et aid from the enemy of man, upon the pledge of his own soul. 
 It was probably in consequence of the annoyance he experienced on this account, 
 that he abandoned the occupation of a shepherd, and undertook that of pedlar or 
 travelling-merchant. This mode of life was once of much greater importance 
 and higher esteem in Scotland than at present, when the facilities of communi- 
 cation between all parts of the country and the greater seats of commerce 
 have been multiplied to such a degree, and was often pursued by persons of great 
 intelligence and respectability. Its peculiar tendency to imbue the mind witli a 
 love of nature, and form it to a knowledge of the world, have been finely illus- 
 trated by a great poet of our day: nor is the Scottish pedlar of the Excursion, 
 though certainly somewhat too metaphysical and liberal, in every respect the un- 
 natural character which it has been represented. It will not, however, be 
 considered very surprising when we say, that young Brown did not shine in his 
 new profession. During his mercantile peregrinations, which lay chiefly in the 
 interior parts of Fife and Kinrosshire, he made it a rule to call at no house of 
 which the family had not the character of being religious and given to reading. 
 When he was received into any such dwelling, his first care was to have all the 
 books it could furnish collected together, among which, if he did but light upon 
 a new one, with avidity he fell to the literary feast, losing in the appetite of the 
 soul, the hunger of the body, and in the traffic of knowledge forgetting the mer- 
 chandise of pedlar's wares. It is related, and may well be believed, that the 
 contents of his pack, on his return to head quarters from one of his expeditions, 
 used to present a lively image of chaos, and that he was very glad to express lire 
 obligations to any neat-handed housewife who would take the arrangement of 
 them upon herself. Many a time and oft was he prudently reminded of the 
 propriety of attending more to his business, and not wasting his time on what did 
 not concern him till his monitors at last gave up the case in despair, and wisely 
 shaking their heads, pronounced him " good for nothing but to be a scholar." 
 
 Soon after the close of the Rebellion of 1745, during which period he served 
 as a volunteer in the regiment of militia raised by the county of Fife, in behalf 
 of the government, he resolved to undertake the more dignified duties of school- 
 master. He established himself in the year 1 747 at Gairney Bridge, a village in 
 the neighbourhood of Kinross, and there laid the foundation of a school which 
 subsisted for a considerable time, and, fifteen years after, was taught by another 
 individual whose name has also become favourably known to the world whose 
 lot, however, was not like his predecessor's, to come to the grave " like a shock 
 of corn fully ripe," but to wither prematurely " in the morn and liquid dew of 
 youth," the tender and interesting young poet, Michael Bruce. During Mr 
 Brown's incumbency, which lasted for two years, this school was remarkably suc- 
 cessful, and attracted scholars from a considerable distance. He afterwards taught 
 for a year and a half another school at Spittal, in the congregation of Linton, 
 under Mr James Mair. The practical character of his talents, the accuracy of 
 his learning, the intimate experience which, as a self-taught scholar, he must 
 have had of elementary difficulties, and the best mode of solving them, and the 
 conscientiousness and assiduity which always formed distinguishing features o/ 
 his character must have peculiarly qualified him for the discharge of his present 
 duties. While active in superintending the studies of others, he did not relax in 
 the prosecution of his own. On the contrary, his ardour seems to have led him
 
 JOHN BROWN. 311 
 
 into imprudent extremes of exertion. He would commit to memory fifteen chap- 
 ters of the Bible as an evening exercise after the labours of the day, and after 
 s'icli killing efforts, allow himself but four hours of repose. To this excess of 
 exertion he was probably stimulated by the near approach of the period to which 
 he had long looked forward with trembling hope the day which was to reward 
 tlie toils and trials of his various youth, by investing him with the solemn func- 
 tion of an ambassador of Christ During the vacations of his school, he was now 
 engaged in the regular study of philosophy and divinity under the inspection of 
 tiie Associate Synod, and the superintendence of the Rev. Ebenezer Erskine, and 
 James Fisher, two of the original founders, and principal lights of the Secession 
 church. At length, in the year 1751, having completed his preparatory course 
 of study, and approved himself on trial before the Associate Presbytery of Edin- 
 burgh, he was licensed by that reverend body, at Dalkeith, to preach the gospel 
 in their society. He entered upon the sacred work with deep impressions of its 
 solemn responsibilities. He has himself mentioned that his mind, immediately 
 previous to his receiving authority to preach, was very vividly affected by that 
 awful text in Isaiah vi. S), 10, " He said, Go and tell this people, Hear ye in- 
 deed, but understand not ; see ye indeed, but perceive not ; make the heart of 
 this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see 
 with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and 
 convert and be healed." He had not been long a probationer, when he re- 
 ceived two nearly simultaneous calls to the settled discharge of ministerial duty ; 
 one from the congregation of Stow, a village in the shire of Edinburgh, and the 
 other from that of Haddington, the principal town in the county of that name. 
 The Presbytery of Edinburgh, within whose bounds both congregations were in- 
 cluded, and which had therefore, according to the Presbyterian constitution, the 
 right of deciding between their competing claims, submitted the matter to his 
 own discretion. His choice was determined to Haddington, partly by his feel- 
 ings of sympathy with that congregation for disappointments it had already ex- 
 perienced, and partly by his modest estimate of his own qualifications, to which 
 he felt the smaller of the two charges more suitable. Over this congregation 
 therefore he was finally ordained pastor in the month of June, 1751. It de- 
 serves to be mentioned, however, that he continued regularly to visit and examine 
 the congregation of Stow until it was supplied with a regular minister. 
 
 To the duties of the sacred office he devoted himself with the most zealous and 
 laborious industry. The smallness of his congregation enabled him at once to 
 undertake the widest range of ministerial duty, and to execute it with the great- 
 est minuteness and accuracy. Besides regularly preaching four discourses every 
 Sunday during the summer, and three during winter in his own place of worship, 
 and occasionally in the country during the week, he visited all his people an- 
 nually in his pastoral capacity, and carried them twice in the same period through 
 a course of public catechetical examinations. He was very assiduous in his visits 
 to the sick and the afflicted, and that not merely to those of his own congrega- 
 tion, but to all, of every denomination, who desired his services. The peculiar 
 characteristic of his manner of address on all these occasions, public and private, 
 was an intense solemnity and earnestness, which extorted attention even from 
 the scorner, and was obviously the genuine expression of his own overwhelming 
 sense of the reality and importance of the message. " His grave appearance," 
 says a late English divine, who had attended his ministry for some time, " his 
 solemn, weighty, and energetic manner of speaking, used to affect me very much. 
 Certainly his preaching was close, and his address to the conscience pungent 
 Like his Lord and Master, he spoke with authority and hallowed pathos, having 
 tasted the sweetness and felt the power of what he delivered." To the same
 
 312 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 effect, the celebrated David Hume, having been led to hear him preach on one 
 occasion at North 13er\vick, remarked, " 'lhat old man preaches as if Christ were 
 at his elbow.'' Except for his overawing seriousness, and occasionally a melt- 
 ing sweetness in his voice, it does not appear that his delivery was by any means 
 attractive. " It was my mercy," he sa\s, with characteristic modesty, that " the 
 Lord, who had given me some other talents, withheld from me a popular delivery, 
 so that though my discourses were not disrelished by the serious, so far rs 1 
 heard, yet they were not so agreeable to many hearts as those of my brethren, 
 which it was a pleasure to me to see possessed of that talent which the Lord, to 
 restrain my pride, had denied to me." His labours were not in vain in the 
 Lord. The members of his congregation, the smallness of which he often spoke 
 of as a mercy, seem to have been enabled to walk, in a great measure, suitably to 
 their profession and their privileges ; and he had less experience than most 
 ministers of that bitterest of all trials attached to a conscientious pastor's situa- 
 tion scandalous irregularities of practice among those in regard to whom he 
 can have no greater joy than to see them walking in the truth. In ecclesiastical 
 policy, he was a staunch Presbyterian and Seceder in the original sense of the 
 term, as denoting an individual separated, not from the constitution of the esta- 
 blished church, either as a church or as an establishment, but from the policy and 
 control of the predominant party in her judicatures. At the unhappy division of 
 the Secession church in 1745, commonly known by the name of the Breach, on 
 the question of making refusal of the burgess oath a term of communion, though 
 personally doubtful of the propriety of a Seceder's swearing the oath in question, 
 he attached himself to that party, who, from declining peremptorily to pi'onounce 
 it unlawful, obtained the popular appellation of Burghers, justly considering 
 that a difference of opinion on this point was by no means of sufficient impor- 
 tance to break the sacred bond of Christian fellowship. His public prayers 
 were liberal and catholic, and he always showed the strongest affection for gospel 
 ministers and true Christians of every name. In an unpublished letter to a 
 noble lady of the episcopal communion, he expresses his hope " that it will afford 
 her a delightful satisfaction to observe how extensive and important the agree- 
 ment, and how small the difference of religious sentiments, between a professedly 
 staunch Presbyterian and a truly conscientious Episcopalian, if they both cor- 
 dially believe the doctrine of God's free grace reigning to men's eternal life, 
 through the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ our Lord." He made a point 
 of regularly attending and acting in the church courts, though he avoided taking 
 any leading part in the management of ecclesiastical business. The uniformity 
 and universality of his habits of personal devotion were remarkable. Of him it 
 might well be said, that he walked with God, and that in God he, as it were to 
 his own consciousness, lived, and moved, and had his being. He had acquired a 
 holy skill in deriving, from every scene of nature, and every incident of life, 
 occasions of Christian thought, impulses of Christian feeling, motives to Christian 
 duty. His "Christian Journal" seems to have bee i literally the picture of his 
 daily course and association of ideas, and the beautiful motto he has prefixed to 
 it, to have been the expression of his own experience : "The ear that is ever 
 attentive to God never hears a voice that speaks not of Him ; the soul, whose eye 
 is intent on him, never sees an atom in which she doth not discern her Best 
 Beloved.'' He could hold sweet communion with his heavenly Father in the 
 most terrible displays of His majesty, not less than in the softer manifestations of 
 His benignity. One day, hearing a tremendous crash of thunder, he smilingly 
 exclaimed to those around, " That is the low whisper of my God." His seasons 
 of prayer, stated and special, secret and domestic, were frequent beyond the rules 
 of any prescribed routine. Oftn was he overheard, in the nightly and the
 
 JOHN BROWN. 313 
 
 morning watches, conversing with his God in prayer and praise, remembering 
 ais 31aker upon his bed, and having his song with him in the night. Amidst the 
 ordinary details of life, the devout aspirations of the heart Mere continually 
 breaking forth in ejaculations of thanksgiving and holy desire: his conversation 
 habitually dwelt on heavenly things: or, if secular objects were introduced, he 
 would turn them with sanctifying ingenuity into divine emblems and pirituaJ 
 analogies. His whole mind and life seemed impregnated with devotion, and all 
 his days formed, as it were, one Sabbath. The extent of his pecuniary liberality 
 was surprising. He considered it a binding duty on every individual to devote 
 at least the tenth part of his revenue to pious uses; and out of an income which, 
 during the greater part of his life, amounted to only forty pounds a year, and 
 never exceeded fifty, and from which he had a numerous family to support, he 
 generally exceeded that proportion. He distributed his benevolence with strict 
 attention to the Saviour's command, " Let not thy left hand know what thy right 
 hand doeth." 
 
 He was aware of the importance of conversation among the various means of 
 doing good, and, though he laments his own " sinful weakness and unskilfulness 
 in pushing religious discourse," he was too conscientious to neglect the oppor- 
 tunities which presented themselves of promoting, in this way, the glory of God 
 and the best interests of men. He made it a distinct principle never to leave 
 any company in which he might be placed, without saying something which, by 
 the blessing of God, might promote their spiritual good. It is related, that, 
 having accidentally met Ferguson the poet walking in Haddington church-yard, 
 and being struck with his pensive appearance, he modestly addressed him, and 
 offered him certain serious advices, which deeply affected him at the time, and 
 doubtless had their share in exciting and promoting those terrible convictions 
 which latterly overwhelmed the poet's mind, and in which it may perhaps be 
 hoped there was something better than " the sorrow that worketh death." He 
 knew, however, that there was a certain discretion to be used in such cases, and 
 a selection to be made of the " mollia tempora fandi," the seasons when words 
 are " fitly spoken." Of this, the following anecdote is an example : Having 
 occasion to cross the ferry between Leith and Kinghorn, with a Highland gentle- 
 man as his fellow-passenger, he was much grieved to hear his companion fre- 
 quently take the name of God in vain, but restrained himself from taking any 
 notice of it in the presence of the rest of the company. On reaching land, how- 
 ever, observing the same gentleman walking alone upon the beach, he stepped 
 up, and calmly reminded him of the offence he had been guilty of, and the law 
 of God which forbids and condemns it. The gentleman received the reproof 
 with expressions of thanks, and declared his resolution to attend to it in future. 
 " But," added the choleric Celt, " had you spoken to me so in the boat, I be- 
 lieve I should have run you through." 
 
 It will not be supposed, that, after having given himself with such ardour to 
 study in circumstances of comparative disadvantage, he neglected to avail him- 
 self of the more favourable opportunities he now enjoyed of extending and con- 
 solidating his knowledge. 13y a diligent improvement of the morning hours, 
 and a studious economy of time throughout the day, he rarely spent fewer than 
 twelve hours of the twenty-four in his study. He possessed extraordinary 
 patience of the physical labour connected with hard study. No degree of toil 
 in the way of reading, or even of writing, seemed to daunt or to fatigue him. 
 Though he never enjoyed the assistance of an amanuensis, he transcribed most 
 of his works several times with his own hand: and even without a view to the 
 press, he more than once undertook the same fatigue for the convenience of pri- 
 vate individuals. In this way at the request of the Countess of Huntingdon, he
 
 314 
 
 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 copied out his System of Divinity, before its publication, for the use of her Lady- 
 ship's theological seminary in Wales. He had remarkable facility in the acqui- 
 sition of languages; and of this species of knowledge, the key to every other, lie 
 possessed an extraordinary amount Besides the three commonly called the 
 learned tongues, he was acquainted with Arabic, Syriac, Persic, and Ethiopie, 
 and, of the modern languages, with the French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and 
 German. In the various departments of real as distinguished from verbal know- 
 ledge, his reading was very wide in range and various in subject, liis favourite 
 pursuits were history and divinity; but every subject, which more nearly or more 
 remotely bore on the literature of his profession, he considered worthy of his 
 attention. He afterwards saw reason to repent of the wideness of his aims in 
 this respect, and to regret " the precious time and talents," to use his own words, 
 " he had vainly squandered in the mad attempt to become a universal scholar." 
 His reading, though thus extensive, was at the same time very exact and accurate. 
 In order to render it so, he in many cases adopted the tedious and laborious method 
 of compiling regular abridgments of important and volammous books. Among 
 the works he thus epitomized, were Judge Blackstone's Commentaries, and the 
 Ancient Universal History. 
 
 In the month of September 1753, about two years after his ordination, 3Ii 
 Brown married Miss Janet Thomson, daughter of Mr John Thomson, merchant 
 at Musselburgh. For eighteen years he enjoyed in her a " help meet '' for him 
 in his Christian course, and at the end of that period he surrendered her, as he 
 himself expresses it. "to her first and better Husband." They had several chil- 
 dren, of whom only t\vo survived their mother John and Ebenezer, both of 
 whom their father had the satisfaction before his death of introducing as ministers 
 into the church of Christ, the former at Whitburn, and the latter at Inverkeithing. 
 Two years after the death of his first wife, which took place in 1 77 1 , he was married 
 a second time to Miss Violet Croumbie, daughter of Mr William Croumbie, merchant, 
 Stenton, East Lothian, who survived him for more than thirty years, and by 
 whom he left at his death four sons and two daughters, of whom only the half 
 are now alive. In his domestic economy and discipline, 31r Brown laboured 
 after a strict fidelity to his ordination vow, by which he promised to rule well 
 his own house. His notions in regard to the authority of a husband and a 
 father were very high, and all the power which as such he thought himself to 
 possess, was faithfully employed in maintaining both the form and the power of 
 godliness. 
 
 In the year 1753, Mr Brown, for the first time, appeared as an author. His 
 first publication was entitled " An Help for the Ignorant, being an Essay towards 
 an Easy Explication of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and Catechisms, 
 compiled for the use of the young ones of his own congregation." In addition 
 to this, he published, six years after, two short catechisms one introductory to, 
 the other explanatory of, the Shorter Catechism. All these publications have 
 been very extensively usefuL In 1765, he published, what was at the time by 
 far the most popular and successful of his works, entitled " The Christian Jour- 
 nal, or Common Incidents Spiritual Instructors." This work, though it has 
 some of the literary defects which, on such a subject, might have been expected 
 from an author so circumstanced, such as the occasional indulgence of unrefined 
 images, the excess of detail in tracing the analogies, and a certain monotonous 
 rhythm of style, in many cases scarcely distinguishable from blank verse never- 
 theless displays an extraordinary richness and ingenuity of fancy, and in many 
 instances rises into a most impressive and heart-warming eloquence. In 17G(> 
 he published a History of the Rise and Progress of the Secession, and the yeai 
 following, a series of Letters on the Constitution, Discipline, and Government ol
 
 JOHN BROWN. 315 
 
 the Christian Church. These tracts were followed by his Sacred Tropology, the 
 first of a series of works which he designed for the purpose of giving a clear, 
 comprehensive, and regular view of the figures, types, and predictions of 
 Scripture. The second and third parts were published in 1781. 
 
 In the year 17G8, in consequence of the death of the Rev. John Swanston of 
 Kinross, Professor of Divinity under the Associate Synod, Mr Brown was elected 
 to the vacant chair. The duties of this important office he discharged with great 
 ability and exemplary diligence and success. His public prelections were di- 
 rected to the two main objects, first, of instructing his pupils in the science of 
 Christianity, and secondly, of impressing their hearts with its power. The sys- 
 tem of Divinity which he was led, in the course of his professional duty, to com- 
 pile, and which was afterwards published, is perhaps the one of all his works 
 which exhibits most striking proofs of precision, discrimination, and enlargement 
 of thought ; and is altogether one of the most dense, and at the same time per- 
 spicuous views which has yet been given of the theology of the Westminster Con- 
 fession. The charge which he took of those committed to his care, was not en- 
 tirely of the 'ex cathedra' description. The situation of the Hall in a small 
 provincial town, and the manners of the age, combined with his just sense of the 
 importance of the students' private exertions and personal habits, enabled him to 
 exercise a much more minute and household superintendance over the young men 
 under his direction. Frequently in the morning he was accustomed to go his 
 rounds among their lodgings, to assure himself that they were usefully employing 
 " the golden hours of prime." The personal contact between professor and 
 pupils was thus remarkably close and unbroken, and hence we find that among 
 those who can recollect their attendance on the Divinity Hall at Haddington, the 
 interest with which every mind looks back to the scenes and seasons of eai-ly 
 study has a greater character of individuality, and is associated with minuter re- 
 collections than we generally meet with after so long a lapse of years. 
 
 The same year in which he was elected to the theological chair he preached 
 and published a very powerful sermon on Religious Steadfastness, in which he 
 divells at considerable length on the religious state of the nation, and expresses 
 violent apprehensions at the visible diffusion and advance of what he called lati- 
 tudinarianism, and what we of this tolerant age would term liberality of reli- 
 gious sentiment He likewise this year gave to the world one of the most 
 elaborate, and cei'tainly one of the most valuable of all his writings, the Dic- 
 tionary of the Holy Bible. For popular use, it is unquestionably the most suita- 
 ble work of the kind which yet exists, containing the results of most extensive 
 and various reading both in the science and in the literature of Christianity, given 
 without pretension or parade, and with a uniform reference to practical utility. 
 In 177 1, the Honourable and Reverend Mr Shirley, by command of the Countess 
 cf Huntingdon, applied to Mr Brown for his opinions on the grand subject of 
 justification, in view of a conference to be held on this question with Mr Wes- 
 ley and his preachers. This application gave occasion to a long and animated 
 correspondence with that noble lady, (a correspondence which, in consequence 
 of our author's modesty, remained a secret till after his death,) and to a series of 
 articles from his pen on the doctrine of justification, which appeared, from time 
 to time, in the Gospel Magazine and Theological Miscellany, between the years 
 1770 and 1776. In the same year he was led, by a desire to contribute to the 
 yet better instruction of his students, to form the design of composing a manual 
 of church history on a general and comprehensive plan. It was to consist of 
 three parts, " the first comprehending a general view of transactions relating to 
 the church from the birth of our Saviour to the present time; the second con- 
 taining more fully the histories of the Reformed British Churches in England,
 
 316 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 Scotland, Ireland, and America; the third to comprehend the histories of the 
 Walderises and the Protestant churches of Switzerland, France, Holland, Ger 
 many, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and Hungary." Of these he completed the 
 two former, his General History having been published in 1771, and his His:<>ry 
 of the British Churches in the beginning of 17 84. These form very useful 
 popular compends, though destitute of high historical authority. The history t-f 
 the Uritish Churches, as a work of original research, is much superior to the 
 m< ro general compilation, which is little more than an abridgment of Mosheint, 
 written in a more fervid spirit than the latter is accustomed to display, llr 
 Brown's next publication appeared in 1775, and was an edition of the metrical 
 " Psalms, with notes exhibiting the connection, explaining the sense, and for 
 directing and animating the devotion." In 1778 he gave to the world the 
 great work on which his reputation is chiefly founded, "The Self-Interpreting 
 Bible," the object of which is to condense, within a manageable compass, all 
 the information which an ordinary reader may find necessary for attaining an 
 intelligent and practical knowledge of the sacred oracles. 'Hie h'rst publication 
 of this work was attended with considerable difficulties, in consequence of the 
 claim of the king's printers to the exclusive right of printing the authorized ver- 
 sion of the Scriptures, whether accompanied or not with illustrative matter. 
 This claim, however, having been set aside, the work was at length given to the 
 world in 1778, and received Mith a high and gradually increasing and still un- 
 exhausted approbation. The same year he published a small tract entitled " the 
 Oracles of Christ Abominations of Antichrist," and four years after, his " Letters 
 on Toleration:" strenuously maintaining the unlawfulness of tolerating by au- 
 thority a false religion in a professedly Christian country. These publications 
 originated in the universal sentiment of alarm entertained by the evangelical 
 presbyterians of Scotland, both within and without the establishment, in conse- 
 quence of the proposed abolition of the penal code against the Roman Catholics. 
 In 1781, besides his works on the types and prophecies formerly referred to, 
 he published a sermon on the " Duty of Raising up Spiritual Children unto 
 Christ," preached partly at Whitburn, and partly after his son Ebenezer's ordi- 
 nation at Inverkeithing. He likewise, in the course of the same year, wrote a 
 pamphlet in defence of the re-exhibition of the testimony, and a collection of 
 the biographies of eminent divines, under the name of the " Christian Student 
 and Pastor." This was the first of a series of similar compilations intended as 
 illustrations and examples of practical religion, and was followed in 17bl by 
 the "Young Christian," and in 1783 by the " Lives of thirteen Eminent Private 
 Christians.'' In 1783, he published a small " Concordance to the Bible." 'Ihe 
 year following, he received an invitation from the reformed Dutch church in 
 America, to become their Professor of Divinity, which he declined, and modestly 
 kept secret And, in 1785, he concluded his career as an author, by a pam- 
 phlet against the travelling of the Mail on the Lord's-day a day for the obser- 
 vance of which, in the strictest degree of sanctity, he always showed himself 
 peculiarly jealous, not only abstaining himself, but prohibiting his family, from 
 speaking on that day on any worldly affair, even on such as related to what may 
 be called the secularities of religion and the church. The tracts published by 
 him in periodical works, along with his " Letters on Gospel Preaching and the 
 Behaviour of Ministers," were collected after his death, and published under the 
 title of "Remains." 
 
 '1 hroughout his writings, Mr Brown's uniform aim was general utility ; per- 
 sonal emolument formed no part of his object, and certainly very little of his 
 attainment, as the whole profit accruing to himself from his voluminous, and in 
 many cases, successful works, amounted to only 40. Without possessing much
 
 JOHN BROWN, M.D. C17 
 
 orig-inal genius, but on the other hand too ready, it may be, to submit the free- 
 dom of his mind to system and authority, he was endowed with a strong aptitude 
 for acquisition, and great power of arrangement, a sound and generally sober 
 judgment, and a rich and vivid frncy, though united with a defective, or rather, 
 perhaps, an uncultivated taste. The selection of subjects, and general concep- 
 tion of almost every one of them, are very happy, and in m ny cases the execu- 
 tion proves his high endowments for the task he undertook. 
 
 The time now drew near that he should die. For some years previous, he 
 had been greatly annoyed with a gradual failure, at once in the bodily power of 
 digestion and the mental faculty of memory the symptoms of a constitution 
 fairly worn out by the intense and incessant labours to which it hud been sub- 
 jected. In the beginning of 1787, his complaints increased in stich an alarming 
 degree, accompanied by a general and extreme debility, that he found it neces- 
 sary to abandon the pulpit. During the months of spring, he lived in a con- 
 tinual state of earnest and active preparation for the great change he was about 
 to undergo. lie expired on the 19th June, and on the 24th his remains were 
 followed to their place of repose in Haddington church-yard, by nearly the 
 whole inhabitants of the town, and a large concourse of his friends and brethren 
 from a distance. At the first meeting of the Associate Synod after his decease, 
 "the Synod," as their minute beai-s, " unanimously agreed to take this oppor- 
 tunity of testifying their respect to the memory of the Rev. John Brown, their 
 late Professor, whose eminent piety, fervent zeal, extensive charity, and un- 
 wearied diligence in promoting the interests of religion, will be long remem- 
 bered by this court, especially by those members of it who had the happiness of 
 studying divinity under his inspection." 
 
 BROWN, JOHN, M. D. founder of what is termed the Bruaonian system in 
 medicine, and one of the most eccentric and extraordinary men of his time, was 
 a native of the parish of Bunkle, in Berwickshire, where he was bora, in the 
 year 1735, or, as others assert, in 1737. Though only the son of a day-la- 
 bourer, he contrived to obtain an excellent classical education at the school of 
 Dunse, which was then taught by Mr William Cruickshank, one of the most 
 celebrated teachers that Scotland has produced. The genius and application 
 of Brown were alike so great, that, at an age when the most of children are only 
 beginning their letters, he was far advanced in a knowledge of Latin. His 
 studies, after some time, were broken oft" in consequence of the inability of his 
 father to maintain him at school. He was bound apprentice to the gloomy and 
 monotonous craft of a weaver, which must have been peculiarly unsuitable to his 
 lively faculties. However, he seems to have afterwards been enabled by the 
 kindness of his teacher to renew his studies; and it is known that for this 
 purpose he had employed himself on the harvest-field. His proficiency in the 
 Latin recommended him, first to the situation of usher in the school, and after- 
 wards to that of tutor in a neighbouring family. When about twenty years 
 of age, he removed to Edinburgh, and entering the university, advanced so far 
 in the study of divinity, as to deliver a discourse preparatory to commencing 
 his trials before the presbytery. Brown, however, was not destined to be a mem 
 her of this profession. Owing to some unexplained freak of feeling, he turned 
 back from the very threshold, and for some years supported himself in the hum- 
 ble capacity of a grinder in the university. His services in this capacity to the 
 medical students introduced him to a knowledge of medicine, which he suddenly 
 resolved to prosecute as a profession. His natural ardour of mind enabled bin- 
 very speedily to master the necessary studies, in which lie was greatly assisted 
 by the particular kindness and attention of Dr Cullen, then professor of medi- 
 cine in the university. At one period, he acted as Latin secretary to this great
 
 318 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 man, with whom he afterwards quarrelled in the most violent manner. In 17 05, 
 he married, and set up a house for the purpose of receiving medical students as 
 boarders. But, his irregular and improvident conduct reduced him to bank- 
 ruptcy in the short space of two years. A vacancy occurring in the High 
 School, he became a candidate ; but being too proud of his real qualifications 
 to think any other recommendation necessary, he was overlooked in favour of 
 some child of patronage. It is said that, when his name, and his name alone, 
 was presented to the eyes of the magistrates, they derisively asked who he was ; 
 to which (Jullen, then separated in affection from his former pupil, is stated to 
 have answered, with some real or affected hesitation " Why, sure, this can never 
 be our Jock!'' Brown met with a similar repulse, on applying for the chair of 
 theoretical medicine in the university. Vet, notwithstanding every discourage- 
 ment from the great men of his own profession, this eccentric genius w;is press- 
 ing on towards the completion of that peculiar system by which his name has 
 been distinguished. His views were given to the world, in 1780, under the 
 title " Elementa 3Iedicinas ;'> and he illustrated them further by lectures, which 
 were attended, as a supernumerary course, by many of the regular students of 
 the university. The Brunonian system simply consisted in the administration of a 
 course of stimulants, instead of the so-called anti-phlogistic remedies, as a HUMUS 
 of producing that change in the system which is necessary to work a cure. The 
 idea was perhaps suggested by his own habits of life, which were unfortunately 
 so very dissolute as to deprive him of all personal respect. He was, perhaps 
 the only great drinker, who ever exulted in that degrading vice, as justified by 
 philosophical principles. So far from concealing his practices, he used to keep 
 a bottle of whiskey, and another of laudanum, upon the table before him ; and, 
 throughout the course of the lecture, he seldom took fewer than three or four 
 doses from each. In truth, Brown lived at a time when men of genius did not 
 conceive it to be appropriate to their character as such, to conduct themselves 
 with decency. Thus, a man who might have adorned the highest walks of 
 society by his many brilliant qualities, was only fit for the company of the low- 
 est and most despicable characters. He was a devout free-mason, but more for 
 the sake of the conviviality to which it atlbrds so fatal an excuse, than for the 
 more recondite and mysterious attractions (if any such exist) of the fraternity. 
 He was the founder of a peculiar lodge in Edinburgh, called the " Ifoman 
 Eagle," where no language but Latin was allowed to be spoken. One of his 
 friends remarked with astonishment the readiness with which he could translate 
 the technicalities and slang of masonry into this language, which, however he at 
 all times spoke with the same fluency as his vernacular Scotch. It affords a 
 lamentable view of the state of literary society in Edinburgh between the years 
 1780 and 1790, that this learned lodge was perhaps characterised by a deeper 
 system of debauch than any other. In 1786, Brown removed to London, in 
 order to push his fortune as a lecturer on his own system of medicine, which had 
 already acquired no little fame. But the irregularity of his conduct, and the 
 irascibility of his temperament, rendered all his hopes fruitless. He died at 
 London, October 7, 1788, of a fit of apoplexy, being then little more than fifty 
 years of age. His works have been collected and published by his son ; but, 
 like the system which they explain, they are now forgotten. 
 
 BROWN, JOHN, an ingenious artist, was the son of Samuel Brown, goldsmith 
 and watch-maker at Edinburgh, where he was born in 1752. He received an 
 excellent education, after the fashion of Scotland, and was early destined to take 
 up the profession of a painter. Having formed a school friendship of no ordi- 
 nary warmth with Mr David Erskine, son of Thomas Erskine of Cambo, he 
 travelled with that yourg gentleman, in 1774, into Italy, where he was kindly
 
 JOHN BROWN. 319 
 
 received by Charles Erskine of the Rota, an eminent lawyer and prelate, the 
 cousin ofhis companion. He immediately attached himself to the Academy, with 
 a resolution to devote himself entirely to the arts. During the course of ten 
 years residence in Italy, the pencil and crayon were ever in his hand, and the 
 sublime thoughts of Raphael and Michael Angelo ever in his imagination. By 
 continual practice, he obtained an elegance and correctness of contour, never 
 eq lulled by any British artist ; but he unfortunately neglected the mechanism 
 of the pallet till his taste was so refined, that Titian, and Marillo, and Corregio, 
 made his heart sink within him whenever he touched the canvas. When he 
 attempted to lay in his colours, the admirable correctness of his contour waa 
 lost, and he had never self-sufficiency to persevere till it should be recovered in 
 that tender evanescent outline which is so difficult to be attained even by the 
 most eminent painters. He wished every thing important to be made out, and 
 when it was made out, he found his work hard and disagreeable, like the first 
 pictures painted by Raphael, and by all that preceded that wonderful artist. 
 Brown, besides his genius for painting, possessed a high taste for music. His 
 evenings in Italy were spent at the opera, and he penetrated deeply into the 
 study of music as a science. 
 
 At Rome Brown met with Sir William Young and Mr Townley, who, pleased 
 with some of his pen and ink sketches, engaged him to accompany them to 
 Sicily as a draughtsman. Of the antiquities of this island, he took several veiy 
 fine views in pen and ink, exquisitely finished, yet still preserving the character 
 and spirit of the buildings he intended to represent. 
 
 It was the belief of one of Brown's Scottish patrons, that if he had gone to 
 Berlin, he would have obtained the favour of Frederick the Great, on account 
 of his extraordinary talents and refined personal character. A pious regard, 
 however, for his parents, induced him to return to his native city, where, though 
 universally beloved and admired, he found no proper field for the exertion of 
 his abilities. Amongst the few persons of taste who afforded him their patron- 
 age, was Lord Munboddo, who, with that liberality by which he was distinguished, 
 gave him a general invitation to his elegant and convivial table, and employed 
 him in making several pencil-drawings. He was also employed to draw pencil- 
 heads of fifty of the more distinguished members of the Scottish Society of Anti- 
 quaries, then just established ; of which he finished about twenty. Among other 
 works which he produced at Edinburgh, were heads of Dr Blair, Sir Alexander 
 Dick of Prestonfield, Runciman, his friend and brother artist, Drs Cullen and 
 Black, all of which were done in the most happy and characteristic manner. 
 His talent in this line is described as having been very great. Amidst the col- 
 lection which he had brought home to Edinburgh, was a portrait of the cele- 
 brated Piranese, who, being unable to sit two moments in one posture, reduced 
 his painter to the necessity of shooting him flying like a bat or a snipe. This 
 rara avis was brought down by Brown at the first shot. 
 
 In 1786, Brown was induced to remove to London, in order to prosecute, on 
 a larger field, his profession as a portrait-draughtsman in black lead. He was 
 here occasionally employed by Mr Townley, in drawing from his collection of 
 Greek statues, a branch of art in which Brown is allowed to have greatly excell- 
 ed. After some time spent in unremitting application, his health gave way, 
 and he was recommended to try the benefit of a visit to his native country, by 
 soa. On his passage from London to Leith, he was somehow neglected as he 
 lay sick in his hammock, and, on his arrival he was found at the point of death. 
 With much difficulty he was brought up to town, and laid on the bed of his 
 friend Runciman, who had died not long before in the same place. Here he 
 expired, September 5, 1 7 87, having only attained the age of thirty-live.
 
 3l } WILLIAM LAWRENCE BROWN, D.D. 
 
 BROWN, WILLIAM LAWRENCE, D. P., an eminent theological and miscellaneous 
 writer, was born, January 7, 1755, at Utrecht, whore his father, the reverend 
 William Brown, was minister to the English congregation. In 1757, his lather 
 removed with his family to t>t Andrews, in order to undertake the duties of 
 professor of ecclesiastical history ; and the subject of our nie.iunir, having- com- 
 menced his education under his father's care, was placed successively at the 
 grammar-school and university of that city, entering the hitter at the early age 
 of twelve. His native abilities, favoured by the fostering care of his father, en- 
 abled him, notwithstanding his immature years, to pass through his academical 
 course with distinction; classical literature, logic, and ethics, being the branches 
 of study to which he chiefly devoted his attention. After studying divinity for 
 two years at St Andrews, he removed to Utrecht, where he prosecuted the same 
 study, and also that of civil law. In 177S, having previously been licensed by 
 the presbytery of St Andrews, he succeeded his uncle as minister ot' the English 
 church at Utrecht ; a field of exertion too narrow for his abilities, but which 
 he, nevertheless, cultivated with the same zeal and application which a con- 
 scientious clergyman might be expected to bestow upon one more extensive. 
 Such spare time as his duties left to him, he employed in attention to a few 
 pupils whom he received into his house. He at the same time enlarged his 
 range of study, and occasionally made excursions into France, Germany, and 
 Switzerland. In 1786, he married his cousin, Anne Elizabeth Brown, by 
 whom he had five sons and four daughters. 
 
 The first literary effort of Mr Brown, was an essay on the origin of evil, 
 written for a prize offered by the curators of the Holpian legacy at Utrecht, 
 and which was adjudged the second honour among the essays of twenty-five 
 competitors, that of being published at the expense of the trust. Soon after 
 this, namely, in 1784, the university of St Andrews conferred upon him the 
 degree of Doctor in Divinity. Dr Brown was successful in several other prize 
 essays, two of which were published, under the titles of " An Essay on the 
 Folly of Scepticism," London, 1788 ; and " An Essay on the Natural 1 quality 
 of Man," Edinburgh, 1793. The latter took a more sober view of the subject 
 than was generally adopted at the time of its publication ; and it accordingly 
 became the means of introducing Dr Brown to the notice of the British govern- 
 meiiL, Previously to the armed interposition of the Prussians in 1788, Dr Brown 
 was exposed to so much annoyance on account of his attachment to the dynasty 
 of Nassau, that he found it necessary to proceed to London, in quest of another 
 iituation. The event alluded to, not only enabled him to retain his former 
 office, but caused his elevation to a professorship, newly erected in the univer- 
 sity of his native city, for moral philosophy and ecclesiastical history, lie un- 
 fortunately was not allowed sufficient time to prepare the two elaborate 
 courses of lectures required in this new situation ; and, by his extraordinary 
 exertions to accomplish what was expected of him. laid the foundation of ail- 
 ments, from which he never afterwards recovered. His inaugural discourse was 
 published under the title of " Oratio de Religionis et Philosophies Societate et 
 Concordia maxima Salutari." Two years afterwards, he was nominated rector 
 of the university ; and on depositing his temporary dignity, he pronounced an 
 "Oratio de Imaginatione in Vita? Institutione regenda," which was published in 
 1790. Though offered the Greek professorship at St Andrews, he continued in 
 Utrecht, till the invasion of Holland by the French, in the beginning of 1795, 
 when he was obliged to leave the country in an open boat, with his wife and 
 five children, besides some other relations. Notwithstanding the severity 01 
 the season, the roughness of the weather, and the frail nature of the bark to 
 which so many lives were committed, lie reached the English coast in safety.
 
 WILLIAM LAWRENCE BROWN, T>.D. 321 
 
 In London, to \vhii:h lie immediately proceeded, he met with a friendly re- 
 ception from lord Auckland, to whom he had become known during his lord- 
 ship's residence as ambassador at the Hague, and who now exerted himself t>< 
 warmly in his favour, that he was, in the course of a few months, appointed t-i 
 succeed Dr Campbell, as professor of divinity in the Marischal college, Aber- 
 deen ; to which honourable appointment was soon after added, that of principal 
 of the same college. 
 
 We are informed by the writer of the life of Dr Brown, in the Ency- 
 clopaedia Britannic*, that " this new professorship imposed upon him a very 
 serious task, that of composing a course of theological lectures, extend- 
 ing over five sessions. After a review of the different systems of religiou 
 which lay claim to a divine origin, he discussed most amply the evidence* 
 and doctrines of natural religion. He then proceeded to the evidences of re 
 vealed religion, of which he gave a very full and learned view. 'Ihe christiar 
 scheme foimed the next sut tect of an inquiry, in which the peculiar doc 
 trines of Christianity were very extensively unfolded. Christian etlncs were 
 also explained ; and it formed part of his original plan, to treat of all the 
 great controversies that have agitated the religious world. This portion of the 
 course was not, however, completed." Besides attending to the duties of his 
 chair, and of his principality, Dr Brown officiated as one of the ministers of 
 the West church in Aberdeen. A volume of his sermons appeared in 1803. 
 He also occasionally attended the General Assembly, where his manly eloquence 
 and impressive mode of speaking, caused him to be listened to with great re- 
 spect, though he never arrived at the character of a leader. While discharging 
 every public duty with zeal and efficacy, he did not neglect his favourite pur- 
 suits of literature. In 1809, he published "Philemon, or the Progress of 
 Virtue, a poem," Edinburgh, 2 vols. octavo; and in 1816, appeared his 
 greatest literary effort, " An Essay on the Existence of a Supreme Creator," 
 Aberdeen, 2 vols. octavo. The latter was the successful competing essay, 
 among fifty, for Burnet's first prize of .1250; the second, of .400, being 
 awarded to Dr Sunnier, afterwards bishop of Chester. Dr Brown also wrote a 
 few pamphlets upon passing occurrences, political and otherwise ; and one or 
 two articles in Lr.tin, relating to formalities in the university over which he 
 presided. His last considerable work was " A Comparative View of Chris- 
 tianity, and of the other Forms of Religion which ha existed, and still exist 
 in the World, p.-.rticularly with regard to their Moral Tendency," Edinburgh, 
 2 vols. octavo, 1826. 
 
 In addition to the preferments already mentioned, Dr Brown was honoured, 
 in 1800, with the appointment of chaplain in ordinary to the king; and, in 
 1804, was nominated dean of the Chapel-royal, and of the order of the 
 Thistle. He was, last of all, in 1825, appointed to read the Gordon course 
 of lectures on practical religion, in the Marischal college. Though thus 
 bearing such a multiplicity of offices, Dr Brown was, upon principle, opposed 
 to pluralities, and was, perhaps, only tempted to transgress the rule in his 
 own case, by the want of adequate endowments for his two chief offices, those 
 of divinity professor and of principal. 
 
 Dr Brown died, May 11, 1830, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Be- 
 ides his great talents and acquirements, he was characterized by many excel- 
 ent personal qualities. His mind was altogether of a manly cast ; and, though 
 lonoured with the regards of a court, he was incapable of cowering to mere 
 i-ank and station. With some warmth of temper, he was open, sincere, and 
 generous, and entertained sentiments of unbounded libernlity towards his 
 
 fellow creatures, of all ranks, and of all countries-, 
 j. 2s
 
 322 THOMAS BROWN. 
 
 BROWN, THOMAS, a distinguished modern philosophical writer, the son of the 
 Rev. Samuel Brown, minister of the parish of Kirkmabreck in the stewarty of 
 Kirkcudbright, was born at the manse of that parish, January 9, 1778. Deprived 
 of his father when between one and two years old, Thomas Brown was conveyed 
 to Edinburgh, where for some years he lived under the charge of his wido\\ed 
 mother. By her he was taught the elements of learning at a singularly early 
 age, acquiring the whole alphabet, it is said, by one effort, cr, to use other words, 
 in one lesson, and every thing else with the same amazing facility. When between 
 four and five years of age, he was able to read the scriptures, and also, it would 
 appear, partly to understand them ; one d.iy, at that period of his life, he was 
 found sitting on the floor of his mother's parlour, with a large family bible on 
 his knee, which he was dividing into different parts with his hand; being asked 
 jocularly if he intended to preach, and wfis now choosing a text, he said, " No, 
 1 am only wishing to see what the evangelists differ in ; for they do not all give 
 the same account of Christ'' From the kindly tutelage of his mother he was 
 removed in the seventh year of his age, and placed by his maternal uncle, Captain 
 Smith, in a school at Camberwell, from which in a short time he was transferred 
 to one at Chiswick, where he continued for some years. In these and two other 
 academies he spent the years between seven, and fourteen, and acquired a perfect 
 classical education. In 1792, he returned to the maternal roof at Edinburgh, 
 and commenced a course of attendance at the University. At this period of his 
 life he was deeply read in the English belles lettres, and had even collected a 
 considerable library, which, however, was lost at sea in its passage from Engliinu 
 to Scotland. Having gone to Liverpool to spend the vacation of 1793 with 
 some friends, he became, boy as he was, the intimate friend of Dr Currie, 
 the amiable biographer of Burns, who is believed to have been the first 
 ca-ise of his directing his mind to metaphysical studies by placing in his hands 
 the first volumes of Professor Dugald Stewart's "Elements of the Philoso- 
 phy of the Human Mind," then just published. The impressions he received 
 from this work were deepened next winter, when he attenjled its author's 
 prelections in the moral philosophy class at Edinburgh college. Yet, much as 
 he admired Professor Stewart, he did not fail, even at the early age of sixteen, 
 to detect that deficiency of analysis, which often lurks under the majestically 
 flowing veil of his language and imagery. According to the late Dr. Welsh, 
 whose very pleasing memoir of Dr Brown is here followed, the scholar took an 
 early opportunity of presenting to his master a few remarks which he had thrown 
 together in reference to one of his theories. " Those who remember the digni- 
 fied demeanour of Mr Stewart in his class, which was calculated to convey the 
 idea of one of those great and gifted men who were seen among the groves of 
 the Academy, will duly appreciate the boldness of our young philosopher. With 
 great modesty he read his observations; to which Mr Stewart, with a candour 
 that was to be expected from a philosopher, but which not the less on that ac- 
 count did him infinite honour, listened patiently, and then, with a smile of won- 
 der and admiration, read to him a letter which he had received from the 
 distinguished M. Prevost of Geneva, containing the same argument which Dr 
 Brown had stated."' This delightful incident was the commencement of an ac- 
 quaintance between the master and the pupil, which led to more intimate rela- 
 tions, and only ended with the death of Dr Brown. The varied and profound 
 acquirements of this extraordinary young man, soon attracted to him the atten- 
 tion and friendship of many other personages, distinguished by academic rank 
 and literary reputation, especially Professors Robison, Playfair, and Black, and 
 Messrs Homer, Leyden, Reddie, and Erskine. Ere he had completed his 
 twentieth year, he was led, by the spirit of philosophical inquiry, to write " Ob-
 
 THOMAS BROWN. 323 
 
 servations upon Dr Darwin's Zoonomia," in a pamphlet which far surpassed the 
 work which had called it forth. It appeared in 1798, and, while it excited 
 astonishment in those who knew the years of the author, was received in other 
 quarters as the work of a veteran in philosophy. Dr. Welsh justly characterises 
 it as one of the most remarkable exemplifications of premature intellect which 
 has ever been exhibited, and states that, though unfortunate in its object, and the 
 exposure of an unworthy production, it is found to contain the germ of all Dr 
 Brown's subsequent discoveries as to mind, and of those principles of philoso- 
 phizing by which he was guided in his future inquiries. Dr Brown at this time 
 belonged to an association of young men, which, whether from its peculiar object, 
 the celebrity since acquired by several of its members, or one remarkable result of 
 its existence, must be acknowledged as possessing no ordinary claims to attention. 
 It was called the Academy of Physics, and its object is described in the minutes 
 of its first meeting to have been, *' the investigation of nature, the laws by which 
 her phenomena are regulated, and the history of opinions concerning these laws." 
 The first members were 31essrs Brougham, Erskine, Reddie, Erown, Hogerson, 
 Birbeck, Logan, and Leyden ; to whom were afterwards joined Lord Webb Sey- 
 mour, the Hev. Sydney Smith, and Messrs Horner, Jeffrey, and Gillespie. The 
 Academy prosecuted its investigations with great assiduity and success for about 
 three years ; like many other clubs, the spirit in which it was originated began 
 to change with the changed years, and altered views of its members ; it flagged, 
 failed, and was finally broken up. The remarkable result of its existence, above 
 alluded to, was the establishment of the Edinburgh Review. The first writers 
 in this work were Jeffrey, Brougham, Sydney Smith, Horner, and Brown. Tue 
 leading article of the second number, upon Kant's philosophy, was by the last of 
 these gentlemen. Mr. Brown, however, did not long continue to contribute ; a 
 misunderstanding with the gentleman who superintended the publication of the 
 third number, regarding some liberties taken with one of his articles, was the 
 cause of his retirement. Brown's first ideas as to a profession, led him to choose 
 the bar, and for a twelvemonth he prosecuted the dry studies of the law. An 
 insurmountable repugnance, however, to this pursuit caused him afterwards to 
 study medicine. He obtained his degree of M.D. in 1803, on which occasion he 
 was honoured with the highest commendations from Dr Gregory, not only for his 
 proficiency in medical learning, but for the amazingly fluent and elegant style f 
 his Latinity, of which no one could judge better than that learned professor, him- 
 self acknowledged to be the best Latinist of his time in Scotland. Previous to 
 this period, namely in 1800, when he was only twenty-two years of age, his friends 
 had, unsuccessfully, endeavoured to obtain for him the chair of rhetoric ; but a 
 syetem by which the clergy of the university seat were almost invariably preferred 
 to the vacant chairs, blasted his hopes on this occasion. This disrtppointment, with 
 his antipathy to the courtly party of the church, by which it was patronized, 
 seems to have inspired him with a vehement aversion to a system, which can only be 
 palliated by a consideration of the narrow stipends then enjoyed by the clergy, 
 and the propriety of enriching, by this oblique means, the prospects which were to 
 induce men of abilities to enter the church. Upon the promotion of Mr Playfair to 
 the chair of Natural Philosophy, Mr Leslie competed for the vacant chair of Mathe- 
 matics with a clergyman whose attainments in that study, though more than respect- 
 able, certainly could not be placed on an equality with those of the opposing candi- 
 date. The church party, knowing that they could not make out any superior 
 qualifications in their candidate on the score of mathematics, endeavoured 10 
 produce the same effect by depreciating Mr Leslie's qualifications on the score of 
 religion. Their proof lay in a note to Mr Leslie's essay on heat, containing an 
 expression of approbation respecting Hume's doctrine of causation. The can-
 
 324 THOMAS BROWN. 
 
 rass, which lay in tb, town-council, was the cause of great excitement in the 
 literary world, and for some time absorbed every other topic of discourse in 
 Edinburgh. Dr Brown was tempted by his feelings on this subject to come for- 
 ward with an essay, disproving the inferences which were drawn from 31 r Les- 
 lie's note ; an essay which, in a subsequent edition, he expanded into a complete 
 treatise on cause and effect Through the influence of this powerful appeal, and 
 other similar expressions of public feeling, the patrons of the chair were shamed 
 for once out of their usual practice, and Mr Leslie received the appointment. 
 Dr Brown had before this period published two volumes of miscellaneous poems, 
 which, though they did not meet with brilliant success, are yet to be admired as the 
 effusions of an ingenious and graceful mind. In 1<S03, immediately after re- 
 ceiving his diploma, he began to practise as a physician, and he had hitherto 
 met with considerable success. He was now (iSOti) taken into partnership by 
 Dr (Gregory, and for some time his attention was occupied more exclusively by 
 his profession than was at all agreeable to one disposed like him to give up 
 worldly advantages for the sake of a darling study. The prospect of an occupa- 
 tion more germane to his mind, opened up to him in the winter of 1808-!), 
 when the state of 31r Stewart's health induced him to request the services of Mr 
 Brown as his temporary substitute. The lectures which he delivered in this ca- 
 pacity attracted much attention, on account of their marvellous display of pro- 
 found and original thought, of copious reading, of matchless ingenuity, and of 
 the most admirable elocution; this last accomplishment having been acquired by 
 Dr Brown in the ordinary course of his school studies. "The Moral 1'hilosophy 
 Class at this period presented a very striking aspect. It was not a crowd of 
 youthful students led into transports of admiration by the ignorant enthusiasm of 
 the moment; distinguished members of the bench, of the bar, and of the pulpit, 
 were daily present to witness the powers of this rising philosopher. Some of 
 the most eminent of the professors were to be seen mixing with the students, and 
 Mr Playfair, in particular, was present at every lecture. The originality, and 
 depth, and eloquence of the lectures, had a very marked effect upon the young 
 men attending the university, in leading them to metaphysical speculations." 
 Welsh's Memoir. The effect of these exhibitions was so great, that when Mr 
 Stewart, two years after, expressed a wish to have Dr Brown officially conjoined 
 to him in the chair of Moral Philosophy, the usual influence in favour of the 
 clergy was overcome with little difficulty. From the commencement of the 
 session of 1810-11, he acted as the substitute of 3Ir Stewart, who now retired 
 to the country; and what is certainly very wonderful, he wrote the whole of his 
 first course of lectures during the evenings which preceded the days on which 
 they were delivered. After the first and most difficult step had been got over, 
 Dr Brown obtained a little leisure to cultivate that poetical vein which had all 
 along been one .of his own favourite exercises of thought; and accordingly, in 
 I Sit, he published his largest versified work entitled " The Paradise of Co- 
 quettes." As this poem appeared anonymously, its success, which was considera- 
 ble, must have given him high gratification. He was, therefore, tempted next 
 year to bring forth another under the title of "The Wanderer in Norway." 
 The health of Dr Brown had never bi en good ; and it was now the annual cus- 
 tom of this amiable and gifted being to retire during the summer vacation to 
 some sequestered and beautiful nook of his romantic native land, in order to 
 enjoy the country air and exercise. Sometimes he would plant himself in some 
 Swiss-like spot, hanging between Highland and Lowland, such as the village of 
 Logic in Glendevon. At other times he would lose himself in the woody soli- 
 tudes of Dunkeld. He had all his life a fondness for romantic and rugged 
 scenery, amidst which he would occasionally expose himself to considerable risks.
 
 THOMAS BROWN. 325 
 
 Walking was his favourite exercise, as he was thus able to pause and admire a 
 rock, a wild flower, a brook, or whatever else of beautiful presented itself. To 
 his gentle and affectionate heart, one object always appealed with irresistible 
 power namely, a cottage smoking amidst trees : he never could pass a scene of 
 that kind without pausing to ruminate upon the inexplicable sympathy which it 
 seems to find in almost every breast Though possessing a heart as open as 
 day light, the weakly health ot'Dr Brown, and the abstraction of his studies, seem 
 to have checked that exuberant feeling which assumes the form called love: it is 
 the impression of one of his surviving friends that he never experienced that sensa- 
 tion, at least to any extent worthy of the name. His affections were devoted to 
 his mother, his sisters, nature, books, studies, literary fame. He seemed to have 
 none for "the sex." In 1817, his feelings sustained a dreadful shock in the 
 death of the former relative, who had been his first instructress, and to whom he 
 bore an affection bordering upon reverence. Her remains were first placed in a 
 vault in Edinburgh ; and at the end of the winter-session moved to the family 
 b(iryin<r-ground in the old church-yard of Kirkmabreck. This romantic and 
 secluded spot Dr Brown had always viewed with great interest. A few years 
 before, in visiting his father's grave, he had been altogether overcome, and when 
 he saw the earth closing in upon all that remained of a mother that was so dear 
 to him, " and the long grassy mantle cover all," h : s distress was such as to affect 
 every person who saw him. In 1818, Dr Brown published a poetical tale, en- 
 titled " Agnes." But his reputation in'this walk of literature was not on the 
 increase. His mind by no means wanted poetical feeling and imagery ; but he 
 never could prevent the philosopher from intruding upon his warmest visions, 
 And accordingly there is a decided tameness in all his verses. It may be said, 
 that, if he had not been a great philosopher, he would have been a greater poet ; 
 and, on the other hand, if he had not attempted poetry, at least his living re- 
 putr.tion as a philosopher would have been someuhat enhanced. Towards the end 
 of 1S10, the ill health of Dr Brown began to assume an alr.rming aspect, and 
 early in the ensuing year he found himself so weak as to be obliged to appoint 
 a substitute to deliver his lectures. This substitute was 3Ir John Stewart, an- 
 other of the deAotees of science, and, like himself, destined soon to sink prema- 
 turely beneath the weight of intellectual exertion. Of Brown it might truly be 
 said, that an active spirit had worn out the slender and attenuated frame in 
 which it \wns enshrined. At the recommendation of his physicians, he took a 
 voyage to London, and established himself at Brcmpton, then a healthy village 
 in the vicinity, but now nearly involved in the spreading masses of the great 
 city. Here he gradually grew weaker and weaker, until the 2d of April, when 
 he gently breathed his last. " Dr Erown," says his reverend biographer, " was 
 in height rather above the middle size, about five feet nine inches ; his chest 
 broad and round ; his hair brown ; his features regular ; his foreliead large and 
 prominent ; his eyes dark grey, well formed, with very long eye-lashes, which 
 gave them a very soft and pleasing expression ; his nose might be said to be a 
 mixture of the Roman and Grecian, and his mouth and cliin bore a striking re- 
 semblance to those of the Buonaparte family. The expression of his counte- 
 nance altogether was that of calm reflection. * * His temper was remarkably 
 good; so perfect was the command he had over it, that he was scarcely ever 
 heard to say an unkind word. Whatever provocation he received, he always 
 consulted the dignity of his own character, and never gave way to anger. \ et 
 he never allowed any one to treat him with disrespect ; and his pupils must re- 
 member the effect of a single look in producing, instantaneously, the most per- 
 fect silence in his d;:ss. * * At a very early period, Dr frown formed those 
 opinions in regard to government to which he adhered to the end of his life.
 
 32G THOMAS BROUN. 
 
 Though lie was not led to take any active part in politics, he felt the liveliest 
 interest in the great questions of the day, and his zeal for the diffusion of know- 
 ledge and of liberal opinion, was not greater than his indignation at every at- 
 tempt to impede it. The most perfect toleration of all liberal opinions, and an 
 unshackled liberty of the press, were the two subjects in which he seemed to 
 take the most interest, and which he seemed to consider as most essential to 
 national happiness and prosperity. In his judgment upon every political ques- 
 tion, he was determined solely by its bearings upon the welfare of the human 
 nice ; and he was very far from uniformly approving of the measures of the 
 party to which he was generally understood to belong. Indeed, he often said, 
 that liberty, in Scotland at least, suffered more from the Whigs than the Tories 
 in allusion to the departure he conceived to be sometimes made from professed 
 principles with a view to present advantage. * * He was intimately ac- 
 quainted with the principles of almost all the fine arts, and in many of them 
 showed that practice only was wanting to ensure perfection in his powers of exe- 
 cution. His acquaintance with languages was great : French, Italian, and 
 German, he read with the same ease as English. He read also Spanish and 
 Portuguese, though not so fluently. * * * Among the more prominent 
 features of Dr Brown's character, may be enumerated the greatest gentleness, 
 and kindness, and delicacy of mind, united with the noblest independence of 
 spirit ; a generous admiration of every thing affectionate or exalted in character ; 
 a manly contempt for every thing mean ; a detestation for every thing that even 
 bordered on tyranny and oppression ; a truly British love of liberty, and the 
 most ardent desire for the diffusion of knowledge, and happiness, and virtue, 
 among mankind. In private life he was possessed of almost every quality which 
 renders society delightful, and was indeed remarkable for nothing more than for 
 the love of home and the happiness he shed around him there. It was ever his 
 strongest wish to make every one who was with him happy; his exquisite deli- 
 cacy of perception gave him a quick fore-feeling of whatever might be hurtful 
 to any one ; and his wit, his varied information, his classical taste, and, above 
 all, his mild and gentlemanly manners, and his truly philosophic evenness of tem- 
 per, dilfused around him the purest and most refined enjoyment. Of almost 
 universal knowledge, acquired by the most extensive reading, and by wide inter- 
 course with the world, there was no topic of conversation to which he seemed a 
 stranger. * * * In the philosophic love of truth, and in the patient investigation 
 of it, Dr Brown may be pronounced as at least equal, and in subtility of intellect and 
 powers of anahsis, as superior to any metaphysician that ever existed. The 
 predominating quality in his intellectual character was unquestionably his power 
 of analysing, the most necessary of all qualities to a metaphysician. It is im 
 possible, indeed, to turn to any page in his writings that does not contain some 
 feat of ingenuity. States of mind that had been looked upon for ages as reduced 
 to the last degree of simplicity, and as belonging to those facts in our constitu- 
 tion which the most sceptical could not doubt, and the most subtile could not 
 explain, he brought to the crucible, and evolved from their simpler elements. 
 For the most complicated and puzzling questions that our mysterious and almost 
 inscrutable nature presents, he found a quick and easy solution. 'Ihe knot that 
 thousands had left in despair, as too complicated for mortal hand to undo, and 
 which others, more presumptuous, had cut in twain, he unloosed with unrivalled 
 dexterity. The enigmas which a false philosophy had so long propounded, and 
 which, because they were not solved, had made victims of many of the finest and 
 most highly gifted men of our race, he at last succeeded in unriddling." Dr 
 Brown's lectures were published after his death, in 4 volumes, 8vo, and hava 
 deservedly obtained a high reputation. An account of his life and writings has 
 been oublished in one volume Svo, by the late Rev. Dr. 1 avid Welsh.
 
 
 /INNAIRU 

 
 JAMES BRUCE. 327 
 
 BRUCE, JAMES, a celebrated traveller, born on the 14th of December, 1730, 
 at Kinnaird, in the county of Stirling. Bruce was by birth a gentleman, arid 
 might even be cansidered as nobly descended. He was the eldest son of David 
 Bruce, Esq. of Kinnaird, who was in turn the son of David Hay of Woodcock- 
 dale, in Linlithgowshire, (descended from an old and respectable branch of the 
 Hays of Errol,) and of Helen Bruce, the heiress of Kinnaird, who traced her 
 pedigree to that noble Norman family, which, in the fourteenth century, gave a 
 king to Scotland. It will thus be observed that the traveller's paternal name 
 had been changed from Hay to Bruce, for the sake of succession to Kinnaird. 
 The traveller was extremely vain regarding his alliance to the hero of Bannock- 
 burn, insomuch as to tell his engraver, on one occasion, that he conceived him- 
 self entitled to use royal livery ! He took it very ill to be reminded, as he fre- 
 quently was, that, in reality, he was not a Bruce, but a Hay, and, though the 
 heir of line, not the heir male of even that branch of the family which he repre- 
 sented. In truth, the real Bruces of Kinnaird, his grandmother's ancestors, were but 
 descended from a cadet of a cadet of the royal family of Bruce, and, as it will be 
 observed, sprung off before the family became royal, though not before it had 
 intermarried with royalty. His mother was the daughter of James Graham, Esq. 
 of Aii-th, dean of the Faculty of Advocates, and judge of the High Court of 
 Admiralty in Scotland a man distinguished by his abilities and respected for 
 his public and private virtues. Unfortunately, the traveller lost his mother at 
 the early age of three years almost the only worldly loss \\hich cannot be fully 
 compensated. His father marrying a second time, had an additional family of 
 six sons and two daught rs. In his earliest years, instead of the robust frame 
 and bold disposition which he possessed in manhood, Bruce was of weakly health 
 and gentle temperament. At the age of eig'^t years, a desire of giving his heir- 
 apparent the best possible education, and perhaps also the pain of seeing one 
 motherless child amidst the more fortunate offspring of a second union, induced 
 his father to send him to London, to be placed under the friendly caVe of his 
 uncle, counsellor Hamilton. In that agreeable situation he spent the years 
 between eight and twelve, when he was transferred to the public school at Har- 
 row, then conducted by Dr Cox. Here he Avon the esteem of his instructors, as 
 well as of many other individuals, by the extraordinary aptitude with which he 
 acq'iired a knowledge of classic literature, and the singularly sweet and amiable 
 dispositions which he always manifested. To this reputation, his weakly health, 
 and the fear that he was destined, like his mother, to an early grave, seems to 
 have given a hue of tenderness, which is seldom manifested lor merely clever 
 scholars. The gentleness of his character, the result solely of bad health, led 
 him at this early period of his life to contemplate the profession of a clergyman ; 
 a choice in which he might, moreover, be further satisfied, from a recollection 
 of his ancestor, Robert Bruce of Kinnaird, who was the leading divine in Scot- 
 land little more than a century before. So completely, however, do the minds 
 of men take colour from their physical constitution, that on his health becoming 
 confirmed with advancing manhood, this tame choice was abandoned for some- 
 thing of a bolder character; which, in its turn, appears to have given way, in 
 still further increased strength, for something bolder still. He left Harrow, with 
 the character of a first-rate scholar, in May 1746, and, after spending another 
 year at an academy, in the study of French, arithmetic, and geometry, returned, 
 May 1747, to Kinnaird, where he spent some months in the sports of the field, 
 for which he suddenly contracted a deep and lasting attachment. It was now 
 determined that he should prepare himself for the profession of an advocate ; a 
 road to distinction, which, as it was almost the only one left to Scotland by ihe 
 Union, was then, and at a much later period, assumed bv an immense proportion
 
 328 JAJIES BRUCE. 
 
 of the young Scottish gentry. He entered, in the winter ot' 1747, as a student 
 in the college of Edinburgh, and attended the lectures on civil law, Scottish law, 
 and universal history. But the study was not congenial to his mind. " In vain 
 he pored over distinctions which he did not remember, and puzzled himself with 
 points of which he could not comprehend the importance. An ardent admirer 
 of truth and simplicity, he very rashly conceived that, in the studies which his 
 father had proposed for him, he could worship neither the one nor the oth r; 
 moreover, while, in filial obedience, he hung his bewildered head over his law 
 books, his youthful heart was apparently devoted to lovelier and more congenial 
 objects, for on the leaves of ' Elementa Juris Civilis Heineccii,' on which stands 
 the name of "James Bru<!e, 1749," we find written in the middle of some very 
 grave maxims, ' Bella ingrata, io inoriro !' with other equally love-sick senti- 
 ments from Metastasio and Ariosto.'' Head's Life of Bruce. A return of bad 
 health relieved him from this bondage. He was remanded to Kinnaird for 
 exercise and air ; and for several years he remained undetermined as to his 
 future course of life. Be it remarked, there might have been no necessity for 
 Ins leaving the paternal home in search of fortune, had not the number of his 
 father's second family diminished his prospects of wealth from that so;irce. 
 Having at length resolved upon going to India, at that time a more adventurous 
 field than it has since become, he left Scotland, July 1753, in the twenty-third 
 year of his age, and arriving in London, was received in the kindest manner by 
 th.)se friends with whom he had formerly resided. While waiting for the per- 
 mission of the East India directors to settle there as a free trader, he was intro- 
 duced to Adriana Allan, the beautiful and most amiable daughter of a wealthy 
 wine-merchant deceased. An attachment to this young lady, which soon proved 
 mutual, once more changed his destination in life. On making known his feel- 
 ings to the surviving parent of his mistress, it was suggested that, in marrying 
 her, he might also wed himself to the excellent business left by her father. 
 Love easily overcame every scruple he might entertain regarding this scheme; 
 and accordingly, on die 3rd February, 1754, he was married to Miss Allan. 
 For some months, Bruce enjoyed the society of this excellent creature, and dur- 
 ing that time he applied himself to business with an enthusiasm borrowed from 
 love. But, unfortunately, the health of his partner began to decline. It was 
 found necessary that she shoild visit the south of France for a fuilder climate. 
 Bruce accompanied her on this melancholy journey. Consumption outstripped 
 the speed v.ith which they travelled. She was unable to move beyond Paris. 
 There, after a week's suffering, she died in his arms. By this event, the destiny 
 of Bruce was once more altered. The tie which bound him to trade almost to 
 existence, was broken. He seems to have now thought it necessary that he 
 should spend a life of travel Abandoning the cares of business to his partner, 
 and resolving to take an early opportunity of giving up his share altogether, he 
 applied himself to the study of the Spanish and Portuguese languages, and also 
 improved his skill in drawing, under a master of tho name of Bonneau, recom- 
 mended to him by 3Ir ( afterwards Sir Robert ) Strange. Before this time he 
 had chiefly cultivated that part of drauing which relates to the science of fortifi- 
 cation, in hopes that he might, on some emergency, find it of use in military 
 service. But views of a more extensive kind now induced him to study drawing 
 in general, and to obtain a correct taste in painting. This notice of his appli- 
 cation to the study of drawing we have given in the words of his biographer 
 ( L>r Murray ), because it was long and confidently reported by those who wished 
 to lessen his reputation, that he was totally and incorrigibly ignorant of the art. 
 In July 1757, he sailed for Portugal, landed at Corunna, and soon reached 
 Lisbon. He was much struck by the ways of the Portuguese, many of which
 
 JAMES BRUCE. 329 
 
 nre directly opposite to those of all other nations. A Portuguese gentleman, 
 showing out a friend, walks before him to the door ; a Portuguese boatman rows 
 with his face to the front of the vessel, and lands stern foremost ; when a man 
 and woman ride on horseback, the woman is foremost, and sits with her face to 
 the right side of the animal. And what, in Bruce's opinion, accounted for all 
 this contrariety, the children are rocked in cradles "which move from head to 
 foot. From Portugal, after four month's stay, Bruce travelled into Spain, where 
 he also spent a considerable time. The sight of the remains of Moorish gran- 
 deur here inspired him with the wish of writing an account of the domination 
 of that people in Spain ; but he found the materials inaccessible through the 
 jealousy of the government. Leaving Spain, he traversed France, visited Brus- 
 sels, and, passing through Holland into Germany, there witnessed the battle of 
 Crevelt. Returning by Rotterdam, he received intelligence of the death of 
 his father, by which event he became laird of Kinnaird. The property he thus 
 acquired was soon after considerably increased by the establishment of the Car- 
 ron company, which was supplied with coal from his mines. He now employed 
 himself in studying the Arabic language, a branch of knowledge then little 
 regarded in Britain. In 1761, he withdrew entirely from the wine trade. 
 About this time, Bruce formed an acquaintance with Mr Pitt, ( the elder,) then 
 at the head of affairs, to whom he proposed a scheme for making a descent upon 
 Spain, against which country Britain was expected to declare war. Though 
 this project cair.e to nothing, Lord Halifax had marked the enterprising genius 
 of this Scottish gentleman, and proposed to him to signalise the commencement 
 of the new reign by making discoveries in Africa. It was not part of this pro- 
 posal that he should attempt to reach the source of the Nile ; that prodigious 
 exploit, which had baffled the genius of the civilised world for thousands of years, 
 seemed to Lord Halifax to be reserved for some more experienced person ; his 
 lordship now only spoke of discoveries on the coast of Barbary, which had then 
 been surveyed, and that imperfectly, by only one British traveller, Dr Shaw. 
 F\>r this end, Bruce was appointed to be consul at Algiers. In an interview 
 with George III., with which he was honoured before setting out, his Majesty 
 requested him to take drawings of the ruins of ancient architecture which he 
 should discover in the course of his travels. It having been provided that he 
 should spend some time by the way in Italy, he set out for that country in June 
 176-2. He visited Rome, Naples, and Florence, and fitted himself by surveying 
 the works of ancient art, for the observations he was to make upon kindred 
 objects in Africa. Here he formed an acquaintance with a native of Bologna, 
 name Luigi Balugani, whom he engaged to attend him in his travels, in the 
 capacity of an artist. He at length sailed from Leghorn to Algiers, which he 
 reached in March 1763. Ali Pacha, who then acted as Dey in this barbarous 
 state, was a savage character, not unlike the celebrated personage of the same 
 name, whom Lord Byron introduced to European notice. An injudicious yield- 
 ing to his will, on the part of the English government, who changed a consul 
 at his request, had just given an additional shade of insolence and temerity to 
 his character ; and he expected to tyrannisa over Bruce as over one of his own 
 officers. The intrepidity of the new consul, it may be imagined, was, under 
 such circumstances, called into frequent action. He several times bearded this 
 lion in his very den, always apparently indebted for his safety to the very auda- 
 city which might huve been expected to provoke his ruin. A good idea of the 
 true British fortitude which he exerted under such circumstances, may be gained 
 from a letter to Lord Halifax, in which, after recommending forcible measures, 
 which would have been highly dangerous to his own personal security, he says, 
 " I myself have received from a friend some private intimations to consult my 
 T. 2T
 
 330 JAMES BRUCE. 
 
 own safety and escape. The advice is impracticable, nor would I take it were 
 it not so. Your lordship may depend upon it, that till I have the king's orders, 
 or find that I can be of no further service here, nothing will make me leave 
 Algiers but force. One brother has already, this war, had the honour to lost 
 his life in the service of his country. Two others, besides myself, are still in it, 
 and if any accident should happen to me, as is most probable from those lawless 
 butchers, all I beg of his Majesty is that he will graciously please to extend his 
 favour to the survivors, if deserving, and that he will make this city an example 
 to others, how they violate public faith and the law of nations." It is this con- 
 stancy and firmness, in postponing the consideration of danger to the considera- 
 tion of duty, which has mainly tended to exalt the British character above these 
 of other nations. Bruce weathered every danger, till August 1765, when, 
 being relieved by the arrival of another consul, he left this piratical stronghold, 
 and began to prosecute his researches along the coast of Africa. Landing at 
 Bona, he paid a visit to Utica, " out of respect to the memory of Cato," and 
 then, with a proper retinue for his protection, penetrated into the interior of the 
 kingdoms of Algiers and Tunis. On the borders of these states, he found a 
 tribe named the Welled Sidi Boogannim, who are exempted from taxes on con- 
 dition of their living exclusively upon lions; a means of keeping down tln.se 
 enemies of the public. Dr Shaw, the only British predecessor of Bruce in (his 
 line of research, had been much laughed at, and even openly scouted, for having 
 hinted at the existence of such a custom. His friends at Oxford thought it a 
 subversion of the established order of things, that a man should eat a lion, when 
 it had long passed as almost the peculiar province of the lion to eat the man. 
 Bruce was exactly the man to go the more boldly forward when such a lion was 
 in the way. 
 
 He thus alludes, in his own travels, to the foolish scepticism with which Dr Shaw's 
 statement had been received : " With all submission to the learned University, I 
 will not dispute the lion's title to eating men ; but since it is not founded upon 
 patent, no consideration will make me stifle the merit of the Willid Sidi Boogannim, 
 who have turned the chase upon the enemy. It is a historical fact, and 1 will not 
 permit the public to be misled by a misrepresentation of it On thecontrary, I do aver, 
 in the face of these fantastic prejudices, that I have ate the flesh of lions, that is, 
 part of three lions, in the tents of the Willid Sidi Boogannim.'' This is certainly 
 a notable enough specimen of the contra audientior ito. After having traversed 
 the whole of these states, and taken drawings of every antiquity which he es- 
 teemed worthy of notice, he moved further west to Tripoli, where he was received 
 with great kindness by Mr Fraser of Lovat, British consul at that place. From 
 Tripoli he dispatched the greater part of his drawings to Smyrna, by which pre- 
 caution they were saved from the destruction which must have otherwise been 
 their fate. Crossing the Gulf of Sidra, which makes a considerable sweep into 
 the northern coast of Africa, Bruce now reached Bengazio, the ancient Berenice 
 built by Ptolemy Philadelphia From this place he travelled to Ptolemata, where, 
 finding the plague raging, he was obliged to embark hastily in a Greek vessel 
 which he hired to carry him to Crete. This was perhaps the most unlucky step 
 he took during the whole of his career. The vessel was not properly provided 
 with ballast; the sails defied the management of the ignorant man who professed 
 to steer it ; it had not therefore got far from shore when a storm drove it to lee- 
 ward, and it struck upon a rock near the harbour of Bengazi. Bruce took to 
 the boat, along with a great number of the other passengers ; but finding that it 
 could not survive, and fearing lest he should be overwhelmed by a multitude of 
 drowning wretches, he saw it necessary to commit himself at once to the sea, and 
 endeavour to swim ashore. In this attempt, after suffering much from the vio-
 
 .TAMES BRUCE. 331 
 
 leuce of the surf, he was at last successful He had only, however, become ex- 
 posed to greater dangers. A plundering party of Arabs came to make prey of 
 die Avrecked vessel, and his Turkish clothing excited their worst feelings. After 
 much suffering he got back to Bengazi, but Avith the loss of all his baggage, in- 
 cluding many valuable instruments and drawings. Fortunately, the master of a 
 French sloop, to whom he had rendered a kindness at Algiers, happened to be 
 lying in that port Through the grateful service of this person, he was carried 
 to Crete. An ague, however, had fixed itself upon his constitution, in conse- 
 quence of his exertions in the sea of Ptolemata : it attacked him violently in 
 Crete, and he lay for some days dangerously ill. On recovering a little, he pro- 
 ceeded to Rhodes, and from thence to Asia Minor, where he inspected the ruins of 
 Baalbec and Palmyra. By the time he got back to Sidon, he found that his let- 
 ters to Europe announcing the loss of bis instruments, were answered by the 
 transmission of a new set, including a quadrant from Louis XV., who had been 
 told by Count Buft'on of the unhappy affair of Bengazi. In June 1768, he sailed 
 from Sidon to Alexandria, resolved no longer to delay that perilous expedition 
 which had taken possession of his fancy. " Previous to his first introduction to 
 the waters of the Nile," says Captain Head, " it may not be improper, for a 
 moment, calmly and dispassionately to consider how far he was qualified for 
 the attempt which he was about to undertake. Being- thirty-eight years of age, 
 he was at that period of life in which both the mind and body of man are capa- 
 ble of their greatest possible exertions. During his travels and residence in Europe, 
 Africa, and Asia, he had become practically acquainted with the religion, manners, 
 and prejudices of many countries different from his own ; and he had learned to 
 spaak the French, Italian, Spanish, Modern Greek, Moorish and Arabic lan- 
 guages. Full of enterprise, enthusiastically devoted to the object he had in view, 
 accustomed to hardship, inured to climate as well as to fatigue, he was a man of 
 undoubted courage, in staticre six feet four, and with this imposing appearance, 
 possessing great personal strength ; and lastly, in every proper sense of the 
 \vord, he was a gentleman ; and no man about to travel can give to his country a 
 better pledge for veracity than when, like Bruce, his mind is ever retrospectively 
 viewing the noble conduct of his ancestors thus showing that he considers he 
 has a stake in society, which, by the meanness of falsehood or exaggeration, he 
 would be unable to transmit unsullied to posterity." From Alexandria he pro- 
 ceeded to Cairo, where he was received with distinction by the Bey, under the 
 character of a dervish, or soothsayer, which his acquaintance with eastern man- 
 ners enabled him to assume with great success. It happened, fortunately for his 
 design, that in the neighbourhood of Cairo resided a. Greek patriarch, who had 
 lived sometime under his roof at Algiers, and taught him the Modern Greek lan- 
 guage. This pereon gave him letters to many Greeks who held high situations 
 in Abyssinia, besides a bull, or general recommendation, claiming protection for 
 him from the numerous persons of that nation residing in the country. Bruce 
 had previously acquired considerable knowledge of the medical art, as part of 
 that preparatory education with which he had fitted himself for his great task. 
 The Bey fortunately took ill : Bruce cured him. His highness, in gratitude, 
 furnished him with recommendatory letters to a great number of ruling person- 
 ages throughout Egypt, and along both shores of the lied Sea. Bruce, thus well 
 provided, commenced his voyage up the Nile, December 12, 1768, in a large 
 canja or boat, which was to carry him to Furshoot, the residence of Amner, the 
 Sheikh of Upper Egypt. For two or three weeks he enjoyed the pleasure of 
 coasting at ease and in safety along the wonder-studded banks of this splendid 
 river, only going on shore occasionally to give the more remarkable objects a 
 narrower inspection. He was at Furshoot on the 7th of January, 1765. Ad-
 
 332 JAMES BRUCE. 
 
 vancing hence to Sheikh Amner, the encampment of a tribe of Arabs, whose 
 dominion extended almost to the coast of the Red Sea, he was fortunate enough 
 to acquire the friendship of the Sheikh, or head of the race, by curing him of a 
 dangerous disorder. This secured him the means of prosecuting his journey in 
 a peaceable manner. Under the protection of this tribe, he soon reached Cossier, 
 a fort on the Red Sea, having previously, however, sent all his journals and 
 drawings, hitherto completed, to the care of some friends at Cairo. Bruce sailed 
 from Cosseir on the 5th of April, and for several months he employed himself in 
 making geographical observations upon the coasts of this important sea. On the 
 19th of September, after having for the first time determined the latitude and 
 longitude of many places, which have since been found wonderfully correct, he 
 landed at Massuah, the port of Abyssinia. Here he encountered great danger 
 and difficulty, from the savage character of the Nay be, or governor of Massuah, 
 who, not regarding the letters carried by Bruce from the Bey of Cairo, had 
 very nearly taken his life. By the kindness of Achmet, a nephew of the Naybe, 
 whom Bruce rescued from a deadly sickness, he was enabled to surmount the 
 obstacles presented against him in this place, and on the 15th November began to 
 penetrate the country of Abyssinia. In crossing the hill of Tarenta, a moun- 
 tainous ridge, which skirts the shore, the traveller encountered hardships under 
 which any ordinary spirit would have sunk. Advancing by Dixan, Adowa, 
 and Axum, he found himself greatly indebted for safety and accommodation to 
 the letters which he carried for the Greeks, who formed the civilized class 
 amongst that rude people. It was in the neighbourhood of Axum that he saw 
 the unfortunate sight (the slicing of steaks from the rump of a live cow), which 
 was the chief cause of his being afterwards generally discredited in his own country. 
 On the 14th of February, after a journey of ninety-five days from Massuah, he 
 reached Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, a town containing about ten thousand 
 families. The king and his chief minister Ras Michael, to both of whom Bruce had 
 letters of introduction, were now absent with the army, putting down a rebellion 
 which had been raised by Fasil, a turbulent governor of a province. But Bruce 
 was favourably received by one Ayto Aylo, a Greek, and chamberlain of the 
 palace. It happened that the favourite child of Ras Michael was at this time ill 
 with the small pox at the country palace of Koscam. Ozoro Esther, the beautiful 
 young wife of Ras Michael, and the mother of this child, watched over the sick- 
 bed with intense anxiety. Bruce, by the good offices of Ayto Aylo, was intro- 
 duced to the distracted mother as a skilful physician ; and after some preliminary 
 civilities, he undertook to cure the child, in which task he very soon succeeded. 
 Having thus at once made favour in a very high quarter, he waited patiently for 
 two or three weeks, when the king and Ras Michael, having gained a victory, 
 returned to Gondar, and Bruce was then presented to them. Ras Michael, at the 
 first interview, acknowledged the powerful nature of Bruce's recommendations, 
 but explained to him, that owing to the present convulsed state of the country, 
 it would be difficult to afford him all the protection that might be wished. It 
 appeared to Michael, that the best way of ensuring personal safety and respect for 
 him throughout the country, would be to give him a high office in the king's 
 household. Bruce consented, from the conviction that in becoming Baalomaal, 
 and commander of the Koccob horse, he was doing his best towards facilitating 
 his journey. While acting in the capacity of Baalomaal, which seems to have 
 been somewhat like the British office of Lord of the bed-chamber, he secured 
 the king's favour and admiration, by the common school-boy trick of shooting a 
 small candle through a dense substance. He was now appointed to be governor 
 of a large Mahometan province, which lay on the way he designed to take in 
 returning home : this duty, however, he could perform by deputy. In May, the
 
 JAMES BRUCE. 333 
 
 army set out from Gondar t.o meet the rebel Fasil, and Bruce took that share in 
 the fatigues and perils of the campaign which his office rendered necessary. He 
 was of great service in improving the discipline of the army, and was looked 
 upon as a finished warrior. After a good deal of marching and countermarch- 
 ing, the royal forces gained a complete victory over Fasil, who was consequently 
 obliged to make his submission. This rebel now lived on amicable terms with 
 the king and his officers, and Bruce, recollecting the interesting site of his go- 
 vernment, busied himself in performing medical services to his principal officers. 
 When the king came to ask Bruce what reward he would have for his share in 
 the campaign, the enthusiastic traveller answered, that he only wished two favours, 
 the property of the village of Geesh, with the spot in its neighbourhood where 
 he understood the Nile to arise, and a royal mandate obliging Fasil to facilitate 
 his journey to that place. The king, smiling at the humility of his desires, 
 granted the request, only regretting that Zagoube ( such was the name assumed 
 by Bruce in his travels, ) could not be induced to ask something ten times more 
 precious. The attention of the sovereign and his minister were now distracted 
 by the news of another insurrection in the western parts of the kingdom ; and it 
 was necessary to move the army in that direction. Bruce made the excuse of 
 his health ( which was really bad ) to avoid attendance in this campaign ; and at 
 length, with some difficulty, he obtained the king's permission to set out for 
 Geesh, which lie was now resolved on, notwithstanding that the breaking out of 
 another rebellion omened ill for the continued submission of Fasil, and conse- 
 quently for the safety of the traveller. Bruce set out upon this last great stage 
 of his journey on the 28th of October, 1770, and he was introduced to the pre- 
 sence of Fasil at a place called i Jamba. Fasil, partly through the representations 
 of those' officers to whom Bruce had recommended himself, was in reality favour- 
 ably disposed to him ; but he at first thought proper to affect a contrary senti- 
 ment, and represented the design as impracticable. In the course of the wrang. 
 ling which took place between the two on this subject, Bruce was so much in- 
 censed that his nose spontaneously gushed with blood, and his servant had to lead 
 him from the lent. Fasil expressed sorrow at this incident, and immediately 
 made amends by taking measures to facilitate Bruce's journey. He furnished 
 him with a guide called Woldo, as also seven savage chieftains of the country for 
 a guard, and furthermore added, what was of greater avail than all the rest, a 
 horse of his own, richly caparisoned, which was to go before the travelling party, 
 as a symbol of his protection, in order to insure the respect of the natives. By way 
 of giving a feasible appearance to the journey, Bruce was invested by Fasil with the 
 property and governorship of the district of Geesh, in which the Nile rises, so 
 that this strangely disguised native of Stirlingshire, in the kingdom of Scotland, 
 looked entirely like an Abyssinian chief going to take possession of an estate in 
 the highlands cf that remote and tropical country. Bruce left Fasil's house on 
 the 31st of October, and as he travelled onward for a few days through this rude 
 territory, the people, instead of giving him any annoyance, everywhere fled at 
 his approach, thinking, from the appearance of Fasil's horse, that the expeditioi 
 was one of taxation and contribution. Those few whom Bruce came in contac 
 with, he found to have a religious veneration for the Nile, the remains of t 
 Pagan worship which was originally paid to it, and which was the sole religion 
 of the country before the introduction of Christianity. Even the savages who 
 formed his guard, would have been apt, as he found, to destioy him, if he hai 
 crossed the river on horseback, or employed its waters in washing any part ot h 
 dress. He also learned that there was still a kind of priest of this worship, who 
 dwelt at the fountain of the Nile, and was called " the servant cf the river/' 
 thus appeared that, as in the ruder parts of Bruce's native country, the abongin;
 
 334 JAMES BRUCE. 
 
 religion had partly survived the ordinances cf a new and purer worship for many 
 centuries. It was early in the afternoon of November 3d, that Bruce surmounted 
 a ridge of hills which separated him. from the fountain of the Nile, and for the 
 Irst time cast his European eyes upon that object the first, and, we believe, 
 the only European eyes that have ever beheld it. It was pointed out to him by 
 Woldo, his guide, as a hillock of green sod in the middle of a marshy spot a 
 the bottom of the hill on which he was standing. To quote his own account of 
 so remarkable a point in his life " Half undressed as I was, by the loss of my 
 sash, and throwing off my shoes, [a necessary preliminary, to satisfy the Pagan 
 feelings of the people], I ran down the hill, towards the hillock of green sod, 
 which was about two hundred yards distant ; the whole side of the hill was thick 
 grown with flowers, the large bulbous roots of which appearing above the surface 
 of the ground, and their skins coming off on my treading upon them, occasioned 
 me two very severe falls before I reached the brink of the marsh. I after this 
 came to the altar of green turf, which was apparently the work of art, and I 
 stood in rapture above the principal fountain, which rises in the middle of it It 
 is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at that moment 
 standing in that spot which had baffled the genius, industry, and enquiry of both 
 ancients and moderns for the course of ne ( ar three thousand years. Kings had 
 attempted this discovery at the head of armies, and each expedition was distin- 
 guished from the last only by the difference of numbers which had perished, and 
 agreed alone in the disappointment which had uniformly and without exception 
 followed them all Fame, riches, and honour had been held out for a series of 
 ages to every individual of those myriads these princes commanded, without hav 
 ing produced one man capable of gratifying the curiosity of his sovereign, or 
 wiping off this stain upon the enterprise and abilities of mankind, cr adding this 
 desideratum for the encouragement of geography. Though a mere private Bri- 
 ton, I triumphed here, in my own mind, over kings and their armies ! and every 
 comparison was leading nearer and nearer to presumption, when the place itself 
 where I stood, the object of my vain glory, suggested what depressed my short- 
 lived triumph. I was but a few minutes arrived at the sources of the Nile, 
 through numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which would have over- 
 whelmed me, but for the continual goodness and protection of Providence : I 
 was, however, but then half through my journey, and all those dangers through 
 which I had already passed awaited me on my return ; I found a despondency 
 gaining ground fast, and blasting the crown of laurels which I had too rashly- 
 woven for myself." In this paragraph one of the most deeply touching ever 
 written we find the Herculean mind of Bruce giving way, under the influence 
 of success, to sensations which had scarcely ever affected him during the whole 
 course of his journey, while as yet the desire of going onward, and the neces- 
 sity of providing the means of doing so with safety, possessed and amused his 
 mind. Nothing could be more characteristic of a reat mind by danger and 
 hardship only braced to more nervous exertion by opposition only rendered 
 the more eager and firm by the menaces of inferior minds only roused to con- 
 temptuous defiance ; and only to be softened by kindness, only to be subdued by 
 success. Many other emotions, however, must have entered the breast of the 
 traveller in that remarkable hour of his life. All the inspiring causes of his 
 journey must have rushed full upon him the desire of overcoming a difficulty 
 which had defied the civilized part of the earth since ever it was civilized the 
 hope of doing that which Alexander, and many of the greatest men of antiquity 
 had wished, but failed to do the curiosity of rendering that a matter of real 
 and human exertion which an ancient poet could only suppose possible to a 
 supernatural being on an extraordinary occasion :
 
 JAMES BRUCE. 335 
 
 Nilus in extreinum fugit perterrLtu* orbem, 
 Occuluitque caput, quod ad hue latet. 
 
 iwn in fUeflhontem. 
 
 and, finally, the more rational glory of performing such a service to science, as 
 must procure for him the approbation of his sovereign and fallow-countrymen, 
 and even obtain a peculiar distinction for his country among the other civilized 
 nations. Besides all these emotions, which had hitherto carried his enthusiastic 
 mind through unheard of difficulties, he must have recalled at this moment softer 
 sensations. The idea that he was now at the extreme point of distance from 
 home, would awaken the vision of that home which he had not seen for so many 
 years ; and from this spot, in a metaphysical mirage, he would see the far blue 
 hills of his native land, the estuary, the river, the fields, and the mansion of his 
 childhood the hearts that beat for him there, including one whose pulsations 
 were worth all the rest ; and the old familiar faces, whose kindly expression had 
 been too long exchanged for the unkindred countenances of barbarians and 
 strangers. There might also mingle with the varied tide of his sensations a re- 
 luctantly acknowledged sense of the futility of all his exertions, and perils, and 
 sufferings, since they had only obtained for him the sight of a Pagan altar from 
 which proceeded one of the feeders, not certainly known to be the principal one, 
 of the mighty Nile ; to what good could this sight conduce, since, after all, it was 
 only a sight ? the object having been all along proved to exist by the mere laws 
 of nature. The majestic intellect of Bruce might turn from such a paltry object, 
 and confess, with secret bitterness, that the discovery of the source of the Nile was 
 only valuable so long as it seemed impossible, but that, now being achieved, it 
 sunk into insignificance, like the glittering air-ball seized by the hand of a child. 
 The traveller relates that his despondency continued for some time ; and that, as 
 he could not reason it away, he resolved to direct it till he might be able, on 
 more solid reflection, to overcome its progress. Calling to Strates, a faithful 
 Greek, who had accompanied him throughout all his Abyssinian travels, he said, 
 ' Strates, faithful squire ! come and triumph with your Don Quixote at that island 
 of Barataria, to which we have most wisely and fortunately brought ourselves ! 
 Come and triumph with me over all the kings of the earth, all their armies, all 
 their philosophers, and all their heroes !' 'Sir,' says Strates, ' I do not under- 
 stand a word of what you say, and as little of what you mean : you very well 
 know I am no scholar.' ' Come,' said I, ' take a draught of this excellent 
 water, and drink with me a health to his Majesty George 111., and a long line 
 of princes.' I had in my hand a large cup, made of a cocoa-nut shell, which I 
 procured in Arabia, and which was brimful." [T"' 8 CU P was brought home by 
 Bruce, and his representatives at Kinnaird still use it every day when they en- 
 tertain company at dinner.] " He drank to the king speedily and cheerfully, 
 with the addition of ' confusion to his enemies,' and tossed up his cap with a loud 
 huzza. 'Now, friend,' said I, ' here is to a more humble, but still a sacred name 
 here is to 31aria !' " This was a Scottish lady, we believe, a 31iss Murray of 
 Polmaise, to whom Bruce had formed an attachment before leaving his native 
 country. These ceremonies being completed, he entered the village of Geesh, 
 and assumed for four days the sovereignty to which Fasil had given him a ti 
 During this brief space, he made forty observations as to the exact geograplaca 
 site of the fountain, and found it to be in north latitude 10 55)' 
 55' 30" east longitude, while its position was supposed from the barometer to b 
 two miles above the level of the sea. Bruce left Geesh upon his return on t 
 10th of November, and he arrived at Gondar, without any remarkable ad^ 
 ture, on the 17th. Here he found that Fasil had set a new insurrection o 
 foot, and had been again unsuccessful. For some time great numbers of h*
 
 33G JAMES BRUCE. 
 
 adherents, or rather the adherents of a mock king whom he had set up, 
 were daily sacrificed. Bruce was at first somewhat uneasy in this disagree- 
 able scene, and the maxim of the Abyssinians, never to permit a stranger to 
 quit the country, came full upon his mind. Early, however, in January, 1771, 
 he obtained the king's permission, on the plea of his health, to return home, 
 though not without a promise that he would come back, when his health was re- 
 established, bringing with him as many of his family as possible, with horses, 
 muskets, and bayonets. Ere he could take advantage of this permission, fresh 
 civil wars broke out, large provinces became disturbed, and Bruce found that, as 
 he had had to take part in the national military operations in order to pave the 
 way for reaching the head of the Nile, so was it now necessary that he should do 
 his best for the suppression of the disturbances, that he might clear his way to- 
 wards home. During the whole of the year 1771, he was engaged with the 
 army, and he distinguished himself so highly as a warrior, that the king pre- 
 sented him with a massive gold chain, consisting of one hundred and eighty-lour 
 links, each of them weighing 3 and I 12th dwts. It was not till the 26th of 
 December, thirteen months after his return from the source of the Nile, that he 
 set out on his way towards Europe ; nor even then was the country reduced to a 
 peaceable condition. He was accompanied by three Greeks, an old Turkish 
 Janissary, a captain, and some common muleteers ; the Italian artist Balugani 
 having died at Gondar. On account of the dangers which he had experienced 
 at 3Iassuah from the barbarous Naybe, he had resolved to return through the 
 great deserts of Nubia into Egypt, a tract by which he could trace the Nile in the 
 greater part of its course. 
 
 On the 23d of March, after a series of dreadful hardships, he reached Teawa, 
 the capital of Abbara, and was introduced to the Sheikh, who, it seemed, was 
 unwell, though not so much so as to have lost any part of his ferocious disposition. 
 Bruce here met with an adventure, which, as it displays his matchless presence 
 of mind in a very brilliant light, may be here related. He had undertaken to 
 administer medicine to the Sheikh, who was in the alcove of a spacious room, 
 sitting on a sofa surrounded by curtains. On the entrance of Bruce, he took 
 two whiffs of his pipe, and when the slave had left the room said, " Are you 
 prepared ? Have you brought the money along with you ?' Bruce replied, 
 ''My servants are at the other door, and have the vomit you wanted." " Curse 
 you and the vomit too,'' cried the Sheikh in great passion, " I want money and 
 not poison. Where are your piastres?" " I am a bad person," replied Bruce, 
 " to furnish you with either ; I have neither money nor poison ; but I advise 
 you to drink a little warm water to clear your stomach, cool your head, and then 
 lie down and compose yourself; I will see you to-morrow morning.'' Bruce 
 was retiring, when the Sheikh exclaimed, " Hakim, [physician] infidel, or devil, 
 or whatever is your name, hearken to what I say. Consider where you are ; 
 this is the room where Mek Baady, a king, was slain by the hand of my father : 
 look at his blood, where it has stained the floor, and can never be washed out. 
 I am informed you have twenty thousand piastres in gold with you; either givo 
 me two thousand before you go out of this chamber, or you shall die ; I shall 
 put you to death with my own hand.'' Upon this he took up his sword, which 
 was lying at the head of his sofa, and drawing it with a bravado, threw the 
 scabbard into the middle of the room, and, tucking the sleeve of his shirt above 
 the elbow, like a butcher, he said, " I wait your answer." Bruce stept one pace 
 backwards, and laid his hand upon a little blunderbuss, without taking it off 
 the belt In a firm tone of voice, he replied, " This is my answer : I am not a 
 man to die like a beast by the hand of a drunkard ; on your life, I charge you, 
 stir not from your sofa. I had no need,'' says Bruce, " to give this injunction ,
 
 JAMES BRUCE. 337 
 
 he heard the noise which the closing of the joint in the stock of the blunderbuss 
 made, and thought I had cocked it, and was instantly to fire. He let his sword 
 drop, and threw himself on his back upon the sofa, crying, 'For God's sake 
 Hakim, I was but jesting.' " Bruce turned from the cowed bully, and coolly 
 wished him a good night. After being detained three weeks at this place, he set 
 out for Sennaar, the capital of Nubia, which he reached at the end of April He 
 was here received kindly by the king, but the barbarous maxims of the country 
 caused his detention for upwards of four mouths, during which the exhaustion of 
 his funds caused him to sell the whole of his gold chain except a few links. At 
 lengthen the 5th of September, he commenced his journeyacross the great desert of 
 Nubia, and then only, it might be said, began the true hardships of his expedition. 
 As he advanced upon the sandy and burning plain, his provisions became exhauste.lj 
 his camels and even his men perished by fatigue, and he was in the greatest 
 danger, almost every day, of being swallowed up by the moving sands which 
 loaded the breath of the deadly simoom. For weeks and months the miserable 
 party toiled through the desert, enduring hardships of which no denizen of a 
 civilized state can form the least idea. At last, on the 29th of December, just as 
 he had given his men the last meal which remained to them, and when all, of 
 course, had given themselves up for lost, they came within hearing of the cataracts 
 of the Nile, and reached the town of Syene or Assouan, where succour in its 
 amplest forms awaited them. Twelve dreadful weeks Bruce had spent upon the 
 desert : his journey from the capital of Abyssinia to this point had altogether 
 occupied eleven months. It was now exactly four years since he had left civilized 
 society at Cairo ; during all which time he had conversed only with barbarous 
 tribes of people, from whose passions no man possessed of les varied accomplish- 
 ment, less daring, and less address, could have possibly escaped. He sailed down 
 the Nile to Cairo, which he reached on the 10th of January, 1773. He then 
 sailed for Alexandria, whence he easily obtained a passage to Europe. Arriving 
 at Marseilles in March, he was immediately visited and congratulated by a number 
 of the French savans, at the head of whom was his former friend, Count de Buffbn. 
 For some time, however, he was not sufficiently recovered from the debilitating 
 effects of his journey to enjoy the polished society to which he was restored. 
 A mental distress, moreover, had awaited his arrival in Europe. His Maria, 
 whose health he had only postponed to that of his sovereign in drinking from the 
 fountain of the Nile, despairing of his return, had given her hand to an Italian 
 Marchese. Bruce withered under this disappointment more than under the sun 
 of Nubia. In a transport of indignation, he travelled to Rome, and in a style of 
 rodomontade, only to be excused by a kind consideration of his impetuous and 
 ingenuous character, called the Marchese to account for a transaction, in which 
 it was evident that only the lady could be to blame. The Marchese, with Bruce 's 
 sword almost at his throat, disclaimed having married Maria with any knowledge 
 of a previous engagement on her part : and with this Bruce had to rest satisfied. 
 M nte alia reposcit ; his only resource was to bury his regrets in his own proud 
 bosom, and despise the love which could permit a question of time or space to 
 affect it. In the summer of 1774, he returned to England, from which he had now 
 been absent twelve years. His fame having gone before him, he was received 
 with the highest distinction. He was introduced at court, where he presented 
 to George III. those drawings of Palmyra, Baalbec, and the African cities, 
 which his Majesty had requested him to execute before his departure from the 
 country. The triumphs of this enterprising traveller were, however, soon dashed 
 and embittered by the mean conduct of a people and age altogether un- 
 worthy of him. Bruce, wherever he went, was required to speak of what he had seen 
 I. 2 u
 
 3b8 JAMES BRUCE. 
 
 and suffered in the course of his travels. He reLated anecdotes of the Abyssin- 
 ian and Nubian tribes, and gave descriptions of localities and natural objects, 
 which certainly appeared wonderful to a civilized people, though only because 
 they were novel : he related nothing either morally or physically impossible. 
 Unfortunately, however, the license of travellers was proverbial in Britain as 
 elsewhere. It was also a prevailing custom at that time in private life, to exert 
 the imagination in telling wonderful, but plausible, tales, as one of the amuse- 
 ments of the table. There was furthermore a race of travellers who had never 
 been able to penetrate into any very strange country, and who, therefore, pined 
 beneath the glories of a brother who had discovered the source of the Nile. For 
 all these reasons, the stories of Bruce were at the very first set down for imagi- 
 nary tales, furnished forth by his own fancy. This view of the case was warmly 
 taken up by a clique of literary men, who, without science themselves, and un- 
 checked by science in others, then swayed the public mind. A mere race of 
 garreteers, or little better, destroyed the laurels of this greatly accomplished 
 man, who had done and endured more in the cause of knowledge during one day of 
 his life, than the whole of them together throughout the entire term of their worth- 
 less and mercenary existence. This is a dreadful imputation upon the age of 
 George III., but we fear that the cold and narrow poverty of its literature, and 
 the almost non-existence of its science, would make any less indignant account 
 of its treatment of Bruce unjust. Even the country gentlemen in Scotland, who, 
 while he was carving out a glorious name for himself and providing additional 
 honour for his country, by the most extraordinary and magnanimous exertions, 
 were sunk in the low sottishness of the period, or at most performed respect- 
 ably the humble duties of surveying the roads and convicting the poachers of 
 their own little districts, could sneer at the " lies" of Bruce. His mind shrunk 
 from the meanness of his fellows; and he retired, indignant and disappointed, 
 to Kinnaird, where, for some time, he busied himself in rebuilding his house, 
 and arranging the concerns of his estate, which had become confused during his 
 long absence. In March 1776, he provided additional means of happiness and 
 repose, by marrying, for his second wife, Mary Dundas, daughter of Thomas 
 Dundas, Esq. of Fingask, and of Lady Janet Maitland, daughter of the Earl of 
 Lauderdale. This amiable and accomplished person was much younger than 
 Bruce, and it is rather a singular coincidence, remarks Captain Head, that she 
 was born in the same year in which his first wife had died. For nine years 
 Bruce enjoyed too much domestic happiness to admit of his making a rapid pro- 
 gress in the preparation of his journals for the press. But, after the death of 
 his wife in 1785, he applied to this task with more eagerness, as a means of di- 
 verting his melancholy. We have heard that in the composition of his book, he 
 employed the assistance of a professional litterateur, who first transcribed his 
 iournals into a continuous narrative, and then wrote them over again, involving 
 all the alterations, improvements, and additional remarks, which the traveller 
 was pleased to suggest The work appeared in 1790, seventeen years after his 
 return to Europe. It consisted of five large quarto volumes, besides a volume of 
 drawings, and was entitled, " Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile, in the 
 years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773, by James Bruce, of Kinnaird, 
 Esq., F. R. S.'> It was dedicated to the king ; and it is but justice to the 
 memory of that sovereign to state, that, while society in general raised against 
 it the cry of envy, jealousy, and ignorant incredulity, his Majesty stood boldly 
 up in its favour, and contended that it was a very great work. The King used 
 to say, that, had it not been for the indecorous nature of certain passages, he 
 could have wished to find it in the hands of all his subjects, and he would him- 
 self have placed a copy of it in every one of his palaces. The taste of this raon-
 
 MICHAEL BRUCE. 339 
 
 arch did not perhaps lead him to expend great sums in patronizing the arts of 
 the lighter branches of literature, but he certainly was qualified to appreciate, 
 and also disposed to encourage, any exertion on the part of his subjects which 
 had a direct utility, and was consistent with honour and virtue. The magnum 
 opus of Bruce was bought up by the public at its very first appearance : it required 
 the whole of the impression to satisfy the first burst of public curiosity. It was, 
 in the same year, translated into German and French. 
 
 Bruce, in his latter years, lost much of his capabilities of enjoying life by his 
 prodigious corpulence. We have been told that at this period of liis life he was 
 enlarged to such a degree as almost to appear monstrous. His appearance was 
 rendered the more striking, when, as was his frequent custom, he assumed an 
 Eastern habit and turban. His death was at length caused indirectly by his cor- 
 pulence. On the evening of the 27th of April, 1794, after he had entertained a 
 large party at dinner, he was hurrying to escort an old lady down stairs to her 
 carriage, when his foot that foot which had carried him through so many dangers, 
 slipped upon the steps ; he tumbled down the stair, pitched upon his head, and 
 was taken up speechless, with several of his fingers broken. Notwithstanding 
 every effort to restore the machinery of existence, he expired that night. He 
 was buried in the churchyard of his native parish of Larbert, where a monument 
 indicates his last resting-place. To quote the character which has been written 
 for him by Captain Head, "Bruce belonged to that useful class of men who are 
 ever ready ' to set their life upon a cast, and stand the hazard of the die.' He 
 was merely a traveller a knight-errant in search of new regions of the world ; 
 yet the steady courage with which he encountered danger his patience and 
 fortitude in adversity his good sense in prosperity the tact and judgment 
 with which he steered his lonely <x>urse through some of the most barren and 
 barbarous countries in the world, bending even the ignorance, passions, and pre- 
 judices of the people he visited to his own advantage the graphic truth with 
 which he described the strange scenes which he had witnessed, and the inflexible 
 fortitude with which he maintained his assertions against the barbarous incredulity 
 of his age, place him at the top of his own class, while he at least stands second 
 to no man." Bruce understood French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese the 
 two former he could write and speak with facility. Besides Greek and Latin, 
 which he read well, but not critically, he knew the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Sy- 
 riac ; and in the latter part of his life, compared several portions of the Scrip- 
 ture in those related dialects. He read and spoke with ease, Arabic, Ethiopic, 
 and Amhnric, which had proved of the greatest service to him in his travels. 
 It is said that the faults of his character were inordinate family pride, and a 
 want of that power to accommodate one's self to the weaknesses of others, which 
 is so important a qualification in a man of the world. But amidst the splendours 
 of such a history, and such an intellect, a few trivial weaknesses even allowing 
 those to be so are as motes in the meridian sun. A second edition of Bruce's 
 Travels was published in 1805, by Dr Alexander Murray, from a copy which the 
 traveller himself had prepared to put to press. The first volume of this elegant 
 edition contains a biographical account of the author, by Dr Murray, who was 
 perhaps the only man of his age whom learning had fitted for so peculiar a task 
 as that of revising Bruce's Travels. 
 
 BRUCE, MICHAEL, with whose name is associated every regret that can be 
 inspired by the early extinction of genius of a high order, still farther elevated 
 by purity of life, was born at Kinnesswood, in the parish of Portmoak, Kinross- 
 shire, on the 27th of March, 1746. His father, Alexander Bruce, a weaver, 
 and his mother, whose name was also Bruce, were honest and pious Burghers ; 
 they had eight children, Michael being the fifth. Manifesting from his earliest
 
 340 MICHAEL BRUCE. 
 
 years much delicacy of frame and quickness of parts, it was resolved to train him 
 for the church ; and after acquiring the elements of education at the school of 
 his native parish and of Kinross, he was sent to the college of Edinburgh in 
 1702. Here he remained four years, devoting himself during the three first to 
 those branches of learning pursued by what are called students of philosophy, 
 and in the last applying also to the study of divinity. 
 
 Before quitting the country, he had given proofs of his predilection for poetry, 
 which was encouraged by his friendship with Mr Arnot, a farmer on the banks 
 of Lochleven, who, to the piety and good sense common among those of his pro- 
 fession, added classical scholarship and an acquaintance with elegant literature. 
 He directed Bruce to the perusal of Spenser, Shakspeare, and 31ilton, supplied 
 him with the books, and became a judicious adviser in regard to his youthful 
 essays in the poetic art. Mr David Pearson, a man who read much with advan- 
 tage, had also the taste to relish what Bruce had the talents to produce, and en- 
 joyed his intimacy. After removing to Edinburgh, he lived in habits of close 
 intercourse with Mr George Henderson and Mr William Dryburgh, who opened 
 to him their stores of books and information, as they did their affections, and 
 with J'Ogan, whose congenial turn of mind made him the friend of Bruce in his 
 life time, and his warm eulogist and editor of his works when he was no more. 
 No one deserved better the attachment of those with whom he associated. " No 
 less amiable as a man," says Logan, "than valuable as a writer; endued with 
 good nature and good sense ; humane, friendly, benevolent ; he loved his 
 friends, and was beloved by them with a degree of ardour that is only expe- 
 rienced in the era of youth and innocence." The prominent place he has given 
 in his poems to those from whose society he had derived delight, shows how sin- 
 cere was the regard he cherished for them. As if that none of the ties by which 
 life is endeared should be wanting to him, Bruce had fixed his affections on a 
 young woman, modest and beautiful, with whose parents he resided while teach- 
 ing a school at Gairny Bridge. He has celebrated her under the name of Eu- 
 iiio I i a, in his pastoral of Alexis, and she was also the heroine of the only two 
 songs he is known to have written. 
 
 It appears that the parents of the poet entertained peculiarly rigid notions 
 in regard to religion, and would have been seriously displeased if they had 
 known that any part of their son's attention was occupied by subjects apart 
 from his theological studies. Bruce anxiously avoided giving these prejudices 
 any cause of offence, and, when about to return home from college in 1765, took 
 the precaution of transmitting to his friend Arnot those volumes of which he 
 knew his father would disapprove. " I ask your pardon," says his letter on this 
 occasion, " for the trouble I have put you to by these books I have sent. The 
 fear of a discovery made me choose this method. I have sent Shakspeare's 
 works, 8 vols. Pope's works, 4 vols. and Fontenelle's Plurality of Worlds.'' 
 
 Bruce acknowledges that he felt his poverty deeply when he saw books which 
 he ardently desired to possess exposed to sale, and had not money to lay out 
 in the purchase. The same regret has been experienced by many a poor scho- 
 lar ; but few perhaps terminate their complaints in the same train of pious reflec- 
 tion. " How well," he says, " should my library be furnished, ' nisi obstat res 
 angusta domi ! 
 
 ' My lot forbids ; nor circumscribes alone 
 My growing virtues, but my crimes confines.' 
 
 Whether any virtues should have accompanied me in a more elevated station is 
 uncertain ; but that a number of vices of which my sphere is incapable would 
 have been its attendants is unquestionable. The Supreme Wisdom has seen this 
 meet ; and Supreme Wisdom cannot err.''
 
 MICHAEL BRUCE. 341 
 
 Even when prosecuting his favourite studies, Bruce is said to have been liable 
 to that depression which is frequently the attendant of genius indeed, but in his 
 case was also the precursor of a fatal disease. In December 1764, he wrote to his 
 friend Arnot, " I am in health, excepting a kind of settled melancholy, for 
 which I cannot account, that has seized on my spirits." Such seems to have 
 been the first imperfect announcement of his consciousness that all was not well 
 with him. It would be a mournful task, if it were possible, to trace the gradations 
 by which his apprehensions strengthened and grew into that certainty which 
 only two years after this produced the Elegy, in which so pathetically, yet so 
 calmly, he anticipates his own death. In these years are understood to hare 
 been written the greater part of his poems which has been given to the public. 
 He spent the winters at college, and the summer in earning a small pittance by 
 teaching a school, first at Gairny Bridge and afterwards at Forrest Mill near 
 Alloa. In this latter place he had hoped to be happy, but was not ; having, he 
 confesses, been too sanguine in his expectations. He wrote here Lochleven, the 
 longest of his poems, which closes with these affecting lines : 
 
 " Thus sung the youth, amid unfertile wilds 
 And nameless deserts, unpoetic ground ! 
 Far from his friends he stray'd, recording thus 
 The dear remembrance of his native fields, 
 To cheer the tedious night, while slow disease 
 Prey'd on his pining vitals, and the blasts 
 Of dark December shook his humble cot." 
 
 A letter to Mr Pecrson, written in the same month in which he finished this 
 poem, affords a still closer and more touching view of the struggle which he 
 now maintained against growing disease, the want of comforts, and of friendly 
 consolation. " I lead a melancholy kind of life,'' he says, " in this place. I 
 am not fond of company ; but it is not good that a man be still alone : and here I 
 can have no company but what is worse than solitude. If I had not a lively 
 imagination, I believe I should fall into a state of stupidity and delirium. I 
 have some evening scholars ; the attending on whom, though few, so fatigues 
 me that the rest of the night I am quite dull and low-spirited. \et I have some 
 lucid intervals, in the time of which I can study pretty well" 
 
 " In the autumn of 1766," says Dr Anderson, " his constitution which was 
 ill calculated to encounter the austerities of his native climate, the exertions of 
 daily labour, and the rigid frugality of humble life began visibly to decline. 
 Towards the end of the year, his ill health, aggravated by the indigence of his 
 situation, and the want of those comforts and conveniences which might have 
 fostered a delicate frame to maturity and length of days, terminated in a deep 
 consumption. During the winter he quitted his employment at Forrest Mill, 
 and with it all hopes of life, and returned to his native village to receive those 
 attentions and consolations which his situation required, from the anxiety of 
 parental affection and the sympathy of friendship. Convinced of the hopeless 
 nature of his disease, and feeling himself every day declining, he contemplated 
 the approaches of death with calmness and resignation, and continued at inter- 
 vals to compose verses and to correspond with his friends." 
 
 His last letter to Mr Pearson contains an allegorical description of human 
 life, which discloses something of his state of mind under these impressive circum- 
 stances. It is so beautiful as a composition, and at the same time so touchingly 
 connected with the author's own situation, as to mingle in the reader pity and 
 admiration to a degree which we are not aware that there is any thing else in the 
 whole range of literature, excepting his own elegy to Spring, fitted to inspire. 
 " A few mornings ago," he says, "as I was taking my walk on an emmence
 
 342 MICHAEL BRUCE. 
 
 which commands a view of the Forth, with the vessels sailing along, 1 sat down, 
 and taking out my Latin Bible, opened by accident at a place in the book of 
 Job, ix. 25, ' Now my days are passed away as the swift ships.' Shutting the 
 book, I fell a musing on this affecting comparison. Whether the following hap- 
 pened to me in a dream or waking reverie, I cannot tell ; but I fancied myself 
 on the bank of a river or sea, the opposite side of which was hid from view, being 
 involved in clouds of mist On the shore stood a multitude which no man could 
 number, waiting for passage. I saw a great many ships taking in passengers, 
 and several persons going about in the garb of pilots offering their service. Be- 
 ing ignorant, and curious to know what sill these things meant, I applied to a 
 grave old man who stood by, giving instructions to the departing passengers. 
 His name I remember was the Genius of Human Life. ' 31 y son,' said he, ' you 
 stand on the banks of the stream of Tim? ; all these people are bound for Eter- 
 nity that undiscovered country from whence no traveller ever returns. The 
 country is very large, and divided into two parts : the one is called the Land of 
 Glory, the other the Kingdom of Darkness. The names of these in the garb of 
 pilots are Religion, Virtue, Pleasure. They who are so wise as to choose Reli- 
 gion for their guide have a safe, though frequently a rough passage ; they are at 
 last landed in the happy climes where sighing and sorrow for ever fly away. 
 They have likcwise-a secondary director, Virtue. But there is a spurious Virtue 
 who pretends to govern by himself; but the wretches who trust to him, as well 
 as those who have Pleasure for their pilot are either shipwrecked or cast away 
 on the Kingdom of Darkness. But the vessel in which you must embark 
 approaches you must be gone. Remember what depends upon your conduct' 
 No sooner had he left me than I found myself surrounded by those pilots I men- 
 tioned before. Immediately I forgot all that the old man said to me, and, 
 seduced by the fair promises of Pleasure, chose him for my director. We 
 weighed anchor with a fair gale, the sky serene, the sea calm : innumerable 
 little isles lifted their green heads around us, covered with trees in full blossom ; 
 dissolved in stupid mirth, we were carried on, regardless of the past, of the future 
 unmindful. On the sudden the sky was darkened, the winds roared, the seas 
 raged, red rose the sand from the bottom of the troubled deep ; the angel of the 
 waters lifted up his voice. At that instant a strong ship passed by ; I saw Reli- 
 gion at the helm : ' Come out from among them !' he cried. I and a few others 
 threw ourselves into his ship. The wretches we left were now tossed on the 
 swelling deep; the waters on every side poured through the riven vessel; they 
 cursed the Lord : when lo ! a fiend rose from the deep, and, in a voice like dis- 
 tant thunder, thus spoke : ' I am Abaddon, the first-born of Death ; ye are my 
 prey : open, thou abyss, to receive them !' As he thus spoke they sunk, and the 
 waves closed over their heads. The storm was turned into a calm, and we heard 
 a voice saying, ' Fear not I am with you : when you pass through the waters, 
 they shall not overflow you.' Our hearts were fille<l with joy. I was engaged 
 in discourse with one of my new companions, when oiiu from the top of the mast 
 cried out, ' Courage, my friends! I see the fair haven, the land that is yet 
 afar off!' Looking up I found it was a certain friend who had mounted up for 
 the benefit of contemplating the country before him ; upon seeing you, I was so 
 affected, I started and waked. Farewell, my friend, farewell!" 
 
 Bruce lingered through the winter, and in spring wrote that Elegy, " the latter 
 part of which,'' says Logan, " is wrought up into the most passionate strains of the 
 true pathetic, and is not perhaps inferior to any poetry in any language.'' How 
 truly this is said there are few that do not know ; but they who have read it 
 often will not be fatigued by reading again.
 
 MICHAEL BRUCE. 343 
 
 " Now Spring returns ; but not to me returns 
 
 The vernal joy my better years liave known ; 
 Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns, 
 And all the joys of life with health are flown. 
 
 Starting and shivering in th* inconstant wind, 
 
 Meagre and pale, the ghost of what I was, 
 Beneath some blasted tree I lie reclined, 
 
 And count the silent moments as they pass : 
 
 The winged moments, whose unstaying speed 
 
 No art can stop or in their course arrest 
 Whose flight shall shortly count me with the dead, 
 
 And lay me down in peace with them that rest. 
 
 Oft morning dreams presage approaching fate; 
 
 And morning dreams, as poets tell, are true : 
 Led by pale ghosts, I enter death's dark gate 
 
 And bid the realms of light and life adieu. 
 
 I hear the helpless wail, the shriek of woe ; 
 
 I see the muddy wave, the dreary shore, 
 The sluggish streams that slowly creep below, 
 
 Which mortals visit, and return no more. 
 
 Farewell, ye blooming fields ! ye cheerful plains 
 Enough for me the churchyard's lonely mound, 
 
 Where melancholy with still silence reigns, 
 
 And the rank grass waves o'er the cheerless ground. 
 
 There let me wander at the close of eve, 
 
 When sleep sits dewy on the labourer's eyes, 
 The world and its busy follies leave, 
 
 And talk with wisdom where my Daphnis lies. 
 
 There let me sleep forgotten in the clay, 
 When death shall shut these weary aching eyes, 
 
 Rest in the hope of an eternal day, 
 Till the long night is gone, and the last morn arise." 
 
 These were the last verses finished by the author. His strength was wasted 
 gradually away, and he died on the Gth of July, 1767, in the 21st year of his 
 age. What he might have accomplished had longer years been assigned to him, 
 it were needless to conjecture ; but of all the sons of genius cut off by an early 
 death, there is none whose fate excites so tender a regret His claims tc admi- 
 ration are great without any counteracting circumstance. " Nothing," says Lord 
 Craig, after a brief allusion to the leading facts of Bruce's life, " Nothing, 
 methinks, has more the power of awakening benevolence than the consideration 
 of genius thus depressed by situation, suffered to pine in obscurity, and some- 
 times, as in the case of this unfortunate young man, to perish, it may be, for 
 want of those comforts and conveniences which might have fostered a delicacy 
 of frame or of mind ill calculated to bear the hardships which poverty lays on 
 both. For my own part, I never pass the place (a little hamlet skirted with old 
 ash-trees, about two miles on this side of Kinross) where Michael Bruce resided I 
 never look on his dwelling (a small thatched house distinguished from the cottages 
 of the other inhabitants only by a sashed window at the end, instead of a lattice, 
 fringed with a honeysuckle plant which the poor youth had trained around it) 
 I never find myself in that spot but I stop my horse involuntarily, and looking 
 on the window, which the honeysuckle has now almost covered, in the dream of
 
 344 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 the moment, I picture out a figure for the gentle tenant of the mansion. I wish, 
 and my heart swells while I do so that he Mere alive, and that I were a 
 great man to have the luxury of visiting him there, and of bidding him be happy." 
 
 Three years after Bruce's death, his poems were given to the world by Logan, 
 who unfortunately mingled with them some of his own, and never gave any 
 explanation by which these might be distinguished. This led to a controversy 
 between their respective friends in regard to the authorship of a few pieces, into 
 which it would be unprofitable to enter here, as the fame of Bruce is no way 
 affected whichever way the dispute be decided. The attention of the public 
 having been called to the volume by Lord Craig, in the 36th number of the 
 Mirror, in 1779, a second edition was published in 1784; Dr Anderson gave 
 Bruce's works a place in his Collection of British Poets, and prefixed to them 
 a memoir from which are derived the materials of the present sketch ; and, 
 finally, the unwearied benevolence of Principal Baird brought forward an edi- 
 tion, in 1807, by subscription, for the benefit of the poet's mother. He could 
 not restore her son to be the support of her old age, but made all that remained 
 of him contribute to that end one of the numberless deeds which now reflect 
 honour upon his memory. 
 
 Perhaps Bruce's fame as a poet has been injured by the sympathy which his 
 premature death excited, and by the benevolent purpose which recommended the 
 latest edition of his works to public patronage. Pity and benevolence are strong 
 emotions ; and the mind is commonly content with one strong emotion at a time ; 
 he who purchased a book, that he might promote the comfort of the author's 
 mother, procured for himself, in the mere payment of the price, a pleasure more 
 substantial than could be derived from the contemplation of agreeable ideas ; 
 and he would either be satisfied with it and go no farther, or carry it with him 
 into the perusal of the book, the beauties of which would fail to produce the 
 same effect as if they had found his mind unoccupied. But these poems, never- 
 theless, display talents of the first order. Logan says of them that, " if images 
 of nature that are beautiful and new ; if sentiments warm from the heart, inter- 
 esting and pathetic; if a style chaste with ornament, and elegant with simplicity ; 
 if these, and many other beauties of nature and of art, are allowed to constitute 
 true poetic merit, they will stand high in the judgment of men of taste." There 
 is no part of this eulogy overstrained; but perhaps the most remarkable points 
 in the compositions of Bruce, considering his extreme youth, are the grace of 
 his expression and melody of his verses. Flashes of brilliant thought we may 
 look for in opening genius, but we rarely meet with a sustained polish. The 
 reader who glances but casually into these poems will be surprised to find how 
 many of those familiar phrases recon.mended to universal use by their beauty of 
 thought and felicitous diction which every one quotes, while no one knows 
 whence they are taken we owe to Michael Bruce. As to his larger merits, the 
 reader may judge from the union of majesty with tenderness which characterises 
 the Elegy already quoted. The poem of Lochleven affords many passages 
 worthy of higher names ; we know not in the compass of English poetry a more 
 beautiful image than is presented in the following lines : 
 
 " Behold the village rise 
 In rural pride, 'mong intermingled trees' 
 Above whose aged tops the joyful swains, 
 At eventide descending from the hill, 
 With eye enamour'd mark the many wreaths 
 Of pillar'd smoke, high curling to the clouds." 
 
 BRUCE, ROBERT, earl of Carrick, afterwards king of Scots, and the most
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 345 
 
 heroic as well as the most patriotic monarch which Scotland ever produced, was 
 oorn on die 2 1st of March, 1274. He was the grandson of Robert Bruce lord 
 of Annandale, who in 1291 contested the right to the crown with John BalioL 
 1 he events which followed upon the decision of that momentous question are 
 elsewhere detailed to the reader, [in the preceding life of John Baliol and the 
 subsequent one of William Wallace;] it is therefore unnecessary to advert to 
 them in this place, unless in so far as they have reference to the family of Bruce 
 and in particular to the illustrious individual now under notice. 
 
 Upon the decision of Edward I. in favour of Baliol, the grandfather of kin* 
 Robert, being possessed of extensive estates in the north of' England, resigned 
 the lordship of Annandale to his eldest son, on purpose, it may be supposed, to 
 evade the humiliating necessity of doing homage to his successful rival. No other 
 particular regarding him is known ; he died at the family residence of Locbnp- 
 ben, not long after, at the advanced age of eighty-five. 
 
 Robert Bruce, the son of the competitor and father of Icing Robert, became 
 possessed, by this last event, of the English as well as of the Scottish estates be- 
 longing to nis family. He had also acquired, in right of his wife, the heiress 
 of Carrick, the earldom of that name? 1 and, in every respect, might justly be 
 considered one of the most powerful barons in the kingdom. Either from disin- 
 clination, or, as some have suspected, from motives of policy, Robert Eruce, the 
 second of the name, early avoided taking any share in the affairs of Scotland. 
 When his son was yet a minor, he made resignation to him of the earldom of 
 Carrick, and, shortly thereafter, retiring into England, left the administration of 
 his ancient pairimony of Annandale in the same hands. During the ill-con- 
 certed and disastrous revolt of Baliol, in 1296, the Bruces maintained their alle- 
 giance to the English king. The lordship of Annandale was, in consequence, 
 hastily declared forfeited, and the rich inheritance bestowed by Baliol upon John 
 Comyn, earl of Buchan, who immediately seized upon and occupied the castle of 
 Lochmaben ; an injury which, there is reason to believe, the young earl of Car- 
 rick, long after, but too well remembered, and fatally repaid. 
 
 It is asserted that Edward, in order to gain securely the fidelity and assistance 
 of the lord of Annandale and his son, had promised to bestow upon the former 
 the kingdom of which Baliol was now to be dispossessed. It is not probable 
 that the English monarch ever seriously entertained such an intention, and still 
 less likely if he did, that in the flush of successful conquest he should be capable 
 of putting it in execution. After the decisive battle of Dunbar, Bruce reminded 
 Edward of his promise : " Have I no other business," was the contemptuous 
 reply, " but to conquer kingdoms for you ?" The elder Br^ice once more retired 
 
 1 The circumstances attending tliis alliance, related by Mr Tytler, were of a romantic and 
 singular description. " It appears that a short time after his return I'rom the crusade, Bruce 
 was riding through the beautiful domains of Turnberry Castle, the property of the widowed 
 Countess of Carrick, who, in consequence of the death of her husband, had become a ward of the 
 crown. The noble baron, however, if we may believe an ancient historian, cannot be accused of 
 having visited Turnberry with any design of throwing himself in the way of the heiress of Car- 
 rick; and indeed any such idea in those days of jealous wardship would have been highly dan- 
 gerous. It happened, however, that {he lady herself, whose ardent and impetuous temper was not 
 much in love with the seclusion of a feudal castle, had come out to take the diversion of the 
 chase, accompanied by her women, huntsmen, and falconers ; and this gay cavalcade came sud- 
 denly upon Bruce, as he pursued liis way through the forest, alone and unarmed. The 
 knight would have spurred his horse forward, and avoided the encounter, but he found him- 
 self surrounded by the attendants; and the Countess herself riding up, and with gentle vi->- 
 lence taking hold of his horse's reins, reproached him in so sweet a tone for his want of gal- 
 lantry in flying from a lady's castle, that Bruce, enamoured of her beauty, forgot the ri5k 
 which he run, and suffered" lumself to be led away in a kind of triumph to Turnberry. He 
 here remained Ibr fifteen days, and the adventure concluded, as might have been anticipated, 
 by his privately espousing the youthful Countess without having obtained the concurrence of 
 the king, or of any of her relations." 
 
 I. 2x
 
 34G 
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 to his estate in England, where he passed the remainder of his days in safe and 
 opulent obscurity ; and the earl of Carrick was commissioned to receive in tlie 
 name of the English king the homage of his own and his father's vassals. So 
 subdued and unpromising were, in their commencement, the fortunes of him 
 upon whom the fortunes of Scotland were finally destined to depend. 
 
 In the Scots parliament which Edward assembled at Berwick in order to the 
 settlement of his new conquest, he received the homage of great numbers of tuo 
 clergy and laity, arid among the rest of the earl of Carrick. who probably dared 
 not at such a juncture incur even the suspicion of the English king. The exten- 
 sive estates which he held, in virtue of his father's resignation, or by his permis- 
 sion, extending between the firths of Clyde and Solway, and bordering upon 
 England ; the number aud power of his connections and dependants, rendered 
 still more formidable by the discomfiture and depression of the rival family ; to 
 say nothing of the personal talents and ability of the young earl himself, must 
 have rendered him sufficiently liable to the jealous scrutiny of so politic a sove- 
 reign as Edward ; and Bruce, whether or not at this time he entertained designs 
 upon the crown, must have acted with prudence and circumspection in dispelling, 
 even at the expense of his oath, those doubts with which his fidelity would be 
 regarded. On the other hand, the residence of the elder Bruce in England, and 
 the great property possessed by the family in that kingdom, were an actual 
 guarantee in the hands of Edward of the Bruces' loyalty ; nor is it unlikely that 
 he would be swayed by a wise policy in attaching to himself, without any show 
 of distrust or aversion, that party in the state from whom lie had most to i'ear. 
 By so doing he could most effectually destroy any popular feeling which might 
 spring up in favour of claims which could not readily be forgotten, and for the 
 assertion of which he had himself removed the greatest obstacle in the deposition 
 of Baliol. Forbearance on the one side, and siibmissiveness on the other, weie 
 probably dictated to each by opposite though equally strong convictions of expe- 
 diency. 
 
 During the noble stand made by Wallace against the national defection, the 
 earl of Carrick, thcugh he remained inactive, was not overlooked by the jealous 
 eye of the English government. The bishop of Carlisle, and other barons to 
 whom the peace of the western districts was committed, became suspicious of his 
 fidelity, and summoned him to appear before them, when he made oath on the 
 sacred host and the sword of St. Thomas 10 be faithful and vigilant in the service 
 of Edward. To evince his sincerity, he immediately after laid waste the lands 
 of Sir William Douglas, carrying the wife and family of that knight prisoners 
 into Annpndale. It seems probable that this enterprize was undertaken merely 
 to serve as a pretext for assembling his military retainers; for he had no sooner 
 collected these around him than he abandoned tlu English. interests, and joined 
 the army of the Scots ; alleging, in vindication of his conduct, that the solemn 
 oath which he had so lattly taken had been extorted from him by force, and 
 that in such a case the Pope would, he doubted not, absolve him from its observ- 
 ance. I'mce did not remain long faithful to his new allies. A few months after, 
 at the capitulation of Irvine, he made his peace with Edward, giving what sure- 
 ties were required for his future loyalty. 
 
 The signal success achieved by the Scots at Stirling, induced Bruce once more 
 to join the national cause ; but the Comyns, now the principal rivals of his 
 family for the vacant throne, being, at the same time, opposed to Edward, he 
 seems to have prudently avoided taking any active share in the contest. Refus- 
 ing to jofn the army, he shut himself up in Ayr castle, by this means ostensibly 
 preserving the communication open between Galloway and the western High- 
 lands. On the approach of Edward into the west, after the battle of Falkirk,
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 347 
 
 the earl after destroying the fortress, found it necessary to retire. Displeased as 
 the English king had reason to be with the vacillating conduct of Bruce at this 
 juncture, he did not chastise it otherwise than by taking temporary possession of 
 Lochmaben castle, the fortified patrimonial inheritance of the family. Among 
 the confiscations of property which followed, Annandale and Carrick remained 
 unalienated, a favour which the younger Bruce probably owed to the fidelity 
 and services of his father in the English cause. 
 
 In the year 1299, not long after the fatal issue of the battle of Falkirk, we 
 find the earl of Carrick associated with John Comyn, the younger of Badenoch, 
 in the regency of Scotland. The motives which actuated Bruce in ihus leaguing 
 himself with a rival, with whom he never hitherto had acted in concert, have 
 been variously represented, and the fact itself hns even been called in question. 
 The consciousness of having lost the confidence of the English king, and a desire, 
 mutually entertained, to humble and destroy the authority of Wallace, which but 
 too well succeeded, could not but influence powerfully the conduct of both parties. 
 1 liis baleful object accomplished, Bruce seems to have once more resumed the 
 inactive course of policy which he saw fit to maintain in the late struggle ; re- 
 linquishing to the, perhaps, less wary Comyn, the direction of the hazardous 
 power which he seemed so willing to \vield. In the following year, Edward 
 again invaded Scotland, laid waste the districts of Annandale and Carrick, and 
 once more possessed himself of the castle of Lochmaben. Bruce, though, on this 
 occasion, he was almost the only sufferer in the cause which he had espoused, 
 cautiously avoided, by any act of retaliation or effective co-operation with Comyn 
 to widen irremediably the breach with Edward ; and we find, that prior to the 
 advantage gained by his coadjutor at Rosslyn, he had returned once more to the 
 interests of the English party. The victorious campaign of Edward, which in 
 1304 ended in a more complete subjugation of Scotland than his arms and 
 policy had hitherto been able to effect, justified the prudent foresight, though it 
 tarnished the patriotic fame of the earl of Carrick. His lukewarmness in the 
 cause of the regency, and timely defalcation from it, procured his pardon upon 
 easy terms, and seemed to restore to him, in a great measure, the confidence of 
 Edward, with which he had so repeatedly dared to trifle. His father, the lord 
 of Annandale, dying at this critical time, the young Bruce was allowed to inherit 
 the whole extensive estates of his family in both kingdoms ; and so unequivocally, 
 indeed, had he recovered the favour of the English monarch, that he was held 
 worthy of advising and aiding in the settlement of Scotland as a province under 
 tlie rule of England. Comyn, who had acted throughout with sincerity and 
 constancy, in the trust reposed in him, and whose submission had been a matter 
 of necessity, was subjected to a heavy fine, and fell, in proportion to his rival's 
 elevation, in the confidence and estimation of the king. 
 
 The versatility of Bruce's conduct, during the various changes and reverses 
 which we have noticed, has been variously commented upon by historians, as 
 they have been led to consider it in a moral or political point of view ; and, in- 
 deed, in whatever way it may be explained, it forms a singular contrast to the 
 honourable, bold, and undeviating career of his after life. In extenuation of 
 such obvious derelictions from principle and consistency, we must not leave out of 
 consideration the effects which peculiar circumstances will sometimes powerfully . 
 operate on the conduct, where the mind has been irresistibly devoted to the at- 
 tainment of some great and engrossing object. That natural irresoluteness, too, 
 by which the boldest spirit may be beset, while meditating the actual and deci- 
 sive plunge into a hazardous enterprise, may cause a seeming vacillation of pur- 
 pose, arising more from a deep sense of the importance of the venture, than from 
 fear of the consequences attending it That Bruce should early entertain a per-
 
 348 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 suasion that his family wre justly entitled to the throne, was every way natural, 
 and \ve have already noticed, that hopes of their actually attaining to it were 
 held out by Edward himself to the lord of Annandale. Nurtured and strength- 
 ened in such feeling, the young aspirant to royalty could not be expected to en- 
 tertain attachment to the house of Baliol ; and must have regarded with still 
 greater aversion and distrust the sovereignty usurped by the power and stratagem 
 of England over the rights and pretensions of all his race. During the struggle, 
 therefore, of those contending interests the independence of Scotland under 
 Baliol, or its subjugation under Edward he necessarily remained more in the 
 situation of a neutral though deeply interested observer, than an active partisan ; 
 the success of either party involving in an almost indifferent degree the high 
 claims, and, it might be, the existing fortunes of his house. 
 
 Taking these considerations into account, there is little difficulty in reconcil- 
 ing to itself the line of conduct which Bruce had hitherto pursued. By joining 
 heartily with neither party, he prudently avoided committing the fortunes of 
 his family to the hazard of utter destruction, and his right and influence could 
 give, upon any emergency, a necessary and required preponderance to either side. 
 He must have foreseen, too, with secret satisfaction, the consequences which would 
 result to his own advantage from a contest in which the strength and resources 
 of his rivals were mutually wasted, whilst his own energies remained entire, and 
 ready on any favourable opportunity to be called decisively into action. That 
 these were not exerted sooner, the existence of his father down to this period, 
 and his submission to the English government, may suggest a sufficient reason ; 
 and his own accession to the regency, in the name of the deposed Baliol, was a 
 circumstance which could not but affect unfavourably, during its continuance, tlie 
 assertion of his pretensions. 
 
 Meantime, while Bruce outwardly maintained the semblance of loyalty to 
 Edward, he was not idle in secretly advancing the objects of his own ambition ; 
 and when actually engaged in assisting Edward in the settlement of the Scottish 
 government, he entered into a secret bond of association with Lamberton bishop 
 of St Andrews, whereby the parties became bound to aid each other against all 
 persons whatever, and not to undertake any business of moment unless by mutual 
 advice. No measure on the part of Bruce could be more politic than this was, 
 of enlisting in his cause the power and influence of the church ; and the reader 
 may afterwards have occasion to remark that he owed his success more to their linn 
 adherence to his interest, than to all the efforts of the nobility. Lamberton and his 
 colleagues were more alarmed at the prospect of being subjected to the spiritual 
 supremacy of York or Canterbury, than concerned for the temporal subjugation 
 of their country ; and thus, in the minds of the national clergy, the indepen- 
 dency of the church became intimately associated with the more general cause of 
 popular freedom. In addition to the spiritual power which Lamberton possessed, 
 as head of the Scottish church, the effective aid which he could furnish by call- 
 ing out the military retainers upon the church lands, was far from inconsider- 
 able. Though we are not informed of any other similar contract to the above 
 having been entered into between Bruce and his partizans, there can be little 
 doubt that this was not the only one, and that he neglected no safe expedient 
 to promote and facilitate the enterprize which he contemplated. Notwithstand- 
 ing, however, all the prudent caution and foresight displayed in these prepara- 
 tory measures, the better genius of Bruce would seem utterly to have deserted 
 him at the very critical moment of his fortune when its guidance was most 
 required. 
 
 Before entering upon the important event to which we have alluded, it will 
 be necessary to state briefly the relative position of the two great parties in the
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 349 
 
 kingdom as opposed to each other. John Baliol, supposing his title to have 
 been well founded, had repeatedly renounced all pretensions to the crown of 
 Scotland; and had for several yeais remained a voluntary exile in France, 
 without taking any steps towards the recovery of those rights, of which, it might 
 have been urged, the violence of the king of England had deprived him. He 
 was to be considered, therefore, as having rtot only formally, but virtually, for- 
 feited all claim to the kingdom. His son, Edward, was at that time a minor 
 and a captive. John Comyn, commonly called the Red Comyn, was the son of 
 Marjory, the sister of Baliol, and, setting Baliol aside, was the heir of the pre- 
 tensions of their common ancestor. As regent of Scotland and leader of her 
 armies, Comyn had maintained for many years the unequal contest with Edward ; 
 and he had been the last to lay down his arms and accept conditions of peace 
 from that prince. Though the terms of his submission had been rigorous, he 
 was yet left in possession of large estates, a numerous vassalage, and, what in 
 that warlike age was of consequence, an approved character for courage and 
 conduct in the field. 
 
 Plausible as were the grounds upon which Gomyn might have founded his 
 claim to the crown, and powerfully as these might have been supported against 
 the usurped sovereignty of England, there was little likelihood that in a compe- 
 tition with Bruce they could ever finally have prevailed. That family, accord- 
 ing to the ancient usage of the kingdom, ought to have been preferred originally 
 to that of Baliol ; and this fact, generally known and acknowledged, as it could 
 not fail to be, would, had they chosen to take advantage of it, have rendered 
 their cause, at any time, a popular one. The award of Edward from the conse- 
 quences which followed upon it, had become odious to the nation ; and the 
 pusillanimity and misfortunes of the abdicated and despised king, wo'ild leave, 
 however undeservedly, their stigma upon his race. It was a curious enough 
 illustration of the deep rooted existence of such a feeling, that, nearly a century 
 afterwards, a king of Scotland who happened to possess the same unfortunate 
 name of John, saw fit upon his coronation to change it for another, less ominous 
 of evil in the recollections of his subjects. What might have been the fate of 
 the contest, had it taken place, between two such rivals, it is now needless to 
 inquire. We have seen that Bruce, at the crisis at which we have arrived, was 
 possessed of those advantages unimpaired, of which the other, in the late struggle, 
 had been, in a great measure, deprived ; and, there is reason to believe, that 
 Ccmyn, whose conduct had been consistent and honourable, felt himself injured 
 and indignant at a preference which he might suppose his rival had unworthily 
 earned. Thus under impressions of wrong and filled with jealous appiehensions, 
 for which there was much apparent and real cause, the Red Comyn might be 
 presumed willing, upon any inviting occasion, to treat Bruce as an enemy whom, 
 by every means in his power, it was his interest to circumvent or destroy. 
 
 The league into which Bruce had entered with Lamberton, and perha] other 
 transactions of a similar nature, were not so secretly managed, but that suspi- 
 cions were awakened ; and this is said to have led to an important conference 
 between these rivals on the subject of their mutual pretensions. At this meeting, 
 Bruce, after describing in strong terms the miserable effects of the enmity which 
 had so long subsisted between their different families, by which they themselves 
 were not only deprived of station, but their country of freedom, proposed, as the 
 best means, both of averting future calamity and for restoring their own privi- 
 leges and the people's rights, that they should henceforward enter into a good 
 understanding and bond of amity with each other. " Support my title to the 
 crown," he is represented to have said, "and I will give you my lands; or, 
 give me your lands and I will support your claim.'' Corny n agreed to wave hii
 
 350 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 right, and accept the lands ; and the conditions having been drawn up in form 
 of indenture, were sealed by both parties, and confirmed by their mutual oaths 
 of fidelity and secrecy. 
 
 Bruce shortly afterwards repaired to the English court, where he still enjoyed 
 the confidence and favour of the king ; and whilst there, Ccmyn, from what 
 motive is unknown, but probably from the design of ruining a rival whom he 
 secretly feared and detested, revealed his knowledge of the conspiracy to Edward. 
 The king, upon receiving this information, thought fit to dissemble his belief in 
 its veracity, with a view, it is conjectured, of drawing within his power the bro- 
 thers of Bruce, previously to striking the important blow which he meditated. 
 With a shrewdness and decision, however, peculiar to his character, he frankly 
 questioned Bruce upon the truth of Comyn's accusation, adducing, at the same 
 time the letters and documents which he had received as evidences of the fact. 
 The Earl, much as he might feel staggered at the sudden disclosure of Comyn's 
 treachery, or alarmed at the imminent peril of his situation, had recollection 
 enough remaining to penetrate the immediate object of the king in this insidious 
 scrutiny, and presence of mind to baffle the sagacity by which it was sug- 
 gested. Though taken so completely by surprise, he betrayed no oatward signs 
 of guilt or confusion ; and succeeded by his mild and judicious answers in re- 
 establishing to all appearance the confidence of the crafty monarch ; who had. 
 indeed, his reasons for this seeming reliance, but who all along was of too sus- 
 picious a nature to be so easily convinced. He had in fact determined upon the 
 Earl's ruin ; and, having one evening drank freely, was indiscreet enough to 
 disclose his intentions in presence of some of the nobles of his court. The Earl 
 of Gloucester, a kinsman of Bruce, chanced either to be present, or to have 
 early notice of his friend's danger, and, anxious to save him, yet not daring, in 
 so serious a matter, too rashly to compromise his own safety, sent to him a pair 
 of gilded spurs and a few pieces of money, as if he had borrowed them from him 
 the day before. Danger is said to be an acute interpreter ; and Bruce divined 
 correctly that the counsel thus symbolically communicated warned him to instant 
 flight Taking his measures, therefore, with much privacy, and accompanied 
 by his secretary and one groom, he set out for Scotland. On approaching the 
 western marches the small party encountered a messenger on foot, whose deport- 
 ment struck them as suspicious. He was searched ; and proved to be an emis- 
 sary sent by Comyn with letters to the King of England. The man was killed 
 upon the spot ; and Bruce, now possessed of substantial proofs of the perfuly of 
 his rival, pressed forward to his castle of Lochmaben, which he is reported to 
 have reached on the fifth day after his precipitate flight from London. 
 
 These events occurred in the month of February, 1306 ; at which time, accord- 
 ing to a regulation of the new government, certain English judges were holding 
 their courts at Dumfries. Thither Bruce immediately repaired, and finding 
 Comyn in the town, as he had expected, requested a private interview with him, 
 which was accorded ; but, either from some inward misgiving on the one side, 
 or a desire to impress assurance of safety on the other, the meeting took place 
 near the high altar in the convent of the Minorite Friars. Bruce is said to have 
 here passionately reproached Comyn for his treachery, to which the other 
 answered by flatly giving him the lie. The words Mere scarcely uttered, when 
 the Earl, giving a loose to the ungovernable fury which he had hitherto restrain- 
 ed, drew his dagger and stabbed, but not mortally, his unguarded opponent. 
 Instantly hastening from the church, he called eagerly to his attendants for his 
 horse. Lindsay and Kirkpatrick, by whom he had been accompanied, seeing 
 him pale and agitated, anxiously inquired the cause. " I doubt I have slain 
 Comyn," replied the Earl. " You doubt?" cried Kirkpatrick fiercely, ' L'sc
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 351 
 
 mak sicker ; and rushing into the sanctuary, he found Comyn still alive, but 
 helpless and bleeding upon the steps of the high altar. The dying victim was 
 ruthlessly dispatched on the sacred spot where he lay; and, almost at the same 
 moment, Sir Robert Comyn, the uncle, entering the convent upon the noise and 
 alarm of the scuffle, shared in a similar fate. The tumult had now become 
 general throughout the town ; and the judges who held their court in a hall of 
 the castle, not knowing what to fear, but believing their lives to be in immediate 
 danger, hastily barricadoed the doors. Bruce, assembling his followers, sur- 
 rounded the castle, and threatening to force an entrance with fire, obliged those 
 within to surrender, and permitted them to depart in safety from Scotland. 
 
 That this fatal event fell out in the heat and reckless passion of the moment, 
 there can be no doubt Goaded as he had been to desperation by the ruin 
 which he knew to be impending over him, and even insulted personally by the 
 individual who had placed him in such jeopardy, Bruce dared hardly, in that 
 age of superstitious observance, to have committed so foul an act of sacrilegious 
 murder. In the imperfectly arranged state of his designs, without concert among 
 his friends, or preparation for defence, the assassination of the first noble in the 
 land, even without the aggravations which in this instance particularized the 
 deed, could not but have threatened the fortune of his cause with a brief and 
 fatal issue. He knew, himself, that the die of his future life uas now cast ; and 
 that the only alternative left, upon which he had to make election, was to be a 
 fugitive or a kin*. Without hesitation, he at once determined to assert his claim 
 
 o o 
 
 to the Scottish crown. 
 
 When Bruce, thus inevitably pressed by circumstances, adopted tht only 
 course by which there remained a chance of future extrication and honour, he 
 had not a single fortress at his command besides those two patrimonial ones of 
 Lochmaben and Kildrummy ; the latter situated in Aberdeenshire, at too great 
 a distance from the scene of action to prove of service. He had prepared no 
 system of offensive warfare ; nor did it seem that, in the beginning, he should 
 be even able to maintain himself on the defensive, with any hope of success. 
 Three earls only, those of Lenox, Errol, and Athole, joined his standard ; Ran- 
 dolph, the nephew of Bruce, who afterwards became the renowned Earl of Moray, 
 Christopher of Seaton,his brother-in-law; Sir James Douglas, whose fate became 
 afterwards so interestingly associated with that of his master, and about ten 
 other barons then of little note, but who were destined to lay the foundations of 
 some of the most honourable families in the kingdom, constituted, with the bro- 
 thers of the royal adventurer, the almost sole power against which such fearful 
 odds were presently to be directed the revenge of the widely connected and 
 powerful house of Comyn, the overwhelming force of England, and the fulmina- 
 tions of the church. Without other resource than what lay in his own undaunted 
 resolution, and in the untried fidelity and courage of his little band, Bruc 
 ascended the throne of his ancestors, at Scone, on the 27th day of March, I. 
 
 The ceremony of the coronation was performed with what state the exigency 
 and disorder of the moment permitted. The Bishop of Glasgow supplied 
 his own wardrobe the robes in which Robert was arrayed on the occasion ; 
 a slight coronet of gold was made to serve in absence of the hereditary ci 
 which, along with the other symbols of royalty, had been carried off by E 
 into England. A banner, wrought with the arms of Baliol, was dehvere 
 the Bishop of Glasgow to the new king, beneath which he received 
 of the earls and knights by whom he was attended. The earls ot Hie, from a 
 remote antiquity, had possessed the privilege of crowning the kings i of . 
 but at this time, Duncan, the representative of that family, favoured the Englu 
 interest. His sister, however, the Countess of Buchan, ilh a boldness and
 
 052 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 spirit characteristic of the days of chivalry, secretly withdrawing from her hus- 
 band, repaired to Scone, and asserted the pretensions of her ancestors. It is 
 not unlikely that this circumstance added to the popular interest felt for the 
 young sovereign. The crown was a second time placed on the head of Bruce 
 by the hands of the Countess ; who was afterwards doomed to suiter, through a 
 long series of insult and oppression, for the adventurous and patriotic act which 
 has preserved her name to posterity. 
 
 Edward resided with his court at Winchester when the intelligence of the mur- 
 der of Corny n, and the revolt of Bruce reached his ears. That monarch, whose 
 long career of successful conquest was once again to be broken and endangered, 
 had reached that period of life when pence and tranquillity even to the most 
 indomitable spirits become not only desirable but coveted blessings. The great 
 natural strength of his constitution had, besides, ill withstood the demands which 
 long arduous military service, and the violent excitations of ambition had made 
 upon it He was become of unwieldy bulk, and so infirm in his limbs as to be 
 unable to mount on horseback, or walk without difficulty. Yet the spirit which 
 had so strongly actuated the victor on former occasions did not desert the king 
 on the present emergency. He immediately despatched a message to the Pope, 
 demanding in aid of his own temporal efforts, the assistant thunder of the holy 
 see, a requisition which Clement V., who had formerly been the subject of Ed- 
 ward, readily complied with. The sentence of excommunication was denounc' d 
 against Bruce and all his adherents, and their possessions placed under the 
 dreaded ban of interdiction. The garrison towns of Berwick and Carlisle were 
 strengthened ; and the Earl of Pembroke, who was appointed guardian, was 
 ordered to proceed against the rebels in Scotland, at the head of a small army, 
 hastily collected, for the occasion. 
 
 Those were but preparatory measures. Upon Edward's arrival in London, he 
 conferred knighthood upon his son the Prince of Wales, and nearly three hun- 
 dred other persons, consisting, principally, of young men selected from families 
 of rank throughout the kingdom ; and conducted the ceremony with a pomp and 
 magnificence well calculated to rouse the martial ardour and enterprise of his 
 subjects. At a splendid banquet to which his nobility and the new made knights 
 were invited, the aged king is recorded to have made a solemn vow to the God 
 of heaven, that he would execute severe vengeance upon Bruce for the daring 
 outrage which he had committed against God and his church ; declaring, that when 
 he had performed this duty, he would never more unsheath his sword against a 
 Christian enemy ; but should devote the remainder of his days to waging war 
 against the Saracens for the recovery of the Holy Land, thence never to return 
 from that sanctified warfare. Addressing his son, he made him promise, that, 
 should he die before the accomplishment of his revenge, he should carry bit body 
 with the army, and not commit it to the earth, until a complete victory over his 
 enemies should be obtained. 
 
 Pembroke, the English guardian, took early possession of the trust which had 
 been confided to him ; and marching his small army upon Perth, a walled and 
 strongly fortified town, he there established his head-quarters. Bruce, during 
 the short interval which had elapsed since his coronation, had not been altogether 
 unsuccessful in recruiting the numbers and establishing order among his band of 
 followers; nor did he think it prudent to delay engaging this portion of the 
 English forces, greatly superior as they were, in every respect, to his o\\n, 
 prompted perhaps by the desire of striking an early and effectual blow, by which 
 he might give credit and confirmation to his cause before the important succours 
 expected by the enemy should arrive. On drawing near Perth, he sent a chal- 
 lenge, according to the chivalrous practice of the age, defying the English com-
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 353 
 
 inander to battle in the open field Pembroke returned for answer, that the 
 day was too far spent, but that he would be ready to join battle on the morrow. 
 Satisfied with this acceptance, Robert drew off his army to the neighbouring 
 wood of Methven, where he encamped for the night; parties were dispersed in 
 search of provisions, and the others, throwing aside their armour, employed 
 themselves in making the necessary arrangements for comfort and repose. By 
 a very culpable neglect, or a most unwarrantable reliance on the promise of the 
 English Earl, the customary watches against surprise were either altogether 
 omitted, or very insufficiently attended to. Pembroke having, by his scouts, 
 intelligence of this particular, and of the negligent posture of the Scottish troops, 
 drew out his forces from Perth, towards the close of day ; and gaining the un- 
 guarded encampment without observation, succeeded in throwing the whole 
 body into complete and irremediable confusion. The Scots made but a feeble 
 and unavailing resistance, and were soon routed and dispersed in every direc- 
 tion. Philip de Mowbray is said to have unhorsed the king, whom he seized, 
 calling aloud that he had got the new made king ; when Robert was gallantly 
 rescued from his perilous situation by Chrystal de Seton his body esquire. Ano- 
 ther account affirms that Robert was thrice unhorsed in the conflict, and thrice 
 remounted by Simon Frazer. So desperate, indeed, were the personal risks 
 which the King encountered on that disastrous night in the fruitless efforts which 
 he made to rally his dismayed and discomfited followers, that, for a time, being 
 totally unsupported, he was made prisoner by John de Haliburton, a Scotsman 
 in the English army, but who set him at liberty on discovering who he was. 
 
 To have sustained even a slight defeat at the present juncture would have 
 proved of incalculable injury to Bruce's cause : the miserable overthrow at Meth- 
 ven, seemed to have terminated it for ever ; and to have left little else for 
 Edward to do, unless to satisfy at his leisure the vindictive retribution which he 
 had so solemnly hound himself to execute. Several of Robert's truest and bravest 
 friends were made prisoners ; among whom were Haye, Barclay, Frazer, Inch- 
 martin, Sommerville, and Randolph. With about five hundred men, all that he 
 was able to muster from the broken and dispirited remains of his army, Bruce 
 penetrated into the mountainous country of Athole. In this small, but attached 
 band, he still numbered the Earls of Athole and Errol, Sir James Douglas, Sir 
 Neil Campbell, and his own brave brothers, Edward and Nigel. 
 
 Bruce and his small party, reduced indifferently to the condition of proscribed 
 and hunted outlaws, endured the extremity of hardships among the wild and bar- 
 ren fastnesses to which they had retreated for shelter. The season of the year, 
 it being then the middle of summer, rendered such a life, for a time, possible ; 
 but as the weather became less favourable, and their wants increased in propor- 
 tion, they were constrained to descend into the low country of Aberdeenshire. 
 Here Robert met with his queen and many other ladies who had fled thither for 
 safety ; and who, with an affectionate fortitude resolved, in the company of their 
 fathers and husbands, to brave the same evils with which they found them encom- 
 passed. The respite which the royal party here enjoyed was of brief duration. 
 Learning that a superior body of English was advancing upon them, they were 
 forced to leave the low country and take refuge in the mountainous district of 
 Breadalbane. To these savage and unhospitable retreats they were accompanied 
 by the queen and the other ladies related to the party and to their broken for- 
 tunes by ties, it would seem, equally strong ; and again had the royalists to sus- 
 tain, under yet more distressing circumstances, the rigorous severity of their lot. 
 Hunting and fishing were the precarious, though almost the only means, which 
 they had of sustaining life ; and the good Sir James Douglas is particularly 
 noticed by the minute Barbour for his success in these pursuits ; and the devoted
 
 354 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 ieal which he manifested in procuring every possible alleviation and comfort for 
 his forlorn and helpless companions. 
 
 While the royalists thus avoided the immediate peril which had threaleni'd 
 them from one quarter, hy abiding in those natural strong-holds which th.-ir 
 enemy could not force, they almost inevitably came in contact witli another dan- 
 ger no less imminent They fell upon Charybdis seeking to avoid Scylia. The 
 Lord of Lorn, upon the borders of whose territories they lay, was nearly con- 
 nected by marriage with the family of the murdered Comyn : and, as might be 
 expected, entertained an implacable hatred towards the person and the cause of 
 the Scottish king. Having early intelligence of the vicinity, numbers, and necessi- 
 ties of the fugitive royalists, this powerful baron collected together a body of 
 nearly a thousand of his maraal dependants, men well acquainted with the advan- 
 tages and difficulties of such a country, and besetting the passes, obliged tl:e 
 king to come to battle in a narrow deh'le where the horse of the party could 
 possibly prove of no service, but were indeed an inctimbrance. Considerable 
 loss was sustained on the king's side in the action ; and Sir James Douglas and 
 de la Haye were both wounded. The king dreading the total destruction of 
 his followers, ordered a retreat; and himself boldly taking post in the rear, by 
 desperate courage, strength, and activity, succeeded in checking the fury of the 
 pursuers, and in extricating his party. The place of this memorable contest is 
 still pointed out, and remembered by the name of Dairy, or the king's field. 
 
 The almost incredible displays of personal prowess and address which Robert 
 made on this occasion, are reported to have drawn forth the admiration even of his 
 deadly enemies. In one of those repeated assaults which he was obliged to 
 make in order to repress the impetuous pursuit of the assailants, he was beset, 
 all at once, by three armed antagonists. This occurred in a pass, formed by a 
 loch on the one side, and a precipitous bank on the other, and so narrow as 
 scarcely to allow of two horses riding a-breast. One seized the king's horse by 
 the bridle ; but by a blow, which severed his arm in two, was almost instantly dis- 
 abled. Another got hold of the rider's foot within the slirrtip iron wilh the 
 purpose of unhorsing him ; but the king standing up in the stirrup, and urginir 
 his steed forward, dragged the unfortunate assailant to the ground. The thiid 
 person leaped up behind him in hope of pinioning his arms and making him 
 prisoner, or of despatching him with his dagger ; but turning round, and exert- 
 ing his utmost strength, Robert forced him forwards upon the horse's neck an<l 
 slew him; after which he killed the helpless wretch who still dragged at his side. 
 Barbour, the ancient authority by whom this deed of desperate valour is recorded, 
 has contrived, whether intentionally or not, to throw an air of probability over 
 it. The laird of Macnaughtou, a follower of the lord of Lorn, we are told, was 
 bold enough, in the presence of his chief, to express a generous admiration of 
 the conduct of the heroic king. Ueing upbraided for a liberality which seemed 
 to imply a want of consideration for the lives and honour of his own men, he 
 replied by nobly observing, "that he who won the prize of chivalry, whether 
 friend or foe, deserved to be spoken of with respect." 
 
 The danger which the royalist party had thus for the time escaped, the n;;nr 
 approach of winter, during which, in so sterile a country, the means of support 
 could not he procured, and the almost certain destruction which they v.ould en- 
 counter should they descend into the level country, induced the king to give up 
 all thoughts of keeping the field longer in the face of so many pressing and 
 manifest perils and difficulties. The queen and the ladies who accompanied her, 
 were put under the escort of the remaining cavalry ; and the charge of conduct- 
 ing them safely to the strong castle of Kildrummie, committed to Nigel, the king's 
 second brother, and the er.rl of Athole. The parting was sorrowful on both
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 355 
 
 sides ; and Robert here took the last leave of his brother Nigel, who not long 
 after fell among many others, a victim to the inexorable vengeance of Edward. 
 
 Robert now resolved, with the few followers whom he still retained, amounting 
 to about two hundred men, to foice a passage into Cantire; that thence he 
 might cross over into the north of Ireland, probably with the hope of receiving 
 assistance from the earl of Ulster, or, at all events, of eluding for a season the 
 hot pursuit of his enemies. At the banks of Lochlomond the progress of the 
 party was interrupted. They dared not to travel round the lower end of the 
 lake, lest they should encounter the forces of Argyle; and until they should 
 reach the friendly country of the earl of Lennox, they could not, for a moment, 
 consider themselves safe from the enemies who hung upon their rear. Douo-las, 
 after a long search for some means of conveyanca, was fortunate enough to dis- 
 cover a small boat capable of carrying three persons, but so leaky and decayed, 
 that there would be much danger in trusting to it. In this, which was their only 
 resource, the king and Sir James were ferried over the lake. Some a(x;om- 
 plished the passage by swimming ; and the little boat went and returned until 
 all the others were at length safely transported. The royalists, forlorn as their 
 circumstances were, here felt themselves relieved from the harassing disquietudes 
 which had attended their late precipitate nwches ; and the king, while they 
 were refreshing themselves, is said to have recited for their entertainment the 
 story of the siege of Egrymor, from the romance of Ferembras : thus with a 
 consciousness of genuine greatness, which could afford the sacrifice, was Robert 
 cheerfully contented to resign the privilege which even superior calamity itself 
 bestowed upon him ; and divert his own sympathies, in common with those of 
 his humblest followers, into other and more pleasing channels. 
 
 It was here, while traversing the woods in search of food, that the king acci- 
 dentally fell in with the earl of Lennox, ignorant till then of the fate of his so- 
 vereign, of whom he had received no intelligence since the defeat at Methven. 
 The meeting is said to have affected both, even to tears. By the earl's exertions 
 the royal party were amply supplied with provisions, and were shortly after en- 
 abled to reach in safety the castle of Dunaverty in Cantire, where they wen 
 hospitably received by Angus of Isla. Bruce remained no longer in this plnce 
 than was necessary to recruit the strength and spirits of his companions. Sir 
 Niel Campbell having provided a number of small vessels, the fugitive and now 
 self-exiled king, accompanied by a few of his most faithful followers, passed over 
 to the small island of Rachrin, on the north coast of Ireland, where they re- 
 mained during the ensuing winter. 
 
 A miserable destiny awaited the friends and partisans whom Bruce had left in 
 Scotland. Immediately after the rout at Methven, Edward issued a proclamation 
 by which search was commanded to be made after all those who had been in arms 
 against the English government, and they were ordered to be delivered up dead 
 or alive. It was ordained, that all who were at the slaughter of Comyn, or who 
 had harboured the guilty persons or their accomplices, should be drawn and 
 hanged: that all who were already taken, or might hereafter be taken in arms, 
 and all who harboured them, should be hanged or beheaded ; that those who had 
 voluntarily surrendered themselves, should be imprisoned during the king's plea- 
 sure : and that all persons, whether of the ecclesiastical order or laymen, who 
 had willingly espoused the cause of Bruce, or who had procured or exhorted the 
 people of Scotland to rise in rebellion, should, upon conviction, be imprisoned 
 during the king's pleasure. With regard to the common people, a discretionary 
 power of fining and ransoming them, was committed to the guardian. 
 
 This ordinance was inforced with a rigour corresponding to the spirit in which 
 it was framed ; and the dread of Edward's vengeance became general through-
 
 356 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 out the kingdom. The castle of Kildrummie being threatened by the English 
 forces in the north, Elizabeth, Brace's queen, and Marjory his daughter, with 
 the other ladies who had there taken refuge, to escape the hardships and dan- 
 gers of a siege, fled to the sanctuary of St Duthac at Tain in Ross-shire. The 
 earl of Ross violated the sanctuary, and making them prisoners, sent them into Eng- 
 land. Certain knights and squires by whom they had been escorted, being taken 
 at the same time, were put to death. The queen and her daughter, though 
 doomed to experience a long captivity, appear to have been invariably treated 
 with becoming respect. Isabella, countess of Buchan, who had signalized her 
 patriotism on the occasion of Robert's coronation, had a fate somewhat different. 
 Feeling repugnant to the infliction of a capital punishment, the English king 
 had recourse to an ingenious expedient by which to satisfy his royal vengeance 
 upon this unfortunate lady. By a particular ordinance she was ordered to be 
 confined in a cage to be constructed in one of the towel's of Berwick castle ; the 
 cage bearing in shape the resemblance of a crown ; and the countess was actually 
 kept in this miserable durance, with little relaxation of its severity, for the re- 
 mainder of her life. Mary, one of Brink's sisters, was committed to a similar 
 custody in one of the towers of Roxburgh castle ; and Christina another sister 
 was confined in a convent. 
 
 Lamberton, bishop of St Andrews, and Wisheart bishop of Glasgow, and the 
 abbot of Scone, who had openly assisted and favoured Robert's cause, owed their 
 lives solely to the inviolability of clerical character in those days. Lamberton 
 and the abbot of Scone were committed to close custody in England. Wisheart 
 having been seized in armour, was, in that uncunonical garb, carried a prisoner 
 to the castle of Nottingham, where he is said to have been confined in irons. 
 Edward earnestly solicited the pope to have these rebellious ecclesiastics de- 
 posed a request with which his holiness does not seem to have complied. 
 
 The castle of Kildrummie was besieged by the earls of Lancaster and Here- 
 ford. Being a place of considerable strength, it might have defied the English 
 army for a length of time ; had not the treachery of one of the garrison, who set 
 fire to the magazine of grain and provisions, constrained it to surrender at dis- 
 cretion. Nigel Bruce, by whom the castle had been defended, was carried pri- 
 soner to Berwick ; where, being tried by a special commission, he was con- 
 demned, hanged, and afterwards beheaded. This miserable fate of the king's 
 brother, excited a deep and universal detestation among the Scots towards the 
 unrelenting cruelty of Edward. Christopher Seton, the brother-in-law of Bruce, 
 and Alexander Seton, suffered under a similar sentence, the one at Dumfries, 
 and the other at Newcastle. The earl of Athole, in attempting to make his es- 
 cape by sea, was discovered and conducted to London ; where he underwent the 
 complicated punishment then commonly inflicted on traitors, being hanged till 
 only half dead, beheaded, disemboweled, " and the trunk of his body burnt to 
 ashes before his own face." He wan not drawn, that point of punishment being 
 remitted. Edward, we are told, although then grievously sick, endured the pains 
 of his disease with greater patience, after hearing of the capture of the earl of 
 Athole. Simon Frazer of Olivar Castle, the friend and companion in arms of 
 Wallace, being also taken at this time, suffered capitally at London ; his head 
 being placed on the point of a lance, was set near to that of his old friend and 
 leader. .Along with this brave man, was likewise executed Herbert de Norliam. 
 Among so many persons of note, others of inferior distinction did not escape ; 
 and Edward might, indeed, be said by his tyranny, to have even now effected 
 that critical though unperceived change in popular feeling, which, only requiring 
 commencement of action and a proper direction, would be, in its progressive energy, 
 equal to the destruction of all his past schemes, and of all his future projects and
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 357 
 
 hopes. At all events, the effect of his extreme justice in avenging the death of 
 Corny n, was of that kind, where, by the infliction of an unnecessary or dispro- 
 portionately cruel punishment, detestation of the crime is lost sight of, in a just 
 and natural commiseration for the criminal. That Edward's was but an assumed 
 passion for justice, under which was cloaked a selfish and despotic vengeance, 
 rendered it the more odious ; and tended to abate the rancour of those who, on 
 more allowable grounds, desired the ruin of the Scottish king. 
 
 To complete the measure of Robert's misfortunes, he and all his adherents 
 were solemnly excommunicated by the pope's legate at Carlisle. The lordship 
 of Ann and ale was bestowed on the earl of Hereford ; the earldom of Carrick 
 on Henry de Percy ; and his English estates were disposed of in like manner. 
 During this period Bruce, fortunately, out of the reach and knowledge of his 
 enemies in the solitary island of Rachrin, remained ignorant of the fate of his 
 family and friends in Scotland. Fordun relates that, in derision of his hopeless 
 and unknown condition, a sort of ribald proclamation was made after him 
 through the churches of Scotland, as lost, stolen, or strayed. 
 
 The approach of spring, and a seasonable supply, it is said, of money which 
 he received from Christina of the Isles, again roused the activity of Kobert and 
 his trusty followers. Sir James Douglas, with the permission of his master, first 
 passed over to Arran ; where, shortly after his landing, he and the few men with 
 him, surprised a party belonging to Brodick castle, in act of conveying provi- 
 sions, arms, and clothing to that garrison, and succeeded in making seizure of the 
 cargo. Here he was in a few days joined by the king, who arrived from Rach- 
 rin with a small fleet of thirty-three galleys. Having no intelligence respecting 
 the situation or movements of the enemy, a trusty person named Cuthbert was 
 despatched by the king to the opposite shore of Carrick, with instructions to 
 sound the dispositions of the people ; and, if the occasion seemed favourable for 
 a descent among them, to make a signal, at a day appointed, by lighting a fire 
 upon an eminence near the castle of Tumberry. The country, as the messenger 
 found, was fully possessed by the English ; the castle of Turnberry in the hands 
 of Percy, and occupied by a garrison of near three hundred men ; and the old 
 vassals of Bruce dispirited or indifferent, and many of them hostile. Appear- 
 ances seemed, altogether, so unfavourable, that Cuthbert, without making himself 
 known to any person, resolved to return to the king without making the signal 
 agreed upon. 
 
 From the dawn of the day on which he was to expect the appointed signal, 
 Robert watched anxiously the opposite coast of Carrick, at the point from winch 
 it should become visible. He was not disappointed, for when noon had already 
 passed, a fire was plainly discerned on the rising ground above Turnberry. 
 sured that this could be no other than the conceited signal of good tidings the 
 king gave orders for the instant embarkation of his men, who amounted to abc 
 three hundred in number. It is reported that, while the king was walki 
 the beach, during the preparations making for putting to sea, the worn 
 whose house he had lodged requested an audience of him. Preten 
 knowledge of future events, she confidently predicted that he shouJ 
 king of Scotland ; but that he must expect to encounter many d.fl 
 dangers in the course of the war. As a proof of her own conhden, 
 truth of her prediction, she sent her two sons along with him. 
 incident was concerted by the king himself, or was simply an effe 
 singular delusion, the second sight, said to be inherent among the 
 of little consequence. Either way, it could not fail of impressing on the , 
 and superstitious minds to which it was addressed, a present reliance upon I 
 leader, and a useful confidence in the ultimate success ot Ins arras.
 
 358 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 Towards evening the king ami his associates put to sea ; and when night 
 closed upon them, they were enabled to direct their course across the firth by the 
 light of the beacon, which still continued to burn on the heights of Turnberry. 
 On landing they were met by the messenger, Cuthbert, with the unwelcome in- 
 telligence, that there was no hope of assistance from the people of Carrick. 
 " Traitor," cried Bruce, " why made you then the fire?" " 1 made no signal," 
 replied the man, " but observing a fire upon the hill, 1 feared that it might de- 
 ceive you, and I hasted hither to warn you from the coast.'' In the perilous 
 dilemma in which he found himself placed, Bruce hesitated upon what course he 
 should adopt ; but, urged by the more precipitate spirit of his brother Edward, 
 and yielding at length to the dictates of his own more considerate valour, he re- 
 solved to persevere in the enterprise which, under such desperate and unexpected 
 circumstances, had opened upon him. 
 
 The greater part of the English troops tinder Percy were carelessly cantoned 
 in the town, situated at some little distance from the castle of Turnberry. Before 
 morning their quarters were taken by surprise, and nearly the whole body, 
 amounting to about two hundred men, put to the sword. Percy and his garrison 
 heard from the castle the uproar and tumult of the night attack ; but ignorai i 
 alike of the enemy and their numbers, and fearing a similar fate, they dared not 
 attempt the rescue of their unfortunate companions. Bruce made pri/e <;f a ricii 
 booty, amongst which were his own war-horses and household plate. When the 
 news of this bold and successful enterprise became known, a detachment of abo-.e 
 a thousand men, under the command of Roger St John, were despatched from 
 Ayr to the relief of Turnberry ; and Robert, unable to oppose such a force, and 
 expecting to be speedily joined by succours from Ireland, thought proper to re- 
 tire into the mountainous parts of Carrick. 
 
 The king's brothers, Thomas and Alexander, had been, previously to Robert's 
 departure from Rachrin, sent over into Ireland and the adjacent isles to procure 
 assistance. They succeeded in collecting a force of about seven hundred men, 
 with whom they endeavoured to effect a landing at Loch Ryan in Galloway, in- 
 tending from thence to march into the neighbouring district of Carrick, and 
 join themselves to the king's standard. They fatally miscarried, in the accom- 
 plishment of this object ; Macdowal, a powerful chieftain of Galloway, havin 
 hastily collected his vassals, attacked the invading party before they had time to 
 form, routed, and put many of them to the sword. The two brothers of the king 
 and Sir Reginald Crawford, all of them wounded, were made prisoners ; and 
 Malcolm Mackail, lord of Kentir, and two Irish reguli or chieftains were slain. 
 Macdowal cut of}' the heads of the principal persons who had fallen ; and along 
 with these bloody tokens of his triumph, presented his prisoners to king E<U 
 ward, then residing at Carlisle. The two brothers and their associate, supposed 
 by some to have been a near relation of Wallace, were ordered to immediate 
 execution. 
 
 This disaster, ctfupled as it was with the insured enmity of the Gallovidians. 
 and the near approach of the English, rendered for a time the cause of Bruce 
 entirely hopeless, and even subjected his individual safety to the extremes! haz- 
 ards. His partizans either fell off or were allowed to disperse themselves for 
 safety; while he himself often wandered alone or but slightly accompanied, 
 among woods and morasses, relying for defence or security, sometimes on his 
 own great personal prowess, or his intimate knowledge of that wild district, in 
 which he had been brought up, or on the fidelity of some old attached vassal of 
 his family. Almost all tiie incidents relating to Bruce, at this period of his for- 
 tunes, partake strongly of the romantic ; and were it not that the authority froir 
 which they are derived, has been found to be generally correct in its other par.
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 35 ( J 
 
 ticulars, so far as these could be substanti.'.ted, some of them might well be 
 deemed fabulous, or grossly exaggerated. The perilous circumstances in which 
 the deserted and outlawed sovereign was placed, and his undaunted and perse- 
 vering courage which none ever called in question, furnished of themselves ampte 
 scope for the realization of marvellous adventure ; and which, because marvellous 
 or exaggerated, ought not, on that account, to be altogether, or too hastily re- 
 jected. It may have been no easy task for even the contemporary historian, in 
 that rude age, to discover the amplifications and falsities of popular statement ; 
 and, there can be no doubt, that in transmitting these statements simply, as he 
 found them, he left the truth of more easy attainment to posterity, than would 
 have been the case had he exercised his own critical skill in reducing them to a 
 standard of probability and consistency. One of those adventures, said to have 
 befallen the king at this time, is so extraordinary that we cannot omit taking 
 notice of it. 
 
 While Robert was wandering among the fastnesses of Garrick, as has been de- 
 scribed, after the defeat of his Irish auxiliaries at Lochryan, the numbers of his 
 small army so reduced as not to amount to sixty men ; the Gallovidians chanced 
 to gain such intelligence of his situation, as induced them to attempt the sur- 
 prisul, and, if possible, the destruction of the party. They raised, for this pur- 
 pose, with great secrecy a body of more than two hundred men, and provided 
 themselves with bloodhounds to track the fugitives through the forests and mo- 
 rasses. Notwithstanding the privacy of their arrangements, Bruce had notice of 
 his danger ; but knew not at what time to expect the attack of the enemy. To- 
 wards night, he withdrew his men to a position protected by a morass on the one 
 side, and by a rivulet on the other, which had only one narrow ford, over which 
 the enemy must needs pass. Here leaving his followers to their rest, the king, 
 accompanied by two attendants returned to the ford in order to satisfy himself, 
 that his retreat had not been discovered by the enemy, whom he knew to be at 
 no great distance. After listening at this place for some time, he could at 
 length distinguish, in the stillness which surrounded him, the distant sound of a 
 hound's questing, or that eager yell which the animal is known to make when 
 urged on in the pursuit of its prey. Unwilling for this cause alone, to disturb 
 the repose ol his fatigued followers, Robert determined, as it was a clear moon- 
 light night, and the post he occupied favourable for observation, to ascertain 
 more exactly the reality of the danger. He soon heard the voices of men urg- 
 ing the hound forward, and no longer doubtful but that his enemies had fallen 
 upon the track, and would speedily be upon him, he dispatched his two attend- 
 ants to warn his men of the danger. The blood-hounds, true to their instinct, 
 led the body of Gallovidians directly to the ford where the king stood, who then 
 hastily bethought himself of the imminent danger there was of the enemy gaining 
 possession of this post before his men could possibly come to iu defence. 
 Should this happen, the destruction of himself and his whole party was nearly 
 inevitable. So circumstanced, Robert boldly determined, till succour should ar- 
 rive, to defend the passage of the ford, which was the more possible, as, from its 
 narrowness, only one assailant could pass over at a time. The Galloway men 
 coming in a body to the spot, and seeing only a solitary individual posted on the 
 opposite side to dispute their way, the foremost of their number rode boldly into 
 the water ; but in attempting to gain the other bank of the stream, Bruce with 
 a thrust of his spear laid him dead on the spot. The same fate awaited four of 
 his companions, whose bodies became a sort of rampart of defence against the 
 others; who, dismayed at so unexpected and fatal a reception, fell back for ; 
 moment in some confusion. Instantly ashamed that so many should be baffled 
 by the individual prowess of one man, they returned furiously to the attack ; but
 
 300 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 were so valiantly met and opposed by the king, that the post was still main- 
 tained, when the loud shout of Robert's followers advancing to his rescue, warned 
 the (iallovidians to retire, after sustaining in this unexampled combat the loss of 
 fourteen of their men. The danger to which the king had been exposed on this 
 occasion, and the great daring and bravery which he had manifested, sensibly 
 roused the spirits of his party, who now began, with increasing confidence 
 and numbers, to flock to his standard. Douglas, who had been successfully em- 
 ployed against the English in his own district of Douglas-dale, als > about this 
 time, joined the king with what followers he had been able to muster among the 
 vassals of his family. 
 
 Pembroke, the guardian, at the head of a considerable body of men, no 
 took the field against Robert ; and w;is joined by John of Lorn, with a body of 
 eight hundred Highlanders, men well calculated for that irregular species of 
 warfare to which Bruce was necessitated to have recourse. Lorn is said to have 
 had along with him a blood-hound which had once belonged to the king, and 
 which was so strongly attached to its old master, and familiar with his scent, that 
 if once it got upon his track it would never part from it for any other. These 
 two armies advanced separately, Pembroke carefully keeping to the low and 
 open country, where his cavalry could act with e:Fect; while Lorn, by a circuit- 
 ous rout, endeavoured to gain the rear of the king's party. The Highland 
 chieftain so well succeeded in this manoeuvre, that before Robert, whose atten- 
 tion had been wholly occupied by the forces under Pembroke, was aware of his 
 danger, he found himself environed by two hostile bodies of troops, either of 
 which was greatly superior to his own. In this emergency, the king, having 
 appointed a place of rendezvous, divided his men into three companies, and 
 ordered them to retreat as they best might, by different routes, that thus, by dis- 
 tracting the attention of the enemy, they might have the better chance of escape. 
 
 Lorn arriving at the place where the Scottish army had separated, set loose 
 the blood-hound, which, falling upon the king's scent, led the pursuers imme- 
 diately on the track which he had taken. The king finding himself pursued, 
 again subdivided his remaining party into three, but without effect, for the 
 hound still kept true to the track of its former master. The case now appearing 
 desperate, Robert ordered the remainder of his followers to disperse themselves; 
 and, accompanied by only one person, said to have been his foster-brother, 
 endeavoured by this last means to frustrate the pursuit of the enemy. In this 
 he was of course unsuccessful ; and Lorn, who now saw the hound choose that 
 direction which only two men had taken, knew certainly that one of these must 
 be the king ; and despatched five of his swiftest men after them with orders 
 either to slay them, or delay their flight till others of the party came to their 
 assistance. Robert, finding these men gaining hotly upon him, faced about, 
 and, with the aid of his companion, slew them all Lorn's men were now so 
 close upon him that the king could perceive they were led on by means of a 
 blood-hound. Fortunately, he and his companion had reached the near covert 
 of a wood, situated in a valley through which ran a brook or rivulet. Taking 
 advantage of this circumstance, by which they well knew the artifice of their 
 pursuers would be defeated, Bruce and his foster-brother, before turning into 
 any of the surrounding thickets for shelter, travelled in the water of the stream 
 so far as they judged necessary to dissipate and destroy die strong scent upon 
 which the hound had proceeded. The highland chieftain, who was straightway 
 directed to the rivulet, along which the fugitives had diverged, here found that 
 the hound had lost its scent ; and aware of the difficulty and fruitlessness of a 
 further search, was reluctantly compelled to quit the chase and retire. By ano- 
 ther account, the escape of Bruce from the blood-hound is told thus : An archer
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 who had kept near to the king in his flight, having discovered that by moans of 
 the hound Robert's course had been invariably tracked, stole into a thicket and 
 from thence despatched the animal with an arrow ; after which he made his 
 escape undiscovered into the wood which the king had entered. 
 
 Bruce reached in safety the rendezvous of his party, after having narrowly 
 escaped from the treachery of three men by whom, however, his faithful coin- 
 panion and foster-brother was slain. The English, under the impression that 
 the Scottish army was totally dispersed, neglected, in a great measure the pre- 
 cautions necessary in their situation. Robert having intelligence of the state of 
 security in which they lay, succeeded in surprising a body of two hundred, care- 
 lessly cantoned at some little distance from the main army, and put the greater 
 part of them to the sword. Pembroke, shortly after, retired with his whole 
 forces, towards the borders of England, leaving spies behind him to watch the 
 motions of his subtile enemy. By means of these he was not long in gamin-* 
 such information as led him to hope the surprisal of the king and his party! 
 Approaching with great secrecy a certain wood in Glentruel, where Robert then 
 lay, he was on the point of accomplishing his purpose ; when the Scots happily 
 in time discovering their danger, rushed forth unexpectedly and furiously upon 
 their assailants and put them completely to flight Pembroke, upon this de- 
 feat, retreated with his army to Carlisle. 
 
 Robert encouraged by these successes, and by the general panic which he saw 
 to prevail among the enemy, now ventured down upon the low country ; and 
 was soon enabled to reduce the districts of Kyle, Carrick, and Cunningham to 
 his obedience. Sir Philip Mowbray having been dispatched with a thousand 
 men to make head against this rapid progress, was attacked at advantage by 
 Douglas with so much spirit that, after a loss of sixty men, his whole force was 
 routed, himself narrowly escaping in the pursuit 
 
 Pembroke, by this time alarmed for the safety and credit of his government, 
 determined again to take the field in person. Putting himself at the head of a 
 strong body of cavalry, he advanced into Ayrshire, and came up with the army 
 of Bruce then encamped on Loudon-hill. The Scottish king, though his forces 
 were still greatly inferior in number, and consisted entirely of infantry, deter- 
 mined on the spot on M'hich he had posted himself, to give battle to the English 
 commander. He had selected his ground on this occasion with great judgment, 
 and had taken care, by strongly entrenching the flanks of his position, to render 
 as ineffectual as possible the numbers and cavalry of the enemy. His force 
 amounted in all to about six hundred men who were entirely spearmen ; that 
 of Pembroke did not amount to less than three thousand well mounted and 
 armed soldiery, displaying an imposing contrast to-the small but unyielding mass 
 who stood ready to oppose them. Pembroke, dividing his army into two lines 
 or divisions, ordered the attack to be commenced; when the van, having their 
 lances couched, advanced at full gallop to the charge. The Scots sustained the 
 shock with determined firmness, and a desperate conflict ensuing, the English 
 van was at length driven fairly back upon the rear or second division. This 
 vigorous repulse decided the fortune of the day. The Scots, now the assailants, 
 followed up closely the advantage which they had gained, and the rear of the 
 English, panic-struck and disheartened, began to give way, and finally to retreat. 
 The confusion and rout soon becoming general, Pembroke's whole army was put 
 to flight; a considerable number being slain in the battle and pursuit and many 
 made prisoners. The loss on the part of the Scots is said to have been extremely 
 imall. 
 
 Three days after the battle of Loudon-hill, Bruce encountered Montherraur 
 nt the head of a body of English, whom he defeated with great slaughter, and 
 i. 2 z
 
 3G2 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 obliged to take refuge in the castle of Ayr. He, for some time, blockaded this 
 place ; but retired at the approach of succours from England. These successes, 
 though in themselves* limited, proved, in effect, of the utmost importance to Ro- 
 bert's cause, by conferring upon it that stability of character in- men's mind.- 
 which, hitherto, it had never attained. The death of Edward I., at this period 
 was another event which could not but favourably affect the fortunes of Scotland 
 at the very moment when the whole force of England was collected for its inva- 
 sion. That great monarch's resentment and hatred towards Bruce and his 
 patriotic followers did not die with him. With his last breath, he gave orders 
 that his dead body should accompany the army in its march into Scotland, and 
 remain unburied until that country was totally subdued. Edward II. disre- 
 garded this singular injunction, and had the body of his father more becomingly 
 disposed of in the royal sepulchre at Westminster. 
 
 Edward II. on his accession to the throne of England soon proved himself 
 but ill-qualified for the conduct of those great designs which his father's demise 
 had devolved upon him. Of a weak and obstinate disposition, he was incapable 
 of appreciating, far less of acting up to the dying counsels and injunctions of 
 his heroic father. His utter disregard for these was, indeed, manifested in the 
 very first act of his reign ; that of recalling his unworthy favourite Piers Gaves- 
 toff from exile, who with other minions of his own cast was from that moment to 
 take the place of all the faithful and experienced ministers of the late king, and 
 exercise a sole and unlimited sway over the weak and capricious humours oi' 
 their master. Edward by this measure laid an early foundation for the disgust 
 and alienation of his English subjects. His management in regard to Scotland 
 was equally unpropitious. After wasting much valuable time at Dumfries and 
 Roxburgh in receiving the homage of the Scottish barons; he advanced with his 
 great army as far as Cumnock in Ayrshire, from whence, without striking a blow, 
 he retreated into England, and disbanded his whole forces. A campaign so use- 
 less and inglorious, after all the mighty preparation spent upon it, could not but 
 have a happy effect upon the rising fortunes of the Scottish patriots, while it dis- 
 heartened all in Scotland who from whatever cause favoured the English interest. 
 The English king had no sooner retired, than Bruce invaded Galloway, and, 
 wherever opposed, wasted the country with fire and sword. The fate of his two 
 brothers, who hi'id here fallen into the hands of the chieftain Macdowal, most proba- 
 bly influenced the king in this act of severe retribution. The Earl of Rich- 
 mond, whom Edward had newly created guardian, was sent to oppose his pro- 
 gress, upon which Robert retired into the north of Scotland, leaving Sir James 
 Douglas in the south, for the purpose of reducing the forests of Selkirk and Jed- 
 burgh to obedience. The Ring, without encountering almost any resistance, 
 over-ran great part of the north, seizing, in his progress, the castle of Inverness 
 and many other fortified places, which he ordered to be entirely demolished. 
 Returning southward, he was met by the Earl .of Buchan at the head of a tumul- 
 tuary body of Scots and English, whom, at the first charge, he put to flight In 
 the course of this expedition, the king became affected with a grievous illness, 
 which reduced his bodily and mental strength to that degree, that little hopes 
 were entertained of his recovery. Ancient historians have attributed this malady 
 to the effects of the cold, famine, poor lodging and hardships, to which, ever 
 since the defeat at Methven, the king had been subjected. 
 
 Buchan, encouraged by the intelligence which he received of the king's illness, 
 and eager to efface the dishonour of his late retreat, again assembled his nume- 
 rous followers; and being joined by Mowbray, an English commander, came up 
 with the king's forces, then strongly posted near Slaines, on the east coast of 
 Aberdeenshiro The royalists avoided battle ; and beginning to be straitened
 
 EGBERT BRUCE. 303 
 
 for provisions retired in good order, firet to Strathbogie, and afterwards to In- 
 verury. By this time the violence of the king's disorder had abated, and he 
 began by slow degrees to recover strength. Buchan, who still watched for an 
 opportunity of attack, advanced to Old Meldrum; and Sir David Brechin, who 
 had joined himself to his party, came upon Inverury suddenly with a detachment 
 of troops, cut off several of the royalists in the outskirts of the town, and retired 
 without loss. This military bravado instantly roused the dormant energies of 
 the king ; and, though too weak in body to mount on horseback without assist- 
 ance, he resolved to take immediate vengeance on his insolent enemy. Sup- 
 ported by two men on each side of his saddle, the king took the direction of 
 !iis troops, and encountering the forces of Buchan, though much superior to his 
 own, put them to flight with great slaughter. The agitation of spirits which 
 Robert sustained on this occasion, is said to have restored him to health. Ad- 
 vancing into the country of his discomfited enemy, Bruce took ample revenge of 
 all the injuries which its possessor had inflicted upon him. 
 
 About this time the castle of Aberdeen was surprized by the citizens, the gar- 
 rison put to the sword, and the fortifications razed to the foundation. A body 
 of English having been collected for the purpose of chastising this bold exploit, 
 they were spiritedly met on their march by the inhabitants, routed, and a con. 
 siderable number taken prisoners, who were afterwards, says Boece, hangfcd 
 upon gibbets around the town, as a terror to their companions. A person named 
 Philip the Forester of Platane, having collected a small body of patriots, suc- 
 ceeded, about the same period, in taking the strong castle of Forfar by escalade. 
 The English garrison were put to the sword, and the fortifications, by order of the 
 king, destroyed. 31any persons of note, who had hitherto opposed Bruce, or 
 who, from prudential considerations, had submitted to the domination of Eng- 
 land, now openly espoused the cause of their country. Among the rest Sir 
 David Brechin, the king's nephew, upon the overthrow at Inverury, submitted 
 himself to the authority of his uncle. 
 
 While Robert was thus successfully engaged in the north ; his brother Edward, 
 at the head of a considerable force, invaded Galloway. He was opposed by Sir 
 Ingram Umphraville an:! Sir John de St John with about twelve hundred men. 
 A bloody battle ensued at the water of Cree, in which the English, after sustain- 
 ing severe loss, were constrained to fly. Great slaughter was made in the p'ir- 
 suit, and the two commanders escaped with difficulty to the castle of Butel, on the 
 sen-coast De St John from thence retired into England, where raising a force of 
 fifteen hundred men, he returned with great expedition into Galloway in the hope 
 of finding his victorious enemy unprepared for hi* reception. Edward Bruce, 
 however, had notice of his movements; and with the chivalric valour or temerity 
 which belonged to his character, he resolved boldly to over-reach the enemy in 
 their own stratagem. Entrenching his infantry in a strong position in the line 
 of inarch of the assailants; he himself, with fifty horsemen well harnessed, suc- 
 ceeded in gaining their rear ; with the intent of falling suddenly and unexpect- 
 edly upon them so soon as his entrenched camp should be assailed. Edward 
 was favoured in this hazardous mano?uvre by a mist so thick that no object could 
 be discerned at the distance of a bow-shot: but, before his design could be 
 brought to bear, the vapours suddenly chasing away, left his small body fully 
 discovered to the English. Retreat with any chance of safety was impossible, 
 and to the reckless courage of their leader, suggested itself not The small com- 
 pany no sooner became visible to their astonished and disarrayed foes, than, 
 raising a loud shout, they rushed furiously to the attick, and after one or two 
 more desperate charges, put them to rout Thus successful in the field, Edward 
 expelled the English garrisons, reduced the rebellious natives with fire and
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 sword, and compelled the whole district to yield submission to the authority of 
 his brother. 
 
 Douglas, after achieving many advantages in the south, among which, the suc- 
 cessive captures of his own castle in Douglasdale were the most remarkable, about 
 this time, surprised and made prisoners Alexander Stewart of Bonkil and Tho- 
 mas Randolph, the king's nephew. When Randolph, who from the defeat at 
 Methven, had adhered faithfully to the English interest, was brought before his 
 sovereign, the king is reported to have said; "Nephew, you have been an apos- 
 tate for a season ; you must now be reconciled." " You require penance of me," 
 replied Randolph fiercely, " yourself rather ought to do penance. Since you 
 challenged the king of England to war, you ought to have asserted your title in 
 the open field, and not to have betaken yourself to cowardly ambuscades." 
 " That may be hereafter, and perchance ere long," the king calmly replied ; 
 ''meanwhile, it is fitting that your proud words receive due chastisement; and 
 that you be taught to know my right and your own duty.'' After this rebuke, 
 Randolph was ordered for a time into close confinement. This singular inter- 
 view may have been preconcerted between the parties, for the purpose of cloak- 
 ing under a show of constraint, Randolph's true feelings in joining the cause 
 of his royal relative. Certain it is, his confinement was of brief duration ; and 
 in all the after acts of his life, he made evident with how hearty and zealous a 
 devotion he had entered on his new and more honourable field of enterprise. 
 
 Shortly after the rejunction of Douglas, Bruce carried his arms into the terri- 
 tory of Lorn, being now able to take vengeance on the proud chieftain, who, 
 after the defeat at Methven, had so nearly accomplished his destruction. To op- 
 pose this invasion the lord of Lorn collected a force of about two thousand men, 
 whom he posted in ambuscade in a defile, having the high mountain of Cruachen 
 Ben on the one side, and a precipice overhanging Lochawe on the other. This 
 pass was so narrow in some places, as not to admit of two horsemen passing 
 a-breast Robert who had timely information of the manner in which this road 
 was beset, through which he must necessarily pass, detached one half of his army, 
 consisting entirely of light armed troops and archers, under Douglas, with orders 
 to make a circuit of the mountain and so gain the high ground in the rear and 
 flank of the enemy's position. He himself with the rest of his troops entered 
 the pass, where they were soon attacked from the ambushment with great fury. 
 This lasted not long ; for the party of Douglas quickly appearing on the heights 
 immediately above them and in their rear, the men of Lorn were cast into inevi- 
 table confusion. After annoying the enemy with repeated flights of arrows, 
 Douglas descended the mountain and fell upon them sword in hand; the king, 
 at the same time, pressing upon them from the pass. They were defeated with 
 great slaughter ; and John of Lorn, who had planned this unsuccessful ambush, 
 after witnessing its miscarriage from a little distance, soon after put to sea and 
 retired into England. Robert laid waste the whole district of Lorn ; and gain- 
 ing possession of Dunstaffhage, the principal place of strength belonging to the 
 family, garrisoned it strongly with his own men. 
 
 While Bruce and his partizans were thus successfully engaged in wresting their 
 country from the power of England, and in subduing the refractory spirit of 
 some of their own nobility, every thing was feeble and fluctuating in the councils of 
 their enemies. In less than a year, Edward changed or re-appointed the gover- 
 nors of Scotland six different times. Through the mediation of Philip king of 
 France, a short truce was finally agreed upon between Edward and Robert ; but 
 infractions having been made on both sides, Bruce laid siege to the castle of 
 Rutherglen. In February, 1310, a truce was once more agreed upon; notwith- 
 standing which John de Segrave was appointed to the guardianship of Scot-
 
 ROBE UT BRUCE. 3G5 
 
 land on both sides of the Forth ; and had the warlike power of the north of 
 England placed at his disposa'. It was early in the same year that the clergy 
 of Scotland assembled in a provincial council, and issued a declaration to all the 
 faithful, bearing, that the Scottish nation, seeing the kingdom betrayed and 
 enslaved, had assumed Robert Bruce for their king, and that the clergy had 
 willingly dune homage to him in that character. 
 
 During these negotiations, hostilities were never entirely laid aside on either 
 side. The advantages of the warfare, however, were invariably on the side of 
 Bruce, who now seemed preparing to attack Perth, at that time an important 
 fortress, and esteemed the capital of Scotland. Roused to activity by this dan- 
 ger, Edward made preparations for the immediate defence and succour of that 
 place, lie also appointed the Earl of Ulster to the command of a body of Irish 
 troops who were to assemble at Dublin, and from thence invade Scotland ; and 
 the whole military array of England was ordered to meet the king at Berwick ; 
 but the English nobles disgusted with the government of Edward, and detesting 
 Jiis favourite Gaveston, repaired un-.villingly and slowly to the royal standard. 
 Before his preparations could be brought to bear, the season for putting to sea 
 had passed, and Edward was obliged to countermand the forces under the Earl 
 of Ulster ; still resolving, however, to invade Scotland in person, with the large 
 army which he had collected upon the border. Towards the end of autumn the Eng- 
 lish commenced their march, and directing their course through the forest of 
 Selkirk to Biggar, thence are said to have penetrated as far as Renfrew. 
 Not finding the enemy, in any body, to oppose their progress, and unable from 
 the season of the year, aggravated, as it was, by a severe famine which at that 
 very time afflicted the land, to procure forage and provisions, the army making 
 no abode in those parts, retreated by the way of Linlithgow and the Lothians to 
 Berwick ; where Edward, after this ill-concerted and fruitless expedition, re- 
 mained inactive for eight months. Bruce, during this invasion, cautiously 
 avoided coming to an open engagement with the greatly superior forces of the 
 enemy ; contenting himself with sending detached parties to hang upon their 
 rear, who, as opportunity offered, might harass or cut off the marauding and 
 foraging parties of the English. In one of these sudden assaults the Scots put 
 to the sword a body of three hundred of the enemy before any sufficient force 
 could be brought up for their rescue. 
 
 About this time the castle of Linlithgow, a place of great utility to the Eng- 
 lish, as being situated midway between Stirling and Edinburgh, was surprised by 
 the stratagem of a poor peasant named William Binnock. This man, having 
 been employed to lead hay into the fort, placed a party of armed friends in 
 ambush as near as possible to the gate ; and concealing under his seeming load 
 of hay, eight armed men, advanced to the castle, himself walking carelessly by 
 the side of the wain, while a servant led the cattle in front. When the carriage 
 was fairly in the gateway, so that neither the gates of the castle could be closed 
 nor the portcullis let down, the person in front who had charge of the oxen cut 
 the soam or withy rope by which the animals were attached to the wain, which 
 thus, instantly, became stationary. Binnock, making a concerted signal, his 
 armed friends leaped from under the hay, and mastered the sentinels ; and be- 
 ing immediately joined by the other party in ambush, the garrison, almost 
 without resistance, were put to the sword, and the place taken. Binnock was 
 well rewarded by the king for this daring and successful exploit ; and the castle 
 was ordered to be demolished. 
 
 Robert, finding that his authority was now well established at home, and that 
 Edward was almost entirely engrossed by the dissensions which had sprung up 
 amony, his own subjects, resolved, by an invasion of England, to retaliate in
 
 306 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 some measure the miseries with which that country had so long afflicted his king- 
 dom. Assembling a considerable army, he advanced into the bishopric, of Dur- 
 ham, laying waste the country with fire and sword ; and giving up the whole 
 district to the unbounded and reckless license of the soldiery. " 'lhus, says 
 Fordun, " by the blessing of God, and by a just retribution of providence, were 
 the perh'dious English, who had despoiled and slaughtered many, in their turn 
 subjected to punishment." Edward II. made a heavy complaint to the Tope, of 
 the " horrible ravages, depredations, burnings, and murders " committed by 
 " Robert Bruce and his accomplices" in this inroad, in which "neither age nor 
 sex were spared, nor even the immunities of ecclesiastical liberty respected.'' 
 The papal thunder had, however, already descended harmless on the ticottisli 
 king and his party ; and the time had arrived, when the nation eagerly hoped, 
 and the English might well dread the coming of that storm, whic.li should avenge, 
 by a requital alike bloody and indiscriminate, those wrongs which, without di*. 
 tiiK lion, had been so mercilessly inflicted upon it. 
 
 Soon after his return from England, Robert, again drawing an army together, 
 laid siege to Perth, a place in those days so strongly fortified, that, with a suffi- 
 cient garrison, and abundance of provisions and military stores, it mi^ht bid 
 defiance to any open force that could be brought against it. Having lain before 
 the town for six weeks, the king seeing no prospect of being able to reduce it 
 by main force, raised the siege, and retired to some distance, as if resolved to 
 desist from the enterprize. He had gained intelligence, however, that the ditch 
 which surrounded the town was ford able in one place, of which he had taken ac- 
 curate notice. Having provided scaling ladders of a sufficient length, he, with a 
 chosen body of infantry, returned after an absence of eight days, and ap- 
 proached the works. The self-security of the garrison, who, from hearing no- 
 thing of Robert for some days, were thrown entirely ofi' their guard, no less than 
 the darkness of the night, favoured his enterprise. Robert himself carrying a 
 ladder was the foremost to enter the ditch, the water of which reached breast 
 high, and the second to mount the walls when the ladders were applied. A 
 French knight who at this time served under the Scottish king, having witnessed 
 the gallant example set by his leader, is reported to have exclaimed with enthu- 
 siasm, " What shall we say of our lords of France, that with dainty living, was- 
 sail, and revelry pass their time, when so worthy a knight, through his yiv.it 
 chivalry, puts his life into so great hazard to win a wretched hamlet." Saying 
 tliis, he, with the lively valour of his nation, threw himself into the fosse, and 
 shared in the danger and glory of the enterprise. The walls were scaled and the 
 town taken almost without resistance. By the king's orders quarter was given 
 to all who laid down their arms; and in accordance with the admirable policy 
 which he had hitherto invariably pursued, the fortifications of the place were en- 
 tirely demolished. 
 
 Edward once more made advances towards negotiating a truce with the Scottish 
 king ; but Robert, who well knew the importance of following up the successful 
 career which had opened upon him, refused to accede to his proposals, and a^ain 
 invaded England. In this incursion the Scottish army ravaged and plundered the 
 county of Northumberland and bishopric of Durham. The towns of lle.vham 
 and Corbridge, and great part of the city of Durham were burnt The army 
 in returning, were bold enough, by a forced march, to attempt the surprisal of 
 Berwick, where the English king then lay ; but their design being discovered 
 they were obliged to retire. So great was the terror which these predatory and 
 destructive visitations inspired in the districts exposed to them, that the inhabi- 
 tants of the county of Durham, and afterwards those of Northumberland, Cum- 
 berland, and Westmoreland, contributed each a sum of two thousand pounds to
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 367 
 
 purchase an immunity from the like spoliations in future. In the same year the 
 king assaulted and took the castles of Butel, Dumfries, and Dalswinton. The 
 strong and important fortress of Roxburgh, also, at this time fell into his hands, 
 by the stratagem and bravery of Sir James Douglas. All of these places, so soon 
 as taken, were, by the king's orders destroyed, that they might on no future oc- 
 casion, if retaken, become serviceable to the enemy. 
 
 The surprisal of Edinburgh castle by Randolph, the king's nephew, ought not, 
 among the stirring events of this time, to be passed over. That brave knight, 
 \vlio from the moment of his accession to the royal cause, had devotedly and suc- 
 cessfully employed himself towards its establishment, had for some time laid siege 
 to, and strictly blockaded the castle ; but the place being one of great natural 
 strength, strongly fortified, and well stored with men and provisions, there 
 seemed little hope of bringing it to a speedy surrender. The garrison were also 
 completely upon the alert Having had reason to suspect the fidelity of Leland 
 their governor, they had put him under confinement, and elected another com- 
 mander in his stead. Matters stood thus, when a singular disclosure made to 
 Randolph by a man named William Frank, suggested the possibility of taking 
 the almost impregnable fortress by escalade. This man, in his youth, had re- 
 sided in the castle as one of the garrison ; and having an amorous intrigue in 
 the city, he had been in use to descend the wall in the night, by means of a 
 rope-ladder, and through a steep and intricate path to arrive at the foot of the 
 rock. By the same precipitous road he had always been enabled to regain the 
 castle without discovery ; and so familiar had all its windings become to him, 
 that he confidently engaged to guide a party of the besiegers by the same track 
 to the bottom of the walls. Randolph resolved to undertake the enterprise. 
 Having provided a ladder suited to the purpose, he, with thirty chosen men, put 
 himself under the guidance of Frank, who, towards the middle of a dark night, 
 safely conducted the party to the bottom of the precipitous ascent Having 
 clambered with great difficulty and exertion about half way up the rock, the ad- 
 venturous party reached a broad projection or shelf, on which they rested some 
 little time to recover breath. While in this position, they heard above them the 
 guard or check-watch of the garrison making their rounds, and could distinguish 
 that they paused a little on that part of the ramparts immediately over them. 
 One of the watch throwing a stone from the wall cried out, " Away, I see you 
 well" The stone flew over the heads of the ambuscading party, who happily 
 remained unmoved, as they really were unseen on the comparatively safe part of 
 the rock which they had attained. The guard hearing no stir to follow, passed 
 on. Randolph and his men having waited till they had gone to a distance again 
 got up. and at the imminent peril of their lives, fairly succeeded in clambering 
 up the remaining part of the rock to the foot of the wall, to which they affixed 
 their ladder. Frank, the guide, was first to mount the walls ; Sir Andrew Gray 
 was the next ; Randolph himself was the third. Before the whole could reach 
 the summit of the wall, the alarm was given, and the garrison rushed to arms. 
 A fierce encounter took place ; but the governor having been slain, the English 
 surrendered themselves to mercy. The fortifications of the castle were disman, 
 tied ; and Leland, the former governor, having been released from his coniine- 
 ment, entered the Scottish service. 
 
 The earl of Athole, who had long adhered to the English faction, and 
 had recently obtained as a reward for his fidelity a grant of lands in England, 
 now ioined the rising fortunes of his lawful sovereign. Through the mediation 
 of France conferences for a truce were renewed ; but notwithstanding of t 
 Robert invaded Cumberland, wasting the country to a great extent, 
 brians earnestly besought succour from Edward : but that prince being about to
 
 3G8 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 depart for France, did nothing but extol their fidelity, desiring them to defend 
 themselves until his return. By invading Comberiand at this time, Bruce pro- 
 bably intended to draw the attention of the English i'rom the more serious d 
 which he contemplated of making a descent upon the isle of Man. He had 
 scarcely, therefore, returned from his predatory expedition into England, than, 
 embarking his forces, he landed unexpectedly upon that island, overthrew the 
 governor, took the castle of Kuifin, and possessed himself of the country. The 
 Alanx governor on this occasion, is, with great probability, conjectured to have 
 been the same (iallovidian chieftain, who defeated, and made prisoners at Loch- 
 ryan, the two brothers of the Scottish king. 
 
 On his return from France, Edward was met by commissioners sent to him by 
 such Scots as still remained faithful in their allegiance to England. These made 
 bitter complaint of the miserable condition to which they had been reduced, both 
 from the increasing power of Bruce, and from the oppression which they suffered 
 under the government of the English ministers. Edward, deserted and despised 
 by his nobility, who, at this time, not only refused to attend his army, but even 
 to assemble in parliament upon his summons, could merely make answer to those 
 complaints by promises, which he was alike incapable in himself and in his means 
 to perform. Meanwhile the anus of the patriots continued to prosper. Edward 
 Bruce took and destroyed the castle of Rutherglen, and the town and cast!,; of 
 Dundee. He next laid siege to the castle of Stirling, then held by Philip de 
 Moubray, an English commander of bravery and reputation ; but was here less 
 successful Unable, by any mode of attack known in those days, to make im- 
 pression on a fortress of so great strength, Edward consented to a treaty with 
 the governor that the place should be surrendered, if not succoured by the king 
 of England before St John's day in the ensuing midsummer. Bruce was much 
 displeased with his brother for having granted such a truce, yet he consented to 
 ratify it. The space of time agreed upon allowed ample leisure to the English 
 king to collect his forces for the relief of the castle, the almost only remaining 
 stronghold which he now possessed in Scotland ; and Robert felt that he must 
 either oppose him in battle with a greatly inferior force, or, by retreating 
 in such circumstances, lessen the great fame and advantages which he had 
 acquired. 
 
 The English king having effected a temporary reconciliation with his refrac- 
 tory nobility, lost no time in making all the preparations which his great power 
 and resources allowed of, to relieve the castle of Stirling, in the first place, arid 
 recover the almost entirely revolted kingdom to his authority. I le summoned 
 the whole power of the English barons to meet him in arms at Berwick on the 
 1 Ith of June ; invited to his aid Eth O'Connor, chief of the native Irish of Con- 
 naught, and twenty-six other Irish chieftains ; summoned his English subjects in 
 Ireland to .attend his standard, and put both them and the Irish auxiliaries under 
 the command of the earl of Ulster. " So vast," says Barbour, " was the army 
 which was now collected, that nothing nearly so numerous had ever before been 
 arrayed by England, and no force that Scotland could produce might possibly 
 have been able to withstand it in the open field." A considerable number of 
 ships were also ordered for the invasion of Scotland by sea, and for transporting 
 provisions and warlike stores for the use of the army. 
 
 The Scottish king, meanwhile, used every effort in his power to provide ade- 
 quately against the approaching contest, resolved resolutely to defend the honour 
 and independence of the crown and kingdom which through so many dangers 
 and difficulties he had achieved. He appointed a general rendezvous of his 
 forces at the Torwood, between Falkirk and Stirling. The fighting men assem- 
 bled in consequence of his summons, somewhat exceeded thirty thousand in num-
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 369 
 
 ber, besides about fifteen thousand unarmed and undisciplined followers of the 
 camp, according to the mode in those times. 
 
 Two days before the battle, Brace took up his position in a field not far from 
 Stirling, then known by the name of New Park, whir.li had the castle on the 
 left, and the brook of Bannock on the right. The banks of the rivulet were 
 steep and rugged, and the ground between it and Stirling, being part of a park 
 or chase, was partly open, and partly broken by copse-wood and marshy ground. 
 The place was naturally well adapted for opposing and embarrassing the opera- 
 tions of cavalry ; and to strengthen it yet more, those places whereby horsemen 
 might have access, were covered with concealed pit-falls, so numerous and close 
 together, thjit according to our ancient authority, their construction might be 
 likened to a honey-comb. They were a foot in width, and between two and 
 three feet deep, many rows being placed, one behind the other, the whole being 
 slightly covered with sods and brushwood, so as not to be obvious to an impetuous 
 enemy. The king divided his regular forces into four divisions. Three of these 
 occupied the intended line of battle, from the brook of Bannock, which covered 
 his right flank, to the village of St Ninians, where their left must have remained 
 somewhat exposed to the garrison of Stirling in their rear ; Bruce, perhaps, 
 trusting in this disposition some little to the honour of Moubray, who by the 
 terms of the treaty was precluded from making any attack, but probably more to 
 his real inability of giving any effectual annoyance. Edward Bruce commanded 
 the light wing of these three divisions, which was strengthened by a strong body 
 of cavalry under Keith, the mareschal of Scotland, to whom was committed the 
 charge of attacking the English archers ; Sir James Douglas, and the young 
 Stewart of Scotland, led the central division ; and Thomas Randolph, now earl 
 of Moray, the left. The king himself commanded the fourth or reserve division, 
 composed of the men of Argyle, the islanders, and his own vassals of Carrick. 
 The unarmed followers of the camp, amounting, as we have said, to about fifteen 
 thousnnd, were placed in a valley at some distance in the rear, separated from 
 the field by an eminence, since denominated, it is supposed, from this circum- 
 stance, the Gillies' (that is, the servants') hill. These dispositions were made 
 upon the 2'2d of June, 1314; and next day, being Sunday, the alarm reached 
 the Scottish camp of the approach of the enemy. Sir James Douglas and the 
 mareschal were despatched with a body of cavalry to reconnoitre the English army, 
 then in full march from Falkirk towards Stirling. They soon returned, and, in 
 private, informed the king of the formidable state of the enemy ; but gave out 
 publicly, that the English, though indeed a numerous host, seemed ill commanded 
 and disorderly. The hurried mSrch of Edward into Scotland might give some 
 colour of truth to this information ; but no sight, we are told by the ancient au- 
 thors, could in reality be more glorious and animating than the advance of that 
 great army, in which were concentrated the whole available chivalry, and all the 
 martial pomp, which the power and riches of the English monarch could com- 
 mand. 
 
 Robert was particularly anxious that no succours from the English army si 
 be allowed, previous to the engagement, to reach the garrison in Stirling castle, 
 and enjoined Randolph, who commanded the left wing of his army, to be vigi 
 lant in repelling any attempt which might be made for that purpose, 
 caution was not unsuccessful ; for, as the English forces drew near, a body o 
 eight hundred horsemen were detached under the command of Clifford, w 
 making a circuit bv the low grounds to the east and north of 
 attempted by that means to pass the front of the Scottish army, and approach 
 castle. They were perceived by the king, who, coming hastily up to Randolph 
 angrily exclaimed, " Thoughtless man ! you have suffered the enemy t 
 i. 
 
 3 A
 
 370 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 where you were set to keep the way. A rose has fallen from your chaplet" On 
 receiving 1 this sharp reproof, Randolph instantly made haste, at the head of a 
 body of five hundred spearmen, to redeem his negligence, or perish in the at- 
 tempt The English cavalry, perceiving his advance, wheeled round to attack 
 him. Randolph drew up his small body of men into a compact form, present- 
 ing a front of spears extending outwards on all sides, and with steady resolution 
 awaited the charge of the enemy. In this porcupine-like form were they as- 
 sailed on every side by the greatly superior force of Clifford's cavalry, but with- 
 out effect At the first onset a considerable number of the English were un- 
 horsed, and Sir William Daynecourt, an officer of rank, was slain. Environed, 
 however, as he was, there seemed no chance by which Randolph and his despe- 
 rate band might escape speedy destruction. Douglas, who witnessed with deep 
 interest the jeopardy of his friend, requested permission of the king to go and 
 succour him. " You shall not move from your ground," said Robert ; "let Ran- 
 dolph extricate himself as he best may. I will not for him break purpose." " In 
 truth," replied Douglas, after a pause, " I cannot stand by and see Randolph 
 perish; and, with your leave, I must aid him." The king unwillingly consented, 
 and Douglas hastened to the assistance of his friend. The generous support of 
 the good knight was not required ; for, he had not advanced far \vhen he perceived 
 the English to waver, and fall into confusion. Ordering his followers to halt, 
 '' those brave men,'' said he, " have repulsed the enemy ; let us not diminish 
 their glory by sharing it" The assailants had indeed begun to flag in their 
 fruitless efforts ; when Randolph, who watched well his opportunity, ordering, in 
 his turn, a sudden and furious charge among them, put the whole body to flight 
 with greet slaughter, sustaining on his own side a loss so small as to seem almost 
 incredible. 
 
 While this spirited combat was yet being maintained in one part of the field, 
 another, of a still more extraordinary and striking character, was destined to arrest 
 the attention of both armies. The English army, whivh had slowly advanced in or- 
 der of battle towards the Scottish position, had at length, before evening, approached 
 so near, that the two opposing van-guards came distinctly into view of each other. 
 Robert was then riding leisurely along the front of the Scottish line, meanly 
 mounted on a small palfrey, having a battle axe in his hand, and distinguished 
 from his knights by a circlet or crown of gold over his helmet, as was the man- 
 ner in those days. Henry de Bohun, an English knight, completely armed, 
 chanced to ride somewhat in advance of his companions, when recognising the 
 Scottish king alone, ard at such disadvantage, he rode furiously towards him with 
 his spear couched, trusting surely to have utftiorsed or slain him on the spot 
 Robert calmly awaited the encounter, avoided agily the spear of his adversary, 
 and next instant raising himself in the stirrups, struck Bohun, as he passed, to 
 the earth, with a blow of his battle axe, so powerfully dealt as to cleave the steel 
 helmet of the knight, and break the handle of the axe into two. The Scots 
 much animated by this exploit of their leader, advanced with a great shout 
 upon the vanguard of the English, who immediately fell back in some confusion 
 upon their main body, leaving a few of their number slain upon the field. When 
 the Scottish army had again recovered order, some of the king's principal men 
 gathering about him, kindly rebuked Robert for his imprudence. The king, 
 conscious of the justice of their remarks, said nothing, but that he was sorry for 
 the loss of his good battle axe. These two incidents falling out so opportunely 
 upon the eve of battle, strengthened the confidence, and greatly animated the 
 courage of the patriot army ; while, in a like degree, they abashed and dispirited 
 the proud host of the enemy. 
 
 On Monday the 24th of June, at break of day, the two armies mustered in
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 371 
 
 order of battle. The van of the English, consisting of archers and lancemen, 
 was commanded by the earl of Gloucester, nephew of king Edward, and the 
 earl of Hereford, constable of England. The main body, comprising nine 
 great divisions, was led on by the king in person, attended by the earl of Pem- 
 broke and Sir Giles d'Argentine, a knight of Rhodes, and a chosen body of 
 five hundred well-armed horse, as his body guards. The nature of the ground 
 did not permit the extension of this vast force, the van division alcne occupying 
 the whole front of battle, so that to the Scots they appeared as composing 
 one great compact column of men. The Scots drew up in the order which we 
 have already described. Maurice, abbot of Inchaffrey, placing himself on an 
 eminence in view of the whole Scottish army, celebrated high mass, the most impos- 
 ing ceremony of the catholic worship, and which was then believed of efficacy to 
 absolve all faithful and penitent assistants from the burthen of their past sins. 
 Then passing along the line barefooted, and bearing a crucifix in his hand, he 
 exhorted the Scots in few and forcible words to combat for their rights and their 
 liberty; upon which the whole army knelt down and received his benediction. 
 When king Edward observed the small rnd unpretending array of his hardy ene- 
 mies, he seemed surprised, and turning himself to Sir Ingram Umfraville, ex- 
 claimed, " What ! will yon Scotsmen fight?" " Yea, sickerly," replied the knight ; 
 who even went the length of advising the king, that instead of making an 
 open attack under so great disadvantages of position, he should feign a re- 
 treat, pledging himself, from his own experience, that by such means only could 
 he break the firm array of the Scots, and overwhelm them. The king disdained 
 this counsel ; and chancing then to observe the whole body of the Scots kneel 
 themselves to the ground " See," said he, " yon folk kneel to ask mercy." 
 " You say truly," Sir Ingram replied, " they ask mercy, but it is not of you, but 
 of God. Yon men will win the field or die.'' " Be it so, then !" said the king, 
 and immediately gave order to sound the charge. 
 
 The signal of attack being given, the van of the English galloped on to 
 charge the right wing of the Scots, commanded by Edward, the king's brother, 
 and were received with intrepid firmness. The advance of this body allowed 
 part of the main body of the English to come up, who moving obliquely to the 
 rioht of their own van, were soon engaged with the centre and left flank of the 
 Scottish army. The conflict, thus, soon became general along the whole Scottish 
 line, and the slaughter considerable on both sides. Repeated and desperate attempts 
 were made by the English cavalry to break the firm, or as they seemed immov- 
 able, phalanxes of the enemy, but with no effect. Straitened and harassed by 
 the nature of the ground, they with difficulty maintained order ; and but that 
 they were pressed on by the mass in their rear, the front lines of the English 
 would have been inevitably repulsed. The king of Scots perceiving that his 
 troops were grievously annoyed by the English archers, detached a small 
 chosen band of cavalry under Sir Robert Keith, who, making a circuit by tl 
 riht extremity of the Scottish line, fell furiously upon the unprotected archers 
 flank, and put them to flight. This body of men, whose importance in an E 
 lish army has been so often and so fatally exemplified, botli before and since, 
 were so effectually discomfited, as to be of no after use in the battle, and by th 
 precipitate retreat were instrumental in spreading confusion and alarm throu 
 fhe whole army. Robert with the body of reserve under his ******* 
 joined battle ; and though the fury on both sides was not relaxed, the 1, 
 the English were every moment falling more and more into disorder, 
 in this critical state, when a singular accident or device, for it never has been as 
 tamed which, turned decisively the fortune of the day. We have before ed, 
 that the ScotUsh camp was attended by a large body of disorderly lollowers.
 
 372 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 amounting to about fifteen thousand in number ; and that these, along with tho 
 camp baggage, were stationed by Bruce to the rear of a little eminence called 
 Gillies' hill. These men, either instructed for the purpose, or, what seems more 
 likely, perceiving from their position that the English army began to give way, 
 resolved with what weapons chance afforded them, to fall down into the rear of 
 iheir countrymen, that by so doing they might share in the honour of the action, 
 and the plunder of the victory. Choosing leaders, therefore, among themselves, 
 they drew up into a sort of martial order, some mounted on the baggage horsed 
 and others on foot, having sheets fastened upon tent-poles and spears, instead of 
 banners. The sudden and appalling spectacle of what seemed to the English in 
 the distance, to be a new and formidable army, completed the confusion and 
 consternation which had already begun widely to invade their ranks. The 
 Scots felt their advantage; and raising a great shout, in which they were joined 
 heartily by the auxiliaries in their rear, they pressed forward on the ground of 
 their enemies with a fury which became more and more irresistible. Disci- 
 pline and union were soon entirely lost, and the rout, on every side, became 
 general and disastrous. 
 
 Pembroke, when he saw that the day was lost, seized Edward's horse by the 
 bridle, and constrained him, though not without difficulty, to leave the h'eld. 
 When Sir Giles d' Argentine, the brave knight of Khodes, was informed of the 
 king's flight, and pressed to accompany him; " It never was my wont to fly," 
 said he, and putting spurs to his horse, l<e rushed furiously into the battle and 
 met his death. It was a vulgar opinion, that the three greatest warriors of that 
 age were Henry of Luxemburg emperor of Germany, Robert king of Scotland, 
 and Sir Giles d'Argentine. Sir James Douglas, with sixty horsemen, followed 
 hard in pursuit of the English king. At the Torwood he was met by Sir Law- 
 rence Abernethy with twenty horse hastening to the English rendezvous, but who, 
 as soon as he understood that the Scots were victorious, joined the party of 
 Douglas in - the pursuit. Edward rode on without halting to Linlithgow ; and 
 had scarcely refreshed himself there, when the alarm that the Scots were ap- 
 proaching, forced him to resume his flight. Douglas and Abernethy followed so 
 close upon his route, that many of the king's guards, who, from time to time, 
 had chanced to fall behind their companions, were slain. This pertinacious 
 chase continued as far as Tranent, a distance of about forty miles from the h'eld 
 of battle, and was only given up from the inability of the horses to proceed fur- 
 ther. Edward at length reached the castle of Dunbar, where he was received 
 by the Earl of March, and shortly afterwards conveyed by a little fishing skiff 
 to Bamborough in England. 
 
 Thirty thousand of the English are estimated to have fallen upon the field of 
 Bannockburn. Of barons and bannerets there were slain twenty-seven, and 
 twenty-two were taken prisoners ; and of knights the number killed was forty- 
 two, while sixty were made prisoners. Barbour affirms that two hundred pairs 
 of gilt spurs were taken from the heels of slain knights. According to English 
 historians the most distinguished among those who fell, were the Earl of Glouces- 
 ter, Sir Giles d'Argentine, Robert Clifford, Payen Tybelot, William le Mares- 
 chal, and Edmund de Mauley, seneschal of England. Seven hundred esquires 
 are also reckoned among the number of the slain. The spoil of the English 
 camp was great ; and large sums also must have accrued from the ransom of so 
 many noble prisoners. If we may believe the statement of the monk of Malms- 
 bury, a contemporary English writer, the loss sustained by his countrymen on 
 this occasion did not amount to less than two hundred thousand pounds ; a sum 
 equal in value to upwards of three millions of our present currency. The loss 
 sustained by the Scots is allowed on all hands to have been very inconsiderable;
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 373 
 
 and the only persons of. note slain were Sir William Vipont and Sir Walter 
 Ross. The last named was the particular friend of Edward Bruce, who, when 
 informed of his death, passionately exclaimed, " Oh that this day's work 
 was undone, so Ross had not died.'' On the day after the battle, Mowbray 
 surrendered the castle of Stirling, according to the terms of the truce, and 
 thenceforward entered into the service of the king of Scotland. 
 
 Such was the signal victory obtained by Robert at Bannockbum, than which 
 none more important was ever fought, before or since, between the so long hos- 
 tile nations of England and Scotland. It broke effectually and for ever the 
 mastery, moral and physical, which the one had so nearly succeeded in achieving 
 over the other ; and, while it once more re-established the liberties of Scot- 
 land, awakened or restored that passion for independence among her people 
 which no after dangers or reverses could subdue. '* We have only," as a Lite 
 historian 1 has well observed, " to fix our eyes on the present condition of Ire- 
 land, in order to feel the present reality of all that we owe to the victory at 
 Bannockburn, and to the memory of such men as Bruce, Randolph, and Douglas." 
 We have, hitherto, thought it proper to enter with considerable, and even his- 
 torical, minuteness into the details of this life ; both as comprising events of 
 much interest to the general reader, and as introducing what may be justly call- 
 ed the first great epoch in the modern history of Scotland. The rise, progress, 
 and establishment of Bruce, were intimately connected with the elevation, pro- 
 gression, and settled estate of his people, who as they never before had attained 
 to a national importance so decided and unquestionable, so they never afterwards 
 fell much short in the maintaining of it It is not our intention, however, to 
 record with equal minuteness the remaining events of king Robert's reign ; 
 which, as they, in a great measure, refer to the ordering and consolidating of 
 the power which he had acquired, the framing of laws, and negotiating of trea- 
 ties, fall much more properly within the province of the historian to discuss, tlian 
 that of the biographer. 
 
 The Earl of Hereford, who had retreated after the battle to the castle of 
 Bothwell, was there besieged nnd soon brought to surrender. For this prisoner 
 alone, the wife, sister, and daughter of Bruce, were exchanged by the English, 
 along with Wisheart bishop of Glasgow, and the young Earl of Marr. Edward 
 Bruce and Douglas, leaving the English no time to recover from their disastrous 
 defeat, almost immediately invaded the eastern marches, wasted Northumberland, 
 and laid the bishopric of Durham under contribution. Proceeding westward, 
 they burnt Appleby and other towns, and returned home loaded with spoil 
 '' So bereaved," says an English historian, <l were the English, at this time, of 
 their wonted intrepidity, that a hundred of that nation would have fled from two 
 or three Scotsmen." While the fortunes of Edward were in this state of depres- 
 sion, Bruce made advances towards the negotiating of a peace, but this war, now 
 *o ruinous on the part of the English, was yet far from a termination. Ro- 
 bert, however desirous he might be to attain such an object, was incapable of 
 granting unworthy concessions ; and Edward was not yet sufficiently abased by 
 his ill-fortune in war, or borne down by factions at home, to yield that which, 
 in his hands, had become but a nominal possession. England was again invad- 
 ed within the year ; and, during the winter, the Scots continued to infest and 
 threaten the borders with predatory incursions. 
 
 In the spring of the ensuing year, 1315, while the English king vainly en- 
 deavoured to assemble an army, the Scots again broke into England penetrate 
 .o the bishopric of Durham, and plundered the sea-port town of liartlepool. , 
 
 I Tj tier, i. p. 320.
 
 374 ROBEHT BRUCE. 
 
 attempt was shortly afterwards made to gain possession of Carlisle, but it was 
 defeated by the vigorous efforts of the inhabitant*. A scheme to carry Berwick 
 by surprise also failed. This year was remarkable for an act of the estates set- 
 tling- the succession to the crown ; and the marriage of the king's daughter. .Alar 
 jory, to Walter the Stewart of Scotland, from whom afterwards descended the 
 royal family of the Strarts. 
 
 The Irish of Ulster, \\lio had long been discontented with the rule of Eng- 
 land, now implored the assistance of the Scottish king, offering, that should they 
 be relieved from the subjugation under which they laboured, to elect Edward 
 Bruce as their sovereign. The king accepted of their proposals ; and his bro- 
 ther, on the 25th May, 1315, landed at Carrickfergus in the north of Ireland 
 \\ith an army of six thousand men. He was accompanied in the expedition by 
 the Earl of Moray, Sir Philip Mowbray, Sir John Soulis, Fergus of Ardrossan, 
 and Ramsay of Ochterhouse. With the aid of the Irish chieftains who flocked 
 to his standard, he committed great ravages on the possessions of the English set- 
 tlers in the north ; and over-ran great part of the country. Edward Bruce met, 
 however, uith considerable difficulties in the prosecution of his enterprise, and 
 had several times to send for reinforcements from Scotland, notwithstanding 
 which, he was solemnly crowned king of Ireland on the 2nd May, 1310. King 
 Kobert, hearing of his difficulties, magnanimously resolved, with what succours 
 he could afford, to go to the relief of his brother in person. Intrusting, there- 
 fore, the government of the kingdom, in his absence, to the Stewart and Douglas, 
 he embarked at Lochryan, in Galloway, and landed at Carrickfergus. The cas- 
 tle of that place was, at the lime, besieged by the forces of Edward Bruce, and 
 was soon brought to surrender after his junction with his brother. The 
 united armies then entered, by forced marches, the province of Leinster, with in- 
 tent to seize upon Dublin, on the fate of which the existence of the English 
 government in Ireland depended ; but the hostile spirit and intrepidity of the 
 inhabitants of that city rendered this effort abortive. Thence they marched 
 to Cullen in Kilkenny, and continued their devastating progress as far as Limer- 
 ick; but being there threatened with the greatly superior forces collected by 
 the English under Roger, Lord Mortimer, and expei'iencing great extremities 
 from want, they were forced to terminate the expedition by a retreat into th<- 
 province of Ulster, in the spring of 1317. 
 
 The particular history of the two Briice's campaigns in Ireland, seems to have 
 been imperfectly known, and is very obscurely treated of by most contempo- 
 rary writers. Barbour, however, to whom the historians who treat of this period 
 are so much indebted, has given the relation with much circumstantiality and 
 apparent correctness. We cannot omit quoting one exploit, which this author 
 has recorded in a manner at once lively and characteristioal. The Scottish 
 army, in its march into the province of Leinster, was marshalled into two divi- 
 sions, one of which, the van, was commanded by Edward Bruce ; while the rear 
 was led by Robert in person, assisted by the Earl of Moray. The Earl of Uls- 
 ter, on the alert to oppose their progress, had collected an army of forty thou- 
 sand men, which he posted in an extensive forest through which the Scottish line 
 of march led, proposing from this concealment, to attack the rear division of tin 
 enemy, after the van should have piissed the defile. Edward, naturally impetu- 
 ous and unguai-ded, hurried onward in his march, neglecting even the ordinary 
 precautions of keeping up a communication with the rear body, or of reconnoit- 
 ring the ground through which he passed. Robert advanced more slowly and 
 with circumspection, at some distance in the rear, with his division, which amounted 
 in all to no more than five thousand men. As he approached the ambushmeni 
 of the enemy, small parties of archers appeared from among the thickets, who
 
 ROBERT BllUCE. 375 
 
 commenced, as they best could, to molest his soldiers in their march. Seeing 
 their boldness, the king judged rightly that they must have support at no grea* 
 distance, and immediately he issued strict commands to his men to march in exacl 
 order of battle, and on no pretence whatever to quit their ranks. It happened 
 that two of these archers discharged their arrows near to the person of Sir Colin 
 Campbell, the king's nephew, which irritated him so much, tiiat, neglecting the 
 king's injunctions, he rode off at full speed to avenge the insult. Robert, 
 highly incensed, followed after him, and struck his nephew so violent a blow with 
 his truncheon that he was nearly beaten from his horse. " Such breach of orders," 
 said he, " might have brought us all into jeopardy. I wot well, we shall have 
 work to do ere long." The numbers of the hostile archers increased as the 
 Scots advanced ; till arriving at a large opening or glade of the forest, they 
 descried the forces of the Earl of Ulster drawn up in four divisions ready to 
 dispute their passage. The king's prudential foresight was now fully justified ; 
 and, though the danger was imminent, so much confidence had the soldiers 
 in the sagacity and martial pre-eminence of their leader, that, undaunted 
 either by the sudden appearance or overwhelming numbers of the enemy, they, 
 with great spirit and bravery, were the first to commence the attack. After an 
 obstinate resistance the Scots prevailed, and the great but ill-assorted Anglo- 
 Irish army was, with much slaughter, driven from the field. Edward Bruce, 
 soon after the defeat, rejoined his brother, regretting bitterly that he should have 
 been absent on such an emergency. " It was owing to your own folly," s;>id 
 the king, " for you ought to have remembered that the van always should pro- 
 tect the rear." 
 
 King Robert, after the retreat of his brother's force upon Carrickfergus, was 
 necessitated, from the urgency of his own affairs, to return to Scotland. We 
 may, in order to have no occasion to revert to the subject afterwards, state 
 briefly in this place, the catastrophe which, in the following year, closed the 
 career of Scottish sovereignty in Ireland. For some time the gallant but rash 
 Edward maintained a precarious authority in Ulster. In the month of October, 
 1318, he lay encamped at Fagher, near Dundalk, with an army amounting to 
 about two thousand men, exclusive of the native Irish, who, though numerous, 
 were not much to be depended on. The Anglo-Irish approached his position 
 under the command of Lord John Bermingham. Their force was strong in 
 cavalry, and out-numbered the Scots by nearly ten to one. Contrary to the 
 counsel of all his officers, Edward engaged with the enemy ; and was slain almost 
 at the first onset ; an event which was speedily followed up by the total discom- 
 fiture of his army. John Maupas, by whose hand Edward fell, was found, after 
 the battle, stretched dead over the body of the prince. Edward of England, 
 like all kings who are weak and obstinate, could also, when he dared, be wicked. 
 Affecting to consider the gallant enemy who now had fallen, in the light of a 
 traitor or rebellious subject, the corpse was subjected to the ignominies conse- 
 quent upon the punishment of such ; being quartered and exposed to view in 
 four different quarters of the island. The head was carried over to England, 
 and presented to Edward by Bermingham himself; who obtained the dignity of 
 Earl of Lowth for his services. 
 
 During the absence of king Robert in Ireland, the English made various 
 attempts to disturb the tranquillity of Scotland, which all, happily, proved abor- 
 tive. The Earl of Arundel, with a numerous force, invaded the forest of , 
 burgh ; but falling into an ambush prepared for him by Douglas, he was d< 
 ed. Edmund de Cailand, the governor of Berwick, having made an inroad in 
 Teviotdale, was attacked by the same victorious commander, and himself and 
 many of his followers slain. The same fate befell Robert Neville a knight, then
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 resident at Berwick, who had boastingly declared that he would encounter Dou- 
 glas, so soon as he dared display his banner in that neighbourhood. The Eng- 
 lish also invaded Scotland with a considerable force by sea, coming to anchor 
 oft* the town of Inverkeithing in the Firth of Forth. The panic caused by the 
 unexpected appearance of this armament was great; and only fire hundred men 
 under the command of the Earl of Fife, and sheriff of the county, were mustered to 
 oppose their landing. When the English, with somewhat of the revived intre- 
 pidity of their nation, proceeded boldly to shore, so much terror did they inspire, 
 that, without any attempt at hindrance, the force drawn up agr.inst them hastily 
 retreated towards the interior. They had scarcely, however, thus committed 
 themselves, when they were met by William Sinclair, bishop of Dnnkeld, at the 
 head of a body of sixty horse advancing, in all haste, to assist in repelling the 
 invaders. " Whither in such haste?" said he, to the disordered rout, " you de- 
 serve to have your gilt spurs hacked off." Putting himself then at the head of 
 the little troop, casting aside his bishop's vestment, and seizing a spear, the bold 
 ecclesiastic continued "Who loves his king, or his country, turn with me." 
 '1 he unexpectedness and spirit of this challenge redeemed the honour and the 
 courage of all who heard it. The English, who had not yet completed their 
 landing, were in turn seized with the panic they themselves had communicated ; 
 and were driven to their ships with great loss. Five hundred, it is asserted, 
 were killed upon the strand, and many drowned by the swamping of an over- 
 loaded boat When king Robert was informed of the particulars of this gallant 
 exploit, he said, "Sinclair shall always after be my own bishop;'' and long after 
 was the prelate honourably remembered by his countrymen by the appellation of 
 the king's bishop. 
 
 Baffled in these attempts, and under serious apprehensions for tne safety of Ber- 
 wick and his own borders, the English king contrived, about this time, to employ in 
 his favour the spiritual weapons of the church of Rome. John XXII, the then pope, 
 was easily induced to hearken to his representations; and a bull was issued com- 
 manding a truce for two years between the two hostile kingdoms, under pain of 
 excommunication. Two cardinals, privately instructed to denounce the pontifi- 
 cal censures, should they see fit, upon Bruce and " whomsoever else,'' were 
 despatched to make known these commands to the two kings. The ordinals 
 arrived in England, and in prosecution of their errand they sent two messengers, 
 the bishop of Corbeil and Master Aumery, into Scotland with the letters and 
 instructions intended for the Scottish king. Robert listened to the message de- 
 livered by these nuncios with attention, ai d heard read the open letters from the 
 Pope ; but when those sealed and addressed ' Robert Bruce, govern* r of Scotland,' 
 were produced, he firmly declined receiving them. " Among my barons." said he, 
 " there are many of the name of Robert Bruce, who share in the government ol 
 Scotland. These letters may possibly be addressed to one of them ; but they are 
 not addressed to me, who am king of Scotland.'' The messengers attempted to 
 apologise for this omission, by saying, that " the holy church was not wont, dur- 
 ing the dependence of a controversy, to say or do aught which might prejudice 
 the claims of either contending party.'' "Since then," replied the king, " my 
 spiritual father and my holy mother would not prejudice the cause of my adver- 
 sary by bestowing on me the title of king during the dependence of the contro- 
 versy, they ought not to have prejudiced my cause by withdrawing that title 
 from me. It seems that my parents are partial to tlieir English son. Had you," 
 added he, with resolute but calm dignity, " presumed to present letters with such 
 an address to any other sovereign prince, you might, perhaps, have been answer 
 ed more harshly ; but I reverence you as the messengers of the holy see.'' Ir
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 377 
 
 consequence of the failure of this negotiation, the cardinals resolved to proceed 
 with their further instructions, and proclaim the papal truce in Scotland. 
 
 In an enterprise so hazardous the Roman legates were at some loss how to pro- 
 ceed ; but at length they fell upon a devoted monk of the name of Adam New- 
 ton, who was willing to risk himself in the service. Newton being fully charged 
 with his commission, and intrusted with letters to some of the Scottish clergy, 
 proceeded forthwith upon his journey. He found the Scottish king encamped 
 with his army in a wood near Old Cambus, busily engaged in making prepara- 
 tions for the assault of Berwick. He was denied admission to the presence, but 
 ordered, at the same time, to deliver what letters or messages he might have to 
 the king's seneschal or clerk. These were quickly returned to him, unopened, 
 witli the brief verbal answer, " I will listen to no bulls until I am treated as 
 king of Scotland, and have made myself master of Berwick.'' The poor monk, 
 environed, as he himself expresses it, with danger, and troubled how to preserve 
 his papers and his own mortal life, earnestly entreated that he might have a safe 
 conduct granted him to pass further into Scotland, or at least that he might re- 
 turn without peril to Berwick ; but both requests were denied him, and lie was 
 ordered to leave the country without delay. On his road to Berwick, he was 
 encountered by four armed ruffians, who stripped him of all his papers and 
 effects, and even of the greater part of 1 is clothes. Thus ended this memorable 
 transaction with the papal court, in a manner very unusual for that age ; but the 
 weakness and injustice of Edward, and the injustice and servility of Rome were 
 so obvious in it, that Robert secure, otherwise, in the affections of his subjects, 
 both clerical and laical, could safely deride and defy the effects of both. 
 
 While Robert, for some reason or other which has not been explained, had 
 given over the preparations he had been engaged in for the siege of Berwick, 
 the treachery of one of the inhabitants, of the name of Spalding, who had been 
 harshly treated by the governor, occurred, to render the attainment of his object 
 more easy and sure, than otherwise, in all likelihood, it would have proved. 
 Tli is person wrote a letter to the Earl of March, to whom he was distantly con- 
 nected by marriage, in which he offered to betray, on a certain night, that post 
 on the wall where he kept guard. The nobleman, not daring of himself to en- 
 gage in such an enterprise, communicated the intelligence to the king. " You 
 have done well," said'Robert, " in making me your confidant: for, if you had 
 told this to either Randolph or Douglas, you would have offended the one whom 
 you did not trust You shall now, however, have the aid of both.'' By the 
 king's directions, the Earl of March assembled his troops at a certain place, 
 where, on an appointed day and hour, he was joined by the forces of Randolph 
 and Douglas. Thus cautiously assembled, the army by a night march approach- 
 ed the town. Having reached the appointed part of the walls, near to that place 
 still known by the name of the Cowport, they, with the assistance of Spalding, 
 scaled the walls, and were, in a few hours, masters of the town. The castle, 
 after a brief siege, in which the king assisted in person, was forced to surren- 
 der. Scotland, by this event, was at length wholly regained to its ancient sove- 
 reignty ; and, though the place was in an after reign retaken by the English, so 
 pertinaciously was the old right to it maintained at the union of the two king- 
 doms, that, as a compromise of the difference, it was legislatively allowed to be- 
 long to neither kingdom, and it still forms a distinct and independent portion 
 of the British dominions. 
 
 The Scottish army, after the reduction of Berwick, invaded England by North- 
 umberland; took by siege the castles of Werk and Harbolth, and that of 
 ford by surprise. These events occurred in the spring of 1318. In Maycl 
 the same year, the Scots penetrated into Yorkshire, and in their devastating pro
 
 378 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 cress burned the towns of Northallerton, Boroughbridge, Scarborough, .and 
 Skipton ; returning home loaded with spoil, and, says an English author, " driv- 
 ing their prisoners before them like flocks of sheep." Bruce was, at this time, 
 solemnly excommunicated by the pope's legate in England ; but so little was this 
 sentence regarded, that, in a parliament which was assembled at Scone, the 
 whole clergy and laity of the kingdom renewed their allegiance to the king ; and 
 by a memorable mode of expression, by which, doubtless, they meant to include 
 the pope, as well as the king of England, solemnly engaged, to protect the 
 rights and liberties of Scotland against all mortals, however eminent they may 
 be in power, atithority, and dignity. 
 
 Edward of England, having effected a temporary reconciliation of the discor- 
 dant factions of his kingdom, was enabled, in the succeeding year, to collect a 
 considerable army for the purpose of retaking the town and citadel of Berwick. 
 The place had been left by Robert under the command of the Stewart, with a 
 strong garrison, and was plentifully stored with provisions. To prevent the ap- 
 proach of succours to the place, the English drew lines of countervallation round 
 it ; and confident in their numbers, commenced a general and vigorous assault. 
 After a long and desperate contest they were repulsed. They next made their 
 attacks more systematically on various places, and often simultaneously, aided by 
 engines and contrivances which are curiously and minutely described by ancient 
 historians ; but these attempts admirably conducted as they were, according to the 
 engineering science of that day, seconded by the bravery of the assailants, proved 
 abortive. One of those engines used by the English upon this occasion, was called 
 a sow. As nearly as can be ascertained, it was a huge fabric, reaching in height 
 above the top of the wall, and composed of beams of timber, well roofed, having 
 sUiges within it. It moved upon wheels, and was calculated for the double pur- 
 pose of conducting miners to the foot of the wall, and armed men for scaling it. 
 To oppose this and other such machines, the Scots, under the direction of one 
 John Crab a Fleming, had provided themselves with movable engines called 
 cranes, similar to the catapultae of the ancients, capable of throwing large stones 
 with great projectile force. As the sow advanced, however, great fears were 
 entertained by the besieged. The engineer, by whom the monstrous piece 
 of work had been constructed, had, meantime, become a prisoner in the hands of 
 the Scots ; who, actuated by a very unjust revenge upon the man's unlucky in- 
 genuity, and upon their own fears, brought him to that part of the wall against 
 which the engine was directed, threatening with instant death any remissness he 
 should show in his efforts towards its destruction. The engineer caused one of 
 the cranes formerly mentioned to be placed directly opposite to the approaching 
 machine of the enemy, and prepared to work it with all his art. The first stone, 
 launched with prodigious force, flew beyond the object at which it was directed ; 
 the second, aimed with an opposite incorrectness, fell within the mark. There 
 was time only for a third trial, upon the success of which all seemed to depend ; 
 for the English, aware that their safety lay in getting under or within the range 
 of ihe catapult, strained every nerve to advance, and were now within very little 
 of accomplishing their purpose. The third great stone passed in an oblique and 
 nearly perpendicular line, high into the air, making a loud whizzing noise as it 
 rose, and whether owing to chance or art, it was so happily directed, as to fall 
 with a dreadful crash upon the devoted machine now so nearly within reach of 
 its destination. The terrified men within, instantly rushed from beneath their 
 cover ; and the besieged upon the walls, raising a loud shout, called out to them, 
 " that their great sow had farrowed her pigs." Grappling irons were quickly 
 fastened upon the shattered apparatus, and it was set on fire. While all this was 
 transacting upon the land side of Berwick, its reduced and worn out garrison
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 379 
 
 had to sustain an assault, no less desperate, on that part towards the river or es- 
 tuary ; where, by means of vessels of a peculiar construction, having falling 
 bridges mid-mast high, by which to reach the top of the walls, the city was vig- 
 orously, and almost successfully stormed. These, and various other desperate 
 attempts, seemed in no way to exhaust the ai-dour of the besiegers ; and they 
 did not lessen, though they tempered, the confidence of the besieged. 
 
 King Robert, unable from the strength and fortified position of the English 
 army, to render any direct assistance to the beleagured garrison, at the same 
 time saw, that if the Stewart were not shortly relieved he must be brought to a 
 speedy surrender. In this emergency he resolved, by a destructive invasion of 
 England, to make a diversion in his favour, and, if possible, draw off the forces 
 of Edward from the siege. This expedition was committed to the charge of 
 Randolph and Douglas, who, entering England by the western marches, pene- 
 trated -into Yorkshire. It is asserted, that they entertained some scheme of 
 carrying off the wife of Edward from her residence near York. Disappointed 
 in this, they wasted that rich province, far and near, with fire and sword. The 
 archbishop hastily collected a numerous but ill-assorted army, great part of which 
 is said to have been composed of ecclesiastics, and placing himself at their head, 
 determined to check the progress of the invading enemy. The Scots then lay 
 encamped at Milton, near Boroughbridge, in the north riding of Yorkshire. 
 The English, on coming up with that hardy, disciplined, and successful army, 
 were charged with so great rapidity and fury, that, scarcely waiting to strike a 
 blow, they gave way in the utmost disorder, and three thousand are reported to 
 have been slain in the rout. From the great numbers of churchmen who fell in 
 this battle, it came, from a soit of humour of the times, to be popularly distin- 
 guished by the name of the Chapter of Milton. 
 
 The effects which Robert expected from this invasion of England were not 
 miscalculated. The news of the devastations and successes of the Scots no sooner 
 reached Berwick, than they caused concern in all, and much diversity of opinion 
 amon<r the English commanders. A retreat was finally resolved upon ; and it 
 would seem injudiciously, as, had the now unopposed career of the Scots con- 
 tinued many days longer, the damage to England must have been immeasurably 
 great. On retiring from before Berwick, Edward attempted, unsuccessfully, to 
 intercept Douglas and Randolph on their return. After some brief negotiatic 
 a truce of two years was concluded between the two nations. 
 
 The following year, 1320, was remarkable for a bold and spirited manifesto, 
 transmitted by the estates of the kingdom to the pope, displaying in a remark- 
 able degree, that genuine earnestness and acuteness of style, which can alo 
 sprin-r from a sincere and lively conviction in the writer. His Holiness is told, 
 in one part of this singular document, that Robert, " like another Joshua, 
 Judas Maccabeus, gladly endured toils, distresses, the extremities of i 
 every peril, to rescue his people and inheritance out of the hands of I 
 Our due and unanimous consent," say they, "have made him our chief an. 
 To him in defence of our liberty we are bound to adhere, as well of r 
 reason of his deserts, and to him we will in all things adhere ; for throu 
 salvation has been wrought unto our people. Should he abandon our cause, or 
 aim at reducing us and our kingdom under the dominion of the English 
 instantly strive to expel him as a public enemy, and the subverter ot out 
 and his own, and we will choose another king to rule and protect us for M 
 there exist an hundred of us, we will never submit to England. 
 for dory wealth or honour, but for that liberty which no virtuous nan will su, 
 vL?^: describing with much animation the En 
 justice, and praying the interposition of his holiness, the
 
 380 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 " Should you, however, give a too credulous ear to the reports of our enemies, 
 distrust the sincerity of our professions, and persist in favouring the English, to 
 our destruction, \ve hold you guilty in the sight of the most high < .<>d, of the loss 
 of lives, the perdition of souls, and all the other miserable consequences \\liich 
 may ensue from war between the two contending nations." The pope, however 
 much he may have been incensed at the boldness of tins address, appeal's also to 
 have been alarmed. In a bull which he shortly afterwards sent to Edward, he 
 strongly recommends pacific measures, and bestows upon Bruce the ambiguous 
 title of " Regent of the kingdom of Scotland." 
 
 The parliament which distinguished itself by this spirited and honourable 
 measure was, in the course of its sitting, engaged in one of a more unpleasing 
 character. This was the investigation of a conspiracy in which some of the 
 highest men in the kingdom were implicated. The affair is now, from the loss 
 of records, but indistinctly understood. After a trial of the conspirators, Soulis, 
 and the countess of Strathern were condemned to perpetual imprisonment Gil- 
 bert de 31alerb, and John de Logic, both knights, and Richard Brown, an 
 esquire, were found guilty of treason and suffered accordingly. Roger de Mou- 
 bray died before sentence ; yet, according to a practice long retained in Scottish 
 law in cases of treason, judgment was pronounced upon the dead body. The 
 king, however, was pleased to mitigate this rigour, and he was allowed the hon- 
 ours of sepulture. The fate of David de Brechin, the king's nephew, who suf- 
 fered on this occasion, excited universal and deep compassion. His crime alone 
 lay in the concealing of the treason, which was communicated to him under an 
 oatli of secrecy. He had neither approved of, nor participated in it ; yet not- 
 withstanding these alleviations, and his near relationship to the king, he was 
 made an example of rigorous, though impartial justice. This parliament was, in 
 reference to this transaction, long remembered popularly under the appellation 
 of the black parliament. 
 
 During the inactive period of the truce, various methods were used towards ef- 
 fecting a peace between England and Scotland, but without effect. The pope as 
 well as the French king offered their services for this purpose ; but the exulta- 
 tion in which Edward then was, from having successfully crushed the Lancasterian 
 faction which had so long disturbed his personal peace and government, per- 
 mitted him not to give ear to any moderate counsels whatever. " dive yourself," 
 says he to the pope, " no further solicitude about a truce with the Scots. The 
 exigencies of my artairs inclined me formerly to listen to such proposals ; but 
 now I am resolved to establish peace by force of arms." While he was engaged 
 in these preparations, the Scots penetrated by the western marches into Lanca- 
 shire, committing their wonted devastations, and returned home loaded with 
 spoil. The king of Scots, who, at this time found no occasion for a general en- 
 gagement with his greatly superior enemy, fell upon a simple and effectual expe- 
 dient to render such an event unlikely, if not impossible. All the cattle ami 
 provisions of the Merse, Tiviotdale, and the Lothians, he ordered to be removed 
 into inaccessible or secure places ; an order which was so exactly executed, that 
 according to tradition, the only prey which fell into the hands of the English 
 was one solitary bull atTranent, which, from lameness, had been unable to travel 
 along with the other cattle. " Is that all ye have got ?" said the earl Warenne 
 to the spoilers as they returned to the camp ; " I never saw so dear a beast" Ed 
 ward advanced without opposition to the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, where 
 having in vain waited for some time for supplies from his fleet, he was necessi- 
 tnted, from absolute famine, to retire. In their countermarch into England, the 
 soldiers committed whatever outrages were possible in so desolate a rout. Theii 
 license even got the better of their superstition. Monks, who believed that the
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 381 
 
 sanctity of their character would have protected them, were wantonly murdered, 
 and their monasteries and abbeys plundered and burned. When this unfortunate 
 army got once more into the peace and plenty of their own country, it was little 
 better with them ; for, in proportion as their privations had been extreme, so, 
 now, were their indulgences excessive ; and an English historian has left it on 
 record, that almost one half of the great army which Edward had led into Scot- 
 land, was destroyed either by hunger or intemperance. 
 
 The remains of the English army had scarcely once more been restored to 
 order, when the Scots, who had followed closely upon their rear, entered Eng- 
 land, and laid siege to the castle of Norham. Edward, himself, then lay at the 
 abbey of Biland in Yorkshire ; the main body of his troops being encamped in 
 a strong position in the neighbourhood, supposed to be accessible only by one 
 narrow pass. The Scots, commanded by Robert in person, suddenly raising the 
 siege, marched onward in the hope of finding the English unprepared, or, as 
 some say, of seizing the person of Edward, by the aid of some of that monarch's 
 treacherous attendants. This latter design, if at all entertained, which is not 
 improbable, must have been found of too difficult execution. Douglas resolved 
 to force the defile within which the English had entrenched themselves ; and 
 Randolph, leaving his own peculiar command in the army, determined to join 
 his friend in the enterprise. The attack and defence continued obstinate and 
 bloody on both sides, but, in every likelihood, the men of Douglas must have 
 been obliged to retire, had not an unexpected aid come to their relief. The 
 king of Scots, who commanded the main and inactive body of his army on the 
 plain, had soon perceived the difficulty, if not impracticability of the adventure 
 in which his two brave generals had engaged themselves. With the same bold 
 and accurate forecast, which on some other occasions marked his generalship, he 
 fell upon the only, because in a great measure well-timed, means of extrication 
 and success which his situation afforded. Between the two armies lay a long 
 craggy hill of very difficult access, except through the narrow pass of which we 
 have made mention, and which the body of men under Douglas were vainly en- 
 deavouring to force. A party of Highlanders from Argyle and tlie Isles, admi- 
 rably suited for the service, were ordered, at some little distance, to scale the 
 eminences and so gain command of the pass from the ground above, where they 
 might, with signal effect, annoy the English underneath, and in flank. The 
 manoeuvre was successfully executed, the pass carried, and the whole English army 
 shortly after put to complete rout. They were pursued by the Stewart at the 
 head of five hundred men, to the gates of York. Edward, himself, escaped to 
 the same place with the greatest difficulty, abandoning all his baggage and trea- 
 sure to the enemy, leaving behind him even the privy seal of his kingdom. This 
 was the last battle in which this undeserving and equally unfortunate prince en- 
 gaged the Scots ; and it may be curious to remark how, in its result, it bore some 
 resemblance to the disaster and shame of the first. The Scots, after committ in- 
 extensive devastations on the unprotected and dispirited country, returned home, 
 carryiii"- a lon->- with them many prisoners, and an immense booty. 
 
 From this period to the accession of Edward III. to the throne of England in 
 1327, there occurred little which can properly come within our province to re- 
 late. A truce for fifteen years was with much willingness Receded to by tl 
 English king, who could never, however, be induced to rehnqmsh his claim of 
 sovereignty over Scotland. The pope was much pressed, particularly in an em- 
 bassy conducted by Randolph, to permit the reconciliation of Robert with 
 church; but the king of Scots, as yet, possessed too little interest in that venal 
 court and the king of England too much, to allow of such a concession. The 
 pontiff however, showed all the favour he could possibly, consistent with such a
 
 382 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 denial ; and though pressed by Edward, under various pretences, to renew the 
 publication of his former censures, could by no means be induced to comply. 
 The king of France was more honourable and just, though, probably at the same 
 time, politic, and concluded, in 1326, a treaty of alliance, offensive and defen- 
 sive, with Scotland. 
 
 On the accession of Edward III., hostilities almost immediately re-commenced 
 between the two kingdoms. That these originated on the side of the Scots seems 
 generally allowed ; but the motives which led to them are now only matter of 
 conjecture. One historian assigns as the cause, that the Scots had detected the 
 general bad faith of the English. According to Barbour, the ships of that na- 
 tion had seized upon several Scottish ships bound for the low countries, slain the 
 mariners, and refused to give satisfaction. That the king of Scotland, during 
 the then weak state of the councils of England, had determined to insist upon 
 the full recognition of his title, seems to have been, from the decisiveness of hi.< 
 preparations, the true, or more important, motive of the war. The campaign 
 which followed, though, perhaps, as curious and interesting as any which occurred 
 during these long wars, cannot be entered upon in this place, at length sufficient 
 to render, it instructive ; and it much more properly falls to be described in the 
 lives of those two great generals, Randolph and Douglas, by whom it was con- 
 ducted. The enterprise, on the part of England, was productive of enormous 
 expense to that kingdom ; and it terminated not only without advantage, but 
 without honour. 
 
 The so long desired peace between the two kingdoms was now near at hand. 
 To, attain this had been the grand and constant aim of all king Robert's policy; 
 and the court of England seemed, at length, persuaded of the immediate neces- 
 sity of a measure, the expediency of which could not but have long appeared ob- 
 vious. A negotiation was therefore entered into, and brought to a happy issue in a 
 parliament held at Northampton in April, 1328. The principal articles were 
 tle recognition of king Robert's titles ; the independent sovereignty of the 
 kingdom ; and the marriage of Johanna, king Edward's sister, to David, the son 
 and heir of the king of Scots. 
 
 Robert survived not long this consummation of his political life. He had for 
 some time laboured under an inveterate distemper, in those days called a leprosy ; 
 a consequence of the fatigues, hardships, and sufferings which, to such an unpar- 
 alleled degree, he had endured in the early part of his career. It was probably 
 the same disease as that with which he was afflicted prior to the battle of In- 
 verury ; but though, at that lime, the ardour of youth and enterprise, and a na- 
 turally powerful constitution, had triumphed over its malignity, Robert seemed 
 now fully aware that it must prove mortal The two last years of his life were 
 spent in comparative seclusion, in a castle at Cardross, situated on the northern 
 shore of the firth of Clyde ; where, from documents still extant, Robert passed 
 these few peaceful, though embittered days of his life, in a style of munificence 
 every way becoming his high station. Much of his time was devoted to the con- 
 struction of ships ; and whether he himself joined personally in such amuse- 
 ments or not, the expense of aquatic and fishing excursions, hawking, and other 
 sports, appears to have fonned a considerable item of his domestic disbursements. 
 From the same authentic source, it is pleasing to observe, that his charities to 
 the poor were regular and befitting. 
 
 Robert the First of Scotland died in this retirement, on the 7th day of June, 
 1329, in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and twenty-third year of his reign. Prior 
 to this event a remarkable and affecting scene is recorded to have taken place be- 
 tueen the dying monarch and several of his esteemed counsellors and companions 
 in anus. Having spoke to these, generally, upon matters connected with the
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 383 
 
 ordering and well-being of his kingdom, Robert called Sir James Douglas to his 
 couch, and addressed him in somewhat the following manner: "Sir James, my 
 dear and gallant friend, you know well the many troubles and severe hardships 
 I have undergone in recovering and defending the rights of my crown and peo- 
 ple, for you have participated in them all. When I was hardest beset of all, I 
 made a vow, that if I ever overcame my difficulties, I would assume the cross, 
 and devote the remainder of my days to warring against the enemies of our 
 Lord and Saviour. But it has pleased providence, by this heavy malady, to take 
 from me all hope of accomplishing^ivhat, in my heart and soul, I have earnestly 
 desired. Therefore, my dear and faithful companion, knowing no knight more 
 valiant, or better fitted than yourself for such a service, my earnest desire is, that 
 when I am dead, you take my heart with you to Jerusalem, and deposit it in the 
 holy sepulchre, that my soul may be so acquitted from the vow which my body is 
 unable to fulfil." All present shed tears at this discourse. "My gallant and 
 noble king," said Douglas, " I have greatly to thank you for the many and large 
 bounties which you have bestowed upon me ; but chiefly, and above all, I am 
 thankful, that you consider me worthy to be intrusted with this precious charge 
 of your heart, which has ever been full of prowess and goodness ; and I shall 
 most loyally perform this last service, if God grant me life and power." The 
 king tenderly thanked him for his love and fidelity, saying, " I shall now die in 
 peace." Immediately after Robert's decease, his heart was taken out, as he had 
 enjoined, and the body deposited under a rich marble monument, in the choir of 
 the Abbey church of Dunfermline. 
 
 So died that heroic, and no less patriotic monarch, to whom the people of 
 Scotland, in succeeding ages, have looked back with a degree of national pride 
 and aflection, which it has been the lot of few men in any age or country to in- 
 spire. From a state of profligate degeneracy and lawless barbarity, originating 
 in, and aggravated by, a foreign dominion and oppression, he raised the poor 
 kingdom of Scotlai d to a greater degree of power and security than it had ever 
 before attained ; and by a wise system of laws and regulations, forming, in fact, 
 the constitution of the popular rights and liberties, secured to posterity the be- 
 nefit of all the great blessings which his arms and policy had achieved. 
 
 BRUCE, ROBERT, an eminent divine of the seventeenth century, a collateral 
 relation of the sovereign who bore the same name, and ancestor at the sixth 
 remove of the illustrious Abyssinian traveller, was born about the year 1551, 
 being the second son of Sir Alexander Bruce of Airth in Stirlingshire, by Janet, 
 daughter of Alexander, fifth Lord Livingston, and Agnes, daughter of the second 
 fclarl of Morton. We -learn from Birrel's Diary, a curious chronicle of the six- 
 teenth century, that Sir Alexander, the father of this pious divine, was c 
 those powerful Scottish barons, who used to be always attended by a retinue of 
 armed servants, and did not scruple, even in the streets of the capital, to attack 
 any equally powerful baron with whom they were at feud, and whom they ra 
 chance to meet, Birrel tells us, for instance, that on " the 24th ot Novel >er, 
 15G7, at two in the afternoon, the laird of Airth and the laird ot Ueemis 
 cestor of the Earl of Wemyss] mett upon the heigh gait of Edinburghe [I 
 Street], and they and thair followers faught a verey bloudy skirmish, w 
 wes maney hurte on both sydes by shote of pistole." The father of t 
 of this memoir was descended from a cadet of the Bruces of Clackmannan, who, 
 in the reign of James I. of Scotland, had married the eldest daughter . 
 de Airtlie, and succeeded to the inheritance. The Bruces of ( 
 from whom, we believe, all the Bruces of Stirlingshire Clackmannanshire K 
 ross, &c., ( including the Earl of Elgin, ) are descended, sprung rom a younger 
 son of Robert de Bruce, the competitor with Baliol for the Scottish throne, and
 
 384 EGBERT BRUCE. 
 
 therefore uncle to King Robert, The lender may perhaps remember the pioud 
 saying of the last Lady of Clackmannan, \vlio, on being complimented by Robert 
 Mums as belonging to the family of the Scottish hero, informed the poet, that 
 King Robert belonged to her family : it will be seen from our present statement 
 that the old lady made a slight mistake. 
 
 While the eldest son of Sir Alexander Bruce was designed to inherit the pio- 
 perty of Airth, a comparatively sm; 11 appanage, consisting of the lands of Kin- 
 naird, was appropriated to Robert ; but to eke out his provision for life, he was 
 devoted, like many other cadets of Scottish families, to the profession of the law. 
 With a view to qualify him for the bar, he was sent to Paris, where he studied 
 the principles of Roman jurisprudence under the most approved masters. After- 
 wards returning to his native country, he completed his studies at Edinburgh, 
 and began to conduct his father's business before the Court of Session. That 
 court was then, like the other parts of government, corrupt and disordered ; the 
 judges were court partisans; and justice was too often dispensed upon the prin- 
 ciples of an auction. Young Bruce, whose mind was already tinctured \\itb 
 an ardent sentiment of religion, shrunk appalled from a course of life which 
 involved such moral enormities, and, without regarding the prospect of speedily 
 becoming a judge, which his father, according to the iniquitous practice of the 
 time, had secured for him by patent ! he determined on devoting himself to the 
 church, which, it must be confessed, at that time opened up fully as inviting 
 prospects to an ambitious mind as the bar. His parents, to \\hom the moral 
 status of a clergyman in those days was as nothing compared with the nominal 
 rank of a judge, combated this resolution by all the means in their power, not 
 excepting the threatened withdrawal of his inheritance. But Bruce, \\lio is said 
 to have felt what he considered a spiritual call towards his new profession, 
 resigned his pi'etensions to the estate without a sigh, and, throwing off the 
 embroidered scarlet dress which he had worn as a courtier, exchanged his resi- 
 dence at Edinburgh for the academical solitude^of St Andrews, \\here he com- 
 menced the study of theology. 
 
 At this period, Andrew Melville, the divinity professor of St Andrews, was 
 undergoing banishment on account of his opposition to the court ; but being 
 permitted to resume his duties in 153(5, Bruce enjoyed the advantage of his pre- 
 lections for the ensiling winter, and appears to have become deeply imbued with 
 his peculiar spirit. In the summer of 1587, he was brought to Edinburgh by 
 Melville, and recommended to the General Assembly, as a fit successor to the 
 deceased Mr Lawson, who, in his turn, had been the successor of Knox. This 
 -charge, however, Bruce scrupled to undertake, lest he should be found unfit for 
 its important duties ; he would only consent to preach till the next synod, 
 by way of trying his abilities. It appears that he filled the pulpit for some 
 months, though not an ordained clergyman ; which certainly conveys a strange 
 impression of the rules of the church at that period. He was even persuaded, 
 on an emergency, to undertake the task of dispensing the communion which 
 must be acknowledged as a still more remarkable breach of ecclesiastical system. 
 He was soon after called by the unanimous voice of the people to become their 
 pastor ; but partly, perhaps, from a conscientious aversion to ordination, and 
 partly from a respect to his former exertions, he would never submit to any 
 ceremonial, such as is considered necessary by all Christian churches in giving 
 commission to a new member. He judged the call of the people and the appro- 
 bation of the ministry to be sufficient warrant for his undertaking this sacred 
 profession. 
 
 So rapidly did the reputation of Bruce advance among his brethren, that, in 
 six months after this period, at an extraordinary meeting of the General Assem-
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 385 
 
 bly, which was called to consider the means of defence against the Spanish Ar- 
 mada, he was chosen Moderator. A charge was preferred to this court against 
 a preacher named Gibson, who had uttered disrespectful language in his pulpit 
 regarding king James. The accused party was charged to appear, and, failing 
 to do so, was suspended for contumacy. There can be no doubt that the church 
 was most reluctant to proceed to such an extremity with one of its members on 
 a court charge ; and its readiness to do so can only be accounted for as necessi- 
 tated in some measure by the avowed constitution of the church itself, which 
 repeatedly set forth that it did not claim an exemption for its members from 
 ordinary law, but only desired that an impeached individual should first be tried 
 by his brethren. Accordingly we find the conscience of the Moderator imme- 
 diately accusing him in a strange way for having yielded a brother to lay ven- 
 gennce ; for, on that night, he thought he heard a voice saying to him, in the 
 Latin language, ' Why hast thou been present at the condemnation of my ser- 
 vant ?' When the destruction of the Spanish Armada was known in Scotland, 
 Bruce preached two thanksgiving sermons, which were published in 1591, and 
 display a strength of sentiment and language fully sufficient to vindicate the con- 
 temporary reputation of the author to posterity. 
 
 Master Robert Bruce, 1 as he was styled in compliance with the common 
 fashion of the time, figured conspicuously in the turbulent proceedings which, for 
 some years after this period, characterised the ecclesiastical history of Scotland. 
 By king James he seems to have been regarded with a mixture of respect, jea- 
 lousy, and fear, the result of his powerful abilities, his uncompromising hostility 
 to undue regal power, and the freedom with which he censured the follies and 
 vices of the court. It was by no means in contradiction to these feelings that, 
 when James sailed for Denmark in 1589, to bring home his queen, he raised 
 Master Robert to the Privy Council, and invested him with a non-commissioned 
 power of supervision over the behaviour of the people during his absence ; telling 
 him, at the same time, that he had more confidence in him and the other minis- 
 ters of Edinburgh, than in the whole of his nobles. The king knew well enough 
 that if he did not secure the exertions of the clergy on the side of the govern- 
 ment during his absence, they would certainly act against it. As might have 
 been expected from the influence of the clergy, the usual disorders of the realm 
 ceased entirely during the supremacy of this system of theocracy; and the 
 chief honour of course fell upon Bruce. The turbulent Earl of Bothwell, who 
 was the nominal head of the government, proposed, during James's absence, to 
 make a public repentance for a life of juvenile profligacy. The strange scene, 
 which exhibited the first man in the kingdom humbled for sin before an ordmary 
 Christian congregation, took place on the 9th of November in the High Church 
 On this occasion Bruce preached a sermon from 2 Tim., chap. 11., verses 2; 
 which was printed among others in 1591, and abounds in good sense, and 
 pointed and elegant language. When the sermon was ended, the **A_ of 
 well upon his knees confessed his dissolute and licentH>us Lfe and with tear, 
 his eye's uttered the following words-' 1 wald to God that I ^J** 
 repentance as mine heart craveth ; and I desire you all to pray for it 
 was the repentance of Esau, and soon effaced by greater enomiUei 
 
 On the return of king James with his queen, m May, 159 
 the cordial thanks of his Majesty for his zeal ^^^*^ 
 absence, and his care in tutoring the people to behave Recently eft ' * 
 and her Danish attendants. He was also honoured with the duty of pla, 
 
 ^ <ffH ^*^.fii=ttS^S^AaK5 
 
 plied to any other class of men.
 
 386 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 crown upon the queen's head at her coronation ; which was considered a great 
 triumph on the part of the Presbyterian church over the titular bishops. In the 
 ensuing June, Bruce was himself married to Margaret, daughter ^of Douglas of 
 Parkhead, a considerable baron, who some years after rendered himself conspi- 
 cuous by assassinating James Stuart, Earl of Arran, who had been the favourite 
 of king James, and the arch-enemy of the Presbyterian polity. The parents of 
 Bruce appear to have been now reconciled to him, for, on the occasion of his 
 marriage, they gave him back his inheritance of Kinnaivd. 
 
 The Protestant Church of Scotland had been so highly exasperated against 
 the Catholics at the Reformation, and was now so imminently threatened by 
 them, that its conduct in regard to that body at this period, bears very much the 
 aspect of persecution. Three Catholic earls, Huntly, Angus, and Errol, had en- 
 tered into the views whic,h Spain for some years entertained against both divisions 
 of Britain ; and they were now justly liable to the extreme vengeance of llioir 
 sovereign for treason. James, however, never could be brought to put the laws 
 fully in force against them, from a fear lest tfie Catholic party in general might 
 thereby be provoked to oppose his succession to Elizabeth. The backwardness 
 of James, and the forwardness of the clergy in this cause, naturally brought thorn 
 into violent collision, and as Bruce, next to Melville, was now the leader of the 
 clergy, he became exceedingly odious to his sovereign. The following anecdote, 
 related by an Episcopalian pamphleteer of a succeeding age, will illustrate their 
 relative positions better than any thing else. " It is to this day remembered," 
 says Maxwell, bishop of Koss, in the Burden of Issachar, printed 1G4G, "that 
 when Master Robert Bruce came from his "visitation in the east, returning to 
 Edinburgh, and entering by the Canongate, king James, looking out at his win- 
 dow in the palace of Holyroodhouse, with indignation (which extorted from him 
 an oath ), said, ' Master Robert Bruce, I am sure, intends to be king, and declare 
 himself heir to king Robert de Bruce.' At another time, wishing to recall the 
 three banished lords, Angus, Huntly, and Errol, James attempted to gain the 
 conseut of Master Robert, who possessed more power in Edinburgh, through his 
 command of consciences, than the sovereign himself. Being ushered into the 
 king's bed-chamber, James opened unto him his views upon the English crown, 
 and his fears lest the Papists in Scotland, of whom these lords were the chief, 
 should contrive to join with their brethren in England, and raise obstacles to his 
 succession. He continued, * Do you not think it lit, Master Robert, that I give 
 them a pardon, restore them to their honour and lands, and by doing so gain 
 them, that thus I may save the effusion of Christian blood ?' To this demand, so 
 piously made, the answer was, ' Sir, you may pardon Angus and Errol, and 
 recall them ; but it is not fit, nor will you ever obtain my consent to pardon or 
 recall Huntly.' To this the most gracious king sweetly replied, ' Master Robert, 
 it were better for me to pardon and recall him without the other two, than the 
 other two without him: first, because you know he hath a greater command, and 
 is more powerful than the other two ; secondly, you know I am more assured of 
 his affection to me, for he hath married my near and dear kinswoman, the Duke 
 of Lennox his sister.' His rejoinder was, ' Sir, I cannot agree to it,' The 
 king desiring him to consider it, dismissed him ; but when sent for once more, 
 Mr Robert still continued inexorable : ' I agree with all my heart,' said he, 
 ' that you recall Angus and Errol ; but for Huntly it cannot be.' The king 
 resumed, and repeated his reasons before mentioned, and added some more ; but 
 he obstinately opposed and contradicted it. * * * King James desired his 
 reasons ; he gave none, but spoke majestically. Then the king told him down- 
 right, ' Master Robert, I have told you my purpose ; you see how nearly it con- 
 cerneth me ; I have given you my reasons for my resolutions'; you give me your
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 387 
 
 opinion, but you strengthen it not with reasons. Therefore, I will hold my 
 resolution, and do as I first spoke to you.' To which, with Christian and sub- 
 ject-like reverence, Bruce returned this reply, ' Well, Sir, you may do as you 
 list; but choose you, you shall not have me and the Earl of Huntly b.itli for 
 you.' Though this tile is told by an enemy, it bears too many characteristic 
 marks to be altogether false ; and certainly it presents a most expressive picture 
 of the comparative importance of the leader of the Scottish church and the leader 
 of the Scottish state. Maxwell insinuates interested and unworthy motives for 
 Bruce's conduct on this occasion ; but the whole tenor of the man's life dis- 
 proves their reality. There can be no doubt that he was actuated solely by a 
 fear for the effect which Huntlys great territorial influence might have upon the 
 Scottish church. To show that his conduct on this occasion was by no means of 
 an uncommon kind, we may relate another anecdote. On the u'lh of June, 
 1592, the king came to the Little Kirk, to hear Bruce's sermon. In his dis- 
 course, Bruce moved the question, " What could the great disobedience of the 
 land mean now, while the king was present ? seeing some reverence was borne 
 to his shadow while absent'' To this he himself answered, that it was the uni- 
 versal contempt of his subjects. He therefore exhorted the king " to call to 
 God, before he either ate or drank, that the Lord would give him a resolution 
 to execute justice on malefactors, although it should be with the hazard of his 
 life : which, if he would enterprise courageously, the Lord would raise enough 
 to assist, and all his impediments would vanish away. Otherwise," said he, in 
 conclusion, '* you will not be suffered to enjoy your crown alone, but every man 
 will have one.'' When we find the king obliged to submit to such rebukes as 
 this before his subjects, can we wonder at his finding it a difficult task to exact 
 obedience from those subjects, either to himself or the laws. 
 
 The extraordinary power of the Scottish church came at length to a period. 
 During a violent contention between the church and court in 15U6, the parlizans 
 of the former were betrayed by their zeal into a kind of riot, which was con- 
 strued by the king into an attack upon his person. The re-action occasioned 
 by this event, and the increased power which he now possessed in virtue of his 
 near approach to the English throne, enabled him to take full advantage of their 
 imprudence, in imposing certain restrictions upon the church, of an episcopal 
 tendency. Bruce, who preached the sermon which preceded the riot, found 
 it necessary, though not otherwise concerned, to fly to England. He did not 
 procure permission to return for some months, and even then he was not allowed 
 to resume his functions as a parish minister. For some time, he officiated pri- 
 vately in the houses of his friends. Nor was it till after a long course of dis- 
 agreeable contentions with the court, that he was received back into one of the 
 parochial pulpits of Edinburgh. 
 
 This was but the beginning of a series of troubles which descended upon ihe 
 latter half of Bruce's life. In August, 1600, the king met with the strange 
 adventure know n by the name of the Gowrie Conspiracy. When he afterwards 
 requested the ministers of Edinburgh te give an account of this affair to their 
 congregations, and offer up thanks for his deliverance, Bruce happened to be 
 one of a considerable party who could not bring themselves to believe that James 
 had been conspired against by the two young Buthvens, but rather were of opin- 
 ion that the whole affair was a conspiracy of his own to rid himself of two men 
 whom he had reason to hate. A strange incoherent notion as to the attach- 
 ment of these young men to the presbyterian system, and the passion which one 
 of them had entertained for the queen, took possession of this party, though 
 there is not the slightest evidence to support either proposition. To king James, 
 who was full of his wonderful deliverance, this scepticism was exceedingly
 
 388 ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 annoying, for more reasons than one ; and accordingly it was not surprising thai 
 lie should have been disposed to take the sharpest measures with a recusant of 
 so much popular influence as Bru<;e. " Ye have heard me, ye have heard my 
 minister, ye have heard my council, ye have heard the Karl of Mar,'' exclaimed 
 the enraged monarch ; yet all would not do. The chancellor then pronounced 
 a sentence dictated by the council, prohibiting Bruce and three of his brethren 
 to preach in the kingdom under pain of death. 
 
 Bruce was not the man to be daunted or driven from his purpose when the 
 liberties of his church and the maintenance of a good conscience were concerned. 
 He had made up his mind to withstand, at all hazards, the now undisguised 
 machinations of his infatuated monarch to crush the Presbyterian cause. In 1596, 
 when the privy council was prosecuting David Black, minister of St. Andrew's, 
 for certain expressions he had uttered in the pulpit, Bruce headed a deputa- 
 tion of ministers to the king, to endeavour to bring about an accommodation, 
 lie declared with solemn earnestness, on behalf of himself and his associates, 
 " that if the matter concerned only the life of Mr Black, or that of a dozen 
 others, they would have thought it of comparatively trifling importance ; but 
 as it was the liberty of the gospel, and the spiritual sovereignty of the Lord 
 Jesus that was assailed, they could not submit, but must oppose all such 
 proceedings, to the extreme hazard of their lives." This declaration moved 
 the king at the time, and wrung tears from his eyes ; but the rclentings of his 
 better nature were soon overcome by his courtiers. He was but too anxious 
 to get so formidable an opponent a* Bruce out of the way, and the present 
 occasion afforded him a favourable opportunity. Bruce, after spending some 
 time as a prisoner in Airth, his paternal seat, embarked at Queensforry on the 
 5th of November 1600, for Dieppe in Normandy, which he reached in five days. 
 Next year he was allowed to return to his native country, although not to reside 
 in Edinburgh. He had two interviews with James, one of them at the very 
 moment when his majesty mounted horse on his journey to England. But the 
 minions of the court Jind friends of the episcopal religion contrived to prevent 
 his offers of submission from having their due weight. He was formally deposed 
 in 1605, and sent to Inverness, which was then a frequent place of banishment 
 for obnoxious clergymen. There he remained for eight years, only exercising 
 his gifts in a private way, but still with the best effect upon the rude people who 
 heard him. In 1613, his son procured permission for his return to Kinnaird, 
 upon the condition that he would confine himself to that place. There, however, 
 he soon found himself very painfully situated, on account of the comparatively 
 dissolute manners of the neighbouring clergy, who are said to have persecuted 
 him in return for the freedom he used in censuring their behaviour. He obtain- 
 ed leave- from the Privy Council to retire to a more sequestered house at Monk- 
 land, near Bothwell, where, however, he soon attracted the notice of the Bishop 
 of Glasgow, on account of the crowds which flocked to hear him. He was 
 obliged to return to Kinnaird. In 1621, the Scottish parliament was about to 
 pass the famed articles of Perth, in order to bring back something like form to 
 ihe national system of worship. Bruce could not restrain his curiosity to witness 
 this awful infliction upon the church ; he took advantage of some pressing piece 
 of private business to come to Edinburgh. The bishops watched the motions of 
 their powerful enemy with vigilance, and he was soon observed. They entered 
 i petition and complaint before the Council, and he was committed to Edinburgh 
 castle for several months, after which he was again banished to Inverness. 
 Some of the lords of the council, who were his friends, wrote to court, in order 
 u> have the place of confinement fixed at his family seat ; but James had heard 
 of the effect of his preachings at that place, and returned for answer, ' It is not
 
 ROBERT BRUCE. 389 
 
 for the love of him that ye have written, but to entertain a schism in the kirk ; 
 we will have no more popish pilgrimages to Kiimaird (in allusion to the frequent 
 intercourse between Bruce and the pious people of the surrounding country); he 
 shall go to Inverness.' The King never forgave his scepticism of the Gowrio 
 conspiracy, although this was the occasion rather than the cause of the persecution 
 which tracked him in his latter years. He remained at Inverness till the death 
 of James in 1625, when he obtained permission once more to reside at his own 
 house. He was even allowed, for some time after this, to preach in several of the 
 parish churches around Edinburgh, whither large crowds flocked to hear him. 
 At length, in 1629, Charles wrote to the Council, requesting that he might again 
 be confined to Kinnaird, or the space of two miles around it. The church of 
 Larbert having been neglected by the bishops, and left in ruins without either 
 minister or stipend, he had repaired it at his own expense, and now finding it 
 within the limits of his confinement, he preached there every Sunday to a nume- 
 rous and eager audience. At one of his sermons, either in that church or in the 
 neighbourhood, he gained a proselyte who vindicated his cause, and that of Pres- 
 byterians in general, a few years after. This was the celebrated Alexander 
 Henderson, minister at Leuchars, in Fife, whom he was the means of converting, 
 by preaching from the first verse of the tenth chapter of St John's Gospel. 
 
 Bruce had now lived to see the Scottish Presbyterian Church altered for an im- 
 perfect Episcopacy, and as. he prepared for the fate which threescore and ten years 
 Lad long marked out for him, he must have felt convinced that what remained of 
 his favourite system could not long survive him. The revival of the Presbyterian 
 polity, in all its pristine glory, was reserved in its proper time for his pupil Hen- 
 derson. Exhausted with the infirmities of age, he was for some time almost con- 
 fined to his chamber; yet, as he laboured under no active disease, his end advanced 
 slowly. On the 13th of August, 1631, having breakfasted with his family, in the 
 usual manner, he felt death approaching-, and warned his children that his Master 
 called him. With these words, he desired a Bible to be brought, and finding that 
 his sight was gone, he requested his daughter to place his hand on the two last 
 verses of the Epistle to the Romans. These were highly expressive of his life, 
 his resolution, and his hopes. When his hand was fixed on the words, he re- 
 mained for a few moments satisfied and silent. He had only strength to add, 
 Now God be with you, my children ; I have breakfasted with you, and shall sup 
 to-night with the Lord Jesus Christ.' He then closed his eyes, and peacefully 
 expired. 
 
 Such was the end of the long and various life of Robert Bruce. His bold and 
 comprehensive mind, his stern independence, and stainless integrity, are qualities, 
 which, under every disadvantage, procure the respect of mankind, and indicate 
 superior character. Less violent than Melville, more enlightened than Knox, he 
 viewed with a brighter and milder eye the united interests of the church and 
 nation. Had he chosen to accommodate himself to the temporising spirit of the 
 age, he might have stood high in royal favour, and become, in point of political 
 influence, the first man of the age. But the true greatness of his character as a 
 Christian minister and a patriot, which shone brightest in adversity, would never 
 have appeared ; nor would the services have been rendered to his church and 
 country which contributed to secure to them those blessings of rational freedom 
 and liberty of conscience which have descended to our own times, and which it 
 should be' our study to preserve and transmit to future generations. James VI. 
 found in men like Bruce, and in the church of which he was an ornament, 
 formidable obstacles to the civil and spiritual despotism which he had destined 
 for his Scottish subjects ; hence his fear of both was equal to his dislike. Im- 
 partial history indorses not the later but the earlier judgment of the King,
 
 390 MRS. MARY BRUNTON. 
 
 who was so sensible of the valuable services of the church in preserving public 
 tranquillity, during his absence in Sweden on the occasion of his marriage, that 
 in his letters to Bruce he declared that he was " worth the quarter of his king- 
 dom." 
 
 The person of Robert Bruce was tall and dignified. His countenance WH.S 
 mnjestic, and his appearance in the pulpit grave, and expressive of much 
 authority. His manner of delivery was, in the words of a prcsbyterian his 
 torian, ' an earthquake to his hearers, and he rarely preached but to a weeping 
 auditory.' It is told, as an instance of the effect of his sermons, that a poor 
 Highlander one day came to him after he had concluded, and offered to him his 
 whole wealth' (two cows), on condition that he would make God his friend. 
 Accustomed to continual prayer and intense meditation on religious subjects, his 
 ardent imagination at times appeal's to have lost itself in visions of the divine 
 favour ; a specious, but natural illusion, by which the most virtuous minds have 
 been deceived and supported, when reason and philosophy have been summoned 
 in vain. His knowledge of the Scriptures was extensive, and accurate beyond 
 the attainment of his age. His skill in the languages, and the sciences of those 
 times, not to mention his acquaintance with the laws and constitution of the 
 kingdom, a branch of knowledge possessed by few of his brethren, was equal, 
 if not superior, to that of any of the Scottish reformers. His sermons, of which 
 sixteen were printed in his lifetime, display a boldness of expression, regularity 
 of style, and force of argument, seldom to be found in the Scottish writers of the 
 sixteenth century. A translation of their rich idiomatic Scottish into the 
 English tongue was printed in 1617, and is that which is now most common in 
 Scotland. 
 
 This great man was buried within the church of Larbert, in which he had 
 often preached during the latter part of his life. People assembled from all 
 quarters to attend his funeral ; and, according to Calderwood, between four and 
 five thousand persons followed his corpse to the grave. It is impossible to con- 
 clude this narrative of his life, without remarking how much of his person and 
 character revived in the Abyssinian Bruce, his descendant in the sixth degree, 
 whose person was also majestic, tind whose mind, while diminished a little in 
 utility by hasty passion and a want of accommodation to circumstances, was also 
 of the most powerful cast, and calculated to produce a great impression upon 
 those around it. 
 
 BRUNTON, MRS MARY, an eminent moral novelist of the present century 
 was born in the island of Burra, in Orkney, November 1, 1778. Her lathe i 
 was Colonel Thomas Balfour of Elwick, a cadet of one the most respectable fami 
 lies in the county of Orkney. Her mother was Frances Ligonier, only daughter 
 of Colonel Ligonier of the 1 3th dragoons, and niece of the Karl of Ligonier, 
 under whose care she was educated. Previous to her sixteenth year, Mary 
 Balfour had received some instructions in music, and in French and Italian 
 from her mother ; and her education was completed by a short residence at a 
 boarding-school in Edinburgh. At the early age mentioned, she had to under- 
 take the cliarge of her father's household, from which she was removed in her 
 twentieth year, to be the wife of the Rev. Alexander Brunton, minister of the 
 parish of Bolton in East Lothian. In the retirement, and moderate elegance of 
 a Scottish manse, Mrs Brunton was only at first conspicuous for her attention to 
 her household duties. Afterwards, however, the tastes of her husband led her 
 gradually into habits of study, and she went, with Iiis direction and assistance, 
 through a course of reading, in history, philosophy, criticism, ind the belles 
 lettres. The promotion of her husband to a ministerial charge at Edinburgh, 
 which took place six years after her marriage, was favourable to the expansion
 
 MRS. MARY BRUNTON. 391 
 
 and improvement of her intellect, by introducing her into a circle of society 
 more enlightenejj than any in which she had hitherto moved. The native 
 powers of Tier mind were slowly developed; she ripened from the simple house- 
 wife into the clear-minded and intelligent savante. Yet for many years, she 
 was only known as a well-informed, but perfectly unpretending female. So far 
 from displaying any disposition to active literature, she felt the composition of a 
 letter to be burdensome. A trivial circumstance is said to have operated, with 
 several other causes, in inducing her to attempt a regular work. She had often 
 urged her husband to undertake some literary work, and once she appealed to 
 an intimate friend, who was present, whether he would not publish it. This 
 third party expressed a ready consent, but said he would at least as willingly 
 publish a book of her own writing. This seemed at the time to strike her with 
 a sense of her powers hitherto not entertained, and she asked more than once 
 whether he was in earnest. She then appears to have commenced her novel, 
 entitled " Self Control," of which she had finished a considerable part of the 
 first volume before making even her husband privy to her design. In 1811, 
 the work was published at li'dinburgh, in two volumes, and the impression which 
 it made upon the public was immediate and decisive. It was acknowledged that 
 there were faults of a radical and most unfortunate kind such as the perpetual 
 danger to which the honour of the heroine was exposed, (an intolerable subject 
 of fictitious writing,) but every one appreciated the beauty and correctness of the 
 style, and the acuteness of observation, and loftiness of sentiment, which per- 
 vaded the whole. The modesty of 31rs Brunton, which was almost fantastic, 
 induced her to give this composition to the world without her name. Four 
 years afterwards, she published a second novel in three volumes, entitled 
 " Discipline," which was only admired in a degree inferior to the first She 
 afterwards commenced a third tale under the title " Emmeline," which she did 
 not live to finish. 
 
 Mrs Brunton had been married twenty years without being blessed with any 
 offspring. In the summer of 1 8 1 8, when a prospect of that blessing occurred, she 
 became impressed with a belief that she should not survive. With a tranquillity, 
 therefore, which could only be the result of great strength of mind, joined to 
 the purest sentiments of religion and virtue, she made every preparation for 
 death, exactly as if she liad been about to leave her home upon a journey. The 
 clothes in which she was to be laid in the grave, were selected by herself; she 
 herself had chosen and labelled some tokens of remembrance for her more 
 intimate friends; and she even prepared with her own hand a list of the indi- 
 viduals to whom she wished intimations of her death to be sent. Yet these 
 anticipations, though so deeply fixed, neither shook her fortitude, nor diminished 
 her cheerfulness. They neither altered her wish to live, nor the ardour with 
 which she prepared to meet the duties of returning health, if returning health 
 were to be her portion. 
 
 To the inexpressible grief of her husband and friends, and, it may be i ud, 
 of the literary world at large, the unfortunate lady's anticipations proved true. 
 On the 7th of December, she gave birth to a still-born son, and for some days 
 recovered with a rapidity beyond the hopes of her medical attendants. A fever, 
 however, took place, and, advancing with fatal violence, terminated her valu 
 life on the 1 9th, in the forty-first year of her age. 
 
 The whole mind and character of Mrs Brunton was one pure and per 
 chrysolite" of excellence. We are so agreeably anticipated in an e 
 her worth by an obituary tribute paid to her memory by 1 
 that we shall make no scruple for laying it before the reader :
 
 302 AT.EXANDRIl BRYCE. 
 
 No more shall bed-rid pauper watch 
 
 The gentle rising of the latch, 
 
 And as she enters shift his place, 
 
 To hear her voice and see her face. 
 
 The helpless vagrant, oft relieved, 
 
 From her hath his last dole received. 
 
 The circle, social and enlightened, 
 
 Whose evening hours her converse brightened, 
 
 Have seen her quit the friendly door, 
 
 Whose threshold she shall cross no more. 
 
 And he, by holy ties endear'd, 
 
 Whose life her loie so sweetly cheer'd, 
 
 Of her cold clay, the mind's void cell, 
 
 Hath ta'en a speechless last farewell. 
 
 Yea, those who never saw her face, 
 
 Now did on blue horizon trace 
 
 One mountain of her native land, 
 
 Nor turn that leaf with eager hand, 
 
 On which appears the unfinish'd page, 
 
 Of her whose works did oft engage 
 
 Untired attention, interest deep, 
 
 W 7 hile searching, healthful thoughts would creep 
 
 To the heart's core, like balmy air, 
 
 To leave a kindly feeling there, 
 
 AIM! gaze, till stain of fallen tears, 
 
 Upon the snowy blank appears. 
 
 Now all who did her friendship claim, 
 
 With alter'd voice pronounce her name, 
 
 And quickly turn, with wistful ear, 
 
 Her praise from stranger's lips to hear, 
 
 And hoard as saintly relics gain'd, 
 
 Aught that to her hath e'er pertain'd. 
 
 The last beautiful allusion is to the unfinished tale of Emmeline, which was 
 published by her husband, Dr Brunton (now professor of Oriental Languages in 
 the university of Edinburgh), along with a brief, but most elegant and touching 
 memoir of her life. 
 
 BRYCE, (the Rev.) ALEXANDER, an eminent geometrician, was born in tlie 
 year 171 3, at Boarland in the parish of Kincardine, and received the first 
 rudiments of learning at tiie school of Downe, Perthshire. He studied after- 
 wards at the university of Edinburgh, where his proficiency in mathematics and 
 practical astronomy, early attracted the notice and secured for him the 
 patronage of professor Maclaurin. At the particular request of that celebrated 
 man, he went to Caithness, in May 1740, as tutor to a gentleman's son, but 
 chiefly to construct a map of the northern coast ; the number of shipwrecks 
 rendering this, at the time, an object of considerable national importance. 
 During a residence of three years, and in defiance of many threats from the 
 peasantry, (\vhich made it necessary for him to go always armed,) who did not 
 relish so accurate an examination of their coast, from motives of disloyalty, or 
 because they were afraid, it would deprive them of two principal sources of in- 
 come smuggling and plunder from the shipwrecks, he accomplished at his 
 own expense, the geometrical survey, and furnished " A Map of the north coast 
 of Britain, from Raw Stoir of Assynt, to Wick in Caithness, with the harbours 
 and rocks, and an account of the tides in the Pentland Firth." This map was 
 r.fterwards published by the philosophical, now the Royal, Society of Edinburgh 
 in 1744. Mr Arrowsmith, it may be mentioned, has lately pronounced it to bo
 
 ALEXANDER BRYCE. 
 
 93 
 
 very accurate, after a minute examination, while preparing materials for his large 
 map of Scotland. 
 
 On his return to Edinburgh in 1743, Mr Bryce gave very efficient aid, with 
 his friend the reverend Mr Wallace of Haddo's Hole church, in verifying the 
 necessary calculations submitted to them by doctor Webster, previous to the in- 
 stitution, by act of parliament, of the fund for a provision for the widows of the 
 Scottish clergy ; the regular increase of which since, and its present flourishing 
 state, form the best encomium of those Avbo laboured for its establishment. 
 
 In June, 1744, he Avas licensed to preach, by the reverend Presbytery of 
 Dunblane ; and having received a presentation by James, earl of Morton, to the 
 church and parish of Kirknewton, within the Presbytery of Edinburgh, he was 
 ordained to serve tliat cure, in August, 1745. From his knowledge of the inland 
 geography of Scotland, and line of the roads, he Avas enabled, this year, to furnish 
 the quarter-master general of the army of the Duke of Cumberland Avith impor- 
 tant information regarding the march of the forces, in subduing the rebellion. 
 In the winter of 1745, and spring of 1746, he taught the mathematical classes in 
 the university of Edinburgh, at the desire, and during the last illness of Professor 
 Maclaurin, who died in June following. Mr Bryce expressed his sorrow for the 
 loss of his friend in verse, of which the following is a specimen: 
 
 Ton angel guards that wait his soul, 
 Aruaz'd at aught from earth so bright, 
 Find nothing new from pole to pole; 
 To show him in a clearer light. 
 
 Joyful he bears glad news 1 on high, 
 And tells them through celestial space ; 
 See Newton hastens down the sky, 
 To meet him with a warm embrace! 
 
 The list'ning choirs around them throng, 
 Their love and wonder fond to show ; 
 On golden harps they tune the song, 
 Of Nature's laws in worlds below. 
 
 O Forbes, Foulks, loved Morton, mourn ; 
 Edina, London, Paris, sigh ; 
 With tears bedew his costly urn, 
 And pray Earth light upon him lie. 
 
 In the year 1750, haA'ing occasion to visit Stirling, and knowing that, by an 
 act of the Scottish parliament, this borough had the keeping of the Pint Jug, 
 the standard, by special statute, for weight and for liquid and dry measure in 
 Scotland, he requested a sight of it from the magistrates. Having .been re- 
 ferred to the council house, a pewter pint jug, which had been kept suspended 
 from the roof of the apartment, was taken down and given to him ; after 
 minutely examining it, he Avas convinced that it could not be the standard. The 
 discovery Avas in vain communicated to the magistrates, who were ill able to ap- 
 preciate their loss. It excited very different feelings in the mind of an anti- 
 quary and a mathematician ; and resolved, if possible, to recover this valuable 
 antique, he immediately instituted a search; which, though conducted with 
 much patient industry during part of this and the following year, proved un- 
 
 1 A few days before his friend's death, he saw him institute a calculation for ascertaining 
 the proportion that existed between the axis of the earth and the diameter of its equator. 
 It proceeded on data sent him by the Earl of Morton, president of the Royal hociety, con- 
 listing of observations made in Peru by the French mathematicians, and communicated at 
 London by Don Antonio, who was taken prisoner at Cape Breton. The proportion ascer- 
 ,ained was very nearly that which Sir Isaac Newton had predicted ; being as 22i : 222, and 
 iffor.led particular gratification. These are the news he is supposed to bear. 
 
 3 D
 
 394 
 
 ALEXANDER BRYCE. 
 
 av.-tiling. In the spring of 1752, it occurred to him, that this standard might 
 have been borrowed by some of the braziers or coppersmiths, for the purpose of 
 making legal measures for the citizens ; and having learned that a person of 
 this description, called Urquhart, had joined the rebel forces in 1745, that hit 
 furniture and shop utensils had been brought to public sale on his not returning ; 
 and that various articles which had not been sold, were thrown into a garret as 
 useless, he obtained permission to inspect them ; and to his great satisfaction, 
 discovered, under a mass of lumber, the precious object of his long research. 
 Thus was recovered the only legal standard of weight and measure in Scotland ; 
 after it had been offered, in ignorance, for public sale, and thrown aside unsold 
 as trash, and long after it had been considered by its constitutional guardians 
 a* irretrievably losf. 
 
 The standard Stirling pint jug is made of brass, in the form of a hol- 
 low truncated cone, and weighs 14 pounds, 10 ounces, 1 drop, and 18 
 grains, Scotch troy. The mean diameter of the mouth is 4.17 inches. Thf 
 mean diameter of the bottom 5.25 inches, and the mean depth 6 inches Eng- 
 lish. On the front, near the mouth, in alto relievo, is a shield and lion ram- 
 pant, the arms of Scotland : and near the bottom another shield, and an 
 ape, passant gardant, with the letter S below, supposed to have been intended 
 as the arms of Stirling. The arms at present are a wolf. The ape must hate 
 been put on therefore inadvertently by the maker, or the town must have 
 changed its arms at a period subsequent to the time when the standard was or- 
 dered to be made. The handle is fixed with two brass nails ; the whole is of 
 rude workmanship, and indicates great antiquity. 
 
 By an act of the Scottish parliament, Edinburgh had the keeping of the stan- 
 dard ell ; Perth the reel ; Lanark the pound : Linlithgow the firlot, and Stir- 
 ling the pint jug ; an arrangement made by the legislature, in the view of 
 improving the internal commerce of the country, by checking the frauds which 
 the traffickers of a rude age may be supposed to have often attempted, and be- 
 cause the commodities, to which these different standards referred, were 
 known to have been supplied in greater abundance by the districts and towns 
 to whose care they were respectively committed. Hence it may be inferred, 
 that Lanark was then the principal market for wool ; Perth for yarn ; Edin- 
 burgh for cloth ; Linlithgow for grain ; and Stirling for distilled and fermented 
 liquors. The Stirling jug is mentioned in act* of Parliament fis being in thb 
 town before the reign of James II. in 1437: and the last mention made of it is in 
 the reign of James VI., in an " Act of Parliament, 19 February, 1618, auent set- 
 tling the measures and weights of Scotland." No accurate experiments appear 
 to have been afterwards made with it for fixing the legal quantity of these mea- 
 sures and weights, till the following by Mr Bryce in 1762-3; a period of about 
 one hundred and thirty-five years ! 
 
 Having been permitted, after recovering the Standard jug, to carry it with 
 him to Edinburgh, his first object was to ascertain precisely, by moans of it, 
 the number of cubic inches, and parts of a cubic inch, in the true Scotch 
 pint. 
 
 For this purpose the mouth of the jug was made exactly horizontal, by ap- 
 plying to it a spirit level ; a minute silver wire of the thickness of a hair, with 
 a plummet attached to each end, was laid across the mouth, and water 
 poured gently in, till, with a magnifying glass, it was seen just to touch the 
 wire : the water was then carefully weighed in a balance, the beam of which 
 would turn with a single grain, when 96 ounces were in each scale. After 
 seventeen trials with clear spring and river water, several of which were made 
 in jpresence of the magistrates of Edinburgh, the content of the jug was found
 
 ALEXANDER BRYCE. 395 
 
 His next object was to determine accurately, how many of these grains were 
 contained ma cubic inch of water. With this view, a cylindrical brass vessel 
 made w.th great accuracy, by a scale of Bird, the celebrated mathen.ati.al 
 instrument-maker of London, to contain 100 cubic inches. This vessel was 
 hlled several tunes with the same water as in the trials with the \u s and iu 
 content was found to weigh 25,318 grains, English troy. This number 
 dmded by 100, gives 253 ^grains, as the weight of a cubic inch of water ' 
 therefore, 26180 ( 
 
 253-11 J ==103 T^I tne exact number of cubic inches, and parts of 
 
 a cubic inch, in the standard Scotch pint : 51^, cubic inches in the chopin : 
 25 Iooo oubic inches in the mutchkin ; and so on, proportionally, in the other 
 smaller Scotch measures. 
 
 Mr Bryce next applied the Standard jug to fix the legal size of the different 
 measures for grain ; which he compared with some of the English dry measures. 
 By act of parliament, 19 February, 1618, formerly mentioned, it is ordained, 
 that the wheat and pease firlot- shall contain 21 1 pints; and the bear and oat 
 firlot 31 pinis of the just Stirling jug. Therefore, since there are 103^ 
 cubic inches in the standard Scotch pint, there will be 21 97 s35 - cubic inches 
 in the wheat and pease firlot; 549'J^ in the peck; and 13TJJ? in the lip. 
 pie in the bean and oat firlot, 3205, cubic inches; 801^ in the peck ; 
 and 200'^ in tne 'ippie. The excess of a boll of bear above a boll of wheat 
 was found to be precisely 5 pecks bear measure, and 1 mutchkin, without the 
 difference of a single gill : or, a boll of bear is more than a boll of wheat, by 
 7 pecks 1 A lippie, wheat measure, wanting I gill. 
 
 The English corn bushel contains 2178 cubic inches, which is less than the 
 Scotch wheat firlot, by 19.335 inches, or three gills ; so that 7 firlots of wheat 
 will make 7 English bushels and I lipj.ie. The English corn bushel is less than 
 the barley firiot, by 1 peck, 3^ lippies nearly. 
 
 The legal English bushel, by which gaugers are ordered to make their re- 
 turns of malt, contains 2150.42 cubic inches, which is less than the wheat firlot, 
 4(j.915 cubic inches, or I chopin, wanting ^ gill; and less than the bear firlot 
 by 1055.104 cubic inches, or 2 bear pecks, wanting 7 gills. 
 
 A Scotch barley boll contains 5 bushels, 3 pecks, 2 lippies, and a little more, 
 according to the Winchester gallon. 
 
 A Scotch barley boll, according to the legal measure, contains 6 bushels, 
 wanting a little more than i lippie. 
 
 A Scotch chalder, (16 bolls of barley,) is equal to 11 quarters, 6 bushels, 
 and 3 lippies, Winchester measure. 
 
 A Scotch chalder of wheat is equal to 8 quarters, 2 pecks, and 1 lippie, 
 Winchester measure. 
 
 A wheat firlot made according to tlie dimensions mentioned in the Scotch 
 act of parliament, 1618, viz., 19-j- inches diameter, at top and bottom, and 
 7-$- inches in height, Scotch measure, would be less than the true wheat firlot, 
 (or 21 pints of the Standard jug) by a Scotch chopin: a chalder of wheat 
 measured with this firlot would fall short of the true quantity, 1 firlot, 2 pecks, 
 or nearly 2 per cent. 
 
 A barley firlot made according to the dimensions in the said act, viz., having 
 the same diameter at top and bottom as the wheat firlot, and 10 inches in 
 height, Scotch measure, would be less than the true firlot, (or 31 pints of the 
 Standard jug) by 5 mutchkins : and a chalder of bear, measured with such a
 
 396 ALEXANDER BRYCE. 
 
 lirlot, would rail short of the just quantity, 2 liriots, 2 pecks, and nearly 2 
 li[>l>ies, or 4 per cent. 
 
 These very remarkable mistakes must have proceeded from the ignorance or 
 inaccuracy of the persons authorized by parliament to make the calculations, 
 and to determine the exact dimensions of the firlot measure. For suppose a 
 lirlot were mad of the following dimensions, viz., 20 inches diameter, English 
 measure, at top and bottom, and 7 inches in depth, it would contain 21 pints 
 (the true wheat and pease firlot) and only -J- of a gili more. 
 
 A firlot of the same diameter as above, at top and bottom, and 10^ inches 
 in depth, would contain 31 pints (the true bear and oat firlot) and only 2 gills 
 more: but if, instead of 10^, it be made 10 inches in depth, it will be less 
 than 31 pints, (the true Standard measure) only of a single gill. 
 
 By the greater of these firlots were to be measured bear, oats, and malt ; by 
 the less wheat, rye, beans, pense, and salt. 
 
 According to the act of parliament in 1 6 18, to which reference -has been made, 
 the Scotch pint contains of the clear running water of Leith three pounds ami 
 seven ounces, French troy weight, and this is ordained to be the weight 
 of Scotland; therefore, in the Scotch pound there are 7616 troy grains ; and 
 in the Scotch ounce 476 troy grains ; and so on proportionally, with regard 
 to the other Scotch weights. 
 
 In this way, by the recovery of the standard Stirling pint jug, canons of easy 
 application resulted, for determining the just quantity of the measures, liquid 
 and dry, and also of the weights in Scotland, and therefore of great public 
 utility, by settling disputes and preventing litigation in that part of the empire. 
 
 After having obtained the above results by means of the Standard jug, All 
 Bryce superintended, at the desire of the magistrates of Edinburgh, the ad- 
 justment of the weights and measures, kept by the dean of Guild ; and " fol 
 his good services to the city," was made a burgess and Guild brother in 
 January, 1751. 
 
 Several detached memoirs by Mr Bryce were published by the Royal Society 
 of London ; particularly " An account of a Comet observed by him in 1766 ;" 
 " A new method of measuring the Velocity of the Wind;" " An Experiment 
 to ascertain to what quantity of Water a fall of Snow on the Earth's surface is 
 equal." His observations on the transits of Venus, G-ii June, 1761, and 3rd 
 June, 1769, were considered by astronomers as important, in solving the grand 
 problem. In May, 1767, he was consulted by the trustees for procuring surveys 
 of the lines proposed for the canal betw'een the Forth and Clyde, and received 
 their thanks for his remarks, afterwards communicated to them in writing, 
 on Mr Smeaton's first printed report. About this time, he was introduced to 
 Stuart 31ackenzie, lord privy seal of Scotland, who, as a lover of the arts and 
 sciences, highly respecting his genius and acquirements, obtained for him soon 
 after, the office of one of his majesty's chaplains in ordinary ; and, during the 
 remainder of his life, honoured him with his friendship and patronage. 
 
 He planned for that gentleman the elegant observatory at Belmont castle, 
 where also are still to be seen, an instrument contrived by him for ascertaining 
 the magnifying powers of telescopes, and a horizontal marble dial, made with 
 great precision, to indicate the hour, the ininii! -, and every ten seconds. In 
 1770, his lordship having communicated an account of a phenomenon observed 
 by lord Charles Cavendish, doctor Habberden, and himself, viz., " that a less 
 quantity of rain (by a difference which was considerable) fell into the rain gauges 
 placed on the top of Westminster abbey arid an adjoining house, than into 
 those placed below," and for which they found it difficult to account, Mr Bryce 
 sent to his lordship, on the 14th December, an ingenious solution of the fact
 
 PATRICK BRYDONE, F.R.S. 397 
 
 In 1772, he wrote "Remarks on the Barometer for measuring Altitudes ; 
 showing the uncertainty and limited use of the instrument, as then commonly 
 used for that purpose, and the means by which it might be rendered more perfect, 
 and greater precision attained. These remarks were sent to lord privy seal in 
 January, 1773. In a map of the Three Lothians engraved by Kitchen 
 of London, and published in 1773, by Andrew and Mostyn Armstrong, " the 
 scales of Longitude and Latitude are laid down agreeably to the observations 
 of the Rev. Mr Bryce at Kirknewton manse." In April, 1774, in consequence 
 of certain apparently insurmountable difficulties, he was consulted by the magis- 
 trates of Stirling on the subject of supplying the town with water: these dif- 
 ficulties he removed, by taking accurately all the different levels; making the 
 calculations for the size of the leaden pipes and the reservoir, and fixing the 
 situation for its being placed. For this service he had the freedom of 
 the town conferred on him. In 1776, he made all the requisite calculations 
 for an epitome of the solar system on a large scale, afterwards erected by the 
 farl of Buclian at his seat at Kirkhill. In case of disputes about the extent 
 of fields exchanged by neighbouring proprietors, or the line of their marches, 
 he was generally chosen sole arbiter, and from his knowledge in land survey- 
 ing, and the confidence reposed in him, had it often in his power to render 
 them essential service. Mr Bryce used to send various meteorological observa- 
 tions and other detached notices to Ruddiman's Weekly Magazine. 
 
 From the time of his ordination in 1745, till his death on the 1st January, 
 1786, he discharged with great fidelity, all the duties of his pastoral office ; 
 ;md excelled particularly in that species of didactic discourse known in Scot- 
 land, under the name of lecture. His lectures, however, were never fully 
 written, but spoken from notes; and he left no sermons for publication. 
 
 In early life he composed several songs, adapted to some of the most 
 favourite Scottish airs, and his stanzas, in " The Birks of Invermay," have been 
 long before the world. For about three years before his death, his greatest 
 amusement was in writing poetry, chiefly of a serious and devotional cast ; 
 which, though not composed for the public eye, is read with satisfaction by his 
 tYiemU, and valued by them as an additional proof of his genius, and a tran- 
 script of that enlightened piety, uprightness of mind, and unshaken trust in his 
 Creator, which characterized him through the whole of life. 
 
 BRYUONE, PATRICK, F. R. S., the well known author of A Tour in Sicily 
 and Malta, one of the most entertaining works in the Language, was the son of 
 a clergyman in the neighbourhood of Dumbarton, and born in 1741. Having 
 received an excellent university education, which qualified him for the duties of a 
 travelling preceptor, he was engaged in that capacity, first by Mr Beckford, of 
 Somerly in Suffolk, and afterwards Mr Fullarton, who was known in after life 
 as commander of a large body of troops in India, and finally as one of the 
 three commissioners for the government of Trinidad. His excursion with the 
 former gentleman took place in 1767-8; the latter, in 1770. In the secon.l 
 tour, he visited Sicily and Malta, which were then almost unknown to the 
 English. Having written an account of this journey in a series of letters to 
 Mr Beckford, he was induced by a consideration of the uninformed state of the 
 British public upon this subject, to publish his work in 1773, under the title of 
 " A Tour through Sicily and Malta." This work is not only a most original 
 and amusing narrative, but it contains a great deal of scientific knowledge, 
 especially regarding the temperature of the air, which was the object of 
 Brydone's particular study. For the purpose of carrying on his scientific obser- 
 vations, he travelled with an apparatus as perfect as could then be procured or 
 as it was possible to carry in the luggage of a traveller. Having returned to
 
 398 ELSPITII BUCHAN. 
 
 England in 1771, he obtained a respectable appointment under government, 
 and after the publication of his travels, which procured for him no common share 
 of reputation and respect, was nominated a member of several learned societies, 
 particularly of the Royal Society, London. In the transactions of this learned 
 body, are several papers of Mr Brydone, chiefly on the subject of electricity, 
 of which he was a profound student, and a close and anxious observer. He 
 spent the latter part of his life in retirement, at Lennel House, near Cold- 
 stream, where he was visited by the most distinguished persons in literature and 
 public life. The author of Marmion has introduced into that work, tho follow- 
 ing episode respecting Mr Brydone : 
 
 " Where Lennel's convent closed their march : 
 
 There now is left but one frail arch, 
 Yet mourn thou not its cells ; 
 
 Our time a fair exchange has made ; 
 
 Hard by, in hospitable shade, 
 A reverend pilgrim dwells, 
 
 Well worth the whole Bernardine brood, 
 
 That e'er wore sandal, frock, or hood." 
 
 Patrick Brydone died at Lennel in 1818, at an advanced age. 
 BUCHAN, ELSPITH, the leader of a small sect of fanatics, now extinct, was 
 the daughter of John Simpson, who kept an inn at Fitney-Can, the half way 
 house between Banff and Portsoy. She was born in 1738, and educated in the 
 Scottish Episcopal communion. Having been sent when a girl to Glasgow, in 
 order to enter into a life of service, she married Robert Buchan, a workman in 
 the pottery belonging to her master, wiln whom she lived for several years, and 
 had several children. Having changed her original profession of faith for that 
 of her husband, who was a burgher-seceder, her mind seems to have become per- 
 plexed with religious fancies, as is too often the case with those who alter their 
 creed. She fell into a habit of interpreting the Scriptures litex-ally, and began 
 to promulgate certain strange doctrines, which she derived in this manner from 
 holy writ. Having now removed to Irvine, she drew over to her own way of 
 thinking, Mr Hugh Whyte, a Relief clergyman, who consequently abdicated his 
 charge, and became her chief apostle. The sect was joined by persons of a rank 
 of life in which no such susceptibility was to be expected. Mr Hunter, a 
 writer, and several trading people in good circumstances, were among the con- 
 verts. After having indulged their absurd fancies for several years at Irvine, the 
 mass of the people at length rose in April, 1784, and assembled in a threaten- 
 ing and tumultuous manner around Mr Whyte's house, which had become the 
 tabernacle of the new religion, and of which they broke all the windows. The 
 Buchanites felt this insult so keenly, that they left the town to the number of 
 forty-six persons, and, proceeding through Mauchline, Cumnock, Sanquhar, and 
 Thornhill, did not halt till they arrived at a farmhouse, two miles south from the 
 latter place, and thirteen from Dumfries, where they hired the out-houses for 
 their habitation, in the hope of being permitted, in that lonely scene, to exercise 
 their religion without further molestation. Mrs Buchan continued to be the great 
 mistress of the ceremonies, and Mr Whyte to be the chief officiating priest They 
 possessed considerable property, which all enjoyed alike, and though several men 
 were accompanied by their wives, all the responsibilities of the married state 
 were given up. Some of them wrought gratuitously at their trades, for the bene- 
 fit of those who employed them ; but they professed only to consent to this, in 
 order that they might have opportunities of bringing over others to their own 
 views. They scrupulously abjured all worldly considerations whatsoever, wishing 
 only to lead a quiet and holy life, till the commencement of the Millennium. 01-
 
 ELSPITH BUCHAN. 399 
 
 the day of judgment, which they believed to be at hand. Observing, they said, 
 how the young ravens are fed, and how the lilies grow, we assure ourselves that 
 God will feed and clothe us. Mrs Buchan, who was said to have given herself 
 out to be the Virgin Mary, at first denied that she was so. Instead of being the 
 mother of Christ, she said, after the tiesh, she was his daughter after the spirit. 
 The little republic existed for some time, without any thing occurring to mar their 
 happiness, except the occasional rudeness of unbelieving neighbours. At length, 
 as hope sickened, worldly feelings appear to have returned upon some of the mem- 
 bers ; and, notwithstanding all the efforts which Mrs Buchan could make to keep 
 her flock together, a few returned to Irvine. It would seem that as the faith of 
 her followers declined, she greatly increased the extravagance of her pretensions, 
 and the rigour of her discipline. It is said that when any person was suspected 
 of an intention to leave the society, she ordered him to be locked up, and 
 ducked every day in cold water, so that it required some little address in any one 
 to get out of her clutches. In the year 1786, the following facts were reported 
 by some of the seceding members on their return to the west " The distribution 
 of provisions she kept in her own hand, and took special care that they should 
 not pamper their bodies with too much food, and every one behoved to be en- 
 tirely directed by her. The society being once scarce of money, she told them 
 she had a revelation, informing her they should have a supply of cash from hea- 
 ven : accordingly, she took one of the members out with her, and caused him 
 to hold two corners of a sheet, while she held the other two. Having continued 
 for a considerable time, without any shower of money falling upon it, the man 
 at last tired, and left Mrs Buchan to hold the sheet herself: Mrs Buchan, in a 
 short time after, came in with 5 sterling, and upbraided the man for his unbe- 
 lief, which she said was the only cause that prevented it from coming sooner. 
 Many of the members, however, easily accounted for this pretended miracle, and 
 shrewdly suspected that the money came from her own hoard. That she had a 
 considerable purse was not to be doubted, for she fell on many ways to rob the 
 members of every thing they had of value. Among other things, she informed 
 them one evening, that they were all to ascend to heaven next morning ; there- 
 fore it was only necessary they should lay aside all their vanities and ornaments, 
 ordering them, at the same time, to throw their rings, watches, &c. into the ash- 
 hole, which many were foolish enough to do, while others more prudently hid 
 every thing of this kind that belonged to them. Next morning she took out all 
 the people to take their flight. After they had waited till they were tired, not 
 one of them found themselves any lighter than they were the day before, but 
 remained with as firm a footing on earth as ever. She again blamed their un- 
 belief said that want of faith alone prevented their ascension; and complain 
 of the hardship she was under, in being obliged, on account of their unbe 
 continue with them in this world. She at last fell upon an expedient to in 
 them light enough to ascend : nothing less was found requisite than to fi 
 forty days and forty nights. The experiment was immediately put 
 and several found themselves at death's door in a very short time. She ^ 
 obliged to allow them some spirits and water; but many resolved no 
 submit to such regimen, and went off altogether. We know not," thus concl. 
 the statement, " if the forty days be ended ; but a few experiment* oi 
 will leave her, in the end, sole proprietor of the society's funds." 
 
 What adds to the curiosity of this strange tale of fanaticism, is tl 
 Buchan'. husband was still living in pursuit of his ordinary trade, and a 
 adherent of the burgher-secedes One of her children a boy ie o 
 
 fourteen, lived with the father; two girls of more advanced age -ere among her 
 >wn followers. Notwithstanding her increased absurd.ty, and we may add, the
 
 400 WILLIAM BUCIIAN, M.D. 
 
 increased tyranny of her behaviour, she continued to have a few followers in 
 1791, when she approached her last scene. Among these w;is her first apostle, 
 3Ir Whyte. Finding that she was about to go the way of all the earth, she 
 called her disciples together, and exhorted them to continue steadfast and unani- 
 mous in their adherence to the doctrine which they had received from her. She 
 told them she had one secret to communicate a last desperate effort at imposi- 
 tion that she was in reality the Virgin Mary, and mother of our Lord ; that 
 she was the same woman mentioned in the Revelations as being clothed with the 
 sun, and who was driven into the wilderness ; that she had been wandering in 
 the world ever since our Saviour's days, and only for some time past had so- 
 journed in Scotland : that though she might appear to die, they needed not be 
 discouraged, for she would only sleep a little, and in a short time would visit 
 them again, and conduct them to the new Jerusalem. After her death, which 
 took place, May 1791, it was a long time before her votaries would straighten 
 or dress the corpse ; nor would they coffin her, until obliged by the smell ; and 
 after that they would not bury her, but huilt up the coffin in a corner of the 
 barn, always expecting that she would rise again from the dead, according to her 
 promise. At last, the neighbouring country people, shocked with these pro- 
 ceedings, went to a justice of peace, and got an order that she should be buried ; 
 so that the famous Mrs Buchan was at length reduced to a level with all the dead 
 generations of her kind. 
 
 BUCHAN, WILLIAM, M. D. a popular medical writer of great celebrity, was 
 born in 1729, at Ancrum in Roxburghshire. His grandfather had been obliged, 
 for some time, to reside with his family in Holland, on account of the religious 
 troubles which preceded the Revolution. His father possessed a small estate, in 
 addition to which he rented a farm from the Duke of Roxburgh. His genius 
 for medicine was displayed before he could have received any adequate instruc- 
 tion ; and even when a school-boy, he was at once the physician and surgeon of 
 the village. Nevertheless, being destined by his friends for the church, he re- 
 paired to Edinburgh, to study divinity. At the university he spent the unusual 
 time of nine years, studying anything rather than theology. At this period of 
 his life, mathematics and botany were among his favourite pursuits. Finally, he 
 devoted himself wholly to medicine. He enjoyed, at this time, the friendship of 
 the illustrious Gregory, whose liberal maxims are believed to have had great in- 
 fluence over his future life. Before taking his degree, he was induced, by the 
 invitation of a fellow-student, to settle in practice for some time in Yorkshire. 
 While established in that district, he became a candidate for the situation of 
 Physician to the Foundling Hospital, then supported by parliament at Ackworth, 
 and, after a fair trial of skill with ten professional men, was successful. In this 
 situation he laid the foundation of that knowledge of the diseases of children, 
 which afterwards appeared so conspicuous in his writings. Having returned to 
 Edinburgh to take out his degree, he became acquainted with a well-connected 
 lady of the name of <Peter. whom he soon after married. He continued to be 
 Physician to the Ackworth Foundling Hospital, till parliament, becoming con- 
 vinced of the bad effects of such an institution, withdrew the annual grant of 
 sixty thousand pounds, upon which it had hitherto been supported. He then 
 removed to Sheffield, where for some time he enjoyed extensive practice. He 
 appears to have spent the years between 1762 and 1766, in this town. He then 
 commenced practice at Edinburgh, and for several years was very well em- 
 ployed, though it was allowed that he might have enjoyed much more business, 
 if his convivial habits had not distracted so much of his attention. He was not, 
 nowever, anxious for an extensive practice. Having for a considerable time 
 iirected his attention to a digest of popular medical knowledge, he published, in
 
 WILLIAM BUCIIAN, M.D. 401 
 
 1769, his work entitled, "domestic Medicina; or, the Family Physician be- 
 
 ing an attempt to render the Medical Art more generally useful, by showmg 
 people what is in their own power, both with respect to the prevention and cure 
 of diseases : chiefly calculated to recommend a proper attention to regimen and 
 simple medicines." This work, which had been much indebted, in respect of its 
 composition, to the ingenious William Smellie, was published by Balfour, an emi- 
 nent bookseller at Edinburgh, at the price of six shillings ; and such was its 
 success, that " the first edition," says the author, "of 5030 copies, was entirely 
 sold off in a corner of Britain, before another could be got ready.'' The se- 
 cmid edition appeared in 1772, " with considerable additions." The Domestic 
 Medicine is constructed on a plan similar to that adopted by Tissot in his Avis 
 au Peuple. It appealed to the wants and wishes of so large a class of the com- 
 munity, that, considering it to have been the first work of the kind published in 
 Britain, there is no wonder that it should have attained such success. Before the 
 death of the author in 1805, nineteen large editions had baen sold, by which the 
 publishers were supposed to realise annually about 700, being exactly the sum 
 which they are said to have given at first for the copyright The learned Du- 
 planil of Paris, Physician to the Count d'Artois [ Charles X. ], published an ele- 
 gant translation in five volumes, with some excellent notes, which rendered the 
 work so popular on the Continent, that in a short time no language in Christen- 
 dom, not even the Russian, wanted its translation. It would almost appear that 
 the work met with more undivided applause on the Continent than in Britain. 
 While many English and Scottish physicians conceived that it was as apt to gene- 
 rate as to cure or prevent diseases, by inspiring the minds of readers with hy- 
 pochondriacal notions, those of other countries entertained no such suspicions. 
 Among the testimonies of approbation which Dr Buchan received from abroad, 
 was a huge gold medallion, sent by the Empress Catherine of Russia, with a 
 complimentary letter. The work is said to have become more popular in Ame- 
 rica and the West Indies, than in the elder hemisphere. The reputation which 
 the author thus acquired, induced him to remove to London, where for many 
 years he enjoyed a lucrative practice, though not so great as it might have been 
 made by a more prudent man. It was his custom to resort daily to the Chapter 
 Coffee-house, near St Paul's, where he partly spent his time in conversation with 
 literary and eminent men, and partly in giving advice to patients, who here re- 
 sorted to him in great numbers, exactly as if it had been his own house. At 
 one time, he delivered lectures on Natural Philosophy, which he illustrated by an 
 excellent apparatus, the property of his deceased friend James Ferguson. And 
 in this capacity he is said to have manifested as respectable abilities as in his 
 character of a physician. 1 
 
 Dr Buchan was a man of pleasing exterior, most agreeable manners, and 
 great practical benevolence. He cherished no species of antipathy, except one 
 against apothecaries, whom he believed to be a set of rogues, actuated by no 
 principle except a wish to sell their own drug's, at whatever hazard to their pa- 
 tients. His conversation was much courted on account of his lively spirits, and 
 a fund of anecdote which seemed to be perfectly exhaustless. He enjoyed a 
 good constitution, which did not give way till the 25th of February, 1805, when 
 he died in a moment, at his own house, while walking between his sofa and his 
 bed. The disorder was water in the chest, which had been advancing upon him 
 for some time, but was, up to the last moment, so little alarming, that immedi- 
 ately before rising from the sofa, he had been talking in his usual manner. 'Hie 
 
 1 Two other works were published by the Doctor. 1. A Treatise on Gonorrhea: 2. An 
 Advice to Mothers on the subject of their own health, and on the means ol promoting the 
 health, strength, and beauty of their otlsprin?. Erich m one volume, 8vo.
 
 402 DUGALD BUCHANAN. 
 
 Doctor left a son and daughter the former a man of respectable gifts, and a 
 fellow of the London Royal College of Physicians. His remains were interred 
 in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, next to those of the celebrated Jebb.- 
 
 BUCHANAN, DUGALD, a Highland poet of eminent merit, was born, in the 
 early part of the eighteenth century, in the parish of Balquhidder, Perthshire. 
 In early youth he is said to have been of a dissolute character ; but little is known 
 of him till he was found keeping a small school in a hamlet of his native coun- 
 try, and in possession of much local fame as a writer of devotional and pious 
 verses. Some respectable persons, struck by his talents, interested themselves in 
 his fate, and obtained for him the superior situation of school-master and cate- 
 chist at Rannoch, on the establishment of the society for propagating Christian 
 knowledge. When he first went to reside in that remote district, the people 
 were so rude, from the want of religious instruction, that they hardly recognised 
 the sacred nature of the Sabbath. They were in the habit of meeting at differ- 
 ent places, on that day, to amuse themselves with foot-ball and other sports. 
 The parish clergyman visited them once every three weeks ; but, from the ex- 
 tent of the parish, he seems to have been unable to exercise any proper control 
 over them. Buchanan, it is said, invited them all to come and enjoy their Sun- 
 day recreations with him, and when they arrived, began to perform divine wor- 
 ship, which he seasoned with a lecture on the sin of Sabbath-breaking. Though 
 many were disgusted at first, all of them became at length convinced of their 
 error, and Buchanan in time brought them into a state of high religious culture, 
 the effects of which are said to be visible at this day in Rannoch. The educa- 
 tion of this poor scholar was not of the best order ; yet he was acquainted with 
 divinity, natural philosophy, and history, and possessed a most felicitous gift of 
 poetry, which he almost exclusively employed for sacred purposes. His writings, 
 which are unknown to English readers, and never can be adequately translated, 
 resemble those of Cowper. An effort was made to obtain for him a license as a 
 preacher of the Scottish church, but without success. He was of much service 
 to the Rev James Stewart of Killin, in translating the New Testament into Gaelic. 
 Having accompanied that gentleman to Edinburgh, in order to aid him in super- 
 intending the press, he took the opportunity of improving himself by attendance 
 on the classes for natural philosophy and anatomy in the college. He was at 
 the same time introduced to David Hume, who maintained, in conversation with 
 him, that, although the bible was an excellent book, it was surpassed in beauty 
 and sublimity of language by many profane authors. In support of his assertion, 
 he quoted the lines 
 
 " The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
 
 And, like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
 
 Leave not a wreck behind .'* 
 
 The devout bard admitted the beauty and sublimity of these lines, but said, that 
 he could furnish a passage from the New Testament still more sublime, and 
 recited the following verses : ( Rev. xx. 22. ) " And I saw a great white throne, 
 and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away ; 
 and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, 
 
 2 The following somewhat ungracious anecdote, which appears in the obituary notice of 
 Dr Buchan, in the Gentleman's Magazine, must have been contributed, we suspect, by a pro- 
 fessional hand : " A day or two after his decease, one gentleman said to another, ' The poor 
 Doctor's- gone!' The other replied, ' Do you know how Omnium is to-day?' A third, ask- 
 ing, ' Which would be most felt, Omnium or the loss of the Doctor?' was answered, ' Om- 
 nium would be felt by every body, on account of the taxes laid on to pay the interest of the 
 loan whereas the loss of the Doctor would not be generally felt.' r>
 
 CLAUDIUS BUCHANAN, D.D. 403 
 
 stand before God ; and the books were opened : and another book was opened, 
 which was the book of life : And the sea gave up the dead which were in it ; 
 and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them : and they were 
 judged every man according to their works." Buchanan was very tender- 
 hearted, insomuch, that when he heard a pathetic tale recounted, he could not 
 abstain from weeping. He was equally subject to shed tears when his bosom 
 was excited with joy, gratitude, and admiration. In his conversation, he was 
 modest, mild, and unassuming, and distinguished by great affability ; always the 
 best and truest marks of a man of poetical genius. His poems and hymns, which 
 have been repeatedly printed, are allowed to be equal to any in the Gaelic lan- 
 guage for style, matter, and harmony of versification. 'Die pieces entitled " La 
 a> Bhveitheanais >' and " an Claigionn >' are the most celebrated, and are read 
 with perfect enthusiasm by all Highlanders. Though the circumstances of this 
 ingenious poet were of the humblest description, he was most religiously cheerful 
 and contented under his lot He died, on the 2nd of July, 1768, under very 
 painful circumstances. On returning home from a long journey, he found two 
 of his children lying sick of a fever. Shortly after, six more of them were seized 
 by it, together with himself and two of his servants. While his family lay in 
 this sad condition, his wife could prevail upon no one to engage in her service, 
 and being herself in a peculiarly delicate condition, she was unable to do much 
 for their comfort. The poor poet soon became delirious, and, in a few days, he 
 and all his family were swej,t off, leaving only his wife to lament his fate, and 
 her own melancholy condition. 1 
 
 BUCHANAN, CLAUDIUS, D. D. Few persons have engaged with greater zeal, or 
 met with greater success, in the business of the civilization of India, in spreading 
 the knowledge of the Christian Religion through the eastern world, and in mak- 
 ing Europeans better acquainted with that interesting country, than the Rev. Dr 
 Buchanan, who was born at Cambuslang, on the 12th March, 1766. His father, 
 Alexander Buchanan, followed the honourable profession of a school-master ; and 
 if we may judge from his success in life, he appeal's to have been a man of some 
 abilities, and better qualified than ordinary teachers for the discharge of the 
 peculiar duties of his office. Before his death, he was Rector of the Grammar 
 
 School of Falkirk. His mother's name was Somers, daughter of Mr 
 
 Claudius Somers, who was an elder in the parish of Cambuslang. He is repre- 
 sented as having been one of those who received their first impressions of reli- 
 gion under the ministry of the Rev. Mr M'Culloch, the parish minister, and 
 which were confirmed afterwards by the celebrated Mr George Whitfield. A 
 certain class of Scottish dissenters publicly declared, that all such impressions 
 were a delusion of the devil, and in the most abusive language reviled Whitfield, 
 and all who defended his cause. But be this as it may, Mr Somers and a good 
 many others became reformed characters ; and during the course of a long life, 
 gave undeniable evidence that they were better moral men and better members 
 of society. 
 
 In 1773, Dr Buchanan was sent to Inverary, in the shire of Argyle, where lie 
 remained under the care of his father's relations till 177U. He was early sent 
 to school; and besides being taught to read English, to write, and cast accounts, 
 he was initiated into a knowledge of Latin. When only fourteen years of age, 
 he was engaged to be tutor to the two sons of Campbell of Dunstaffnage. It i? 
 by no means an uncommon case in Scotland for young men to be employed, at 
 that tender age, as domestic tutors in remote parts of the country, and at a dis- 
 
 1 For the greater part of the information contained in this article I am indebted to " Bibli- 
 otheca Scoto-Celtica, an Account of all the Books which have been printed in the Gaelic Lan- 
 guage. By John Reid." Glasgow, 1832.
 
 401 CLAUDIUS BUCHANAN, T).D. 
 
 tance from any school. He continued in this situation for two years, and then 
 repaired to the university of Glasgow, in 1782. Here his funds permitted him 
 to remain only for two sessions. In 1784, he went to the island of Islay, and 
 was tutor in the family of Mr Campbell of Knockmelty. In the following yeai 
 he removed to Carradell, in Kintyre, as tutor to Mr Campbell of Carradell. In 
 1786 he returned to Glasgow College, with the intention of prosecuting his stu- 
 dies there, preparatory to his commencing the study of divinity ; for it had al- 
 ways been his intention to be a clergyman of the Church of Scotland. At the 
 end of the session, however, he was struck with the strange and romantic, idea ot' 
 making a tour of Europe on foot. He seems to have been highly delighted with 
 Dr Goldsmith's poetry, and particularly with his Traveller. Having perused 
 some accounts of Goldsmith's adventures, he became inspired with a wish to at- 
 tempt something of the same kind. He could not, like the poet of Auburn, play 
 on the flute, but he was a tolerable performer on the fiddle, and he foolishly ima- 
 gined, that with its assistance, he might be able to accomplish what he had so 
 much at heart. He was a pretty good player of Scotch reels ; and with this 
 slender recommendation, and hardly any other provision against want, he deter- 
 mined to sally forth. 
 
 He accordingly left Edinburgh in the month of August, 1787. He had care- 
 fully concealed his design from his parents, lest it should be the occasion of 
 giving them pain, for lie seems to have been well aware in what light his impru- 
 dence would be viewed by others. What rond he took, or how long lie was on 
 his journey between Edinburgh and Newcastle, is not known. But he arrived 
 there, as it would seem, sufficiently disgusted with his undertaking ; for, instead 
 of directing his course to the capital by land, he embarked in a collier at North 
 Shields, and sailed for the metropolis, where he arrived on the 2d of September. 
 Here he was as much, if not more at a loss, than ever. At last, seeing an ad- 
 vertisement in a paper, that a clerk was wanted, after having suffered incredibly 
 from hunger and cold, he applied and obtained this paltry appointment. By 
 habits of industry and attention to business, he recommended himself to his em- 
 ployer, and after various incidents he at last engaged in the service of a solicitor, 
 with whom he remained for nearly three years. 
 
 This employment, though exceedingly trifling, was sufficient to supply him 
 food and clothes. He describes himself, at this period, as having little or no 
 sense of religion upon his mind. He did not attend church regularly; and the 
 Sunday was generally spent in idleness, though at no time of his life was he 
 given to habits of dissipation. About this time he got acquainted with the Rev. 
 John Newton of St Mary's, Woolnoth, London, the friend of Cowper, who intro- 
 duced him to the celebrated Henry Thornton. This latter person, whose heart 
 and fortune were alike bounteous, was the chief occasion of his being afterwards 
 so successful and distinguished in life. As Mr Buchanan had now formed the 
 resolution of becoming a clergyman, though he could not regularly enter the 
 church of England, for want of a university education, Mr Thornton offered 
 him the Chaplaincy of the Sierra Leone company, in which association he bore 
 a leading part. The appointment was accepted by Mr i'uchannn, but, for some 
 unknown reason, was n<;t acted upon. Mr Thornton, however, generously re- 
 solved not to leave his ward destitute or unprovido-,1. He sent him to Queens' 
 College, Cambridge, which was then conducted by iiis friend Dr Mihior, Dean of 
 Carlisle. Mr Buchanan was admitted into this Society in 1791, and in the 
 25th year of his age. It has been mentioned, that he was two sessions at the 
 university of Glasgow, but it may be doubted whether this was of essential ser- 
 vice to him, so different are the regulations, customs, and habits of the two esta- 
 blishments. Ho was disposed to enter as a Sizar, that is a scholar of the lowest
 
 CLAUDIUS BUCHANAN, D.D. 405 
 
 rank, the same <os Servitor at Oxford ; but it was arranged that he should be 
 admitted as a pensioner, or a scholar who pays for his Commons. He distin- 
 guished himself at College by great assiduity, and though his ruind does not ap- 
 pear to have had any particular bent to the science of quantity, he devoted some at- 
 tention to the favourite pursuit of the university, the higher branches of mathematics. 
 Having got a theme or subject to write upon in Latin, he succeeded so well as to 
 gain the most marked commendation of his superioi-s ; and he was appointed to 
 declaim in Latin upon the 5th of November, which is always esteemed by the 
 students as a singular honour this day being one of the most solemn festivals 
 of the year. He was also appointed, about the same time, Librarian to the Col- 
 lege, an office of which the duties were more honourable than severe ; and he was 
 the senior wrangler cf his year. 
 
 About the year 1794, the Rev. John Newton proposed to him a voyage to 
 India. The precise nature of this proposal is not stated ; but it might only be 
 a hint to him to turn in his mind how he would relish such an appointment. His 
 education being now complete, he was, in September, 1795, regularly ordained dea- 
 con of the church of England, by Bishop Porteous. He was immediately admitted 
 curate to Mr Newton, which was his first appointment. On 30th March, 1796, 
 he was appointed Chaplain to the East India Company, through the interest of 
 the director, Mr Charles Grant, who continued to patronise him through life. 
 Dr Milner and others now recommended him a second time to the Bishop of 
 London, from whom he received Priest's orders, so that he was qualified to ac- 
 cept of any situation in the English establishment. In the month of May he 
 went to Scotland, in order to take leave of his relations before setting out for 
 India. He immediately returned to England, and left Portsmouth for Bengal, 
 llth August 1796. Landing at Calcutta, he was soon sent into the interior 
 to Barrackpore, where he resided lor some time. India was to him a scene 
 perfectly new: at this period hardly any decency was observed in the out- 
 ward relations of life. There was no divine service at Barrackpore, and 
 horse-racing was practised on Sunday. Of course it was an excellent field 
 for the exertions of a Christian minister. Mr Buchanan having been ap- 
 pointed third chaplain to the presidency in Calcutta, by Lord Mornington, 
 preached so much to the satisfaction of his audience, that he received thanks 
 from the Governor General in council The plan of a Collegiate Institution 
 had been for some time under the consideration of his lordship. In 1 00, 
 it was formally established by a minute in council, and vested in a pro- 
 vost and vice-provost, with three other officers. There were also to be esta- 
 blished professorships in the languages spoken in India, in Hindoo, and Maho- 
 inedan laws, in the negotiations and laws enacted at the several presidencies for 
 the civil government of the British territoriesin Political Economy, Commer- 
 cial institutions and interests of the East India Company, and in various branches 
 of literature and science. Some of the learned natives attached to the college 
 were employed in teaching the students, others in making translat.e 
 others in composing original works in the Oriental tongues 
 which has been of immense service to British India, was called the -College of 
 William. Mr Buchanan was professor of the Greek, Latin, and Enghsl 
 The translation of the original Scriptures from the originals into mo, 
 guages had always been with him a favourite scheme. To effect a sriular purpose, 
 he proposed prizes to be competed for by the umversit.es and some of the pub- 
 lic Lo ? ols in the United Kingdom. These were ^^^^^ 
 in a memoir by him, in 1805. A translation of the B.U. into the Ch n 
 language was also patronized by him. In the course of the same year, he v
 
 406 FRANCIS BUCHANAN, M.D. 
 
 an account of the College of Fort William ; and the University of Glasgow con. 
 ferred upon him the degree of D. D. 
 
 In May, 1806, he undertook a journey to the coast of Malabar, and returned 
 to Calcutta in 1807. He paid a second visit to Malabar, and powerfully assisted 
 in procuring a version of the Scriptures into Malayalim. In March, 1808, he 
 undertook a voyage to Europe. Second prizes of L. 500 each were offered by 
 him to Oxford and Cambridge ; and in pursuance of his proposals, sermons were 
 preached at both universities. 
 
 In September, 1808, Dr Buchanan undertook a journey into Scotland, where 
 he had the gratification of finding his mother in good health. He preached in 
 the episcopal chapel at Glasgow, and mentions that the people came in crowds to 
 hear him, " notwithstanding the organ," He observed a more tolerant spirit 
 among the different orders of religion in Scotland than what formerly prevailed. 
 On his return, he preached, at Bristol, his celebrated sermon, " The Star in the 
 East," which was the first of that series of able and well-directed efforts by 
 which, in pursuance of a resolution formed in India, he endeavoured to cherish 
 and extend the interest he had already excited for the promotion of Christianity 
 in the east. In spring, 1809, he spent some days at Oxford, collating oriental 
 versions of the bible. He next paid a visit to Cambridge, where he deposited 
 some valuable biblical manuscripts, which he had collected in India. The 
 university honoured him with the degree of D.D. About this period, he preach- 
 ed regularly for some time in Wilbeck chapel, London, after which he retired 
 to Kirby Hall, in Yorkshire, the seat of his father-in-law, Henry Thompson, 
 Esq. His health now began to decline, and as he was advised by his physicians 
 to study less unremittingly, he formed the idea of uniting the recovery of his 
 health, and some share of continued usefulness, by travelling to the Holy Land, 
 and endeavouring to re-establish the gospel on its native ground. This design, 
 however, he never executed. Various paralytic affections, which, one after 
 another, fell upon his frame, admonished him that the day of active exertion 
 with him was past He Mas nevertheless able, within the course of a few years, 
 to publish the following works: 1, Three Jubilee Sermons; 2, Annual Mis- 
 sionary Sermon, before the Church Missionary Society, June 12, 1810; 3, 
 Commencement Sermons at Cambridge ; 4, Christian Researches in Asia ; 5, 
 Sketch of an Ecclesiastical Establishment for British India; G, Colonial Eccle- 
 siastical Establishment 
 
 He had been twice married, but survived both of his spouses. He ultimately 
 went to reside at Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, to superintend a Syriac edition of 
 the New Testament Here he died, February 9, 1815, while his task was still 
 incomplete, at the early age of forty-eight The exertions of this amiable and 
 exemplary man in propagating the Christian religion in India, will long keep 
 his name in grateful remembrance, among all to whom the interests of religion 
 are in the least endeared. 
 
 BUCHANAN, FRANCIS, M. D. author of Travels in the Mysore, a History of 
 Nepal, &c. was born at Branziet, in Stirlingshire, February 15th, 17G2. He 
 was the third son of Dr Thomas Buchanan of Spital, who afterwards succeeded 
 as heir of entail to the estate of Leney, in Perthshire, and Elizabeth Hamilton 
 heiress of Bardowie, near Glasgow. As a younger brother he was, of course, 
 destined to a profession. He chose that of his father ; and after the finishing 
 the elementary parts of his classical education with considerable credit, at the 
 Grammar School of Glasgow, he commenced his medical studies at the university, 
 where he remained till he had received his diploma. Glasgow college has 
 always enjoyed a high reputation for literature and ethics ; but, with the excep- 
 tion, perhaps, of the department of anatomy, its fame, as a medical school, has
 
 FRANCIS BUCHANAN, M.D. 407 
 
 never equalled that of Edinburgh. During the latter part of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury especially, the capital enjoyed a reputation for medical science scarcely 
 inferior to that of any medical school in Europe. Its degrees were eagerly 
 desired by students from all parts of Great Britain, and from many parts of the 
 continent, and its diploma Mas available in almost every part of the world as a 
 powerful letter of recommendation. Buchanan was anxious to secure for him- 
 self the advantage of pursuing his professional studies under the eminent pro- 
 lessors, who, at that time, more than sustained the high reputation which Edin- 
 burgh college had already acquired. Here he remained till he received his 
 degree in 1783. He soon after was appointed assistant-surgeon on board a 
 man-of-war, a situation from which he was afterwards obliged to retire on account 
 of ill health. He now spent some years at home, in the country, his health 
 being so bad as to disqualify him for all active exertion, till 1794, when he 
 received an appointment as surgeon in the East India Company's service, on the 
 Bengal establishment. The voyage to India completely restored his health, and 
 on his arrival he was sent with Captain Symes on his mission to the court of Ava. 
 In the course of his medical studies, Dr Buclianan had paid particular attention 
 to botany, and its cognate branches of natural science ; and during his present 
 visit to the Birman Empire, he had an opportunity of making some valuable 
 collections of the plants of Pegu, Ava, ar.d the Andaman Islands, which, toge- 
 ther with several interesting drawings, he transmitted to the court of directors, 
 by whom they were presented to Sir Joseph Banks. On his return from Ava, 
 he was stationed at Luckipoor, near the mouth of the Burrampooter, where he 
 remained two years, principally occupied in describing the fishes found in the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 In 1798, he was employed by the board* of trade at Calcutta, on the recom- 
 mendation of Dr Roxburgh, superintendant of the botanical garden, to visit the 
 district of Chatigang and its neighbourhood, forming the chief part of the an- 
 cient kingdom of Tripura. The extensive and well-watered districts of India 
 beyond the Ganges, afforded him a wide and rich field for pursuing his favour- 
 ite study. The numerous specimens which he collected in this interesting coun- 
 try were also transmitted to Sir Joseph Banks, and added to his collection. 
 Part of the following year, Dr Buchanan spent in describing the fishes of the 
 Ganges, of nhich he afterwards published an account. 
 
 In 1800, he was employed by Marquis Wellesley, then governor-general of 
 India, to examine the state of the country which the company's forces had lately 
 conquered from Tippoo Sultan, together with the province of Malabar. The 
 results of his inquiries in the Carnatic and Mysore he afterwards, on his return 
 to England, in 1807, published under the patronage of the court of directors. 
 This work, " Travels in the Mysore," fcc,, extending to three large quarto 
 volumes, illustrated with maps and drawings, contains much valuable information 
 concerning the agriculture, laws, customs, religious sects, history, &c., of India 
 generally, and particularly of the interior dependencies of Madras. In criticis- 
 ing the work the Edinburgh reviewers observe, " Those who will take the trou- 
 ble to peruse Dr Buchanan's book, will certainly obtain a far more accurate a 
 correct notion of the actual condition and appearance of India, and of its exist 
 ing arts, usages, and manners, than could be derived from all the other books 
 relating to it in existence." The reviewer adds still more valuable praise a 
 praise not always deserved by travellers in countries comparatively little known, 
 when he acknowledges tkit " every thing the author has seen is descnbi 
 perspicuously, unaffectedly, and, beyond all question, with the strictest ver 
 Edinburgh Review, vol. xiii. Oct. 1808. 
 
 Soon after Dr Buchanan had finished bis survey of the Mysore country, he
 
 408 FRANCIS BUCHANAN, M.I). 
 
 changed the scene of his labours from the south to the north-east of Hindoostan, 
 being appointed, in J 802, to accompany the embassy to Nepal, conducted by 
 Captain Knox. In the course of this journey, and his subsequent residence in 
 Nepal, he made large additions to his former collections of rare plants ; which, 
 with descriptions and numerous drawings, he transmitted to Mr J. E. Smith. 
 It was during this period also tliat he collected the greater part of the materials 
 for his " History of Nepal," which he published in 1818, some years after he 
 had retired from the Company's service. On his return from Kopal he was ap- 
 pointed surgeon to the governor-general, and he employed such leisure time as 
 he had for the study of natural history, in superintending the menagerie founded 
 by the Marquis Wellesley, and in describing the animals which it contained. Of 
 LordWellesleyDr Buchanan always spoke in terms of high admiration and devoted 
 attachment ; he considered his government in India as being not less wise and 
 beneficent, than it was eminently successful Undoubtedly India owes much 
 to this distinguished nobleman ; and it would have been happy, both for her 
 native population, and her merchant princes, had her government been always 
 intrusted to men of such practical capacity and unblemished integrity. In 1805, 
 Dr Buchanan accompanied his noble patron to England ; and, in the following 
 year, was again sent to India by the court of directors, for the purpose of mak- 
 ing a statistical survey of the territory under the presidency of Fort William, 
 which comprehends Bengal Proper and several of the adjoining districts. With 
 this laborious undertaking he was occupied for upwards of seven years, after 
 which he returned to Calcutta ; and, on the death of Dr Roxburgh, in 1814, 
 succeeded him as superintendant of the botanical garden, having been appointed 
 successor to that respectable botanist by the Court of Directors so early as 1 807. 
 But he was now exhausted with long continued exertion : his services had been 
 liberally rewarded by the East India Company ; an independant and honourably 
 acquired fortune relieved him from the necessity of encountering any longer the 
 hardships incident to his former mode of life, among tribes half-civilized, and 
 often somewhat less than half-friendly, and exposed to th malignant influence 
 of Indian climate ; and he naturally wished to enjoy the close of a busy life, 
 free from the responsibility and inquietudes of public service, in seme peaceful 
 retirement in his native land. 
 
 While he was preparing for his voyage home, he was deprived, by the Mar- 
 quis of Hastings, of all the botanical drawings which had been made under his 
 inspection, during his last stay in India, and which he intended to have deposited 
 with his other collections in the library of the India house. This circumstance 
 he greatly regretted, as he feared that the drawings would thus be totally lost 
 to the public, " To me," says Dr Buchanan, in a paper which was published 
 among the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, " to me, as an indi- 
 vidual, they were of no value, as 1 preserve no collection, and as I liave no occa- 
 sion to convert them into money." 
 
 On his arrival in England in 1815, he presented to the court of Directors, 
 his collection of plants and minerals, some papers on the geography of Ava, 
 several genealogical tables, nine hundred Indian coins, gold and silver, a col- 
 lection of Indian drugs, his notes on Natural History, a few drawings, and 
 about twenty curious Iiiudoo MSS. He then proceeded to Scotland, where he 
 hoped to enjoy the fruits of his toil in quiet On his arrival, he found his 
 elder brother, Colonel Hamilton, involved in pecuniary difficulties, from which 
 he could only be partially relieved by the sale of such parts of the family estates 
 as had not been entailed. Dr Buchanan, who was himself next heir, Colonel 
 Hamilton having no children, agreed to pay his brother's debts, which amounted 
 altogether to upwards of 1 5,000. His brother soon after died abroad, whither
 
 FRANCIS BUCHANAN, M.P. 409 
 
 he had gone in the hope of recovering his health, and Dr Buchanan, succeed- 
 ing him in his estates, adopted his mother's family name of Hamilton. He now 
 fixed his residence at Leney, where he amused himself with adding to the na- 
 tural beauties of one of the loveliest spots in Perthshire, such improvements as 
 a cultivated taste and an ample fortune enabled him to supply. In this sue >t 
 retirement he still found pleasure in prosecuting the studies and scientific pur- 
 suits which had engrossed the busier part of his life. His garden occupied much 
 of his attention ; he introduced into his grounds many curious plants, shrubs, 
 and flowers ; he contributed largely to the scientific journals of the dy, 'par- 
 ticularly the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, the Edinburgh Journal of 
 Science, the transactions of the Linnaaan Society of London, the Memoirs of the 
 Hibernian Natural History Society, and the Transactions of the Royal Society 
 of Edinburgh. Also in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society are several 
 papers taken from his statistical survey of the provinces under the Presidency 
 of Fort William, deposited in the Library of the East India Company : these 
 papers, at the instance of l)r Buchanan were liberally communicated to the 
 Society, accompanied with explanations by Henry Thomas Colebrooke, Esq., 
 one of the Directors. In 1819, he published his History of the Kingdom of 
 Nepal, already mentioned, and in the same year a Genealogy of the Hindoo 
 Gods, which he had drawn up some years before with the assistance of an intel- 
 ligent Brahman. In 1822 appeared his Account of the Fishes of the Ganges, 
 with plates. 
 
 Dr Buchanan was connected with several distinguished literary and scientific 
 societies. He was a member of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta a fellow of the 
 Royal Society, the Linnaean Society, and Society .of Antiquaries of London 
 an ordinary member of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries a fellow of the 
 Royal Society of Edinburgh a member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great 
 Britain and Ireland, &c. &c. In 1826, he was appointed a deputy lieutenant 
 for Perthshire, and took a warm interest in the politics of the day. His own 
 principles were Tory, and he was not a little apt to be violent and overbearing 
 in discussion with men of the opposite party. But although hasty in his tem- 
 per and violent in his politics, Dr Buchanan was of a generous and liberal dis- 
 position : he was extremely charitable to the poor, warm in his personal attach- 
 ments, and just and honourable in his public capacity of magistrate. He mar- 
 ried late in life, and fondness for the society of his children, joined with stud- 
 ious habits, left him little leisure or inclination for mixing in the gayeties of the 
 fashionable world. He lived, however, on terms of good understanding and 
 easy intercourse with his neighbours. His own high attainments and extensive 
 information eminently qualified him for enjoying the conversation and appear- 
 ing to advantage in the society of men of liberal education, and to such his 
 house was always open. His intimate acquaintance with oriental manners, geo- 
 graphy, and history, made his conversation interesting and instructive ; his un- 
 obtrusive manners, his sober habits, his unostentatious and unaffected hospitality 
 made him an agreeable companion and a good neighbour ; while the warmth and 
 steadiness of. his attachments rendered his friendship valuable. The following 
 high estimate of his character we find in Dr Robertson's statistical account of 
 the Parish of Callander, so early as the year 1793. The most learned person 
 who is known to have belonged to this parish is Dr Francis Buchanan, at present 
 in the East Indies. In classical and medical knowledge he has few equals, an I 
 he is well acquainted with the whole system of nature.' Dr Buchanan carried on 
 an extensive correspondence with men of eminence in the literary and scientific 
 world ; he repeatedly received the public thanks of the Court of Directors, and 
 of the Governor-General in council, for his useful collections and his information 
 
 I. 3F
 
 410 GEOHGE BUCHANAN. 
 
 on Indian affaire ; and when his former patron IVIarquis Wellesley went as Lori 
 Lieutenant to Ireland he was solicited to accompany him in an official capa- 
 city an offer which his declining health and love of domestic quiet induced 
 him to decline. Dr Buchanan died, June 15th, 1829, in the 67th year of 
 his age. 
 
 BUCHANAN, GEORGE, one of the most distinguished reformers, political and 
 religious, of the sixteenth century, and the best Latin poet which modern 
 Europe has produced, was born in the parish of Killearn, Stirlingshire, in 
 February, 1506, "of a family," to use his own words, "more ancient than 
 wealthy." His father, Thomas, was the second son of Thomas Buchanan of 
 Drumikill, from whom he inherited the farm of Moss, on the western bank of 
 the water of Blane, the house where, though it has been several times rebuilt, 
 still, in honour of the subject oi this memoir, preserves its original shape, 
 and dimensions, with a considerable portion of its original materials. His 
 mother was Agnes Heriot of the family of Tabroun in East Lothian. The 
 Buchanans of Drumikill were highly respectable, being a branch of the family 
 of Buchanan of Buchanan, which place they held by charter as far back as the 
 reign of Malcom III. Antiquity of descent, however, is no preservative against 
 poverty, of which our poet's family had their full share, for the bankruptcy of 
 his grandfather, the laird of Drumikill, and the death of his father while in the 
 flower of his age, left George Buchanan, when yet a child, with four brothers 
 and three sisters, with no provision for their future subsistence but their mother's 
 industry. She appears, however, to have been a woman of excellent qualities ; 
 and by the pmdect management of the farm, which she retained in her own 
 hands, brought up her family in a respectable manner, and had the satisfaction 
 of seeing them all comfortably settled. George, the third son, received the 
 rudiments of his education in the school of his native village, which was at that 
 time one of the most celebrated in Scotland ; and having at an early period 
 given indications of genius, his maternal uncle, James Heriot, was induced to 
 undertake the care and expence of his education ; and, in order to give him 
 every possible advantage, sent him, in 1520, when fifteen years of age, to pro- 
 secute his studies in the university of Paris. Here he studied with the greatest 
 diligence, and impelled, as he has himself told us, partly by his inclination, and 
 partly by the necessity of performing the exercises of his class, put forth the 
 first blossom of a poetical genius that was afterwards to bear the rich fruits of 
 immortality. Scarcely, however, had his bright morning dawned when it became 
 suddenly overcast. Before he had completed his second year, his uncle died, 
 leaving him in a foreign land, exposed te all the miseries of poverty, aggravated 
 by bodily infirmity, occasioned, most probably, by the severity of his studies, for, 
 at the same time that he was in public competing with the greatest talent of the 
 several nations of Europe, who, as to a common fountain, were assembled at this 
 far famed centre of learning, he was teaching himself Greek, in which he was 
 latterly a great proficient. He was now obliged to return home, and for upwards 
 of a twelvemonth was incapable of applying to any business. In 1523, he 
 joined the auxiliaries brought over from France by Albany, then Regent of 
 Scotland ; and served as a private soldier in one campaign against the English. 
 Ho tells us that he took this step from a desire to learn the art of war ; but per- 
 haps necessity was as strong a prompter as military ardour. Whatever were his 
 motives, he marched with the army commanded by the Regent in person, who 
 entered England and laid siege to the castle of \Verk, in the end of October, 
 1523. Repulsed in all his attempts on the place, Albany, from the disaffection 
 among his troops and the daily increasing strength of the enemy, soon found 
 himself under the necessity of re-crossing the Tweed ; and being overtaken by a
 
 (E(D)ME 
 
 TKOif THE ORIGINAL IK THE TTNTVERSiry OF ZDINBTIRQH. 

 
 GEOKGE BUCHANAN. 
 
 411 
 
 =evere snow storm in a night march toward Lauder, lost a great part of his army ; 
 Buchanan escaped, but, completely cured of his warlike enthusiasm, if any such senti- 
 ment ever inspired him, was confined the rest of the winter to his bed. In the en- 
 suing spring, being considerably recovered, and having completed his eighteenth 
 year, he was sent to the university of St Andrews to attend the prelections of 
 John Mair, or Major, who at that time, according to his celebrated pupil, 
 " taught logic, or, more properly, the art of sophistry," in St Salvntor's col- 
 lege. Buchanan's eldest brother, Patrick, was matriculated at the same time. 
 Having continued one session at St Andrews, where he took the degree of 
 Bachelor of Arts, on the 3d of October, 1525, being then, as appears from the 
 college registers, a pauper or exhibitioner, he accompanied Major to France the 
 following summer. Mackenzie says, that, on account of his great merits and at 
 the same time his great poverty, Major sent for him, in 1524, and took him 
 into his house as a servant, in which capacity it was that Buchanan went with 
 him to Paris, and remained with him two years ; but this has been regarded by 
 the vindicators of Buchanan as a story set forth for the purpose of fixing a 
 charge of ingratitude upon the poet, for an epigram which he wrote upon one 
 of Major's productions, and in which his old instructor is termed " solo cogno- 
 mine major." 
 
 On returning to France, Buchanan became a student in the Scots college of 
 Paris, and in March was incorporated a bachelor of Arts the degree of Master 
 of Arts he received in April, 1528. In June the following year he was elected 
 procurator for the German nation, one of the four classes, into which the stu- 
 dents were divided, and which included those from Scotland. The principles of 
 the Reformation were by this time widely extended on the continent, and every 
 where excited the most eager discussion. Upon Buchanan's ardent and gen- 
 erous mind they made a powerful impression, and it was not in his nature to con- 
 ceal it. Yet he seems to have acted with considerable caution, and was in no 
 haste to renounce the established forms of worship, whence we conclude that the 
 reported mortifications he is said to have met with at this time and on that account, 
 are without foundation. At the end of two years he was elected a professor in 
 the college of St Barbe, where he taught grammar three years ; and, if we may 
 believe himself, his remuneration was such as to render his circumstances at least 
 comparatively comfortable. It appears to have been in 1529, that this office 
 was conferred upon him ; he was consequently only in his twenty-third year. 
 Soon after entering on his j rofessorship, Buchanan attracted the notice of Gilbert 
 Kennedy, earl of Cassillis, then residing in Paris, whither he had been sent to 
 prosecute his studies, as the Scottish nobility at that period generally were ; and 
 at the end of three years Buchanan was engaged to devote his time entirely to 
 the care of the young Earl's education. With this nobleman he resided as a 
 preceptor for five years ; and to him, as " a youth of promising talents and ex- 
 cellent disposition," he inscribed his first published work, a translation of Lin- 
 arre's rudiments of Latin grammar, which was printed by the learned Robert 
 Stephens, in 1533. 
 
 In 1536, James V. made a matrimonial excursion to France, where he found 
 the earl of Cassillis, who had just finished his education. James having, on the 
 1st of January, 1537, married Magdalene, daughter of Francis I., returned to 
 Scotland in May, bringing with him Cassillis and George Buchanan. This ac- 
 counts for the future intimacy between the Litter person and the king, which 
 in the end was like to have had a tragical termination. The connexion be- 
 tween Buchanan and the earl seems, however, not to have been immediately dis- 
 solved ; for it was while residing at the house of his pupil, that the poet com- 
 posed Somnium or the Dream, apparently an imitation of a poem of Dunbar's,
 
 412 GEORGE BUCHANAN. 
 
 entitled " How Duubar vvabdesyred to be ane frier," and a bitter satire upon the 
 impudence and hypocrisy of the Franciscans. This piece of raillery excited the 
 utmost hostility on the part of its objects, and to avoid their vengeance, which 
 he had every reason to dread, Buchanan had determined to retire to Paris, 
 where he hoped to be able to resume his former situation in the college of St 
 Barbe. James V., however, took him under his protection, and retained him as pre- 
 ceptor to his natural son James Stuart, not the prior of St Andrews, whose mo- 
 ther was of the family of Mar, but one of the same baptismal name who held 
 the abbacies of Melrose and Kelso, and whose mother was Elizabeth Schaw, of the 
 family of Sauchie, and who died in the year 1548. James, who about this time was 
 not satisfied with the conduct of the clergy, in regard to a conspiracy against his life, 
 said to have been entered into by some of the.nobility, sent for Buchanan, and not 
 aware that he had already rendered himself obnoxious to the Franciscans, command- 
 ed him to write a satire against them. Wishing to gratify the king, and yet 
 give as little additional ground of offence to the friars as possible, Buclianan 
 wrote his Palinodia in two parts, a covert satire, which he hoped might afford no 
 ground of open complaint to those against whom it was directed. The king, 
 himself a poet coarse and licentious, did not at all relish this delicate kind of 
 irony, and it wounded the ecclesiastics still more painfully than its predecessor 
 the Somnium ; so that, as it usually happens in an attempt to please one party 
 without offending the other, the poet's labour proved vain. Finding it impos- 
 sible to propitiate the friars, and the king still insisting upon their vices being 
 fully and fairly exposed, he at last gave full scope to his indignation at the im- 
 pudence, ignorance, impiety, and sensuality that distinguished the whole order, 
 almost without an individual exception, in his poem entitled " Franciscauus," one 
 of the most pungent satires to be found in any Language. In this composition 
 Buchanan had little occasion to exercise his fancy, facts were so abundant He had 
 but to embody in flowing Language, what was passing before all men's eyes, and 
 depict the clergy as the most contemptible and the most depraved of human beings, 
 who, besides being robl/ers of the poor, lived, the far greater part of them, 
 in the open and avowed practice of the most loathsome debauchery. Still they were 
 the most powerful body in the state ; and after the death of Magdalene, who liad 
 been bred under her aunt, the queen of Navarre, a protestant, and was friend- 
 ly to the cause, they gained an entire ascendancy over the too facile King, 
 who had not the grace to protect the tutor of his son from the effects of their 
 rage, occasioned by poems that had been written at his own express command. 
 Towards the end of the year 1538, measures were taken for the total suppres- 
 sion of the new opinions, and in February following, five persons were commit- 
 ted to the flames ; nine saved their lives by burning their bills, as it was called, 
 or in other words recanting. Among the rest George Buchanan was on this occa- 
 sion seized, and to secure ample vengeance upon him, Cardinal Beaton offered 
 the king a sum of money for his life ; a piece of supererogatory wickedness, for 
 which there was not the smallest occasion, as the prejudices of his judges would 
 infallibly have secured his condemnation, had he been brought before any of 
 their tribunals ; but aware of the mortal enmity of his accusers, he fled into 
 England. By the way he happily escaped a pestilential distemper, which was 
 at that time desolating the north of England, and when he arrived in London, 
 experienced the protection of an English knight, Sir John Rainsford, who both 
 supplied his immediate necessities, and protected him from the fury of the pa- 
 pists, to whom he was now every where obnoxious. On this occasion it was 
 that he addressed himself to Henry VIII. and to his minister Cromwell, both of 
 whom treated him with neglect. Several of his little pieces written at this time 
 attest the straits to which he was reduced, England at that period liud few at-
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN. 4J3 
 
 tractions tor a Scotsman ; and it must have been peculiarly galling to the lofty 
 spirit of Buchanan, after stooping to solicit patronage among the natural ene- 
 mies of his country, to find his efforts despised, and his necessities disregarded. 
 Meeting with so little encouragement there, he passed over to Paris, where he 
 was well known, and had many acquaintances. But here to his dismay lie found 
 Cardinal Beaton resident as ambassador from the Scottish court. This circum- 
 stance rendered it extremely unsafe for him to remain ; happily he was invited 
 to Bourdeaux by Andrew Goven, a Portuguese, principal of the college of 
 Guienne, lately founded in that city, through whose interest he was appointed 
 professor of humanity in that afterwards highly famed seminary. Here Buchanan 
 remained for three years, during which he completed four Tragedies, besides 
 composing a number of poems on miscellaneous subjects. He was all this while 
 the object of the unwearied enmity of Cardinal Beaton and the Franciscans, 
 who still threatened his life. The Cardinal at one time wrote to the bishop of 
 Bourdeaux, commanding him to secure the person of the heretical poet, which 
 might perhaps have been done ; but the letter falling into the hands of one of 
 the poet's friends, was detained till the appearance of a pestilence in Guienne 
 absorbed every lesser concern. The death of James V. following soon after, 
 with the distractions consequent on that event, gave the Cardinal more than 
 enough to do at home without taking cognizance of heretics abroad. Among 
 his pupils at Bourdeaux, Buclianan numbered the celebrated Michael de Mon- 
 tague, who was an actor in every one of his dramas ; and among his friends 
 were not only his fellow professors, but all the men of literature and science in 
 the city and neighbourhood. One of the most illustrious of these was the elder 
 Scaliger, who resided and practised as a physician at Agin ; at his house Buch- 
 anan and the other professors used to spend part of their vacations. Here they 
 were hospitably entertained, and in their society Scaliger seems not only to 
 have forgot, as he himself acknowledges, the tortures of the gout, but, what 
 was more extraordinary, his natural talent for contradiction. The many ex- 
 cellent qualities of this eminent scholar, and the grateful recollection of 
 his conversational talents, Buchanan has preserved in an elegant Latin Epi- 
 gram, apparently written at the time when he was about to quit this seat of 
 the muses, to enter upon new scenes of difficulty and danger. The younger 
 Scaliger was but a boy when Buchanan visited at his father's house ; but he 
 inherited all his father's admiration of the Scottish poet, whom he declared 
 to be decidedly superior to all the Latin poets of those times. After having 
 resided three "years at Bourdeaux, and conferred lustre upon its University 
 by the splendour of his talents, Buchanan removed, for reasons which we are not 
 acquainted with, to Paris; and in L544, we find him one of the regents in the 
 college of Cardinal le Moire, which station he seems to have held till 1547. 
 There he had for his associates, among other highly respectable names, the cele- 
 brated Turnebus and Muretus. By a Latin elegy addressed to his late colleagues 
 Tastoeus and Tevius, we learn that about this period he had a severe attach 
 the gout, and that he had been under the medical care of Carolus Stephanus, 
 who was a doctor of physic of the faculty of Paris, and, like several of 1 
 tions, was equally distinguished as a scholar and as a printer. In the i 
 elegy, Buchanan commemorates the kindness of his colleagues, particuJi 
 Gelida, an amiable and learned Spaniard, less eminent for talents than J 
 chanan's other colleagues, Turnebus and Muretus, but as a man of 
 worth and excellence, at least equal to the former and vastly superior t 
 
 , 
 
 latter, who, though a man of splendid talents, was worthless in the ext 
 To Muretus, Buchanan addressed a copy of verses on a Tragedy **"^* 
 in his youth entitled Julius Casar ; but Muretus had not as yet put forth tl
 
 414 GEORGE BUCIIANAV. 
 
 monstrosities of charactei, that ought long ago to have buried his name in 
 oblivion. 1 
 
 In the year 1517 Buchanan again shifted his place, and, along with his Port-.i- 
 jnriiese friend, Andrew Govea, passed into Portugal. Govea, with two brothers, 
 had been sent for his education into France, by John III. of Portugal, who havhm 
 now founded the university of Coimbra, recalled him to take the principal 
 superintendence of the infant establishment. Aware, cat the same time, that his 
 whole kingdom could not furnish a sufficiency of learned men to fill the various 
 chairs, his majesty commissioned Govea to bring a number of learned men with 
 him for that purpose. The persons selected were George Buchanan, his elder 
 brother Patrick, Gruchius, Gerunta?us, Tevius, and Vinetus, all of whom liad 
 already distinguished themselves by the publication of learned works. Ar- 
 noldus Fabricius, John Costa, and Anthony Mendez, the two latter natives of 
 Portugal, completed the establishment, .and all of them, Patrick Buchanan and 
 Fabricius excepted, had, under Govea, been teachers in the college of Guienne. 
 France, at this period, threatened to be the scene of great convulsions, and 
 Buchanan regarded this retirement to Portugal as an exceedingly fortunate 
 circumstance, and for a short time his expectations were fully realized. Govea, 
 however, died in less than a twelvemonth, and, deprived of his protection, the 
 poor professors soon found themselves exposed to the jealousy of the natives on 
 account of being foreigners, and to the unrelenting bigotry of the priests 
 because they were scholars. Three of their number were very soon immured in 
 the dungeons of the inquisition, and, after a tedious confinement, brought before 
 that tribunal, which, unable to convict them of any crime, overwhelmed them 
 with reproaches, and remanded them to their dungeons, without permitting them 
 so much as to know who were their accusers. Buchanan did not escape his 
 share of this persecution. Franciscanus was again revived against him, though 
 the inquisitors knew nothing of that poem; for he had never parted with a 
 copy, save that which he gave to his own king, James V., and he had taken 
 care to have the whol%atiair properly explained to the Portuguese monarch 
 before he set foot in his dominions. He was also charged with eating flesh in 
 Lent, a practice quite common in Portugal at that time, and with having asserted 
 that Augustine's opinion of the Eucharist coincided with the protestant rather 
 than with the Romish views on the subject, and two witnesses were found to 
 declare that he was an enemy to the Roman faith. More merciful than on 
 many other occasions, the inquisition, after dealing with Buchanan for upwards 
 of a year and a half, sentenced him to be confined in a monastery for some months, 
 that he might by the inmates be better instructed in the principles and practice 
 of religion. Fortunately, the monks to whose care Buchanan was thus con- 
 signed were not without humanity, though he found them utterly ignorant of 
 religion ; and he consoled himself by planning, and in part executing, his un- 
 rivalled paraphrase of the Psalms of David, which placed him immeasurably above 
 all modern Latin poets, and will transmit his name with honour and admiration 
 to the latest posterity. That this was a task imposed upon him by his ghostly 
 guardians, is an idle tale totally devoid of foundation. The probability is that 
 the poor monks were incapable of appreciating his labours, but he seems to 
 have gained their good will, for he was restored to his liberty, and soliciting 
 the king's permission to return to France, was requested to remain, and pre- 
 
 1 Of Muretus's impious book, De Tribus ImpostorUm*, or the three impostors, Moses, Je- 
 sus, and Mahomet, a late biographer of Buchanan has s^iU " it is extremely evident tha* 
 such a book never existed." We are informed, however, that a copy exists in the MS. col 
 lection of the University of Glasgow.
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN. 415 
 
 sented with a small sum of money for subsistence till a situation worthy of liis 
 talents should be found. 
 
 After having suffered so much from the inquisition, Buchanan could not 
 be very ambitious of Portuguese preferment, and the promise of the king not 
 being likely to be hastily fulfilled, he embarked in a Greek vessel at Lisbon 
 and Killed for England. To England, however, he certainly liad no partiality ; 
 and though Edward VI. was now on the throne, and doing all he could to 
 advance the work of reformation, and though some very advantageous offers 
 were made to induce him to settle in that country, he proceeded direct to 
 France, where he arrived in the beginning of 1553. It was at this time that 
 Buchanan wrote his poem, Adventus in Galliam, in which his contempt and 
 resentment of the Portuguese, and the treatment he had received, together with 
 his affection for the French nation, are strongly expressed. Perhaps it would be 
 too much to say that the French nation was attached to Buchanan, but many 
 individuals of it certainly were, and immediately on his arrival in Paris he was 
 appointed to a regency in the college of Boncourt In this station he remained 
 till 1555, when he was engaged by the celebrated Coiute de Brissac, to act as 
 domestic tutor to his son, Tinioleon de Gosse. To this nobleman he had 
 addressed a poetical tribute after the capture of Vercelli, an event which 
 occurred in September, 1553; and to him also he dedicated his tragedy oi 
 Jepthes in the summer of 1554. The Comte, who seems not to have been 
 insensible to this species of flattery, next year called the poet into Italy, 
 where he himself presided over the French dominions, and charged him with 
 the education of his son. Though much of his time had been spent amidst the 
 tumults of war, the Marshal de Brissac was a man of a liberal mind, who, living 
 in a state of princely magnificence, cultivated an acquaintance with the most 
 eminent scholars. During his campaigns he had often been accompanied by 
 men of learning, and had the discernment to discover in the preceptor of his 
 son, powers of mind equal to any station in society. He therefore treated him 
 with the utmost deference, often placing him at the council board among Ins 
 principal officers, and on the most important occasions thought it no discredit to 
 take the benefit of his superior sagacity. When committed to the tuition ot 
 Buchanan, Tinioleon de Cosse was only twelve years of age, and he parted with 
 him at the age of seventeen. He was afterwards distinguished for his bravery, 
 for his acquaintance with military science, and his literary attainments were 
 such as reflected honour on a young nobleman destined for the profession of 
 arms. His short but brilliant career terminated at the siege of Mucidan, where 
 he fell by a musket ball, aged only twenty-six years. During the five years of 
 his connexion with this illustrious family, Buchanan's residence was alternately 
 in France and Italy, and as his pupil was destined to the profession of arms, and 
 had different masters to attend him, he found leisure for prosecuting his poetical 
 studies, and formed the design, and composed part of his philosophical poem 
 De Sphera, which he addressed to his pupil. His future avocations prevented 
 him from completing this poem. He likewise published the first specimen ot 
 his version of the Psalms, an: 1 , his translation of the Alcestes of Euripides, which 
 he inscribed to Margaret, daughter of Francis I., a munificent princess, aft 
 wards married to the Duke of Savoy. His ode on the surrender of Calais w 
 also composed while in Brissac's family. But much of his spare time was 
 employed in a manner still more important in examining the grounds 
 religious belief, and settling to liis own satisfaction the great question (t 
 ever since, more or less, agitated Europe) between the Romish and the reform* 
 churches. That he had all along inclined to the side of the reformed, is n 
 putable ; but he had never relinquished his connexion with the ancient church,
 
 416 GEORGE BUCHANAN. 
 
 which he had probably thought still right in the ninin, though disfigured and 
 disgraced by the figments and the follies of an ignorant and corrupt priesthood. 
 The result of this examination, however, was a perfect conviction that many of 
 the Romish doctrines were erroneous ; that the worship was idolatrous ; and the 
 discipline utterly depraved and perverted; and, consequently, that the necessity 
 of separation from this church was imperative upon all who had any regard to the 
 Word of God and the salvation of their own souls : and no sooner did he arrive 
 in Scotland than he acted accordingly. 
 
 As Buchanan's connexion with the Marshal do Brissac terminated in 1500, 
 when the civil wars in France had already begun, he probably returned im- 
 mediately to Scotland, though the exact period lias not been ascertained. 
 He had courted, while he resided in France, the notice of Mary, by an Epi- 
 tlialamium on her marriage with the Dauphin; and in January, 1501-2, we 
 find Randolph, the English ambassador, writing thus from Edinburgh to his 
 employers : " Ther is with the quene [Mary] one called George 1'owhanan a 
 Scottishe man very well learned, tliat was Schollemaster unto Mons r- de Brissack's 
 son, very Godlye and honest," And in a subsequent letter, dated from St 
 Andrews, he says, " the quene readeth daylie after her dinner, instructed by a 
 learned man, Mr George Bowhanan, somewhat of Livy." Mary liad been sent 
 to France in the sixth year of her age, and her education had in some respecis 
 been carefully attended to. She spoke Scottish and French, as if both IL;<! 
 been her vernacular tongue, which in some degree they might be said to be. 
 With Italian and Spanish she was familiar, and she was so much a master of 
 Latin as to compose and pronounce in that language, before a splendid auditory, 
 a declamation against the opinion of those who would debar the sex from 
 the liberal pursuits of science and literature. This oration she afterwards 
 translated into French, but neither the translation nor the original lias been 
 published. Mary was at this time in the full bloom of youth and beauty, 
 and to have such a pupil must have been highly gratifying to Buchanan, 
 who, with all the leaders of the reformation in Scotland, was at first much 
 attached to her. This attachment he took occasion to express in a highly 
 finished copy of Latin verses, prefixed to his translation of the Psalms, which he 
 had just finished, and sent to the press of his friend Henry Stephens. The 
 exact date of the first full edition of this important work is not known, no date 
 being on the title ; but a second edition was printed in 1566, in which was 
 included the author's tragedy of Jepthes. On the titlepage of both these 
 impressions, Buchanan is styled Poetarum nostri sasculi facile princeps, and 
 the paraphrase was recommended by copies of Greek verses by the printer, 
 Henry Stephens, one of the first scholars of the age, by Franciscus Portus, and 
 Fredricus Jamotius, and in Latin verses by Henry Stephens and Castlevetro. 
 Mary must have been highly pleased by a compliment which carried her fame 
 over all Europe, and as a reward for his services, bestowed upon her preceptor 
 and poet, in 1564, the temporalities of the abbey of Crossraguell, vacant by the 
 death of Quintin Kennedy, brother to Buchanan's former pupif, the Earl of 
 Cassillis. These temporalities were valued at five hundred pounds Scots a-year, 
 and the poet seems to have held them till the day of his death. Mary's love 
 of power, and her attachment to popery, soon, however, alienated the affections 
 of her friends; and, aware that he held her favour by a precarious tenure 
 Buchanan sedulously cultivated the friendship of the leaders of the reformation, 
 which was now become the first object of his solicitude. In the same year in 
 which he was promoted to the temporalities of Crossraguell, he prepared for 
 the press a collection of satires, " Fratres Fraterrimi," in which the fooleries 
 and impurities of the popish church were treated with the keenest irony, and
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN. 417 
 
 assailed with the most vehement invective. He also now put the finishing hand 
 to his Franciscanus, which he published, with a dedication to his friend and 
 patron, the Earl of Murray. '.through the interest of this nobleman, Buchanan 
 was nominated to be principal of St Leonard's college, St Andrews, in 1 56 (J. In 
 November this year, his name appears as one of the auditors of the faculty questor's 
 accounts in the university of St Andrew's, where he had now fixed his residence. 
 The chamber which he occupied, as principal of St Leonard's, is now part of a 
 private dwelling house, and is supposed to have undergone scarcely any transfor- 
 mation. The following inventory of its furniture, in 1544, has been pre- 
 served : " Twa standard beds, the foreside of aik and the northside and the 
 fuits of fir Item ane feather bed and ane white plaid of four ells and ane 
 covering woven o'er with images Item another auld bed of harden filled with 
 straw with ane covering of green Item ane cod Item ane inrower of buck- 
 ram of five breeds part green part red to zaillow Item ane Hunters counter 
 of the middlin kind Item ane little buird for the studzie Item ane furm of 
 fir and ane little letterin of aik on the side of the bed with ane image of St 
 Jerom Item ane stool of elm with ane other chair of little pine Item ane 
 chimney weighing*** Item ane chandler weighing***." In 1566, and 
 the two ensuing years, he was one of the four electors of the rector, and by 
 each of the three officers who were successively chosen was nominated a pro- 
 rector ; and in the public register he is denominated by the honourable title 
 which, in publishing his Psalms, Stephanus had bestowed on him. As principal 
 of the college, he delivered occasional prelections on theology, as well as at the 
 weekly meetings of the clergy and other learned men of the district, held for 
 expounding the Scriptures, then styled the exercise of prophesying, and in the 
 general assembly of the Scottish church he sat as a doctor from the year 1563 
 to 1567, in which last year he had the honour of being chosen moderator. 
 This same year he published another collection, consisting of Elegiae Silvaj 
 Hendecasyllabi, to which was prefixed an epistle to his friend Peter Daniel, the 
 learned editor of Virgil, with the commentary of Servius, in which he gives 
 several notices respecting his avocations, and especially respecting his poetical 
 works. " Between the occupations of a court, and the annoyance of disease, 
 I have hardly," he remarks, " been able to steal any portion of time which I 
 could devote to my friends or to myself, and I have therefore been prevented 
 from maintaining a frequent correspondence with them, and from collecting my 
 poems which lie so widely dispersed. For my own part I was not extremely 
 solicitous to recall them from perdition, for the subjects are generally of a trivial 
 nature, and such as at this period of life are at once calculated to inspire me 
 with disgust and shame. But as Pierre Montaure, and some other friends, to 
 whom I neither can nor ought to refuse any request, demanded them with such 
 earnestness, I have employed some of my leisure hours in collecting a portion, 
 and placing it in a state of arrangement. With this specimen, which consists 
 of one book of elegies, another of miscellanies, and a third of hendecasyllables, 
 I in the meantime present you. When it shall suit your convenience, I beg 
 you will communicate them to Montaure, des Mesmes, and other philological 
 friends, without whose advice I trust you will not adopt any measure relative to 
 their publication. In a short time I propose sending a book of iambics, another 
 of epigrams, another of odes, and perhaps some other pieces of a similar 
 description. All these I wish to be at the disposal of my friends, as I have 
 finally determined to rely more on their judgment than on my own. In my 
 paraphrase of the Psalms, I have corrected many typographical errors, and have 
 likewise made various alterations. I must therefore request you to advise our 
 friend Stephanus not to publish a new edition without my knowledge. Hitherto 
 i. 3 o
 
 418 GEORGE BUCHANA.N. 
 
 I have not found leisure to finish the second book of my poem De Spfiera, and 
 therefore I have not made a transcript of the first. As soon as the former are 
 completed I shall transmit them to you. Salute in my name all our friends at 
 Orleans, and such others as it may be convenient. Farewell. Edinburgh, July 
 the twenty-fourth, 1566." The work, of course, met with his friend's ap- 
 probation, and was printed in Paris by Robert Stephens in 1567, 12mo. 
 We have already noticed that the poem De Sphera was never completed. 
 From the above letter it appears that it was Buclianan's intention to return to 
 it when he should have finished some others that were in a greater state of 
 forwardness, and did not require such a full command of his time as a work of 
 greater magnitude. Circumstances, however, soon put a period to these peace- 
 ful and pleasing pursuits. 
 
 The marriage of Mary and Darnley, the murders of Rizzio and Darnloy, tlie 
 union between the Queen and Bothwell, the flight of the latter, Mary's sur- 
 render- to the confederated lords, her imprisonment in Lochleven castle, and 
 her escape from it, the defeat of her army at Langside, and her escape into Eng- 
 land, are the events best known of any in Scottish history, and it is needless here 
 to enlarge upon them. When Elizabeth thought fit to appoint commissioners, and 
 call witnesses from Scotland for the purpose of substantiating the charges upon 
 which Mary had b^en expelled from the throne, the main burden of the proof 
 was devolved upon Buchanan, who had accepted favours from the Queen, indeed, 
 but did not on that account either decline the task of becoming her accuser, or 
 perform it with the less severity. He accordingly accompanied the Regent 
 Murray into England upon that occasion, having composed in Latin a Detection 
 of Mary's actions, which was laid before the commissioners at Westminster, and 
 was afterwards most industriously circulated by the English court. To the same 
 pen has also been ascribed the Actio contra Mariam Scotorum Reginam, a 
 coarse and scurrilous invective, which was printed in England along with tlie 
 Detection, but of which no man capable of reading Buchanan'* works will be- 
 lieve that he ever composed one line. " Tlie Detection,*' says an eminent his- 
 torian, " is a concise historical deduction of facts, a rapid narrative written with 
 that chaste and classical precision of thought and language by which each sen- 
 tence acquires an appropriate idea distinct from the preceding, neither antici- 
 pated, repeated, nor intermixed with others ; and the style is so strictly historical 
 that the work is incorporated in Buchanan's history almost without alteration. 
 But the Action against Mary is a dull declamation and a malignant invective, 
 written in professed imitation of the ancient orators, whom Buchanan has never 
 imitated, without arrangement of parts, coherence, or a regular train of ideas, 
 and without a single passage which Buchanan in his history has deigned to trans- 
 cribe." The assassination of the Regent Murray soon after his return from 
 England, threw the nation into a still deeper ferment, and Buchanan, strongly 
 suspicious of the selfish policy of the Hamiltons, which he regarded as the prin- 
 cipal source of the calamities that now afflicted the nation, addressed " Ane ad- 
 monition direct to the true lordis maintainirs of the kingis graces authorite," 
 in which he earnestly adjured them to protect the young king and the children 
 of the late regent from the perils that seemed to impend over them. The same 
 year he composed a satirical delineation of the character of the secretary Le thing- 
 ton, entitled, Chameleon, which, through the vigilance of the secretary, was pre- 
 vented from being published at the time. A copy, however, was preserved 
 among the Cotton MSS. dated 1570, and it was printed at London, in 1710, in 
 the Miscellanea Scotica. It has been often reprinted since. These two pieces ap- 
 pear to be all that he ever composed in his vernacular tongue, and they are of 
 such excellence as to make it matter of regret that he did not turn his attention
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN. 419 
 
 ottener to the cultivation of his native language. As the hopes of the protestant 
 party were entirely centred in King James, Buchanan was, in 1570, selected 
 e lords ot the privy council, and others of the nobility, assembled on occa- 
 swn of the slaughter of the regent Murray, to take the superintendence of that 
 important matter, the education of the royal youth. On this occasion he " con,- 
 peared personally in presence of the said lords of the council, nobility, and 
 hers of the estates, and at their desire, and of his own free will and proper 
 ative, deimtted and gave over his charge and place of master of the said col- 
 lege, (St Leonards,) in the favours of his well-beloved Master Patrick Adamson 
 and no otherwise." 1 
 
 Buchanan commenced his new duties with ardour ; and the very respectable 
 scholarship which his pupil exhibited in after life, shows that so far lie exe- 
 cuted his task with great success. James had been committed, during his 
 infancy, to the charge of the Earl of Mar, a nobleman of the most unblemished 
 integrity, and he was now in the fourth year of his age. His governor was Sir 
 Alexander Erskine, brother to the Earl of Mar, " a gallant well-natured gentle- 
 man, loved and honoured by all men." The preceptors associated with Buchanan 
 were Mr Peter Young, and the abbots of Cambuskenneth and Dryburgh, both of 
 them related to the family of Mar. Young was a man of a mild disposition, 
 respectable both for his talents and learning ; and he discharged his office with 
 a prudent attention to his future interests. Recollecting that his pupil was soon 
 to be the sole dispenser of public favour, he was careful to secure his good graces, 
 and of course was afterwards employed in several political transactions of con- 
 siderable importance, obtained the honour of knighthood, and an annual pen- 
 sion of considerable amount. The two abbots, also, were wise and modest, 
 according to Sir Jameg Melville, but the Lady Mar was wise and sharp, and held 
 the king in great awe, and so did Mr George Buchanan. " But Mr George," Mel- 
 ville adds, " was a Stoic philosopher, who looked not far beforehand ; a man of 
 notable endowments for his learning and knowledge of Latin poesy; much honour- 
 ed in other countries ; pleasant in conversation, rehearsing at all occasions morali- 
 ties short and instructive, whereof he had abundance, inventing when he wanted." 
 The austere spirit of Buchanan was not to be swayed by considerations of self- 
 interest. Called in his old age to the discharge of this task, he seems to have 
 performed it with an entire disregard of personal consequences. The result was, 
 as we have said, that he certainly succeeded in beating a respectable degree of 
 scholarship into his royal pupil, but left James's mind untinged with any respect 
 or affection for his instructor. On the contrary, the king long remembered him 
 with a feeling of horror, and used to say of one of his English courtiers, in the 
 latter part of his life, that he never could help trembling at his approach, he 
 reminded him so strongly of his pedagogue. Concerning Buchanan's treatment 
 of his royal pupil there are preserved more anecdotes than in reference to any other 
 period of his life ; which, if we are to believe them, show that he neither spared 
 castigation nor reproach. The Master of Erskine, who was the prince's play- 
 mate, had a tame sparrow, possession of which was coveted by James, and inef- 
 fectually entreated from the owner. James had recourse to violence in order to 
 obtain what he desired, and the one boy pulled and the other held till the poor 
 sparrow was killed in the struggle. The loss of his little favourite caused the 
 
 1 This is supposed to have been Mr Patrick Adamson, afterwards archbishop of St An- 
 drews, but it does not appear from the records of the university tliat he evrr entered upon 
 his new functions. If we may credit Dr Mackenzie, Adamson was at this time, or at least 
 shortly after it, in France, whence he did not return till after the Bartholomew massacre. 
 This nomination, therefore, was probably made in his absence, and before he could order la 
 affairs abroad and be ready to enter upon his office, other arrangements might have become 
 necessary.
 
 420 GEORGE BUCHANAN. 
 
 Master of Erskhie to shed tears, and make, as is usual in such cases, a lusty ouu 
 cry. This brought the matter under the notice of Buchanan, who, Mackenzie 
 says, " gave the king a box on the ear, and told him that what he had done was 
 like a true bird of the bloody nest of which he had come.'' A more pleas- 
 ing anecdote is thus related by Dr Irving: "One of the earliest propen- 
 sities Mhich he [James] discovered, was an excessive attachment to favour, 
 ites ; and this weakness, which ought to have been abandoned with the other 
 characteristics of childhood, continued to retain its ascendancy during every 
 stage of his life. His facility in complying with every request alarmed the 
 prophetic sagacity of Buchanan. On the authority of the poet's nephew, Chy- 
 trasus has recorded a ludicrous expedient which he adopted for the purpose 
 of correcting his pupil's conduct He presented the young king with two papers 
 which he requested him to sign ; and James, after having slightly interrogated 
 him concerning their contents, readily appended his signature to each, without 
 the precaution of even a cursory perusal. One of them was a formal transfer- 
 ence of the regal authority for the term of fifteen days. Having quitted the 
 royal presence, one of the courtiers accosted him with his usual salutation : but 
 to this astonished nobleman he announced himself in the new character of a 
 sovereign ; and with that happy urbanity of humour, for which he was so distin- 
 guished, he began to assume the high demeanor of royalty. He afterwards 
 preserved the same deportment towards the king himself; and when James ex- 
 pressed his amazement at such extraordinary conduct, Buchanan admonished him 
 of his having resigned the crown. This reply did not tend to lessen the mon- 
 arch's surprise ; for he now began to suspect his preceptor of mental derange- 
 ment Buchanan then produced the instrument by which he was formally in- 
 vested ; and, with the authority of a tutor, proceeded to remind him of the 
 absurdity of assenting to petitions in so rash a manner." 
 
 When nominated the king's preceptor, Buchanan was also appointed director 
 of the chancery ; but this he does not appear to have long held. The same 
 year he was made keeper of the privy seal in the room of John, afterwards lord, 
 Maitland, who was deprived for his adherence to the queen. This office, both 
 honourable and lucrative, and which entitled him to a seat in parliament, he held 
 for several years. In April, 1578, he nominally resigned it in favour of his 
 nephew, Thomas, son of Alexander Buchanan of Sleat ; but this seems to have 
 been done only to secure the reversion, for, in the following June and July, he 
 continued to vote in parliament, and, so late as 1580, was addressed by his 
 foreign correspondents as preceptor and counsellor to king James. In the 
 management of public affairs Buchanan seems to have taken a lively interest, and 
 to have been equally consulted as a politician and a scholar. Accordingly, in 
 1578, we find him forming one of a numerous commission, among whom was 
 another poet and scholar, archbishop Adamson, appointed to examine and digest 
 the existing laws; a most desirable object, but one that from its difficulty 
 was never carried fully into effect He was also included in two commissions 
 for the improvement of education. The first was to rectify an inconvenience 
 arising from the use of different grammars in the schools. Of the committee ap- 
 pointed for this purpose, Buchanan was president, and the other members were 
 Messrs Peter Young, Andrew Sympson, and James Carmirhael. They met in Stir- 
 ling palace, and were entertained during the continuance of their labours at the 
 charge of the king. Having declared all the grammars in use defective, they re- 
 solved that three of their number should compile a new one. To Sympson were 
 assigned the rudiments ; to Carmichael what is improperly termed etymology ; and 
 to Buchanan the department of prosody. Their respective tracts were committed 
 to the press, and authorized by an order of the king and council ; but they con-
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN. 421 
 
 tinued to be standards of instruction for a very short time, and have long been 
 utterly forgotten. The second commission to whi ch we have referred, was appointed 
 by the parliament of 1578, to visit the colleges, to reform such things as tended to 
 popery, to displace unqualified persons, and to establish such persons therein as 
 they should judge fit for the education of youth. The university of St Andrews 
 was the subject of the first experiment. Having found many things to alter and 
 redress, the commissioners prepared a scheme of reformation, which was ratified 
 by parliament. This document, written in the Scottish tongue by George 
 Buchanan, is still preserved. The plan of improvement is skilfully delineated, 
 and evidently pre-supposes that there was no want of learned men in the nation, 
 but it was never carried into effect 
 
 With the regents Murray, Lennox, and Mar, Buchanan was cordially united ; 
 but Morton in the end forfeited his good-will by the plans of self-aggrandize- 
 ment which he so sedulously pursued ;* and it was principally by his advice and 
 that of Sir Alexander Erskine that Morton was deposed, and the reins of go- 
 vernment put into the king's hands, though he was yet only in his twelfth year. 
 He was of couise a member of the privy council appointed for the young mon- 
 arch, but seems to have been displaced on Morton's return to power ; and we 
 are uncertain if he ever again held any political office. It is probably to this 
 short period of political influence that we are to ascribe the following anecdote 
 of Buchanan, related by Dr 'Gilbert Stuart in his Observations concerning the 
 Public Law and the Constitutional History of Scotland : " In feudal times," 
 that writer observes, " when the sovereign upon his advancement to the royalty 
 was to swear fidelity to his subjects, and to pay homage to the laws, he delivered 
 his naked sword into the hands of the high constable. ' Use this in my defence,' 
 said he, ' while I support the interests of my people ; use it to my destruction 
 when I forsake them.' In allusion to this form, Buchanan made a naked sword 
 to be represented on the money coined in the minority of James VI., with these 
 words, Pro me ; si mereor, in me." 
 
 A list of twenty-four Scotsmen has been preserved, whom, on the king's assum- 
 ing the reins of government, Elizabeth thought it necessary to attach to her inter- 
 est by pensions, and among these Buchanan stands at 100 per year; no con- 
 temptible sum in those days, and the same that was assigned to some of the first 
 nobles of the land. There is no evidence that he ever received this gratuity, or 
 that it was offered to him. Mackenzie, however, states it as a certainty, and 
 adds, that the composition of his " De Jure Eegni apud Scotos," was the grateful 
 service he performed in return, an assertion not likely, considering that the 
 doctrines of this book were not very consonant to the views of that high minded 
 princess. The " De Jure " was composed principally with a view to instruct 
 his royal pupil in what belonged to his office. 
 
 In 1576, he prepared his Baptistes, and dedicated it to the young ki 
 a freedom of sentiment bordering upon disrespect, which is to be regretted, b 
 cause if his lessons had been conveyed in a less dictatorial manner, there wou 
 have been more likelihood of their being attended with advantage. " This trj 
 seem," he says, " to have a more important reference to you, because i 
 discloses the punishment of tyrants, and the misery which awaits them ei 
 their prosperity is at the highest. Such knowledge I consider it not 
 
 * Sir James Melville assigns a different, an 
 
 came his mortal enemy, 
 occasions."
 
 4J GEORGE BUCHANAN. 
 
 dient but necessary that you should acquire, in order that you may early begin 
 to hate what you ought always to shun ; and I wish this work to remain as a 
 witness to posterity, that if impelled by evil councillors, or suffering the licen- 
 tiousness of royalty to prevail over a virtuous education, you should hereafter be 
 guilty of any improper conduct, the fault may be imputed not to your preceptors, 
 but to you who have not obeyed their salutary admonitions." Three years after, 
 ih 1579, he published the above-mentioned compendium of political Philosophy, 
 the professed object of which is to delineate the rights of the Scottish crown. 
 The origin of the work, which is sufficiently remote from that assigned by 
 Mackenzie, is fully detailed in the dedication to the king, which is of so peculiar 
 a character, that it would be unpardonable to pass it over. " Several years ago," 
 he begins, " when our affairs were in a most turbulent condition, I composed a 
 dialogue on the prerogatives of the Scottish crown, in which I endeavoured to 
 explain, from their very cradle, if I may adopt that expression, the reciprocal 
 rights and privileges of kings and their subjects. Although the work seemed 
 to be of some immediate utility, by silencing certain individuals, who, with im- 
 portunate clamours, rather inveighed against the existing state of things, than 
 examined what was conformable to the standard of reason, yet in consequence of 
 returning tranquillity, I willingly consecrated my arms to public concord. But 
 having lately met with this disputation among my papers, and supposed it to con- 
 tain many precepts necessary for your tender age, (especially as it is so conspi- 
 cuously elevated in the scale of human affairs, ) I have deemed its publication 
 expedient, that it may at once testify my zeal for your service, and admonish you 
 of your duty to the community. Many circumstances tend to convince me, that 
 my present exertions will not prove fruitless, especially your age yet tincorrupted 
 by perverse opinions, a disposition above your years spontaneously urging you 
 to every noble pursuit, a facility in obeying not only your preceptors, but all 
 prudent monitors ; a judgment and dexterity in disquisition which prevents you 
 from paying much regard to authority, unless it be confirmed by solid argument 
 I likewise perceive that by a kind of natural instinct you so abhor flattery, the 
 nurse of tyranny, and the most grievous pest of a legitimate monarchy, that you 
 as heartily hate the courtly solecisms and barbarisms, as they are relished and 
 affected by those who consider themselves as the arbiters of every elegance, and 
 who, by way of seasoning their conversation, are perpetually sprinkling it with 
 majesties, lordships, excellencies, and if possible with expressions still more putid. 
 Although the bounty of nature, and the instruction of your governors, may at 
 present secure you against this error, yet am I compelled to entertain some slight 
 degree of suspicion, lest evil communication, the alluring nurse of the vices,, 
 should lend an unhappy impulse to your still tender mind, especially as I am not 
 ignorant with what facility the external senses yield to seduction. I have there- 
 fore sent you this treatise, not only as a monitor, but even as an importunate, 
 ,;nd sometimes impudent dun, who in this turn of life may convey you beyond 
 the rocks of adulation, and may not merely offer you advice, but confine you to 
 the path which you have entered ; and if you should chance to deviate, may re- 
 prehend you, and recall your steps. If you obey this monitor, you will insure 
 tranquillity to yourself and to your subjects, and will transmit a brilliant reputa- 
 tion to the most remote posterity." The eagerness with which this work was 
 sought after, by those of Buchanan's own principles on the Continent, is mani- 
 fested by a letter from one of his correspondents. " Your dialogue de Jure 
 Hegni," says this epistle, " which you transmitted to me by Zolcher, the letter 
 carrier of our friend Sturmius, I have received a present which would be ex- 
 tremely agreeable to me, if the importunate entreaties of some persons did not 
 prevent me from enjoying it ; for the moment it was delivered into my hand, Dr
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN. 423 
 
 Wilson requested the loan of it he yielded it to the importunity of the chan- 
 cellor, from whom the treasurer procured a perusal of it, and has not yet re- 
 turned it ; so that, to this day, it has never been in my custody." 
 
 Amidst multiplied labours Buchanan was now borne down with the load of 
 years, aggravated by the encroachments of disease. His poetical studies seem 
 now to have been entirely suspended, but his history of Scotland was unfinished, 
 and was probably still receiving short additions or finishing touches. His life, 
 too, at the request of his friends, he compiled when he had reached his 74th 
 year, and his epistolary correspondence, which was at one time very extensive, 
 was still continued with some of the friends of his earlier days. He had been 
 long in the habit of writing annually, by some of the Bourdeaux merchants, to 
 his old friend and colleague Vinetus, and one of these letters, written in March 
 1581, the year before his death, gives a not unpleasing picture of his state of 
 feeling. " Upon receiving accounts of you," he says, " by the merchants who 
 return from your courts, I am filled with delight, and seem to enjoy a kind of 
 second youth, for I am there apprised, that some remnants of the Portuguese 
 peregrinations still exist As I have now attained to the 75th year of my age, 
 I sometimes call to remembrance through what toils and inquietudes I have sailed 
 past all those objects .which men commonly regard as pleasing, and have at 
 length struck upon that rock beyond which, as the ninetieth Psalm very truly 
 avers, nothing remains but labour and sorrow. The only consolation that now 
 awaits me, is to pause with delight on the recollection of my coeval friends, of 
 whom you are almost the only one who still survives. Although you are not, as 
 I presume, inferior to me in years, you are yet capable of benefiting your coun- 
 try by your exertion and counsel, and even of prolonging, by your learned com- 
 positions, your life to a future age. But I have long bade adieu to letters. It 
 is now the only object of my solicitude, that I may remove with as little noise as 
 possible from the society of my ill-assorted companions, that I who am already 
 dead, may relinquish the fellowship of the living. In the meantime I transmit 
 to you the youngest of my literary offspring, in order that when you discover it 
 to be the drivelling child of age, you may be less anxious about its brothers. I 
 understand that Henry Wardlaw, a young man of our nation, and the descendant 
 of a good family, is prosecuting his studies in your seminary with no inconsider- 
 able application. Although I am aware of your habitual politeness, and you are 
 not ignorant that foreigners are peculiarly entitled to your attention, yet I am 
 desirous lie should find that our ancient familiarity recommends him to your fa- 
 vour.'' Thuanus, who had seen this epistle in the possession of the venerable 
 old man to whom it was addressed, says it was written with a tremulous hand, 
 but in a generous style. 
 
 The last of Buchanan's productions was his history of Scotland, which it is 
 doubtful whether 'he lived to see ushered fairly into the world or not. By the 
 following letter to Mr Randolph, dated at Stirling in the month of August, 1577, 
 it would appear that this work was then in a state of great forwardness. " Mais- 
 te'r, I half resavit diverse letters from you, and yit I haif ansourit to naine of 
 thayme, of the quhylke albiet I hiif mony excusis, as age, forgetfulness, besines, 
 and desease, yit I wyl use nane as now except my swe : rness and your gentilness, 
 and geif ye thynk nane of theise sufficient, content you with ane confession of 
 the fait w'out fear of punnition to follow on my onkindness. As for the pre- 
 sent, I am occupiit in wxyting of our historic, being assurit to content few and 
 to displease mony tharthrow. As to the end of it, yf ye gett it not or tins 
 winter be passit, lippen not for it, nor nane other writyngs from me. Ihe 
 rest of my occupation is wyth the gout, quhylk haldis me busy bath day and 
 nyt. And qiihair ye say ye haif not Ling to lyif, I truist to God to go before
 
 424 GEORGE BUCHANAN. 
 
 you, albeit I be on fut and ye ryd the post [Randolph was post master to the 
 queen's grace of England] prayin you als not to dispost my host at Newerk, 
 Jone of Kilsterne. Thys I pray you, partly for his awyne sake, quhame 1 
 tho 1 ane gude fellow, and partly at request of syk as I dare not refuse, and 
 thus I take my leif shortly at you now, and my lang leif quhen God pleasis, 
 committing you to the protection of the Almyty." By this letter it is evident 
 that he expected to publish his history immediately. A long delay, however, 
 took place, for when, in September 1581, he was visited by Andrew Melville, 
 James Melville, and his cousin Thomas Buchanan, the work was only then print- 
 ing. Of this visit, James Melville has left a most interesting account. " That 
 September in tyme of vacans, my uncle Mr Andro, Mr Thomas Buchanan, and 
 I, heiring y' Mr George Buchanan was weak, and his historic under ye press, 
 past ower to Edinbro aunes earand to visit him and sie ye wark. \\ hen we 
 ram to his chalmer we fiind him sitting in his charre teatching his young man 
 that servit him in his chalmer to spel a, b, ab, e, b, eb, &c. After salutation, 
 Mr Andro says, ' I sie, Sir, ye are not ydle.' ' Better,' quoth he, ' than stelling 
 sheep or sitting ydle, whilk is als ill." Yrefter he shew ws the epistle dedicatorie 
 to the king, the quhylk when Mr Andro had read, he told him that it was obscure 
 in some places, and wanted certain wordis to perfyt the sentence. Sayes he, ' I 
 may do na mair for thinking on another matter.' ' What is that,' says /ir Andro. 
 ' To die,' quoth he; ' but I leave that an mony ma things to you to help.' We 
 went from him to the printer's wark hous, whom we fand at the end of the 17 buik 
 of his chronicle, at a place qhuilk we thought verie hard for the tyme, qhuilk 
 might be an occasion of steying the hail wark, anent the burial of Davie. 
 Therefore steying the printer from proceeding, we cam to Mr George again, 
 and fend him bedfast by [contrary to] his custome, and asking him whow he did, 
 ' Even going the way of weilfare,' sayes he. Mr Thomas, his cousin, shaws him 
 of the hardness of that part of his story, y 1 the king wald be offeiidit w 1 it, 
 and it might stey all the wark. ' Tell me, man,' sayes he, ' if I have told the 
 truth.' ' Yes,' says Mr Thomas, ' I think sa.' ' I will byd his feide and all 
 his kin's, then,' quoth he. ' Pray, pray to God for me, and let him direct all. 
 Sa be the printing of his chronicle was endit that maist learned, wyse, and 
 Godlie man endit this mortal lyftl" 
 
 The printing of the history must have gone on very slowly, for though it 
 was printed as above, up to the seventeenth book, it was not finished till nearly 
 a year after, the dedication to the king being dated August the twenty-ninth, 
 1582, only thirty days before the death of the author, which happened on 
 Friday the 28th of September following, when he had reached the age of 
 seventy-six years and eight months. He died in much peace, expressing his 
 full reliance on the blood of Christ He was buried in the Greyfriars 
 churchyard, a great multitude attending his funeral. A throughstone, with an 
 inscription, is said to have marked his grave ; but the inscription has long been 
 invisible, and the existence of the stone itself appears to be more than doubtful. 
 An obelisk has, by the gratitude of posterity, been reared to his memory in his 
 native village Killearn. His death, like tliat of all men who live out the full 
 term of human life, excited less emotion than might have been expected. 
 Andrew Melville, who had often celebrated him while alive, discharged the last 
 debt of lettered friendship in an elegant Latin poem ; Joseph Scaliger also 
 wrote an epitaph for him in terms of liberal and appropriate praise. 
 
 Buchanan was never married, and left, of course, no children to perpetuate 
 his memory ; and though he held latterly one of the great offices of state, and 
 possessed other considerable sources of emolument, he acquired no great estates,
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN. 425 
 
 and his whole property at his death consisted of 100, arrears due upon his 
 pension of Crossraguell. 
 
 A story is told upon the authority of the Earl of Cronmrty, who liad it from 
 his grandfather, Lord Invertyle, that Buchanan, on his death-bed, finding the 
 money he had about him insufficient to defray the expenses of his funeral, sent 
 his servant to divide it among the poor; adding, that if the city, meaning its 
 authorities, did not choose to bury him, they might let him lie where he was, 
 or throw his corpse where they pleased. This anecdote has been by some 
 rejected as apocryphal ; but there is no proof of its untruth, and it certainly 
 does not startle us on account of any incongruity with Buchanan's character, 
 which was severe, even to moroseness. He had passed through almost every 
 vicissitude of human life, and, stern and inflexible, perhaps he had less sympathy 
 with human frailty than the weaknesses of most meu require. He was subject 
 to that irritability of feeling which frequently attends exalted genius, but mani- 
 fested at all times a noble generosity of spirit, which made him be regarded by 
 iiis friends with a warmth of affection which mere intellectual eminence, though 
 it were that of an archangel, could never inspire. By the general voice of the 
 civilized world he held a pre-eminence in literature that seemed to render 
 competition hopeless ; but his estimate of his own attainments was consistent 
 with the most perfect modesty, and no man was more ready to discover and 
 acknowledge genuine merit in others. His brilliant wit and unaffected humour 
 rendered his society highly acceptable to persons of the most opposite tastes and 
 dispositions. 
 
 In 1584, only two years after the publication of the history, it was condemn- 
 ed along with De Jure Regni by the parliament of Scotland, and every person 
 possessed of copies commanded to surrender them within forty days in order that 
 they might be purged of the offensive and extraordinary matters which they con- 
 tained. 
 
 We shall close this sketch of Buchanan's life with the concluding reflections 
 of his learned biographer Dr Irving. " In his numerous writings," says the 
 Doctor, " he discovers a vigorous and mature combination of talents hich have 
 seldom been found united in equal perfection. According to the common opin- 
 ion, intellectual superiority is almost invariably circumscribed by one of the two 
 grand partitions which philosophers have delineated ; it is either founded on the 
 predominancy of those capabilities which constitute what is termed the imagina- 
 tion, or of those which, in contradistinction, are denominated the understanding. 
 These different powers of exertion, though certainly not incompatible with each 
 other, are but rarely found to coalesce in equal maturity. Buchanan lias, how- 
 ever, dispkyed them in the same high degree of perfection. To an imagina- 
 tion excursive and brillfcint he unites an undeviating rectitude of judgment 
 His learning was at once elegant, various, and profound. Turnebus, who was 
 associated with him in the same college, and whose decisions will not be rashly 
 controverted, has characterized him as a man of consummate erudition. Most 
 of the ancient writers had limited their aspiring hopes to one department of 
 literature, and even to excel in one demand, the happy perseverance of a culti- 
 vated genius. Plato despaired of securing a reputation by his poetry. The 
 poetical attempts of Cicero, though less contemptible perhaps than they are com- 
 monly represented, would not have been sufficient to transmit an illustrious name 
 to future ages. Buchanan has not only attained to excellence in each species 
 of composition, but in each species has dispkyed a variety of excellence. In phi- % 
 losophmil dialogue and historical narrative, in lyric and didactic poetry, in elegy, 
 epigram, and satire, he has never been equalled in modern, and hardly surpass- 
 ed in ancient, times. A few Roman poets of the purest age have excelled him
 
 42(5 GEORGE BUCHANAN. 
 
 in their several provinces, but none of them has evinced the same capability 
 of universal attainment. Horace and Livy wrote in the language they had 
 learned from their mothers, but its very acquisition was to Buchanan the resuL 
 of much youthful labour. Yet he writes with the purity and elegance of an 
 ancient Reman. Unfettered by the classical restraints which shrivel the powers 
 of an ordinary mind, he expatiates with all the cliaracteristic energy of strong 
 and original sentiment ; he produces new combinations of fancy, and invests 
 thorn with language equally polished and appropriate. His diction uniformly 
 displays a happy vein of elegant and masculine simplicity, and is distinguished 
 by tliat propriety and perspicuity which can only be attained by a man perfectly 
 master of his ideas and of the language in which he writes. 1 The variety of his 
 
 I It is probable that nineteen out of every twenty of the readers of these pages, are already 
 aware of tne great merit of Buchanan's poetry, without having ever seen or read a single line 
 of it, either in its original, or in a translated form. I shall endeavour to correct this, by sub- 
 joining translations of turee of his best small poems, executed by my esteemed friend, Mr Hu- 
 bert Hogg of Edinburgh, whose accurate taste and deep poetical sensibility are conspicuous 
 in two articles already contributed by him to this work DH BLACKLOCK and MICHAEL HKUCE. 
 It will be observed, from these compositions, which present the ideas and spirit of the origins! 
 with wonderful fidelity, how different a pott Buchanan must have bun from tiie still' i.utl 
 t onceited rhymesters of his own age and country. 
 
 ON THE FIRST OF MAY. 
 
 All hail to thee, thou First of May, 
 Sacred to wonted sport and play, 
 To wine, and jest, and dance and song, 
 And mirth that lasts the whole day long . 
 
 Hail ! of the seasons, honour bright, 
 Animal return of sweet delight ; 
 Flower of reviving summer s reign, 
 That hastes to time's old age again ! 
 When Spring's mild air, at Nature's birth, 
 First breathed upon the new-form 'd earth ; 
 Or when the Cabled age of gold, 
 Without fixed law, spontaneous roll'd ; 
 Such zephyrs, in continual gales, 
 Pass'd tempt rate aJoug the vales, 
 And softened and refreshed the soil, 
 Not broken yet by human toil ; 
 Such fruitful warmths perpetual rest 
 On the Luir islands of the blest 
 Those plains where fell disease's moan, 
 And frail old age are both unknown. 
 Such winds with gentle whispers spread, 
 Among the dwellings of the dead, 
 And shake the cypresses that grow 
 Where Lethe murmurs soft and slow 
 Perhaps when God at last in ire 
 Shall purify the world with fire, 
 And to mankind restore again 
 Times happy, void of sin and pain, 
 The beings of this earth bentuth 
 Such pure etherial air shall breathe. 
 
 Hail ! glory of the fleeting year ! 
 Hail ! day the fairest, happiest here ! 
 Memorial of the timu gone by, 
 And emblem of futurity 1 
 
 ' ON NE.ERA. 
 
 My wreck of mind, and all my woes, 
 And all my ills that day arose, 
 4 When on the fair Neara's e 
 
 Like stars that shine 
 At first, with hapless fond surprise, 
 
 I gazed witii mine-. 
 
 When my glance nut her searching glance, 
 A shivering o'er my body burst,
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN. 427 
 
 poetical measures is immense, and to each species he imparts its peculiar grace 
 and harmony. The style of his prose exhibits correspondent beauties ; nor is 
 it chequered by phraseologies, unsuitable in tliat mode of composition. His dic- 
 tion, whether in prose or verse, is not a tissue of centos ; he imitates the ancients 
 as the ancients imitated each other. No Latin poet of modern times lias united 
 the same originality and elegance ; no historian has so completely imbibed the 
 genius of antiquity, without being betrayed into servile and pedantic imitation. 
 But his works may legitimately claim a higher order of merit, they have added 
 no inconsiderable influx to the general stream of human knowledge. The wit, 
 the pungency, the vehemence of his ecclesiastical satires, must have tended to 
 
 As light leaves in the greenwoods dance, 
 
 When western breezes stir them first ; 
 My heart, forth from my breast to go, 
 
 And mix with hers, already wanting, 
 Now beat, now trembled to and fro, 
 
 With eager fondness leaping, panting. 
 
 Just as a boy, whcse nourice woos him, 
 Folding Ids young limbs in her bosom, 
 Heeds not caresses from another, 
 But turns liis eyes still to his mother, 
 When she may once regard him watches, 
 And forth his little fond arms stretches : 
 J ust as a bird within the nest 
 
 That cannot fly, yet constant trying, . 
 Its weak wings on its tender breast 
 
 Beats with the vain desire of flying. 
 
 Thou weary mind, thyself preparing 
 To live at peace from all ensnaring, 
 That thou might'st never mischief catch, 
 Placed'st you, unhappy eyes, to watch, 
 With vigilance that knew no rest, 
 Beside the gate-ways of the breast ; 
 But you, induced by dalliance deep, 
 Or guile, or overcome by sleep ; 
 Or else have of your own accord 
 Consented to betray your lord ; 
 Both heart and soul, "then fled and left 
 Me spiritless, of mind bereft. 
 
 A MORNING HYMN TO CHRIST. 
 
 Son of the highest Father tliou, 
 
 And equal of the Father too ; 
 
 Pure heavenly light of light divine, 
 
 Thy Father's might and powers are thine. 
 
 Lo, while retire the shades of night, 
 Aurora, with her purple light, 
 Illumines earth, and sea, and sky, 
 Disclosing what in darkness lie : 
 But shades of ignorance impure 
 My soul and all its powers obscure, 
 And fearful clouds of error blind 
 And almost overwhelm my mind : 
 
 Arise, O Sun! most pure, most bright'. 
 The world irradiate witli thy light ; 
 Shine on my darkness, and dispel 
 The mists of sin that round me dwell : 
 Remove this fearful cold; impart 
 Unto the waste field of my heart, 
 From thine own lamp a warning ray 
 To purge each noxious damp away ; 
 That so, by reason of thy love, 
 Watered with moisture from above, 
 The seed increase in grateful mould 
 An hundred and an hundred fold.
 
 428 GILBERT BUUNET. 
 
 tbinetit the general flame of reformation ; and his political speculations are evi- 
 dently those of a man who had soared beyond the narrow limits of his age. 1 ' 
 All these remarks the reader will observe refer to the original Latin in whic'i 
 all the works of Buchanan, with the exception of the two which we have parti- 
 cularized, are written. The Dialogue has been frequently re-printed, and seve- 
 ral times translated. Of the History, which was printed by Alexander Arbutli- 
 not at Edinburgh, 1582, there have been published seventeen editions. It was 
 translated into the Scottish language by John lieid, who, according to Calder- 
 wood's MS., was servitor to Mr George Buchanan. A MS. of this unpublished 
 version is in the library of the university of Glasgow. Another unpublished ver- 
 sion is iu the British museum. In IG'JO, an English translation, with a portrait 
 of the author, was printed in folio. This version lias gone through five or six 
 editions, and is to be frequently met with. It is a clumsy performance, and 
 gives some such idea of Buchanan as a block from the quarry gives of the highly 
 finished slatue. A much better translation has recently appeared, from the pen 
 of James Aikman, Esq. It is an honour yet awaiting some future scholar, to give- 
 to his unlettered countrymen to feel somewhat of the grace and strength that 
 cliaracterize the performances of George Buchanan. 
 
 BUltNET, GILBERT, bishop of Salisbury, and an historian of great eminence, 
 was born at Edinburgh on the 18th of September, 1643. His father was a 
 younger brother of a family possessing considerable interest in the shire ot 
 Aberdeen, and was bred to the law, which he followed with great success. 
 He was eminent for his probity, and his generosity was such that he never took 
 a fee from the poor, nor from any clergyman, when he sued in the right of his 
 church. In his morals he was strict, and his piety procured him the reproach 
 of being a puritan ; yet he was episcopal in his judgment, and adhered to the 
 bishops and the rights of the crown with great constancy, and three several 
 times he left the kingdom to avoid taking the covenant. On one of these occa- 
 sions, he was an exile for several years, and though his return was latterly 
 connived at, he was not permitted to resume the practice of the law, but lived 
 in retirement upon his estate in the country till the Restoration, when he was 
 promoted to be a lord of session. The mother of our author was not less con- 
 spicuous than his father, being a sister of Lord Warriston's, and, like him, a 
 great admirer of the presbyterian discipline. 
 
 In consequence of his seclusion from business, Mr Burnet took the education 
 of his son, in the early part of it, wholly upon himself, and he conducted it so 
 successfully, that at the age of ten years, Gilbert was sufficiently acquainted 
 with the Latin tongue, as to be entered a student in the college of Aberdeen, 
 where he perfected himself in Greek, went through the common methods of the 
 Aristotelian logic and philosophy, and took his degree of M. A. before he was 
 fourteen. After this, much to the regret of his father, who had all along 
 intended him for the church, he commenced the study of the law, both civil 
 and feudal, in which he made very considerable progress. In the course of a 
 year, however, he altered his resolution, and, agreeably to the will of his father, 
 devoted himself wholly to the study of divinity, in which, with indefatigable 
 diligence, studying commonly fourteen hours a day, he made a rapid progress, 
 having gone through the Old and New Testaments, wilh all the commentaries 
 then in repute, as well as some of the most approved systems of school divinity, 
 before he was eighteen years of age ; when having passed the usual routine 
 of previous exercises, which at tliat time M'ere nearly the same in the presby- 
 terian and episcopalian churches, he was licensed as a probationer or preacher 
 of the gospel. His father was about this time appointed a lord of session, and 
 his cousin-german, Sir Alexander Burnet, gave him the presentation to an
 
 J. Iffley 
 
 
 (GDLBEKT BUKNET. 
 
 BISHOP OF SALISBURY. 
 
 & fr SO^I, GLASGOW, IKDINBUROH fclQKDON.
 
 GILBERT BURNET. 429 
 
 excellent benefice, which lay in the very centre of all his relations. He refused 
 to accept of it, however, on account of his youth, notwithstanding the impor- 
 tunities of all his friends, his father excepted, who left him entirely to his 
 own discretion. His father dying shortly after this, and one of his brothers 
 (Robert) having- become famous at the bar, his mother's relations eagerly desired 
 him to return to his former studies, the law, in which they assured him of the 
 most flattering encouragement ; but he was immoveably fixed in his purpose of 
 devoting his life to the service of the church. In this resolution he was greatly 
 confirmed by the Rev. Mr Nairn, who at that time filled the Abbey church of 
 Edinburgh, and took a deep interest in him. Mr Nairn was reckoned one of 
 the most eloquent of the Scottish preachers, and afterwards became well known in 
 the west of Scotland, as one of " Archbishop Leighton's Evangelists." He was 
 remarkable in his discourses for accuracy of style, strength of reasoning, and 
 lofty flights of imagination; yet he always preached extempore, considering 
 the task of writing his discourses as a loss of tune. Young Burnet was his 
 great admirer, and learned from him to preach extemporaneously, which he did 
 all his life with great ease, by allotting a part of every day to meditation on all 
 sorts of subjects, speaking all his thoughts aloud, and studying to render his 
 expressions fluent and correct To Mr Nairn, also, he was indebted for his 
 acquaintance with various celebrated works, particularly Dr More's works, the 
 writings of Plato, and Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, by the principles of which 
 he professed to be guided through life. In 1662 he became acquainted with 
 bishop Leighton, who, conceiving a great affection for him, took a particular 
 delight in overlooking his studies. Through this amiable divine, he became 
 acquainted with the primitive writers, going through all the apologies of the 
 fathers of the three first centuries, and Binnius' Collections of Councils, down 
 to the second council of Nice. He had the good fortune, about this same time, 
 to contract an intimacy with Mr Laurence Charteris, a man of great worth and 
 gravity, who was not only a solid divine, but an eminent master of history, both 
 ancient' and modern, well acquainted with geography, and a profound mathe- 
 matician, and who also took a deep interest in finishing the education of his 
 young Mend, which had been so happily begun, and so successfully carried on. 
 In 1663 Burnet made an excursion into England, taking Cambridge and 
 Oxford in his way. At the first of these, he had the pleasure of being in- 
 troduced to Drs Cudworth, Pearson, Burnet (author of the theory of the earth), 
 and More. At the latter he met with great attention, particularly from Drs 
 Fell and Pocock, on account of his ready knowledge of the fathers and ancient 
 councils. Here he improved his mathematics by the instructions of Dr Wallis, 
 who irave him a letter of introduction to that great philosopher and Christian, 
 3Ir Robert Boyle, at London. In London he was introduced to all the eminent 
 divines of that period, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Patrick Lloyd, Uhitchcot, and 
 Wilkins, all of whose characters he lived to draw in his history. Here also h 
 had the advantage of the conversation of Sir Robert Murray, who introduced 
 1dm into the first circles of society, acting at the same time the part of J 
 monitor, in pointing out to him those errors and indiscretions into win 
 was in danger of falling from his youth and inexperience. 
 
 After spending six months in this agreeable manner, he returned 
 native country, where he was again pressed to enter into orders and 1 t-pt 
 of a charge in the west, which he could not be prevailed on to da 
 his great fame, Sir Robert Fletcher of Salton, who had been acquainted .with 
 and had received many obligations from his father at Paris, ***** 
 this time to his country seat, and after hearing him preach, offered him that 
 parish, the minister having just been nominated to one of the 1 hoprics.
 
 430 GILBERT BURNET. 
 
 Burnet would have excused himself, as he intended travelling to the continent, 
 and solicited the place for his friend Nairn ; but Sir Robert would take no 
 denial, being resolved to keep the place vacant till his return. 
 
 In 1664, the subject of this memoir went over to Holland, and after seeing 
 wliat was most remarkable in the Seven Provinces, fixed his residence at Amster- 
 dam, where, under the care of a learned Rabbin, he perfected himself in the 
 Hebrew language. He also became acquainted here with the leading men of 
 many different sects, among all of whom he declared he found so much real 
 piety and virtue, that he became fixed in a strong principle of universal charity, 
 and conceived an invincible abhorrence of all severities on account of differences 
 in the profession or forms of religion. From Holland, by the way of the 
 Netherlands, he passed into France, where, at Paris, he had the pleasure of 
 conversing frequently with Daille and Morus, the two protestant ministers of 
 Charenton, the former renowned for his learning and judgment, the latter for 
 shining abilities and unrivalled eloquence. His stay in France AVSS prolonged 
 on account of the kindness with which he was treated by Lord Hollis, then 
 ambassador at the French court. Towards the end of the year, however, he 
 returned to Scotland by the way of London, where, by the president, Sir Robert 
 Murray, he was introduced as a member of the Royal Society. On arriving at 
 Edinburgh he was waited upon by Sir Robert Fletcher, who carried him down 
 to Salton, and presented him to the parish, which he declined taking absolutely, 
 till he should have the joint request of all the parishioners. This he very soon 
 obtained without one single exception, and was ordained a priest by the bishop 
 of Edinburgh in the year 1665. At Salton he remained for five years, a bright 
 example of what parish ministers ought to be. He preached twice every Sabbath, 
 and once through the week. He catechized three times a week, so as to examine 
 every parishioner, old and young, three times in the compass of the year. He went 
 round his parish, from house to house, instructing, reproving, or comforting the 
 inmates, as occasion required. The sick he visited often twice a day. The 
 sacrament he dispensed four times a year, and he personally instructed all such 
 as gave notice that they intended to receive it. Of his stipend, 1 all that 
 remained above his o\vn necessary subsistence, he gave away in charity. On 
 one occasion, a parishioner who had been in execution for debt, asked him for 
 a little to help his present exigency ; he inquired how much it would take to 
 set him up again in his business, and on being told, ordered his servant to go 
 and give him the money. " Sir," said his servant, probably piqued at his 
 generosity, " it is all the money we have in the house." " It is well," was the 
 reply ; "go and pay it to the poor man. You do not know the pleasure there 
 is in making a man glad." We need not wonder that such a man had the 
 affections of his whole parish, even of the presbyterians, though he was then the 
 only minister in Scotland who made use of the prayers in the liturgy of the 
 church of England. No Avorth and no diligence on the part of individuals, 
 however, can atone for or make up the defects of a wretched system ; on the 
 contrary, they often render these defects more apparent, and their consequences 
 more pernicious. Few parishes in Scotland were filled in the manner tliat 
 Salton Mas. Ignorant and profane persons liad almost every where, through 
 political interest, thrust themselves into the cure of souls, which, of course, they 
 totally neglected, to the great offence of good men like Burnet, who drew up a 
 memorial of the many abuses he observed among his brethren, wliicli was highly 
 
 1 As minister of Salton, Buniet received in stipend from the laird of Salton, in 1665, 
 397 10s. Scots [equal to 33 2s. 6d. sterling,] together with 11 bolls, 2 pecks, 2 lippies, of 
 wheat; 11 bolls, 2 pecks, 2 lippies of bear; and 22 bolls, 1 firlot, 1 peck, 3 lippies mtal. 
 Receipt, MSS. Adv. Lib. signed " GILBERT BURN KIT."
 
 GILBERT BURNET. 431 
 
 resented oy his superiors. In consequence of this, lest his conduct might ba 
 attributed to ambitious views, he sequestrated himself almost entirely from th,; 
 public, and by hard study and too abstemious living threw himself into a fever, 
 which had nearly proved fatal. He was soon after interrupted in his pioua 
 labours, by being called upon, by the new administration that was appointed in 
 1668, in which his friend Sir Robert Murray had a principal share, to give his 
 advice for remedying the public disorders, which had been occasioned by the 
 overthrow of the presbyterian constitution, and, along with it, the civil rights of 
 the people. At his suggestion, the expedient of an indulgence to the presby- 
 terians, under certain limitations, was adopted in the year 1G69, by which it 
 was hoped they would by degrees be brought to submit to the new order of 
 things. He was at the same time employed to assist Leighton, now made 
 archbishop of Glasgow, in bringing forward his scheme for an accommodation 
 between the conflicting churches. In the course of his journeyings to the west, 
 he was introduced to Anne, duchess of Hamilton, a very excellent woman, with 
 a strong bias towards the presbyterians, which enabled her to influence in some 
 degree the leaders of that body, and rendered her somewhat of a public cha- 
 racter. At her house, the managers of the college of Glasgow had occasion to 
 meet with the minister of Salton, and, the divinity chair being there vacant, 
 he was unanimously elected to fill it. All this was unknown to Burnet till it 
 was over, and he was again thrown into much difficulty, his friends insisting upon 
 him to accept the invitation, and his parishioners that he should refuse it. 
 Leighton, however, laid his commands upon him, which he considered as lav, 
 and he therefore removed to Glasgow in the year 1G69. 
 
 Owing to the deplorable state of the church and nation, he encountered much 
 trouble and many inconveniences in his new situation. His principal care, how- 
 ever, was to improve his pupils, to whom he seems to have devoted almost his 
 whole time and attention. On the Mondays he made each of the students in his 
 turn explain a head of divinity in Latin propound a thesis from it, which he was 
 to defend against his fellow-students, the professor concluding the exercise by 
 deciding the point in a Latin oration. On Tuesdays, he prelected in Latin, 
 purposing in eight years to embrace a complete system of divinity. On Wed- 
 nesdays, he gave a lecture of an hour upon the gospel of Matthew. On Thursdays 
 the exercise was alternate ; one Thursday he expounded a Hebrew psalm, com- 
 paring it with the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the English version ; on the 
 other, he explained some portion of the ritual and constitution of the primitive 
 church. On Fridays he made each of his pupils, in course, preach a short 
 sermon upon a text assigned, upon which he gave his own remarks in conclusion. 
 This was the kbour of the mornings. In the evenings, after prayers, he every 
 day read them a portion of the Scriptures, on which he made a short discourse, 
 after which he examined into the progress of their several studies, exhorting, 
 encouraging, and directing them, as he found necessary. In order to keep up 
 all these exercises, he was under the necessity of rising every morning at 1 
 o'clock, and it was ten before his preparations were completed for the labours 01 
 the day. During his vacation, he made frequent visits to Hamilton, where 1 
 was en<ra"ed by the duchess to examine and put in order the papers ot 
 lather and uncle, which led him to compile the memoirs of the Dukes 
 ilton. The duke of Lauderdale, hearing he was employed upon this rk, 
 wrote for him to come up to London, promising him such information com 
 in~ the transactions of these times as he could furnish. He went to U. 
 accordingly, and was received by Lauderdale with much kindness. 1 
 impious manners of this nobleman were not agreeable to him, and h 
 use of the confidence reposed in him, except to reconcile h.s grace to the dul
 
 432 GILBERT BURNET. 
 
 of Hamilton, who had assignations given him on the revenues of the crown, in 
 satisfaction of some old claims for which vouchers had been found by Burnet 
 among the papers intrusted to his care, and in return the Duke of Hamilton 
 engaged to concur wilh the measures of the court in the ensuing parliament 
 
 Four of the Scottish bishoprics were at this time vacant, of which Burnet was 
 offered his choice ; but he foresaw that they would entangle him in difficulties, 
 with little prospect of his being able to effect any thing good ; so he utterly 
 refused to accept any of them. In 1672, he prevented a breach between 
 Lauderdale and the Duke of Hamilton, for which his country certainly ow r ed 
 him little thanks. About this time he published his Vindication of the author- 
 ity, constitution, and laws of the church and state of Scotland, wherein he 
 strenuously maintained the cause of Episcopacy, and the illegality of resistance 
 merely on account of religion. This was by the court reckoned a most accep- 
 table service. He was again courted to accept of a bishopric, with the pro- 
 mise of the first archbishopric that should become vacant ; but he still persisted 
 in refusing. In 1673, he went again to London, in order to obtain a license 
 for publishing his Memoirs of the duke of Hamilton. He also entertained a 
 resolution to have nothing further to do with the affairs of state, being satisfied 
 that popery was now the prevailing interest at court, and that the sacramental 
 test by which York, Clifford, and other papists had been excluded, was a mere 
 artifice of Charles to obtain money to prosecute the Dutch war. On this oc- 
 casion, he used much freedom both with the duke and duchess of Laudcrdale ; 
 pointing out to them in strong terms, the errors they had fallen into, and the 
 fatal effects that would accrue to themselves and to the whole nation. This, with 
 his known intimacy with duke Hamilton, who was at the time a kind of fee- 
 ble oppositionist, brought him into high credit, as possessed of great influence in 
 Scotland, in consequence of which he was frequently consulted both by the King 
 and the duke of York, to the latter of whom he introduced Dr Stillingfleet, and 
 proposed a conference, in presence of his Royal Highness, with some of the 
 Catholic priests, on the chief points of controversy between the Romanists and the 
 Protestants, which must have been highly offensive to tliat bigoted prince. 
 With the king he made no other use of the freedom allowed him than to at- 
 tempt awakening him out of that lethargy of indolence and vice, in which he 
 seemed to be wholly entranced, and to revive in him some sense of religion, an 
 aim in which his self-love must have been very strong if he had any hopes of 
 succeeding. The king made him a compliment, however, by naming him one 
 of his chaplains. Having obtained a license for his Memoirs of the dukes of 
 Hamilton, which was delayed that the king and some of his ministers might have 
 the pleasure of reading them in MS. ; he returned to Scotland, and finding the 
 animosity between the dukes of Lauderdale and Hamilton no longer repressible, 
 he retired to his station at Glasgow. The favour shown him at London awak- 
 ened the jealousy and exposed him to the rage of a numerous class of courtiers. 
 The schemes of the court having been in some instances thwarted by the parlia- 
 ment, Lauderdale threw the whole blame upon Burnet, whom he represented 
 as the underhand instrument of all the opposition he had met with. This ac- 
 cusation drew him again to court in 1674. The king received him coldly, and 
 ordered his name to be struck off" the list of chaplains. Yet, at the en- 
 treaty of the duke of York, his majesty admitted him to an audience, to say 
 what he could in his own defence, which having heard, he seemed satisfied, and 
 ordered him home to Glasgow. From this the duke of York dissuaded him 
 till his peace should be entirely made ; otherwise, he assured him he could be 
 thrown into prison, where he might be detained as long as the present party 
 was in power. His Royal Highness at the same time exerted himself to have
 
 GILBERT BURNET. 433 
 
 him reconciled with Lauderdale, but without effect Dr Burnet had now no 
 alternative but to resign his professorial chair, and seek a settlement in Eng- 
 land, or by going back to Scotland, put himself in the power of his enemies. 
 He did not long hesitate, and would have found at once a quiet settlement in 
 London, had not the electors of the church he had in view been deterred from 
 choosing him by a sharp message from the king. This, though at the time it had 
 the aspect of a misfortune, he ever after spoke of as one of tire happiest inci- 
 dents of his life ; as it at once set him free from the entanglements of a cor- 
 rupt court, whose services he had been so far engaged in, that, without some 
 such accident, he might never have escaped from them. 
 
 He liad now an offer of the living of St Giles, Cripplegate, from the Dean 
 and chapter of St Pauls. As he, however, had learned, that it was originally 
 their intention to bestow the living upon Dr Fuller, afterwards bishop of Glou- 
 cester, he thanked them for the offer, but declared himself not at liberty to ac- 
 cept it. Through the recommendation of Lord Hollis, he was next year ap- 
 pointed preacher to a Chapel by Sir Harbottle Grimston, master of the 
 rolls, though the court sent first a bishop and afterward secretary Williamson to 
 inform Harbottle that he was a preacher highly unacceptable to the king. In 
 this chapel he remained nine years, during which time he was elected a lecturer 
 at St Clements, and was one of the most admired preachers in town. In 1676, 
 he printed an account of a conference which himself and Dr Stillingfleet held 
 with Coleman and the principal of the Romish priests; and in 1679, appeared 
 the first volume of his history of the Reformation, which procured him a vote 
 of thanks from both houses of parliament, with a request that he would prose- 
 cute the work to its completion, without loss of time. Two years after this, he 
 published the second volume, which met with the same general approbation as 
 the first. Having at this time no parochial cure, Dr Burnet was not in the 
 practice of visiting the sick, as a part of his regular calling ; but he was always 
 ready to attend those who requested his visits. Among these happened to be a 
 lady, who had been criminally connected with John YVilmot earl of Rochester, 
 and the manner in which the Dr conducted himself towards her, excited a strong 
 desire in his lordship to see and converse with him. This led to a weekly 
 meeting of Dr Burnet and Lord Rochester for a whole winter, which ended first 
 in the conviction, and latterly it is to be hoped the conversion of that singular 
 libertine. An account of the whole affair was published by Dr Burnet in 1681, 
 which, Dr Johnson says, " the critic ought to read for its elegance, the philoso- 
 pher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety." During the time of the 
 inquiry into the popish plot, Charles seems to have been softened down consid- 
 erably, and often sent for Dr Burnet, and consulted with him on the state of 
 the nation. His Majesty made also another attempt to bring him over, by of- 
 fering him the bishopric of Chichester, at that time vacant, provided he would 
 come entirely into his interests ; Burnet with an honesty, that we fear, is but 
 too seldom practised, told the Icing, he knew the oaths that in such a case he 
 must take : these he would observe religiously, but must be excused from giving 
 any other engagements. He of course was not installed in the bishopric ; but 
 he embraced the opportunity of writing a letter to the king, which does him 
 more real honour than if he had held in his single person, all the bishoprics 
 in England. This letter, so full, so free, so faithful, and so affectionate, we 
 regret that our limits forbid us to insert. We must also leave it to general his- 
 tory, to detail the endeavours he made to save the lives of Staley and the Lord 
 Stafford, on occasion of the popish plot. By his conduct with regard to the 
 exclusion of the Duke of York, and the scheme of a Prince Regent in lieu 
 of that exclusion, he lost the favour of both parties, perhaps not unde- 
 i. 3i
 
 434 GILBERT BUUNET. 
 
 servedly. Vet, in 16y2, when the administration was wholly in favour of the 
 Duke of York, a promise was obtained from the king to bestow upon him the 
 mastership of the Temple, which was likely to be immediately vacant ; upon 
 which he was again sent for by the king, and treated with extraordinary kind- 
 ness. Burnet himself, however, waved the promise that had been made him, 
 when he found that he was expected in return for the place, to break up corres- 
 pondence with all those who had been his best friends. He felt himself at this 
 time upon such dangerous ground, that he was afraid of all communication with 
 either of the parties that at this time were agitating the public mind ; and as 
 an excuse for privacy, built a Laboratory, and for a whole, year amused himself 
 with performing experiments in chemistry. He was at this time otiered a living 
 of three hundred pounds a year by the earl of Essex, upon condition that he 
 would continue to reside in London. In case of having tho cure of souls, how- 
 ever, Burnet thought residence an indispensable obligation, and tha benefice 
 was given to another. In 1683, he narrowly escaped being brought by his 
 friends into trouble by the Ryehouse plot ; and by his conducting the trial and 
 attending on Lord William Russel in prison and on the scaffold, and particular- 
 ly by defending his memory before the council, he incurred the odium of the 
 court, which, from a certain knowledge of his integrity, could not fail at this 
 time to be greatly afraid of him. In the course of this year, probably to be 
 out of the way of his enemies, he went over to Paris, where he was treated with 
 great deference, by the express orders of Louis XIV. Here, his friends, apprehen- 
 sive of danger to him at home, wished him to remain ; but as no consideration 
 could induce him to be long absent from his charge, he of course returned in a 
 short time. That same year, however, he was discharged from his lecture at 
 St Clements, by a mandate from the king, and in March 168-1, he was forbid 
 preaching any more in the chapel at the rolls. Being thus happily disengaged 
 from all his employments, at the death of Charles II. upon the accession of 
 James VII. he requested, and obtained leave to quit the kingdom, and went to 
 Paris, where he lived in great retirement, to avoid being involved in the con- 
 spiracies which the duke of Monmouth and the earl of Argyle were then forming 
 against the government. When that business was at an end, he in company with 
 an officer, a protestant in the French service, made the tour of Italy, and in 
 1684, came to Utrecht, where he found letters from some of the principal min- 
 isters of state at the Hague, requesting him to wait upon the prince and prin- 
 cess of Orange. As the Revolution in England was already in contemplation, 
 Dr Burnet met from these personages a most gracious reception, and was soon 
 admitted to an entire confidence. When Dyckvelt was sent over ambassador to 
 England, with a view particularly to sound the inclinations of the people, his 
 secret instructions were drawn up by Dr Burnet, of which the rough draught in 
 his own hand writing is still preserved, James, in the meantime, was highly 
 incensed ajrainst him for the reflections he had made on the richness of the 
 
 O 
 
 catholic countries, through which he had passed, in an account of his travels re- 
 cently published, which it was supposed had liad a sensible effect upon the peo- 
 ple of England. His majesty accordingly wrote two severe letters against him to 
 the princess of Orange, and forbade his envoy at the Hague to transact any busi- 
 ness with that court till Dr Burnet was forbidden to appear there. This to hu- 
 mour James was done ; but Hallewyn Fogel and the rest of the Dutch ministers 
 consulted with him privately every day. A prosecution for treason was now 
 commenced against Dr Burnet in Scotland ; but before this could be notified to 
 the States, he had been naturalized with a view to his. marriage with a Dutch 
 lady ; and in a letter in answer to the charges preferred against him, directed 
 to the earl of Middleton, he stated that being now naturalized in Holland, his
 
 GILBERT BURNET. 435 
 
 allegiance, during his stay there, was transferred from his majesty to the States 
 This expression was at once laid hold of, and dropping the former prosecution 
 Uiey pioceeded against him for these words, as guilty of high treason, and pas 
 sed against him a sentence of outlawry. It was then demanded of the State* 
 to deliver him up, or to banish him ; but as he had been naturalized, the States 
 refused to proceed against him, unless he were legally convicted of some crime ; 
 which, if his majesty found himself capable of doing, they would punish him 
 according to their law. To narrate the important part ha performed in the 
 revolution, would be to write the history of that great event. By the prince 
 of Orange as well as by the friends of liberty in England, he was treated with 
 unreserved confidence. He had a principal hand in drawing up the prince's de- 
 clarations, as well as the other public papers written at the time to j Jstify the 
 undertaking. But for a particular account of these we must refer our readers 
 to the history of England. At the Revolution, Dr Crew, bishop of Durham, 
 having been on the high commission created by king James, offered to re- 
 sign his bishopric to Dr Burnet, trusting to his generosity for one thousand a 
 year for life out of the episcopal revenue ; and sent the enil of Montague to the 
 prince of Orange with the proposal ; but when mentioned to Burnet he refused 
 absolutely to have any thing to do with it on these terms, as he considered them 
 hio-hly criminal. He was shortly after promoted t> the see of Salisbury. At 
 the close of the Session of parliament 1689, Dr Buraet went down to his dio-. 
 cese, when he entered upon the duties of his episcopal office with that conscien- 
 tious ardour which distinguished his character. His first pastoral letter, how- 
 ever in which, to save betraying the discrepancies of his political creed, he found- 
 ed kinw William's right to the throne upon conquest, gave so much offence to 
 both houses of parliament, that they ordered it to be burnt by the hands of the 
 liano-man. He maintained, nevertheless, unshaken credit with king William 
 and queen Mary to the end of their days ; and employed that credit in the 
 most praise-worthy manner. He was by the king, in preference to all his min- 
 isters, appointed to name the princess Sophia, Electress of Brunswick, next in 
 succession to the princess of Denmark, and her issue, in the famous bill for de- 
 claring the rights and liberties of the subject, and settling tlie succession to the 
 crown"; and when that succession was explicitly established in 1701, he had 
 the honour of being chairman of the committee to which the bill was referred. 
 He had also the pleasure in 1690, of being a successful advocate for Lord 
 Clarendon, who had engaged in a plot against the king, and been one of the 
 Dr's bitterest enemies, at the time when popery and arbitrary power were in 
 favour. 
 
 During the life of Mary, Dr Burnet being generally one of her advi; 
 the affairs of the church passed wholly through his hands. After her death, in 
 ! 694, a commission was granted for that purpose to the two archbishops and four 
 prelates, of whom Dr Burnet was one. A commission of the same kind WBS 
 aranted in 1700, and the Doctor still continued a member. In 1698, he was 
 appointed preceptor to the Duke of Gloucester, and, on that occasion, insisted 
 on giving up his bishopric. King William, however, would not allow him to do 
 so- but in order to soothe him, made arrangements that he might be at hand, 
 and still liave it in his power to pay considerable attention to his diocese, 
 this high trust the bishop conducted himself so as to have the enUre approbation 
 of the princess of Denmark, who ever after retained a peculiar affection for him, 
 of which he had many sensible tokens after she came to the throne ; though in 
 her last years he was in direct and open opposition to her measures. In 
 year 1699, he published his celebrated exposition * *S*" ** 
 and a short time before his death, a third volume of h History of the Reform*
 
 436 GILBERT BUHNET. 
 
 tion. In the month of March, 1715, he was attacked with a pleuritic fever, 
 which carried him off, being in the seventy-second year of his age. He was 
 married first to the Lady Margaret Kennedy, daughter to the Earl of Cassillis, 
 celebrated for her beauty and her wit. Secondly, to 3Irs 3Iary Scott, a Dutch 
 lady of noble extraction and large fortune, by whom he had three sons. 
 Thirdly, to Mrs Berkeley, a widow lady of singular talents and uncommon piety, 
 by whom he had no issue. From the brief sketch which we have given of the 
 principal events of his life, it is evident that Dr Burnet possessed a vigorous un- 
 derstanding, and was a man of great piety, and unwearied perseverance. Early 
 prepossessions, however, which, vigorous as his understanding was, he evidently 
 could not overcome, made htm the dupe of a system antiscriptural and supersti- 
 tious a system which whatever it may seem to promise in theory, lias in prac- 
 tice been found cumbersome and inefficient a system which, while it provides 
 for the pampering of a few of the privileged orders of the clergy, leaves all the 
 rest, together with the great body of the people, to pine and perish in want, con- 
 tempt, and ignorance. What man as a bishop could do, Dr Burnet, while bishop 
 of Salisbury, appears to have done ; but he was hampered on all hands by insur- 
 mountable abuses originally inherent, or growing naturally out of the legalised 
 order of things. His consistorial court he found to have become a grievance 
 both to clergy and laity, and he attended for years in person to correct it. 
 But the time foundation of complaint he found to be the dilatory course of pro- 
 ceedings, and the exorbitant fees, which he had no authority to correct. He 
 could not even discharge poor suitors who Mere oppressed with vexatious prose- 
 cutions, otherwise than by paying their fees out of his own pocket, which he fre- 
 quently did, and this was all the reform he was able to accomplish. In admit- 
 ting to orders, he met with so much ignorance and thoughtless levity, that for the 
 benefit of the church he formed a nursery at Salisbury, under his own eye, for 
 students of divinity, to the number of ten, to each of whom he allowed a sum of 
 money out of his own income for his subsistence, and in this way he reared up 
 several young men who became eminent in the church ; but this was soon disco- 
 vered to be a designed affront put upon the method of education followed at Ox- 
 ford, and he was compelled to give it up. Pluralities he exclaimed against as 
 sacrilegious robbery, and in his first visitation at Salisbury quoted St Bernard, 
 who, being consulted by a priest, whether he might not accept of two benefices, 
 replied, ' And how will you be able to serve them.' ' I intend,' said the priest, 
 ' to officiate in one of them by deputy.' ' Will your deputy be damned for you 
 too,' said the saint ; ' believe me, you may serve your cure by proxy, but you 
 must be damned in person.' This quotation so afiected one of his hearers, 3Ir 
 Kilsey, that he resigned the rectory of Bemerton, worth two hundred pounds a 
 year, which he held along with one of still greater value. The bishop was, at 
 the same time, from the poverty of the living, frequently under the necessity of 
 joining two of them together to have them served at all, and sometimes he found 
 it necessary to help the incumbent out of his own pocket into the bargain. 
 These, with other evils, it must be admitted, the Doctor lost no opportunity to 
 attempt having redressed, but alas ! they were and are inherent in the system, 
 without a reform in which, they admit of no cure. He travelled over his diocese 
 which he found " ignorant to scandal," catechising and confirming with the zeal 
 of an apostle ; and when he attended his duty in parliament, he preached in 
 some of the London churches every Sabbath morning, and in the evening lec- 
 tured in his own house, where a number of persons of distinction attended. So 
 much conscientious diligence, confined to a legitimate locality, could scarcely 
 have failed to produce a rich harvest of gospel fruits. Scattered as it was over 
 such a wide surface, there is reason to fear that it was in a great measure unpro-
 
 .TAMES BURNET. 437 
 
 fitable. While Dr Burnet was a diligent instructor from the pulpit, he was not 
 less so from the press, having published in his life-time fifty-eight single sermons, 
 thirteen treatises or tracts on divinity, seventeen upon popery, twenty-six politi- 
 cal and miscellaneous, and twenty-four historical and biographical, to which we 
 may add the History of his Own Time, published since his death. Some of these, 
 particularly the Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, the History of the Refor- 
 mation, and of his own times, still are, and must long continue to be, especially 
 the latter, standard works. The History of his Own Time, it has been happily 
 observed, has received the best testimony to its worth from its having given equr.l 
 offence to the bigoted and interested of all parties. Take him all in all, per 
 haps no juster eulogium has been passed upon him than that of Wodrow, who, 
 speaking of him as one of Leighton's preachers, calls him " Mr Gilbert Burnet, 
 well known to the world since, first professor of Divinity at Glasgow, and after 
 that persecuted, for his appearing against popery, and for the cause of liberty, 
 and since the Revolution the learned and moderate bishop of Sarum, one of the 
 great eye-sores of the high-fliers and tories of England, and a very great orna- 
 ment to his native country." 
 
 BURNET, JAMES, better known by his judicial designation of Lord Mon- 
 boddo, was born at Monboddo, in Kincardineshire, in the year 1714. He was 
 eldest surviving son of James Burnet, by Elizabeth Forbes, only sister to Sir 
 Arthur Forbes of Craigievar, Baronet. For what reason is not known, but, in- 
 stead of being sent to a public school, he was educated at home, under the care 
 of Dr Francis Skene, afterwards professor of philosophy at the Marischal Col- 
 lege, Aberdeen. This gentleman discharged his duty to his pupil with the ut- 
 most faithfulness, and succeeded in inspiring him with a taste for ancient litera- 
 ture. He was the first that introduced him to an acquaintance with the philosophy 
 of the ancients, of which Mr Burnet became so enthusiastic an admirer. Dr 
 Skene, being promoted to a professorship, was the more immediate cause of his 
 pupil accompanying him to Aberdeen, and of his being educated at the Maris- 
 chal College in that city. It is probable that he lodged with his preceptor, who 
 of course would direct and superintend his studies. Dr Skene was a professor in 
 that seminary for the long period of forty-one years, and was universally ac- 
 knowledged to be one of the most diligent and laborious teachers that ever held 
 the honourable office. 
 
 What contributed, in a great degree, to fix Mr Burnet's attention upon tl 
 literature and philosophy of the Greeks, was not only the instructions he had re- 
 ceived at home from his tutor, but that, when he entered the university, Principal 
 Blackwell had for several years been professor of Greek. This person was the 
 great means of reviving the study of this noble language in the north of Scot- 
 land and one of his greatest admirers, and zealous imitators in the prosecution 
 of Grecian learning, was Mr Burnet, Esteeming the philosophical works trans- 
 mitted to us by the Romans as only copies, or borrowed from the Greeks, he 
 determined to have recourse to the fountain head. Burnet was naturally a man . 
 very keen passions, of an independent tone of thinking, and whatever ^opm 
 he once espoused, he was neither ashamed nor afraid to avow it openly. U 
 dreaded no consequences, neither did he regard the opinions of others, 
 had the authority of Plato or Aristotle, he was quite satisfied, and how par 
 doxical soever the sentiment might be, or contrary to what was popular or ge 
 ally received, he did not in the least regard. Revolutions of vanous kinds 
 oeginning to be introduced into the schools; but these he either neglect 
 despised. The Newtonian philosophy in particular had begun to attrac a 
 tion,and public lecturers upon its leading doctrmes had been es*bb h 
 almost all the British universities ; but their very novelty was a sufficient reason
 
 438 JAMES BURNET. 
 
 for his neglecting them. The laws by which the material \vorld is regulated, 
 were considered by him as of vastly inferior importance to what regarded mind, 
 and its diversified operations. To the contemplation of the latter, therefore, his 
 chief study was directed. 
 
 Having been early designed for the Scottish bar, he wisely resolved to lay a 
 good foundation, and to suffer nothing to interfere with what was now to be the 
 main business of iiis life. To obtain eminence in the profession of the law , de- 
 pends less upon contingencies, than in any of the other learned professions. 
 Wealth, splendid connections, and circumstan<;es merely casual, have brought for- 
 ward many physicians and divines, who had nothing else to recommend them. 
 But though these may be excellent subsidiaries, they are not sufficient of them- 
 selves to constitute a distinguished lawyer. Besides good natural abilities, the 
 mos: severe application, and uncommon diligence in the acquisition of extensive 
 legal knowledge, are absolutely necessary. At every step the neophyte is obliged 
 to make trial of his strength with his opponents, and us the public are seldom 
 in a mistake for any length of time, where their interests are materially con- 
 cerned, his station is very soon fixed. 'Hie intimate connection that subsists 
 between the civil or Roman law, and the law of Scotland, is well known. The 
 one is founded upon the other. According to the custom of Scotland at that 
 time, Burnet repaired to Holland, where the best masters in this study were 
 then settled. At the university of Groningen he remained for three years, 
 assiduously attending the lectures on the civil law. lie then returned to his 
 native country so perfectly accomplished as a civilian, that, during the course of 
 a long life, his opinions on difficult points of this law were highly respected. 
 
 He happened to arrive in Edinburgh from Holland on the night of Porteous' 
 mob. His lodgings were in the Lawnmarket, in the vicinity of the Tolboolh, 
 and hearing a great noise in the street, from a motive of curiosity he sallied 
 forth to witness the scene. Some person, however, had recognised him, and 
 it was currently reported that he was one of the ringleaders. He was 
 likely to have been put to some trouble on this account, had he not been able 
 to prove that he had just arrived from abroad, and therefore could know no- 
 thing of what was in agitation. He was wont to relate with great spirit the 
 circumstances that attended this singular transaction. 
 
 In 1737, he became a member of the Faculty of Advocates, and in process 
 of time came into considerable practice. His chief patrons in early life, were 
 lord justice clerk 31ilton, lord president Forbes, and Erskine lord Timvald, 
 or Alva. The last had been a professor in the university of Edinburgh, and 
 being an excellent Greek scholar, knew how to estimate his talents. 
 
 During the rebellion of 1745, Burnet went to London, and prudently de- 
 clining to take any part in the politics of that troublous period, he spent the 
 time chiefly in the company and conversation of his literary friends. Among 
 these were Thomson the poet, lord Littleton, and Dr Armstrong. \Vlien peace 
 was restored, he returned to Scotland. About 1760, he married a beautiful 
 and accomplished lady, Miss Farquharson, a relation of Marischal Keith, by 
 whom he had a sou and two daughters. What first brought him into very pro- 
 minent notice, was the share he had in conducting the celebrated Douglas' 
 cause. No question ever came before a court of law, which interested the pub- 
 lic to a greater degree. In Scotland it became in a manner a national question, 
 for the whole country was divided, and ranged on one side or the other. Mr 
 Burnet was counsel for Mr Douglas, and went thrice to France to assist in lead- 
 ing the proof taken there. This he was well qualified to do, for, during his 
 studies in Holland, he had acquired the practice of speaking the French lan- 
 guage with great facility. Such interest did this cause excite, that the pleadings
 
 JAMES BURNET. 439 
 
 before the court of session lasted thirty-one days, and the most eminent lawyer* 
 were engaged. It is a curious historical fact, that almost all the lawyers on both 
 sides were afterwards raised to the bench. Mr Burnet was, in 17G4, made 
 sheriff of his native county, and on the 12th February, 1767, through the inte- 
 rest of the Duke of Queensberry, lord justice general, he succeeded Lord Mil- 
 ton as a lord of session, under the title of Lord Monboddo. It is said that he 
 refused a justiciary gown, being unwilling that his studies should be interrupted, 
 during the vacation, by any additional engagements. 
 
 The first work which he published was on the Origin and Progress of Lan- 
 guage. The first volume appeared in 1771, the second in 1773, and the third 
 in 1776. This treatise attracted a great deal of attention on account of the 
 singularity of some of the doctrines which it advanced. In the first part, he 
 gives a very learned, elaborate, and abstruse account of the origin of ideas, ac- 
 cording to the metaphysics of Plato and the commentators en Aristotle, philoso- 
 phers to whose writings and theories he was devotedly attached. He then treats 
 of the origin of human society and of language, which he considers as a human 
 invention, without paying the least regard to the scriptural accounts. He repre- 
 sents men as having originally been, and continued for many ages to be, no 
 better than beasts, and indeed in many respects worse; as destitute of speech, 
 of reason, of conscience, of social affection, and of every thing that can confer 
 dignity upon a creature, and possessed of nothing but external sense and 
 memory, and a capacity of improvement. The system is not a new one, being 
 borrowed from Lucretius, of whose account of it, Horace gives an exact abridg- 
 ment in these lines : " Cum prorepserunt primis animalia ten-is, mutum et 
 turpe pecus,'' &c. which Lord Monboddo takes for his motto, and which, he said, 
 comprehended in miniature the whole history of man. In regard to facts that 
 make for his system he is amazingly credulous, but blind and sceptical in regard 
 to every thing of an opposite tendency. He asserts with the utmost gravity and 
 confidence, that the oran-outangs are of the human species that in the 
 bay of Bengal, there exists a nation of human creatures with tails, discovered 
 on hundred and thirty years before by a Swedish skipper that the beavers 
 and sea-cats are social and political animals, though man, by nature, is neither 
 social nor political, nor even rational reason, reflection, a sense of right and 
 wrong, society, policy, and even thought, being, in the human species, as much 
 the effects of art, contrivance, and long experience, as writing, ship-building, or 
 any other manufacture. Notwithstanding that the work contains these and many 
 other strange and whimsical opinions, yet it discovers great acuteness of remark. 
 His greatest work, which he called " Ancient Metaphysics," consists of thre< 
 volumes 4to., the List of which was published only a few weeks before t 
 author's death. It may be considered as an exposition and defence of the < 
 cian philosophy in opposition to the philosophical system of Sir Isaac P on, 
 and the scepticism of modern metaphysicians, particularly Mr David 
 His opinions upon many points coincide with those of Mr Harris, the author 
 Hermes, who uas his intimate friend, and of whom he was a great admirer. tf < 
 never seems to have understood, nor to have entered into the spirit of I 
 Ionian philosophy; and, as to Mr Hume, he, without any disguise, ace 
 of atheism, and reprobates in the most severe terms some of his opinions. 
 
 In domestic circumstances Monboddo was particularly unfortunate, 
 a very beautiful woman, died in child-bed. His son, a promising boy in who 
 education he took great delight, was likewise snatched irom his affections by a 
 premature death ; and his second daughter, in personal loveliness one of tl 
 women of the age, was cut off by consumption, when only twenty-five years old.
 
 4-tO KOBE'RT BURNS. 
 
 Bui us, in an address to Edinburgh, thus celebrates the beauty and excellence <1 
 Miss Burnet : 
 
 " Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn, 
 
 Gay as the gilded summer sky, 
 Sweet as the dewy milk-white thorn, 
 Dear as the raptured thrill of joy! 
 
 Fair Burnet strikes the adoring eye, 
 
 Heaven's beauties on my fancy shine ; 
 I see the Sire of lore on high, 
 
 And own his work indeed divine." 
 
 His eldest daughter was married to Kirkpatrick Williamson, Esq. Lite keeper of 
 the outer house rolls, who liad been clerk to his lordship, and was eminent as a 
 Greek scholar. 
 
 About 1780, he first began to make an annual journey to London, which 
 he continued for a good many years, indeed, till he was upwards of eighty years 
 of age. As a carriage was not a vehicle in use among the ancients, he deter- 
 mined never to enter and be seated in what he termed a box. He esteemed it 
 as degrading to the dignity of human nature to be dragged at the tails of horses 
 instead of being mounted on their backs. In his journeys between Edinburgh 
 and London he therefore rode on horseback, attended by a single servant. On 
 his last visit, he was taken ill on the road, and it was with difficulty that Sir 
 Hector Monroe prevailed upon him to come into his carnage. He set out, how- 
 ever, next day on horseback, and arrived safe in Edinburgh by slow journeys. 
 
 Lord Monboddo being in London in 1785, visited the King's bench, when 
 some part of the fixtures of the place giving way, a great scatter took place 
 among the lawyers, and the very judges themselves rushed towards the door. 
 Monboddo, somewhat near-sighted, and rather dull of hearing, sat still, and was 
 the only man who did so. Being asked why he had not bestirred himself to 
 avoid the ruin, he coolly answered, that he " thought it was an annual ceremony, 
 with which, being an alien, he had nothing to do." 
 
 When in the country he generally dressed in the style of a plain farmer ; and 
 lived among his tenants with the utmost familiarity, and treated them with greal 
 kindness. He used much the exercises of walking in the open air, and ol 
 riding. He had accustomed himself to the use of the cold bath in all seasons, 
 and amid every severity of the weather. It is said that he even made use of 
 the air bath, or occasionally walking about for some minutes naked in a room 
 filled with fresh and cool air. In imitation of the ancients, the practice o/ 
 anointing was not forgotten. The lotion lie used was not the oil of the ancien is. 
 but a saponacious liquid compound of rose water, olive oil, saline aromatic spirit, 
 and Venice soap, which, when well mixed, i-esembles cream. This he applied 
 at bed-time, before a large fire, after coming from the warm bath. 
 
 This learned and ingenious, though somewhat eccentric, man died upon the 
 26th May, 1799, at the advanced age of eighty-five years. 
 
 BURNS, ROBERT, a celebrated poet, was born January 25, 1759 ; died July 
 22, 1796. Of this illustrious genius I originally intended to have compiled an 
 account, from the materials that have been already published, adding such new 
 facts as have come in my way. But, having been much struck with the felicity 
 of a narrative written by the unfortunate Robert Heron which nearly answer.' 
 my purpose as to length, and contains many fresh and striking views of the 
 various situations in which the poet was placed in life, together with, what ap 
 pears to me, a comprehensive and most eloquent estimate of his genius I have 
 been induced to prefer it to anything of my own. By this course I shall revive 
 a very rare and interesting composition, which is often quoted, but seldom see n
 
 
 T (BURNS 
 

 
 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 and present to the reader, not only an uncommonly clear view of the life and 
 character of Burns, but also a specimen of the animated and nervous, though 
 somewhat turgid, style of Heron, whose literary history is scarcely less remarka- 
 ble than that of the Ayrshire bard. The reader will find the text occasionally 
 corrected and illustrated by notes, as also a short poetical relique of Burns, 
 which first appeared in the original edition of this work. 
 
 Robert Burns was a native of Ayrshire, one of the western counties of Scot- 
 land. 1 He was the son of humble parents ; and his father passed through 
 life in the condition of a hired labourer, or of a small fanner. 2 Even in this 
 situation, however, it was not hard for him to send his children to the parish 
 school, to receive the ordinary instructions in reading, writing, arithmetic, 
 and the principles of religion. By this course of education, young Robert pro- 
 fited to a degree that might have encouraged his friends to destine him to one 
 of the liberal professions, had not his father's poverty made it necessary to re- 
 move him from school, as soon as he had grown up, to earn for himself the means 
 of support, as a hired plough-boy, or shepherd. 3 
 
 The establishment of parish schools, but for which, perhaps, the infant enei<- 
 gies of this young genius might never have received that first impulse, by which 
 .alone they were to be excited into action, is one of the most beneficial that have 
 ever been instituted in this country ; and one which, I believe, is no where so 
 firmly fixed, or extended so completely throughout a whole kingdom, as in Scot- 
 land. Here, every parish has a schoolmaster, almost as invariably as it has a 
 clergyman. For a sum, rarely exceeding twenty pounds, in salary and fees, this 
 pei-son instructs the children of the parish in reading, writing, arithmetic, book- 
 keeping, Latin, and (jreek. The schoolmasters are generally students in phil- 
 osophy or theology ; and hence, the establishment of the parish schools, beside 
 its direct utilities, possesses also the accidental advantage of furnishing an excel- 
 lent school of future candidates for the office of parochial clergymen. So small 
 are the fees for teaching, that no parents, however poor, can want the means to 
 give their children, at least such education at school, as young Burns received. 
 From the spring labours of a plough-boy, from the summer employment of a 
 
 i He was born in a clay-built cottage, about two miles to the south of the town of Ayr, 
 within tue abrogated parish of Aliowa;, , and in the immediate vicinity of the ruined church 
 or' that parish, which he has immortalized in his Tarn u' Shanter. 
 
 * His father, William Burness for so he always spelt his name was the son of a la ner 
 in Kincardineshire, and iwd removed from that county to Ayrshire, at nineteen years 
 ae in consequence of domestic embarrassments. Some collateral relations of J 
 respectable station in society at Montrose. William Burness was one of those inteU ent, 
 thoughtful, and virtuous characters who have contributed to raise the reputation of tl sot- 
 tish peasantry to its present lofty height. From him the poet derived an immense ston 
 knowledge, uii habitual feeling of piety, and, vrlr.it will astonish most of all, great acquamfc 
 with the wurid and the way* of mankind. After supporting himself for /F* 
 dcn.r to -Air Ferguson of Doonholm, the father tooK a small tarm (Mount Oiiphant) tioi 
 that gentleman, to which he removed when the poet was between six and seven ; 
 He subsequently removed to the farm of Lochlea, in the parish of Tarbolton, where he died, 
 in 1781, in verv embarrassed circumstances. sh 
 
 The mother bf Burns was Agnes Brown, the daughter of a race of Ayrslure peasant*. B 
 survived her son about thirty years, and died at an advanced age. Fn _ H , h wr i t i,, ff 
 
 3 The circumstances of Burns' education are well *"*** *&?$& 
 arithmetic, a little mathematics, some Latin, and a smattei ing ot 
 in his earlv years to obtain a perusal of many English classical works, an 
 
 y - , , ,* * . i _ i_ i*,u Urt .-.,rl .."it- *lio "Xinit fit r t'CMI] 
 
 el-,t,ment in the text as to his having become a hired plough-boy, does not receive 
 
 e,, 
 confirmation from any other source, and is probably mcor 
 
 O K.
 
 442 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 shepherd, tiie peasant youth often returns, for a few months, eagerly to pursue 
 his education at the parish school. 
 
 It was so with Burns ; he returned from labour to learning, and from learning 
 went again to labour, till his mind began to open to the charms of taste and 
 knowledge ; till he began to feel a passion for books, and for the subjects of books, 
 which was to give a colour to the whole thread of his future lii'e. On nature he 
 soon began to gaze with new discernment, and with new enthusiasm : his mind's 
 eye opened to perceive affecting beauty and sublimity, where, by the mere 
 gross peasant there was nought to be seen but water, earth, and sky, but 
 animals, plants, and soil ; even as the eyes of the servant of Elisha were sud- 
 denly enlightened to behold his master and himself guarded from the Syrian 
 bands, by horses and chariots of fire, to all but themselves invisible. 
 
 What might, perhaps, first contribute to dispose his mind to poetical efforts, 
 is one particular in the devotional piety of the Scottish peasantry ; it is still com- 
 mon for them to make their children get by heart the Psalms of David, in that 
 version of homely rhymes, which is used in their churches. In the morning, and 
 in the evening of every day, or, at least in the evening of every Saturday and Sun- 
 day, these psalms are sungin solemn family devotion, a chapter of the Bible is read, 
 and extemporary prayer is fervently uttered. 4 The whole books of tlie sacred 
 Scriptures are thus continually in the hands of almost every peasant. And it is 
 impossible that some souls should not occasionally be awakened among them to 
 the divine emotions of genius, by that rich assemblage, which those books pre- 
 sent, of almost all that is interesting in incident, or picturesque in imagery, or 
 aftectingly sublime, or tender in sentiments or character. It is impossible that 
 those rude rhymes, and the simple artless music with which they are accom- 
 panied, should not occasionally excite some ear to a taste for the melody of verse. 
 That Burns had felt these impulses, will appear undeniably certain to whoever 
 shall carefully peruse his Cottar's Saturday Night ; or shall remark, with nice 
 observation, the various fragments of scripture sentiment, of scripture imagery, 
 of scripture language, which are scattered throughout his works. 
 
 Still more interesting to the young peasantry, are the ancient ballads of l.ve 
 and war, of which a great number are yet popularly known and sung in Scot- 
 land. While the prevalence of the Gaelic language in the northern parts of 
 this country, excluded from those regions the old Anglo-Saxon songs and 
 minstrels; these songs and minstrels were, in the meaniime, driven by the 
 Norman conquests and establishments, out of the southern counties of England ; 
 and were forced to wander, in exile, beyond its northern confine, into the 
 southern districts of the Scottish kingdom. Henee in the old English songs, is 
 every famous minstrel still related to have been of the north country, while, ou 
 the contrary, in the old Scottish songs, it is always the south country, to which 
 every favourite minstrel is said to belong. It is the same district to which both 
 allude ; a district comprehending precisely the southern counties of Scotland, 
 with the most northern counties of England. In the south of Scotland the best 
 of those ballads are often sung by the rustic maid or matron at her spinning 
 wheel. They are listened to with ravished ears, by old and young. Their 
 rude melody; that mingled curiosity and awe, which are naturally excited by 
 the very idea of their antiquity ; the exquisitely tender and natural complaints 
 sometimes poured forth in them ; the gallant deeds of knightly heroism, which 
 they sometimes celebrate ; their wild tales of demons, ghosts, and fairies, in 
 wlicse existence superstition alone has believed ; the manners which they 
 represent ; the obsolete, yet picturesque and expressive language, in which the) 
 
 4 William Burness looked upon his son Robert as the best reader in the house, and used to 
 employ him to read the Bible to the rest. Scots M-ignzine, I?y7.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 44.' 
 
 are often clothed, give them wonderful power to transport every imagination 
 .and every heart To the soul of Burns, they were like a happy breeze touch- 
 ing the wires of an JEoIian harp, and calling forth the most ravishing melody. 
 
 Beside all this, the Gentle Shepherd and the other poems of Allan Ramsay, 
 have long been highly popular in Scotland. They fell early into the hands of 
 Burns; and while the fond applause which they received, drew his emulation, 
 they presented to him likewise treasures of phraseology, and models of versifica- 
 tion. Ruddimnn's Weekly Magazine was during this time published ; was sup- 
 ported chiefly by the original communications of correspondents, and found a 
 very extensive sale. In it, Burns read the poetry of Robert Ferguson, wit ten 
 chiefly in the Scottish dialect, and exhibiting many specimens of uncommon 
 poetical excellence. The Seasons of Thomson, too, the Grave of Blair, the 
 far-famed iilegy of Gray, the Paradise Lost of Milton, perhaps the Minstrel 
 of Benttie, were so commonly read, even among those with whom Burns would 
 naturally associate, that poetical curiosity, although even less ardent than his, 
 could, in such circumstances, have little difficulty in procuring them. 
 
 With such means to give his imagination a poetical bias, and to favour the 
 culture of his taste and genius, Burns gradually became a poet, 1 He was not, 
 however, one of those forward children, who, from a mistaken impulse, begin pre- 
 maturely to write and to rhyme, and hence never attain to excellence. Conversing 
 familiarly for a long while with the works of those poets who were known to 
 him : contemplating the aspect of nature, in a district which exhibits an uncom- 
 mon assemblage of the beautiful and the ruggedly grand, of the cultivated and the 
 wild ; looking upon human life with an eye quick and keen to remark, as well 
 the stronger and leading, as the nicer and subordinate features of character 
 to discriminate the generous, the honourable, the manly, in conduct, from the 
 ridiculous, the base, and the mean ; he was distinguished among his fellows for 
 extraordinary intelligence, good sense, and penetration, long before others, or 
 perhaps even himself, suspected him to be capable of writing verses. His mind 
 was mature, and well stored with such knowledge as lay within his reach ; he 
 had made himself master of powers of language, superior to those of almost any 
 former writer in the Scottish dialect, before he conceived the idea of surpassing 
 Ramsay and Ferguson. 
 
 In the meantime, besides the studious bent of his genius, there were some 
 other particular! in his opening character, which might seem to mark him for a 
 poet. He began early in life, to regard with a sort of sullen aversion and 
 disdain, all that was sordid in the pursuits and interests of the peasants among 
 whom he was placed. He became discontented with the humble labours to 
 which he saw himself confined, and with the poor subsistence he was able to 
 earn by them. He could not help looking upon the rich and great whom he 
 saw around him, with an emotion between envy and contempt; as if something 
 had still whispered to his heart, that there was injustice in the external inequa- 
 lity between his fate and their's. While such emotions arose in his mind, he 
 conceived an inclination, very common among the young men of the more un- 
 cultivated parts of Scotland to emigrate to America, or the West Indies, in 
 quest of a better fortune ;" at the same time, his heart was expanded with pas- 
 
 1 He himself relates that he first wrote verses in his sixteenth year, the subject being a 
 comely lass of the name of Nelly, who was associated with him after the usual fashion on the 
 'Mri-est-rig. 
 
 * His father, in his sixteenth year, had removed to Lochlea in Tarbolton parish, when 
 the old man died of a broken heart in 17t. Burns, and his younger brother Gilbert, then 
 took the small farm of Mossgeil, near Mauchline, which they cultivated in partnership for 
 some time, till want of success, and the consequences of an illicit amour, induced tlio poet to 
 think of leaving his native country. He was, strirtly speaking, a farmer, am! not .1 ploug!:-
 
 444 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 sion.ite ardour, to meet the impressions ot' love and friendship. With several of 
 the young peasantry, who were his fellows in labour, he contracted an affectionate 
 intimacy of acquaintance. He eagerly sought admission into the brotherhood 
 of free masons, which is recommended to the young men of this country, by 
 nothing so much as by Us seeming to extend the sphere of .agreeable acquain- 
 tance, and to knit closer the bonds of friendly endearment In some mason lodges 
 in his neighbourhood, Burns had soon the fortune, whether good or bad, to 
 gain the notice of several gentlemen, better able to estimate the true value of 
 such a mind as his, than were his fellow peasants, with whom alone he had 
 hitherto associated. One or two of them might be men of convivial dispositions, 
 and of religious notions rather licentious than narrow ; who encouraged his 
 talents, by occasionally inviting him to be the companion of their looser hours ; 
 and who were at times not ill pleased to direct the force of his wit and humour, 
 against those sacred things which they affected outwardly to despise as mere 
 bugbears, while they could not help inwardly trembling before them, as realities. 
 For a while, the native rectitude of his understanding, and the excellent prin- 
 ciples in which his infancy had been educated, withstood every temptation to 
 intemperance or impiety. Alas ! it was not always so. When his heart was 
 first struck by the charms of village beauty, the love he felt was pure, tender, 
 simple, and sincere, as that of the youth and maiden in his Cottar's Saturday 
 Night, If the ardour of his passion hurried him afterwards to triumph over the 
 chastity of the maid he loved ; the tenderness of his heart, the manly honesty of 
 his soul, soon made him offer, with eager solicitude, to repair the injury Ly 
 marriage. 3 
 
 About this time, in the progress of his life and character, did he first be<;iii 
 to be distinguished as a poet. A masonic song, a satirical epigram, a rhyming 
 epistle to a friend, attempted with success, taught him to know his own powers, 
 and gave him confidence to try tasks more arduous, and which should command 
 still higher bursts of applause. The annual celebration of the sacrament of the 
 Lord's Supper, in the rural parishes of Scotland, has much in it of those old 
 
 man, at the time when his book brought him into notice; though it must be acknowledged 
 he took his full share of farm labour of all kinds. Some of his best poems were written as lie 
 was driving the plough over the leas of Mossgeil. 
 
 * Hums was early distinguished for his admiration of the fair sex. One of his first and 
 purest attachments was to u girl named Mary Campbell, who the truth must be told was 
 neither more nor less than the hyre---u-oman or dam -maid at Colonel Montgomery's house of 
 Coilsfield. He intended to marry this person, but she died at Greenock on her return from 
 a visit to her relations in Argyleshire. It is a strange instance of the power of Burns' 
 imagination and passion, that he has celebrated this poor peasant girl in strains of affection 
 and lamentation, such as might have embalmed the memory of the proudest dame that ever 
 poet worshipped. In his poem, beginning 
 
 " Ye banks, and braes, and streams around 
 
 The castle of Montgomerie," 
 
 He describes in the most beautiful language their tender and final parting on the banks of 
 the Ayr. At a later period of life, on the anniversary of that hallowed day, he devoted a 
 night to a poetic vigil in the open air, and produced his deeply pathetic elegy to her memory, 
 commencing 
 
 " Thou lingering star, with lessening ray." 
 And all this beautiful poetry was written by a Scottish peasant in reference to a byref-wnman 
 
 The attachment alluded to in the text was to Miss Jean Armour, the daughter of a mason 
 in Mauchline. Burns proposed at first that their guilt should be palliated by a matrimonial 
 union ; but, as his circumstances were desperate, his character not admired by the more 
 sober and calculating villagers, and as he proposed to seek an establishment for his wife in a 
 distant land, the fatiier of his unfortunate partner preferred the alternative of keeping her 
 single and degraded, to permitting her to attach herself to the fortunes of her lover, even 
 though a certain degree of respectability was to be secured by that course. It was not till 
 after the poet had acquired fortune and fame by his writings, and, we blush to say, after a 
 iecond transgression, that he was regularly married. On both of these occasions the lady 
 produced twins. See Lockhart's Life of burns.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 445 
 
 popish festivals, in which superstition, traffic, and amusement, used to be so 
 strangely intermingled. Burns saw, and seized in it one of the happiest of all 
 subjects, to afford scope for the display of that strong and piercing sagacity by 
 which he could almost intuitively distinguish the reasonable from the absurd, 
 and the becoming from the ridiculous; of that picturesque power of fancy, 
 which enabled him to represent scenes, and persons, and groupes, and looks, 
 attitude, and gesture, in a manner almost as lively and impressive, even in words, 
 as it' all the artifices and energies of the pencil had been employed ; of that 
 knowledge which he had necessarily acquired of the manners, passions, and 
 prejudices of the rustics around him of whatever was ridiculous, no less thr.n of 
 whatever was affectingly beautiful, in rural life. A thousand prejudices of 
 popish, and perhaps too, of ruder pagan superstition, have, from time imme- 
 morial, been connected in the minds of the Scottish peasantry, with the annual 
 recurrence of the Eve of the Festival of .ill the Saints, or Halloween. These 
 were all intimately known to Burns, and had made a powerful impression upon 
 his imagination and feelings. He chose them for the subject of a poem, and 
 produced a piece, which is the delight of those who are best acquainted with its 
 subject ; and which will not fail to preserve the memory of the prejudices and 
 usages which it describes, when they shall, perhaps, have ceased to give one 
 merry evening in the year, to the cottage fireside. The simple joys, the honest 
 love, the sincere friendship, the ardent devotion of the cottage ; whatever in 
 the more solemn part of the rustic's life is humble and artless, without being 
 mean or unseemly or tender and dignified, without aspiring to stilted grandeur, 
 or to unnatural, buskined pathos had deeply impressed the imagination of the 
 rising poet ; had in some sort wrought itself into the very texture of the fibres 
 of his soul. He tried to express in verse, what he most tenderly felt, what he 
 most enthusiastically imagined ; and produced the Cottar's Saturday Night. 
 
 These pieces, the true effusions of genius, informed by reading and observa- 
 tion, and prompted by his own native ardour, as well as by friendly applause, 
 were soon handed about among the most discerning of Burns' acquaintance ; 
 and were by every new reader perused, and re-perused, with an eagerness of 
 delight and approbation, which would not suffer him* long to withhold them 
 from the press. A subscription was proposed, 1 was earnestly promoted by 
 some gentlemen, who were glad to interest themselves in behalf of such signal 
 poetical merit ; was soon crowded with the names of a considerable number of 
 the inhabitants of Ayrshire, who, in the proffered purchase, sought not less to 
 gratify their own passion for Scottish poesy, than to encourage the wonderful 
 ploughman. At Kilmarnock, were the poems of Burns, for the first time, 
 printed. The whole edition was quickly distributed over the country. 
 
 It is hardly possible to express, with what eager admiration and delight they 
 were every where received. They eminently possessed all those qualities which 
 can contribute to render any literary work quickly and permanently popular. 
 They were written in a phraseology, of which all the powers were universally 
 felt ; and which being at once antique, familiar, and now rarely written, was 
 hence fitted to serve all the dignified and picturesque uses of poetry, without 
 making it unintelligible. The imagery, the sentiments, were, at once, f; 
 fully natural, and irresistibly impressive and interesting. Those topics ot satire 
 and scandal in which the rustic delights ; that humorous delineation of cha 
 racter and that witty association of ideas, familiar and striking, yet not 
 naturally allied to one another, which has force to shake his sides with laughter ; 
 those fancies of superstition, at which he still wonders and tren 
 
 ' It was chiefly in order to raise the means of transporting himself to the West Indies, 
 that Burns first published his poems.
 
 440 ROBERT BUIINS. 
 
 affecting sentiments and images of true religion, which are at onre dear and 
 awful to his heart, were represented by Burns with all a poet's magic pown-. 
 Old and young, high and low, grave and gay, learned or ignorant, all were 
 alike delighted, agitated, transported. I was at that time resident in Galloway, 
 contiguous to Ayrshire, and 1 can well remember, how that even plough-boys 
 and maid-servants would have gladly parted with the wages which they earned 
 the most hardly, and which they wanted to purchase necessary clothing, if they 
 might but procure the works of Burns. A copy happened to be presented from 
 a gentleman in Ayrshire to a friend in my neighbourhood ; he put it into my 
 hands, as a work containing some effusions of the most extraordinary genius. 
 I took it, rather that I might not disoblige the lender, than from any ardour of 
 curiosity or expectation. " An unlettered ploughman, a poet?" said I, with 
 contemptuous incredulity. It was on a Saturday evening. I opened the 
 volume, by accident, while I was undressing to go to bed. I closed it not, till 
 a late hour on the rising Sunday morn, after I had read over every syllable it 
 contained. And, 
 
 Ex illo Corydon, Corydon est tern pore nobis ! VIRG. EC. 2. 
 
 In the meantime, some few copies of these fascinating poems found their way 
 to Edinburgh : and one was communicated to the late amiable and ingenious Dr 
 Thomas Blacklock. There was, perhaps, never one among all mankind, whom 
 you might more truly have called an angel upon earth, than Dr Blacklock : he 
 was guileless and innocent as a child, yet endowed with manly sagacity and pene- 
 tration ; his heart was a perpetual spring of overflowing benignity ; his feelings 
 were all tremblingly alive to the sense of the sublime, the beautiful, the tender, 
 the pious, the virtuous : poetry was to him the dear solace of perpetual blind- 
 ness ; cheerfulness, even to gaiety, M'as, notwithstanding that irremediable 
 misfortune under which he laboured, long the predominant colour of his mind : 
 in his latter years, when the gloom might otherwise have thickened around 
 him, hope, faith, devotion the most fervent and sublime, exalted his mind to 
 heaven, and made him maintain his wonted cheerfulness, in the expectation of a 
 speedy dissolution. 
 
 This amiable man of genius read the poems of Burns with a nice perception, 
 with a tremblingly impassioned feeling, of all their beauties. Amid that tumult 
 of emotions, of benevolence, curiosity, admiration, which were thus excited in 
 his bosom, he eagerly addressed some encouraging verses to the rustic bard ; 
 which conveying the praises of a poet, and a judge of poetical composition, 
 were much more grateful to Burns than any applauses he had before received 
 from others. It was Blacklock's invitation that finally determined him to 
 abandon his first intentions of going abroad to the West Indies ; and rather to 
 repair to Edinburgh, with his book, in hopes there to find some powerful 
 patron, and perhaps, to make his fortune by his poetry. 
 
 In the beginning of the winter 17 86-87, 2 Burns came to Edinburgh; by Dr 
 Blacklock he was received with the most flattering kindness ; and was eagerly 
 introduced to every person of taste and generosity among the good old man's 
 friends. It was little that Blacklock had it in his power to do for a brother 
 poet ; but that little he did with a fond alacrity, and with a modest grace, 
 which made it ten times more pleasing, and more effectually useful to him, in 
 whose favour it was exercised, than even the very same services would have 
 been from almost any other benefactor. Others soon officiously interposed to 
 share with Blacklock, in the honour of patronising Burns. He had brought 
 
 * November, 1780.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 447 
 
 fiom his Ayrshire friends, some letters of recommendation : some of his rural 
 acquaintance coming, as well as himself, to Edinburgh, for the winter, did him 
 what offices of kindness they conveniently could. 1 Those very few, who pos- 
 sessed at once true taste and ardent philanthropy, were soon earnestly united 
 in his praise : they who were disposed to favour any good thing belonging to 
 Scotland, purely because it was Scottish, gladly joined the cry; those who had 
 hearts and understandings to be charmed, without knowing why, when they saw 
 their native customs, manners, and language, made subjects and materials of 
 poesy, could not suppress that voice of feeling which struggled to declare itself 
 for Burns : for the dissipated, the licentious, the malignant wits, and the free- 
 thinkers he was so unfortunate as to have satire, and obscenity, and ridicule of 
 things sacred, sufficient to captivate their fancies : even for the pious, he liad 
 passages in which the inspired language of devotion might seem to come from 
 his tongue : and then, to charm those whom nought can delight but wonders, 
 whose taste leads them to admire only such things as a juggler eating fire, a 
 person who can converse as if his organs of speech were in his belly, a lame 
 sailor writing with his toes for want of fingers, a peer or a ploughman making 
 verses, a small coal-man directing a concert why, to those people the Ayrshire 
 poet might seem precisely one of the most wonderful of the wonders after winch 
 they were wont to gape. Thus did Burns, ere he had been many weeks in 
 Edinburgh, find himself the object of universal curiosity, favour, admiration, 
 and fondness. He was sought after, courted with attentions the most respectful 
 and assiduous, feasted, flattered, caressed, treated by all ranks as the first boast 
 of our country ; whom it was scarcely possible to honour and reward to a degree 
 equal to his merits. In comparison with the general favour which now pro- 
 mised to more than crown his most sanguine hopes, it could hardly be called 
 praise at all, which he had obtained in Ayrshire. 
 
 In this posture of the poet's affairs, a new edition of his poems was earnestly 
 called for ; he sold the copy-right to Mr Creech, for one hundred pounds ; but 
 his friends, at the same time, suggested, and actively promoted a subscription for 
 an edition, to be published for the benefit of the author, ere the bookseller's 
 right should commence. Those gentlemen who had formerly entertained the 
 public of Edinburgh with the periodical publication of the papers of the Mirror, 
 having again combined their talents in producing the Louuggr, were, at this 
 time, about to conclude this last series of papers ; yet, before the Lounger 
 relinquished his pen, he dedicated a number to a commendatory criticism of the 
 poems of the Ayrshire bard. That criticism is now known to have been written 
 by the Honourable lord Craig, one of the senators of the college of jus- 
 tice, who had adorned the Mirror with a finely written essay, in recommend- 
 ation of the poetry of Michael Bruce. The subscription-papers were rapidly 
 tilled ; the ladies, especially, vied with one another who should be the first to 
 subscribe, and who should procure the greatest number of other subscribers, for 
 the poems of a bard who was now, for some moments, the idol of fashion. 
 The Caledonian Hunt, a gay club, composed of the most opulent and fashionable 
 young men in Scotland, professed themselves the patrons of the Scottish poet, 
 and eagerly encouraged the proposed republication of his poems. Six shillings 
 was all the subscription-money demanded for each copy ; but many voluntarily 
 paid half a guinea, a guinea, or. two guineas; and it was supposed tliat the poet 
 
 1 He resided during the whole winter in the lodgings of one of his Mauchhiie arquam- 
 uces, Mr Jolm Richmond, who had come to Edinburgh in order to study the law. 
 iuom and one bed served both. It was from this humble scene m the Lawmnarktt, that li 
 issued to attend the brilliant parties of the duchess of Gordon and other iashionablts, and 
 to this den he retired, after hours spent amid the lustres of the most splendid apartment* in 
 
 tancc 
 rooi 
 
 the new towii.
 
 448 - ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 might derive from the subscription, and the sale of liis copy-right, a clear profit 
 of, at least, seven hundred pounds; a sum that, to a man who had hitherto lived 
 in his indigent circumstances, would be absolutely more than the vainly expected 
 wealth of Sir Epicure Mammon. 
 
 Burns, in the mean time, led a life differing from that of his original condi- 
 tion in Ayrshire, almost as widely as differed the scenes and amusements of Lon- 
 don, to which Omiah was introduced under the patronage of the Earl of Sand- 
 wich, from those with which he had been familiar in the Friendly Isles. The 
 conversation of even the most eminent authors, is often found to be so unequal lo 
 the fame of their writings, that he who reads with admiration, can listen with 
 none but sentiments of the most profound contempt. But the conversation < i 
 Burns was, in comparison with the formal and exterior circumstances of his edu- 
 cation, perhaps even more wonderful than his poetry. He affected no soft airs, 
 or graceful motions of politeness, which might have ill accorded with the rustic 
 plainness of his native manners. Conscious superiority of mind taught him to 
 associate with the great, the learned, and the gay, without being overawed into 
 any such bashfulness as might have made him confused in thought, or hesitating 
 in elocution. He possessed, withal, an extraordinary share of plain common 
 sense, or mother wit, which prevented him from obtruding upon persons, of 
 whatever rank, with whom lie was admitted to converse, any of those effusions 
 of vanity, envy, or self-conceit, in which authors are exceedingly apt to indulge, 
 who have lived remote from the general practice of life, and whose minds have 
 been almost exclusively confined to contemplate their own studies and their 
 works. In conversation he displayed a sort of intuitive quickness ^and rectitude 
 of judgment upon every subject that arose. The sensibility of his heart, and 
 the vivacity of his fancy, gave a rich colouring to whatever reasoning he was 
 disposed to advance ; and his language in conversation was not at all less happy 
 than in his writings. For these reasons he did not cease to please immediately 
 after lie had been once seen. Those who had met and conversed with him once, 
 were pleased to meet and converse with him again and again. I remember that 
 the late Dr Robertson once observed to me, that he had scarcely ever met with 
 any man Avhose conversation discovered greater vigour and activity of mind than 
 that of Burns. Every one wondered that the rustic bard was not spoiled by so 
 much caressing, favour, and flattery, as he found ; and every one went on to spoil 
 him, by continually repeating all these, as if with an obstinate resolution, that 
 they should, in the end, produce their effect Nothing, however, of change in 
 his manners appeared, at least for a while, to show that this was at all likely to 
 happen. He, indeed, maintained himself, with considerable spirit, upon a foot- 
 ing of equality with all whom he had occasion to associate or converse with ; yel 
 he never arrogated any superiority, save what the fair and manly exertion of his 
 powers, at the time, could undeniably command. Had he but been able to give 
 a steady preference to the society of the virtuous, the learned, and the wisa, 
 rather than to tli.it of the gay and the dissolute, it is probable that he could not 
 have failed to rise to an exaltation of character and of talents fitted to do honour 
 to human nature. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, that happened which was natural in those unaccus- 
 tomed circumstances in which Burns found himself placed. He could not assume 
 enough of superciliousness to reject the familiarity of 'all those who, without any 
 sincere kindness for him, importunately pressed to obtain his acquaintance and 
 intimacy. He was insensibly led to associate less with the learned, and austere, 
 and the rigorously temperate, than with the young, with the votaries of intem- 
 perate joys, with persons to whom he was commended chiefly by licentious wit, 
 and with whom lie could not long associate Avithout sharing in the excesses of
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 449 
 
 their debauchery. 1 Even in the country, men of this sort had begin to fasten 
 on him, and to seduce him to embellish the gross pleasures of their looser hours, 
 with the charms of his wit and fancy. And yet 1 have been informed by Mr 
 Arthur Bruce, a gentleman of great worth and discernment, to whom Burns was, 
 in his earlier days, well known, that he had, in those times, seen the poet 
 steadily resist such solicitations and allurements to excess in convivial enjoyment, 
 as scarcely any other could have withstood. But the enticements of pleasure 
 too often unman our virtuous resolution, even while we wear the air of rejecting 
 them with a stern brow ; we resist, and resist, and resist ; but, at last, suddenly 
 turn and passionately embrace the enchantress. The bucks of Edinburgh ac- 
 complished, in regard to Burns, that in which the bowrs of Ayrshire had failed. 
 After residing some months in Edinburgh, he began to estrange himself, not 
 altogether, but in some measure, from the society of his graver friends. Too 
 many of his hours were now spent at the tables of persons who delighted to urge 
 conviviality to drunkenness in the tavern, or even in less commendable society. 
 He suffered himself to be surrounded by a race of miserable beings, who were 
 proud to tell that they had been in company with Burns ; and had seen Burns 
 as loose and as foolish as themselves. He was not yet irrecoverably lost to tem- 
 perance and moderation, but he was already almost too much captivated wiili 
 these wanton revels, to be ever more won back to a faithful attachment to their 
 more sober charms. He now also began to contract something of new arrogance 
 in conversation. Accustomed to be, among his favourite associates, what is vul- 
 garly but expressively called "the cock of the company," he could scarcely re- 
 frain from indulging in similar freedom, and dictatorial decision of talk, even in 
 the presence of persons who could less patiently endure his presumption. * 
 
 Thus passed two winters, and an intervening summer, of the life of Burns. 
 The subscription edition of his poems, in the meantime, appeared ; and, al- 
 though not enlarged beyond that which came from the Kilmarnock press, by any 
 new pieces of eminent merit, did not fail to give entire satisfaction to the sub- 
 scribers. He at one time, dining this period, accompanied, for a few weeks, 
 into Berwickshire, Robert Ainslie, Esq. [Writer to the Signet], a gentleman ol 
 the purest and most correct manners, 4 who was accustomed sometimes to soothe 
 the toils of a laborious profession, by an occasional converse with polite litera- 
 
 ' Burns came to Edinburgh at an unfortunate time a time of greater licentiousness, 
 perhaps, in all the capitals of Europe, and this northern one among the rest, than had beet 
 known for a long period. Men of the best education and rank at this time drank like tl 
 Scandinavian barbarians of olden time; and in general there was little refinement HI the 
 amusements of any class of the community. 
 
 2 With companions and friends, who claimed no superiority in anything, the sensitive 
 mind of Burns must have been at its best and happiest, because comp Mely at its ease, a,, 
 free movement given to the play of all its feelings and faculties ; and. n, such companies 
 we cannot but believe that his wonderful conversational powers shone forth in t 
 various splendour. He must have given vent there to a thousand fam,lmr fane, 
 their freedom and all their force; which, in the fastidious society of h,h We hi. ""^ n : 
 tion must have been too much fettered even to conceive; and "**J~ J 
 from his lips, would either not have been understood, or would have ^g.ven offe 
 delicacy of breeding which is often hurt even by the best manners of tjwe whose^ man. ers 
 of nature's teaching, and unsubjected to the ^^"^^^ fS of 
 
 hi, s.niu, i,, full power n.l lustre -..r .. 
 
 .i ss5 
 
 religion.
 
 450 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 ture. and \viili general science. At another time lie wandered on a jaunt of four 
 or live weeks through the Highlands, in company with the late Mr William 
 \icol, a man who hail been the companion and friend of Dr Gilbert Stuart, and 
 who, in vigour of intellect, and in wild, yet generous, impetuosity of passion, re- 
 markably resembled both Stuart and Burns ; who for his skill and facility in La ii 
 composition, v> r as perhaps without a rival in Europe; but whose virtues and geni is 
 were clouded by habits of bacchanalian excess; whose latter years were vexatiously 
 embittered by a contest with a creature, who, although accidentally exalted into com- 
 petition with him, was unworthy even to unloose his shoe-latchet ; who, bythe most 
 unwearied and extraordinary professional toil, in the midst of a persevering dissi- 
 pation, by which alone it was, at any time, interrupted, won and accumulated an 
 honourable and sufficient competence for his family; and, .alas! who died within 
 these few weeks, of a jaundice, with a complication of other complaints, the 
 eft'ects of long continued intemperance ! So much did the zeal of friendship, 
 and the ambition of honest fame, predominate in Nicol's mind, that he was, in 
 his last hours, exceedingly pained by the thought, that since he had survived 
 Burns, there remained none who might rescue his mixed character from misre- 
 presentation, and might embalm his memory in never-dying verse ! 
 
 In their excursion, Burns and his friend Nicol were naturally led to visit the 
 interesting scenery adjacent to the duke of Atholl's seat at Uunkeld, on the 
 banks of the Tay. While they were at a contiguous inn, the duke, accidentally 
 informed of Mr Burns' arrival so near, invited him, by a polite message, to Uun- 
 keld House. Burns did not fail to attend his obliging inviter ; was received 
 with flattering condescension ; made himself sufficiently agreeable by his con- 
 versation and manners ; was detained for a day or two by his grace's kind hos- 
 pitality ; and, ere he departed, in a poetical petition, in name of the river 
 Bruar, which falls into the Tay, within the duke's pleasure grounds at Blnir- 
 Alhol, suggested some new improvements of taste, which have been since happily 
 made in compliance with his advice. I relate this little incident, rather to do 
 honour to the duke of Athol, than to Burns; for, if I be not exceedingly mis- 
 taken, nothing that history can record of George the Third, will, in future times, 
 be accounted more honourable to his memory, than the circumstances and the 
 conversation of his well-known interview with Dr Johnson. The two congenial 
 companions, Burns and Nicol, after visiting many other of those romantic, pic- 
 turesque, and sublime scenes which abound in the Highlands of Scotland ; after 
 fondly lingering here and there for a day or two at a favourite inn, returned at 
 last to Edinburgh ; and Burns was now to close accompts with his bookseller, 
 and to retire with his profits in his pocket to the country. 
 
 31 r Creech has obligingly informed me, that the whole sum paid to the poet, 
 for the copy-right, and for the subscription copies of his book, amounted to 
 nearly eleven hundred pounds. Out of this sum, indeed, the expenses of print- 
 ing the edition for the subscribers, were to be deducted. I have likewise reason 
 to believe, that he had consumed a much larger proportion of these gains than 
 prudence could approve, while he superintended the impression, paid his court 
 to his patrons, and waited the full payment of the subscription money. 
 
 He was now, at last, to fix upon a plan for future life. He talked loudly of 
 independence of spirit, and simplicity of manners : and boasted his resolution to 
 return to the plough. Yet, still he lingered in Edinburgh, week after week, and 
 month after month, perhaps expecting that one or other of his noble patrons 
 might procure him some permanent and competent annual income, which should 
 set him above all necessity of future exertions to earn for himself the means of 
 subsistence ; perhaps unconsciously reluctant to quit the pleasures of that volup- 
 tuous town life to which he had for some time too willingly accustomed himselt
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 451 
 
 Aii accidental dislocation or fracture of an ann or a leg, which confined him for 
 some weeks to his apartment, left him, during this time, leisure for serious reflec- 
 tion; and he determined to retire from the town, without longer delay. None of ah 1 
 his patrons interposed to divert him from his purpose of returning to the plough, 
 by the offer of any small pension, or any sinecure place of moderate emolument, 
 such as might have given him competence, without withdrawing him from his 
 poetical studies. It seemed to be forgotten, that a ploughman thus exalted into 
 a man of leiters, was unfitted for his former toils, without being regularly qua- 
 lified to enter the career of any new profession ; and that it became incumbent 
 upon those patrons who had called him from the plough, not merely to make 
 him their companion in the hour of riot not simply to fill his purse with gold 
 for a few transient expenses, but to secure him, as far as was possible, from being 
 ever overwhelmed in distress, in co. -.sequence of the favour which they had 
 shown him, and of the habits of life into which they had seduced him. Per- 
 haps, indeed, the same delusion of fancy betrayed both Burns and his patrons 
 into the mistaken idea, that, after all which had passed, it was still possible for 
 him to return, in cheerful content, to the homely joys and simple toils of undis- 
 sipated rural life. 
 
 In this temper of Bnrns's mind, in this state of his fortune, a farm and the 
 excise were the objects upon which his choice ultimately fixed for future employ- 
 ment and support. 
 
 Mr Alexander Wood, the s'irgeon who attended him during the illness occa- 
 sioned by his hurt, no sooner understood his patient's wish to seek a resource in 
 the service of the excise, than he, with the usual activity of his benevolent char- 
 acter, effectually recommended the poet to the commissioners of excise ; and the 
 name of Burns was enrolled in the list of their expectant officers. Peter Miller, 
 Jisq. of Dalswinton, deceived, like Bums himself, and Burns' other friends, into 
 an idea, that the poet and exciseman might yet be respectable and happy as a 
 farmer, generously proposed to establish him in a farm, upon conditions of lease 
 which prudence and industry might easily render exceedingly advantageous. 
 Burns eagerly accepted the offers of this benevolent patron. Two of the poet's 
 friends, from Ayrshire, were invited to survey that farm in Dumfries-shire, which 
 .Air Miller offered. A lease was granted to the poetical farmer at that annual 
 rent which his own friends declared that the due cultivation of his farm might easily 
 enable him to pay ; what yet remained of the profits of his publication was laid 
 out in the purchase of farm stock ; and 3Ir Miller might, for some short time, 
 please himself with the persuasion that he had approved himself the liberal 
 patron of genius ; had acquired a good tenant upon his estate ; .and had placed 
 a deserving n,an in the very situation in which alone he himself desired to be 
 placed, in order to be liappy to his wishes. 1 
 
 i Heron's account of the leasing of Ellisland is erroneous : the following we before to be a 
 correct and authorised statement, being given as such in Dr Robert Anderson s Edinburgh 
 Magudne, for June 1799: 
 
 " Mr Miller offered Mr Bums the choice of several farms on the estate oi ton, 
 
 which were at that time out of lease. Mr Burns gave the preference to the Bum ol i-llis mil, 
 most char 
 most 
 showing 

 
 452 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 Burns, with his Jane, whom he now married, took up their residence upon 
 liis farm. The neighbouring farmers and gentlemen, pleased to obtain for an 
 inmate among them, the poet by whose works they had been delighted, kindly 
 sought his company, and invited him to their houses. He found an inexpressi- 
 ble charm in sitting down beside his wife, at his own fireside ; in wandering 
 over his own grounds ; in once more putting his hand to the spade and the 
 plough ; in forming his inclosures ; .and managing his cattle. For some mo- 
 ments he felt almost all that felicity which fancy had taught him to expect in his 
 new situation. He had been, for a time, idle; but his muscles were not yet 
 unbraced for rural toil. He hnd heen admitted to flatter ladies of fashion ; but 
 he now seemed to find a joy in being the husband of the mistress of his affec- 
 tions ; in seeing himself the father of her children, such as might promise to 
 attach him for ever to that modest, humble, and domestic life, in which alone he 
 could hope to be permanently happy. Even his engagements in the service of 
 the excise did not, at the very first, threaten necessarily to debase him, by asso- 
 ciation with the mean, the gross, and the profligate, to contaminate the poet, or 
 to ruin the farmer. 
 
 But, 'it could not be : it was not possible for Burns now to assume that sober- 
 ness of fancy and pnssions, that sedateness of feeling, those habits of earnest 
 attention to gross and vulgar cares, without which, success in his new situation 
 was not to be expected. A thousand difficulties were to be encountered and, 
 overcome, much money was to be expended, much weary toil was to be exer- 
 cised, before his farm could be brought into a state of cultivation, in which its 
 produce might enrich the occupier. The prospect before him was, in this re- 
 spect, such as might well have discouraged the most stubbornly laborious peasant, 
 the most sanguine projector in agriculture ; and much more, therefore, was it 
 likely, that this prospect should quickly dishearten Bums, who had never loved 
 labour, and who was, at this time, certainly not at all disposed to enter into 
 agriculture with the enthusiasm of a projector. Beside all this, I have reason to 
 believe, that the poet had made his bargain rashly, and had not duly availed 
 himself of his patron's generosity. His friends, from Ayrshire, were little ac- 
 quainted with the soil, with the manures, with the markets, with the dairies, with 
 the modes of improvement, in Dumfries-shire. They had set upon his farm rather 
 such a value of rental, as it might have borne in Ayrshire, than that which it could 
 easily afford in the local circumstances in which it was actually placed. He 
 himself had inconsiderately submitted to their judgment, without once doubting 
 whether they might not have erred against his interests, without the slightest 
 wish to make a bargain artfully advantageous to himself. And the necessary 
 consequence was, that he held his farm at too high a rent, contrary to his land- 
 lord's intention. The business of the excise too, as he began to be more and 
 more employed in it, distracted his mind from the care of his farm, led him into 
 gross and vulgar society, and exposed him to many unavoidable temptations to 
 drunken excess, such as he had no longer sufficient fortitude to resist. Amidst 
 the anxieties, distractions, and seducements, which thus arose to him, home 
 became insensibly less and less pleasing; even the endearments of his Jane's 
 affection began to lose their hold on his heart ; he became every day less and 
 less unwilling to forget in riot those gathering sorrows which he knew not to 
 subdue. 
 
 Mr Miller, and some others of his friends, would gladly have exerted an 
 
 the habits of dissipation of a town life; and that, had poor Burns followed the advice given 
 him, he might, perhaps, have still been alive and happy." 
 
 There can be no doubt, from the cheapness of the farm and the length of the lease, that, 
 had the poet continued to cultivate it for some years, he would have had the opportunity 
 of becoming very rich.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 453 
 
 influence over his mind, which might have preserved him, in this situation of 
 his affairs, equally from despondency, and from dissipation. But Burns' temper 
 spurned all control from his superiors in fortune. He resented, as an arrogant 
 encroachment upon his independence, that tenor of conduct by which Mr Miller 
 wished to turn him from dissolute conviviality, to that steady attention to the 
 business of his farm, without which it was impossible to thrive in it. In the 
 neighbourhood were other gentlemen occasionally addicted, like Burns, to con- 
 vivial excess ; who, while they admired the poet's talents, and were charmed 
 with his licentious wit, forgot the care of his real interests in the pleasure which 
 they found in his company, and in the gratification which the plenty and festi- 
 vity of their tables appeared evidently to afford him. With these gentlemen, 
 while disappointments and disgusts continued to multiply upon him in his present 
 situation, he continued to diverge every day more and more into dissipation ; 
 and his dissipation tended to enhance whatever was disagreeable and perplexing 
 in the state of his affairs. 
 
 He sunk, by degrees, into the boon-companion of mere excisemen ; and almost 
 every drunken fellow, who was willing to spend his money lavjshly in the ale- 
 house, could easily command the company of Burns. The care of his farm was 
 thus neglected ; waste and losses wholly consumed his little capital ; he resigned 
 his lease into the hands of his landlord ; and retired with his family to the town 
 of Dumfries, determining to depend entirely for the means of future support upon 
 his income as an exciseman. 
 
 Yet during this unfortunate period of his life, which passed between his/de- 
 parture from Edinbutgh to settle in Dumfries-shire, and his leaving the country 
 in order to take up his residence in the town of Dumfries, the energy and acti- 
 vity of his intellectual powers appear to have been not at all impaired. He 
 made a collection of Scottish songs, which were published, with the music, by a 
 Mr Johnston, an engraver, in Edinburgh, in three small volumes, octavo. 1 In 
 making this collection, he, in many instances, accommodated new verses to the 
 old tunes, with admirable felicity and skill. He composed several other poems, 
 such as the tale of Tarn o' Shanter, the Whistle, Verses on a Wounded Hare, 
 the pathetic Address to R * * * G * * * of F * * *, and some others which he 
 afterwards permitted Mr Creech to insert in the fourth and fifth editions of his 
 poems.'' 
 
 He assisted in the temporary institution of a small subscription library, for 
 the use of a number of the well-disposed peasants, in Viis neighbourhood. He 
 readily aided, and by his knowledge of genuine Scottish phraseology and man- 
 ners, greatly enlightened the antiquarian researches of the late ingenious Captain 
 Grose. He still carried on an epistolary correspondence, sometimes gay, spor- 
 tive, humorous, but always enlivened by bright flashes of genius, with a number 
 of his old friends, and on a very wide diversity of topics. 3 At times, as it should 
 
 1 Six thin volumes, containing the most complete body of Scottish song and music in exist- 
 ence entitled, the Scottish Musical Museum. 
 
 2 Among the labours of t 
 reckoned a hundred exceller 
 
 huted to the musical publication of Mr George Tho , 
 
 but was more elegant and expensive, and contained accompaniments for the tunes by er 
 nodern musicians. . , , 
 
 3 Bums lent his muse on several occasions to aid the popular candidates in contested ele 
 tions. In one poem, which was handed about in manuscript, relating to such an artair, lie 
 thus alluded to Dr Muirhead, minister of Ur, in Galloway, a fellow rhymer :- 
 
 sh Musical Museum. 
 
 of this period of his life, and of the few remaining years, must be 
 illent songs, partly in Scotch and partly in English, which he coiitrv- 
 lication of Mr George Thomson, which resembled that of Johnston, 
 
 " Armorial bearings from the banks of Ur, 
 An old crab apple rotten at the core." 
 
 This 
 ver 
 
 is hit applied very well, for'Dr M. was a little, wind-dried, unhealthy looking rnannikm, 
 yproudof his genealogy, arid ambitious of being acknowledged on alloecasionsas the chief of
 
 4.31 IlOBEllT BURNS. 
 
 seem from his writings of this period, he reflected with inexpressible heart-bit- 
 terness, on the high hopes front which he had fallen ; on the errors of moral 
 conduct into which he had been hurried, by the ardour, and, in some mea- 
 sure, by the very generosity of his nature ; on the disgrace and wretched- 
 ness into which he saw himself rapidly sinking ; on the sorrow with which his 
 misconduct oppressed the heart of his Jane ; on the want and destitute misery 
 in which it seemed probable that he must leave her and her infants ; nor, amidst 
 these agonizing reflections, did he fail to look, with indignation half invidi- 
 ous, half contemptuous, on thase, who, with moral habits not more excellent than 
 his, witlt powers of intellect far inferior, yet basked in the sunshine of fortune, 
 and were loaded with th wealth and honours of the world, while his follies could 
 not obtain pardon, nor h.s wants an honourable supply. His wit became, from 
 this time, mote gloomily sarcastic; and his conversation and writings began to 
 assume something of a tone of misanthropical malignity, by which they had not 
 been before, in any eminent degree, distinguished. But, witli all theso failings, 
 he was still that exalted mind which had raised itself above the depression of 
 its original condition ; with all the energy of the lion, pawing to set free his 
 hinder limbs from the incumbent earth, he still appeared not less the archangel 
 ruined. 
 
 What more remains there for m to relate ? In Dumfries his dissipation be- 
 came still more deeply habitual ; 4 he w.is here more exposed than in the coun- 
 try to be solicited to share the riot of the dissolute and the idle ; foolish young 
 men, such as writers' apprentices, young surgeons, merchants' clerks, and his 
 brother excisemen, flocked eagerly about him, and from time to time pressed 
 him to drink with them, that they might enjoy his wicked wit.' s His friend 
 
 the Muirheiuls ' He WTIS not disposed, however, to sit down with the affront: on the contrary i 
 he re-plied to it in a virulent diatribe, wliich we present to the reader for the lirst time, as a 
 remarkable specimen of clerical and |x>ctid irritability, ami curious, moreover, as pcrliapb 
 the only contemporary satire upon Burns of which the world has ever hum! besides the im- 
 mortal "trimming letter" from his tailor. Dr Muirhead's jeu d' esprit is in die shape of a 
 translation t'rorn .Martial's ode "Ail Vacerram:" 
 
 " Vncerras, shabby son of whore, 
 
 Why do thy patrons keep thee poor? 
 
 Thou ait a s.cophant and traitor, 
 
 A liar, a calumniator, 
 
 Who conscience, (hadst thou that,) wouldst sell, 
 
 Nay, lave the common sewers of hell 
 
 For whisky Eke, most precious imp, 
 
 Thou art a gauger, rhymester, pimp, 
 
 How comes it, then, Vaeerras, that 
 
 Thou still art poor as a church rat?" 
 
 4 .Mr Lock hart, in his life of Burns, lias laboured with much ingenuity and eloquence to 
 show that the account wliich Heron gives of the latter years of the poet is considerably exag- 
 gerated. According to a series of documents quoted by Mr Lockhart, Hums, though latterly 
 a di^si|Kited man, was at no period remarkable for intemperance. The present author enter- 
 tains no feeling upon this subject except a regard for truth: he has therefore weighed in one 
 scale the common report of the age following Bums's own time, and the accounts then written, 
 allot' which were very unfavourable against the later narratives, in which his faults are exten- 
 uated or explained away ; and the result is a conviction in liis own mind that, as the tempta- 
 tions of Bums were great, so were his errors by no niemis little. He must acknowledge tli?.i 
 he has always looked upon this question in a different light from that in which it is viewed by 
 other writers. Regarding Bums altogether as a great moral wonder, he esteems his fault*, 
 whatever they were, as only the accident of his character; and he would no more put them 
 out of view in an estimate of the whole man, than would a physiologist overlook any slight 
 malformation in some splendidly elegant subject. He therefore adopts Heron's account not 
 without a perception tliat it is somewhat overdrawn, but also assured, since it comes nearest of 
 any thing he lias ever sot n to the reports of the greater number of witnesses, tliat it must be 
 the nearest of all to the truth. 
 
 " To a lady, (I have it from herself,) who remonstrated with him on the danger from 
 drink, and the pursuits of some of his associates, he replied, ' Madam, they would not thank 
 me for my company, if I did not drink with them , I must give them a slice of my constitu- 
 tion." Letter from Blooinjield, the ]>oet t to llu: Earl of JBuc/inri, E dinburgh Moidldy JUaga 
 tine and Review, 1810.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 455 
 
 Nicol made one or two autumnal excursions to Dumfries; and when they met 
 in Dumfries, friendship, and genius, and wanton wit, and good liquor could 
 never fail to keep Burns and Nicol together, till both the one and the other 
 were as dead drunk as ever was Silcnus. The Caledonian Club, too, and the 
 Dumfriesshire and Galloway hunt, had occasional meetings in Dumfries, after 
 Burns came to reside there; and the poet was, of course, invited to share their 
 conviviality, and hesitated not to accept the invitation. The morals of the town 
 were, in consequence of its becon.ing so much the scene of public amusement, 
 deplorably corrupted ; and, though a husband and a father, poor Burns did not 
 escape suffering by the general contamination. 1 In the intervals between his 
 
 1 Mr Robert Chambers, in his "Life and Works of Robert Burns" (]8">::), observes, 
 that "the charges brought against the poet on the score of intemperance have been' 
 proved to be greatly exaggerated. He was only the occasional boon companion, never 
 the dram-drinker or the sot." Mr Chambers, as the result of his own inquiries into tho 
 habits of the poet, gives the following description of the daily routine of his Dumfries life: 
 -" So existence flows on with Burns in this pleasant southern town. He has daily duties 
 in stnmping leather, gauging malt-vats, noting the manufacture of candles, and granting 
 licenses for the transport of spirits. These duties he performs with fidelity to the King 
 and not too much rigour to the subject. As he goes about them in the forenoon, in his 
 respectable suit of dark clothes, and with his little boy Robert perhaps holding by hi:; 
 hand and con' ersing with him on his snhool-exercises, he is beheld by the general public 
 with respect, as a person in some authority, the head of a family, and also as a man of 
 literary note ; and people are heard addressing him deferentially as Mr. Burns a f&rm of 
 his name which is still prevalent in Dumfries. At a leisure-hour before dinner, he will 
 call at some house where there is a piano, such as Mr Newall, the writer's, and there 
 have some young Miss to touch over for him one or two of his favourite Scotch airs, snob 
 as the ' Sutor's Daughter,' in order that he may accommodate to it some stanzas that 
 have been humming through his brain for the last few days. For another half-hour, ho 
 will be seen standing at the head of some cross street with two or three young fellows, 
 bankers' clerks, or ' writer chiels ' commencing business, whom he is regaling with sallies 
 of his bright hut not always innocent wit indulging there, indeed, in a strain of conversa- 
 tion so different from what had passed in the respectable elder y writer's mansion, that, 
 though he were not the same man, it could not have been more different. Later in the 
 day, he takes a solitary walk along the Dock Green by the river side, or to Lincludcti, 
 and composes the most part of a new song ; or he spends a couple of hours at his folding- 
 down desk, between the fire and window in his parlour, transcribing, in his bold round 
 hand, the remarks which occur to him on Mr Thomson's last letter, together with some of 
 his own recently-composed songs. As a possible variation upon this routine, he has been 
 sepn passing along the old bridge of Devorgilla Balliol, about three o'clock, with hia 
 sword-cane in his Jiand, and his black beard unusnady well shaven, being on his way to 
 dine with John Syme at Ryedale, where young Mr Oswald of Auchincruive is to he of 
 the party or maybe in the opposite direction, to partake of the luxuries of John Bushby 
 at Tinwald Downs. But we presume a day when no such attraction invades. The 
 evening is passing quietly at home, and pleasant-natured Jean has made herself neat, and 
 come iu at six o'clock to give him his tea a meal he alw.iys takes. At this period, how- 
 ever, there is something remarkably exciting in the proceedings of the French army 
 under Pic-hegru : or Fox, Adam, or Sheridan, is expected to make an onslaught upon the 
 ministry in the House of Commons. The post comes into Dumfries at eight o'clock at 
 night. There is always a group of gentlemen on the street, eager to hear the news. 
 Burns saunter* out to the High Street, and waits amongst the rest The Convention has 
 decreed the annexation of the Netherlands or the new treason bill h s passed the House 
 of Lords, with only the feeble protest of Bedford, Derby, and Lauderdale. These things 
 merit some discussion. The trades-lads go off to strong ale in the closes ; the gentlemen 
 :-lide in little groups into the King's Arms Hotel or the George. As for Burns, he will 
 just have a single glass and a half-hour's chat beside John Hyslop's fire, and then go 
 quietly home. So he is quickly absorbed in the little narrow close where that vintner 
 maintains his state. There, however, one or two friends have already established them- 
 selves, all with precisely the same virtuous intent. They heartily greet the bard. Meg 
 
 their laughter. One jug succeeds another mirth abounds and it is not till Mrs Hyslop 
 has declared that they are going beyond all bounds, and she positively will not give tl 
 another dr p of hot water, that our bard at length bethinks him of returning me, 
 where Bonnie Jean has been lost in peaceful slumber for three hours, after vainly won 
 dering ' what can be keeping Robert out so late the nicht.' Burns gets to bed a lit 
 excited and worn out but not in a state to provoke much remark from his amiable
 
 456 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 different fits of intemperance, he suffered still the keenest anguish of remorse, 
 and horribly afflictive foresight. His Jane still behaved with a degree of ma- 
 ternal and conjugal tenderness and prudence, which made him feel more bitter- 
 ly the evil of his misconduct, although they could not reclaim him. At last, 
 crippled, emaciated, luring the very power of animation wasted by disease, 
 quite broken-hearted by the sense of his errors, and of the hopeless miseries in 
 which he saw himself and his family depressed, with his soul still tremblingly 
 alive to the sense of shame, and to the love of virtue; even to the last feebleness, 
 and amid the last agonies of expiring life, yielding readily to any temptation 
 that offered the semblance of intemperate enjoyment ; he died at Dumfries, on 
 the 21st of July, 1796, while he was yet three or four years under the age 
 of forty. 
 
 After his death, it quickly appeared that his failings had not effaced from the 
 minds of his more respectable acquaintance, either the regard which had once been 
 won by his social qualities, or the reverence due to his intellectual talents. The 
 circumstances of want in which he left his family, were noticed by the gentle- 
 men of Dumfries, with earnest commiseration. His funeral was celebrated, by 
 the care of his friends, with a decent solemnity, and with a numerous attendance 
 of mourners, sufficiently honourable to his memory. 1 Several copies of verses, 
 having, if no other merit, at least that of a good subject, were insetted in dif- 
 ferent newspapers, upon the occasion of his death. A contribution, by subscrip- 
 tion, was proposed, for the purpose ot raising a small fund for the decent support 
 of his widow, and the education of his infant children. This subscription was 
 very warmly promoted, and not without considerable success, by John Syme 
 Esq. of Dumfries, by Alexander Cunningham, Esq. W.S. Edinburgh ; and by 
 Dr James Currie, and Mr Roscoe, of Liverpool. Mr Stephen Kemble, mana- 
 ger of the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, with ready liberality, gave a benefit night 
 for this generous purpose. 
 
 1 sliall conclude this paper with a short estimate of what appeal's to me to 
 liave i>een Burns's real merits, as a poet and as a man : the most remarkable 
 quality he displayed, both in his writings and his conversation, was, certainly, an 
 enlarged, vigorous, keenly discerning, conscious comprehension of mind. What- 
 ever be the subject of his verse, he still seems to grasp it with giant force ; to 
 wield and turn it with easy dexterity ; to view it on all sides, with an eye 
 which no turn of outline and no hue of colouring can elude ; to mark all its 
 relations to the group of surrounding objects, and then to select what he chooses 
 O represent to our imagination, with a skilful and happy propriety, which 
 shows him to have been, at the same time, master of all the rest. It will not 
 be very easy for any other mind, however richly stored with various know- 
 ledge ; for any other imagination, however elastic and inventive, to find any 
 new and suitable topic that has been omitted by Burns, in celebrating the sub- 
 partner, in whom nothing can abate the veneration with which she has all along 
 regarded him. And though he beds at a latish hour, most likely he is up next 
 morning between seven and eight, to hear little Robert his day's lesson in Casar, or, if 
 the season invites, to take a half -hour's stroll before breakfast along the favourite Dock 
 (jreen." 
 
 ' He was buried with military honours by the Dumfries Volunteers, of which 
 corps he had been a member. It had been one of the latest flashes of his humour to 
 request a brother Volunteer not to allow the "awkward squad" to fire over him. 
 A mausoleum was erected over the poet's grave in 1817, at a cost of 1500; and a 
 monument on the banks of the Doon, in 1823, at a cost of 1600. Both are visited by 
 thousands annually. 
 
 Mrs Brns died in 18'34, in her sixty-eighth year. Three of the poet's sons, viz., 
 Robert, William, and James, yet (183'2) survive.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 457 
 
 jects of all his greater and more elaborate poems. It is impossible to consider 
 without astonishment, that amazing fertility of invention which is displayed, un- 
 der the regulation of a sound judgment, and a correct taste, in the Twa Dogs ; 
 the Address to the Deil ; Scotch Drink ; the Holy Fair ; Hallowe'en ; the 
 Cottar's Saturday Night ; To a Haggis ; To a Louse ; To a Mountain Daisy ; 
 Tarn o' Shanter ; on Captain Grose's peregrinations ; the humble Petition of 
 Bruar Water ; the Bard's Epitaph. Shoemakers, footmen, threshers, milk-maids, 
 peers, staymakers, have all written verses, such as deservedly attracted the no- 
 tice of the world ; but in the poetry of these people, while there was commonly 
 some genuine effusion of the sentiments of agitated nature, some exhibition of 
 such imagery as at once impressed itself upon the heart ; there was also much 
 to be ever excused in consideration of their ignorance, their extravagance of 
 fancy, their want or abuse of the advantages of a liberal education. Burns has 
 no pardon to demand for defects of this sort He might scorn every concession 
 which we are ready to grant to his peculiar circumstances, without being on this 
 account reduced to relinquish any part of his claims to the praise of poetical 
 excellence. He touches his lyre, at all times, with the hand of a master. He 
 demands to be ranked, not with the Woodhouses, the Ducks, the Ramsays, bul 
 with the Miltons, the Popes, the Grays. He cannot be denied to have been 
 largely endowed wilh that strong common sense which is necessarily the very 
 source and principle of all fine writing. 
 
 The next remarkable quality in this man's character, seems to have consisted 
 in native strength, ardour, and delicacy of feelings, passions, and affections 
 Si vis me Jlere, dolendum primum est ipsi tibi. All that is valuable in 
 poetry, and, at the same time, peculiar to it, consists in the effusion of particu- 
 lar, not general, sentiments, and in the picturing out of particular imagery. 
 But education, reading, a wide converse with men in society, the most exten- 
 sive observation of external nature, however useful to improve, cannot, even all 
 combined, confer the power of apprehending either imagery or sentiment with 
 ,sach force and vivacity of conception as may enable one to impress whatever he 
 may choose upon the souls of others, with full, irresistible, electric energy; this 
 is a power which nought can bestow, save native fondness, delicacy, quickness 
 ardour, force of those parts of our bodily organization, of those energies in the 
 structure of our minds, on which depend all our sensations, emotions, appetites, 
 passions, and affections. Who ever knew a man of high original genius, whose 
 senses were imperfect, his feelings dull and callous, his passions all languid and 
 stagnant, his affections without ardour, and without constancy ? others may be 
 artisans, speculatists, imitators in the fine ails ; none but the man who is thus 
 nclily endowed by nature, can be a poet, an artist, an illustrious inventor in 
 philosophy. Let any person first possess this original soundness, vigour, and 
 lelicacy of the primary energies of mind ; and then let him receive some im- 
 pression upon his imagination, which shall excite a passion for this or that par- 
 ticular pursuit : he will scarcely fail to distinguish himself by manifestations of 
 exalted and original genius. Without having, first, those simple ideas winch 
 belong, respectively, to the different senses, no man can ever form for himself 
 the complex notions, into the composition of which such simple ideas necessarily 
 jnter. Never could Burns, without this delicacy, this strength, this vivacity of 
 ;he powers of bodily sensation, and of mental feeling, which I would here claim 
 as the indispensable native endowments of true genius without these, never 
 could he have poured forth those sentiments, or pourtrayed those images which 
 have so powerfully impressed every imagination, and penetrated every heart. 
 Alu.osi Mi the sentiments and images diffused throughout the poems of Burns, 
 are frosii irom the mint of nature. He sings what he had himself beheld with 
 
 3M
 
 458 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 intereait'd attention what he had himself felt with keen emotions of pain or 
 pleasure. You actually see what he describes ; you more than sympathise with 
 his joys ; your bosom is inllamed with all his fire ; your heart dies away within 
 you, infected by the contagion of his despondency. He exalts, for a time, the 
 genius of his reader to the elevation of his own ; and, for the moment, confers 
 upon him all the powers of a poet. Quotations were endless ; but any person 
 of discernment, taste, and feeling, who shall carefully read over Burns' book, 
 will not fail to discover, in its every page, abundance of those sentiments and 
 images to which this observation relates ; it is originality of genius, it is keen- 
 ness of perception, it is delicacy of passion, it is general vigour and impetuosity 
 of the whole mind, by which such effects are produced. Others have sung, in 
 the same Scottish dialect, and in familiar rhymes, many of the same trpic* 
 which are celebrated by Burns ; but what, with Burns, pleases or fasc inates, in 
 the hands of others, cnly disgusts by its deformity, or excites contempt by its 
 meanness and uninteresting simplicity. 
 
 A third quality which the life and the writings of Burns show to have be- 
 longed to his character, was a quick and correct discernment of the distinction 
 between right and wrong between truth and falsehood; and this, accompanied 
 with a passionate preference of whatever was right and true, with an indignant 
 abhorrence of whatever was false and morally Mrong. It is true that he did not 
 uluays steadily distinguish and eschew the evils of drunkenness and licentious 
 love ; it is true that these, at times, seem to obtain even the approbation of his 
 muse; but there remains in his works enough to show, that his cooler reason, 
 and all his better feelings, earnestly rejected those gay vices which he could 
 sometimes, unhappily, allow himself to practise, and sometimes recommend to 
 others, by the charms which his imagination lent them. What was it but the 
 clear and ardent discrimination of justice from injustice, which inspired that in- 
 "dignation with which his heart often burned, when he saw those exalted by for- 
 tune, who were not exalted by their merits? His Cottar's Saturday Night, 
 and all his grave poems, breathe a rich vein of the most amiable, yet manly, and 
 even delicately correct morality. In his pieces of satire, and of lighter humour, 
 it is still upon the accurate and passionate discernment of falsehood, and of mo- 
 ral turpitude, that his ridicule turns. Other poets are often as remarkable for 
 the incorrectness, or even the absurdity of their general truths, as for interesting 
 sublimity, or tenderness of sentiment, or for picturesque splendour of imagery : 
 Burns is not less happy in teaching general truths, than in that display of sen- 
 timent and imagery, which more peculiarly belongs to the province of the poet. 
 Burns's morality deserves this high praise, that it is not a system merely of dis- 
 cretion ; it is not founded upon any scheme of superstition, but seems to have 
 always its source, and the test by which it is to he tried, in the most diffusive 
 benevolence, and in a regard for the universal good. 
 
 The only other leading feature of character that appears to be strikingly dis- 
 played in the life and writings of Burns, is a lofty-minded consciousness of his 
 own talents and merits. Hence the fierce contemptuous asperity of his satire ; 
 the sullen and gloomy dignity of his complaints, addressed, not so much to alarm 
 the soul of pity, as to reproach injustice, and to make fortunate baseness shrink 
 abashed ; that general gravity and elevation of his sentiments, which admits no 
 humbly insinuating sportiveness of wit, which scorns all compromise between the 
 right and the expedient, which decides, with the authoritative voice of a judge, 
 from v\hom there is no appeal, upon characters, principles, and events, whenever 
 they present themselves to notice. From his works, as from his conversation 
 and manners, pride seems to have excluded the effusions of vanity. In the com-
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 459 
 
 position, or correction of his poetry, he never suflered the judgment, even of his 
 most respectable friends, to dictate to him. This line, in one of his poems, 
 (" When 1 look back on prospects drear") was criticised ; but he would not con- 
 descend either to reply to the criticism, or to alter the expression. Not a few 
 of his smaller pieces are sufficiently trivial, vulgar, and hackneyed in the 
 thought are such as the pride of genius should have disdained to write, or, at 
 least, to publish ; but there is reason to believe that he despised such pieces, 
 even while he wrote and published them ; that it was rather in regard to the 
 effects they had already upon hearers and readers, tlian from any overweening 
 opinion of their intrinsic worth, he suffered them to be printed. His wit is al- 
 ways dignified : he is not a merry-andrew in a motley coat, sporting before von 
 for your diversion ; but a hero, or a philosopher, deigning to admit you to wit- 
 ness his relaxations, still exercising the great energies of his soul, and little 
 caring, at the moment, whether you do, or do not, cordially sympathise with his 
 feelings. 
 
 His poems may be all distributed into the two classes of pastorals, and pieces 
 upon common life and manners. In the former class, I include all those in 
 which rural imagery, and the manners and contiments of rustics are chiefly de- 
 scribed : in the ktter, I would comprehend his epigrams, epistles, and, in short, 
 all those pieces in which the imagery and sentiments are drawn from the condition 
 and appearances of common life, without any particular reference to the country. It 
 is in the first class that the most excellent of his poems are certainly to be found. 
 Those few pieces which he seems to liave attempted in the Delia Crusca style, ap- 
 pear to me to be the least commendable of all his writings; he usually employs 
 those forms of versification which have been used chiefly by the former writers or 
 poetry in the Scottish dialect, and by some of the elder English poets. His phrase- 
 ology is evidently drawn from those books of English poetry which were in his 
 hands, from the writings of former Scottish poets, and from those unwritten stores 
 of the Scottish dialect, which became known to him, in the conversation ol 
 his fellow peasants." Some other late writers in the Scottish dialect seem to 
 think, that not to write English is certainly to write Scottish ; Burns, avoid- 
 ing this error, hardly ever transgressed the propriety of English grammar, 
 except in compliance with the long accustomed variations of the genuine Scottish 
 dialect. 
 
 From the preceding detail of the particulars of this poet's life, the reader 
 will naturally and justly infer him to have been an honest, proud, warm-hearted 
 man ; of high passions, and sound understanding, and a vigorous and excursive 
 imagination. He was never known to descend to any act of deliberate mean- 
 ness. In Dumfries he retained many respectable friends, even to the last. It 
 may be doubted whether he has not, by his writings, exercised a greater power 
 over the minds of men, and, by consequence, on their conduct, upon their hap- 
 piness and misery, and upon the general system of life, than has been exercised 
 by any half dozen of the most eminent statesmen of the present age. The power 
 of the statesman is but shadowy, as far as it acts upon externals alone : the power 
 of the writer of genius subdues the heart and the understanding, and having thus 
 made the very spring of action its own, through them moulds almost all life and , 
 nature at its pleasure. Burns has not failed to command one remarkable sort ol 
 homage, such as is never paid but to great original genius a crowd of poetasters 
 started up to imitate him, by writing verses as he had done, in the Scottish dia- 
 icct ; but, O imitatores ! servum pecus ! To persons to whom the Scottish 
 dialect, and the customs and manners of rural life in Scotland have no charms, 
 I shall possibly appear to have said too much about Bums: by those who
 
 4GO KOBERT BURNS. 
 
 pnssioimtely admire him, 1 shall, perhaps, be blamed, as having said too 
 little. 1 ' 
 
 1 The following letter and poem by Burns were first published in the original edition of 
 this work: 
 
 LETTER TO MR BURNESS, AT MONTROSE. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 I this moment receive yours receive it with the honest hospitable warmth 
 of a friend's welcome. Whatever comes from you wakens always up the bitter blood about 
 my heart, which your kind little recollections of my parental friends carries as far sis it will 
 go. "Tis there, Sir, that man is blest! 'tis there, my friend, man feels a consciousness 
 of something within him above the trodden clod 1 The grateful reverence to the hoary, 
 earthly author of his being the burning glow, when he clasps the woman of his soul to liis 
 liosom the tender yearnings of heart for the little angels to whom he has given existence,. 
 these nature has poured in milky streams about the human heart; and the man who never 
 rouses them to action, by the inspiring influences of their proper objects, loses by far the most 
 pleasurable part of his existence. 
 
 My departure is uncertain, but I do not think it will be till after harvest. I will be on 
 very short allowance of time, indeed, if I do not comply with jour friendly invitation. When 
 it will be I don't know, but if 1 can make my wish good, I will endeavour to drop you a line 
 
 sometime before. My best compliments to Mrs . , I should [be] equally mortified 
 
 should I drop in when she is abroad; but of that, I suppose, there is little chance. 
 
 What 1 have wrote, heaven knows; 1 have not time to review it: so accept of it in the 
 beaten way of friendship. With the ordinary phrase, perhaps, rather more than ordinary 
 sincerity, I am, dear Sir, ever yours, &c. 
 
 MOSGIEL, Tuesday noon, 
 S*j>t.26, 1786. 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CHILD 
 
 () SWEET be thy sleep in the land of the grave, 
 
 My dear little angel, for ever 
 For ever oh no ! let not man be a slave, 
 
 His hopes from existence to sever. 
 
 Though cold be the clay where thou pillow 'st thy head, 
 
 In the dark silent mansions of sorrow, 
 The spring shall return to thy low narrow bed, 
 
 Like the beam of the day-star to-morrow. 
 
 The flower-stem shall bloom like thy sweet seraph form, 
 
 Ere the Spoiler had nipt thee in blossom, 
 When thou shrunk from the scowl of the loud winter storm, 
 
 And nestled thee close to that bosom. 
 
 O still I behold thee, all lovely in death, 
 
 Reclined on the lap of thy mother, 
 When the tear trickled bright, when the short stifled breath, 
 
 Told how dear ye were aye to each other. 
 
 My child, thou art gone to the home of thy rest, 
 
 Where suffering no longer am harm thee, 
 Where the songs of the good, where the hymns of the blest, 
 
 Through an endless existence shall charm thee. 
 
 While he, thy fond parent, must, sighing, sojourn 
 
 Through the dire desert regions of sorrow, 
 O'er the hope and misfortune of being to mourn. 
 
 And sigh for this life's latest morrow.
 
 DAVID CALDERWOOD. 461 
 
 CALDERWOOD, DAVID, an eminent divine and ecclesiastical historian. The 
 year of his birth, the place of his education, and the character of the family 
 from which he was descended, are ajl alike unknown. The earliest ascer- 
 tained fact of his life is his settlement, in 1604, as minister of Crailing, in Rox- 
 burghshire. Being a zealous supporter of the principles of presbytery, he set 
 himself with all his might to oppose the designs of the court, which aimed at the 
 introduction of a moderate episcopacy. In 1608, when the Bishop of Glasgow 
 paid an official visit to the synod of Merse and Teviotdale, Mr Calderwood gave 
 in a paper declining his jurisdiction. For this act of contumacy, he was con- 
 fined for several years to his parish, so as to prevent his taking any share in the 
 public business of the church. In the summer of 1617, king James paid a visit 
 to Scotland, for the purpose of urging forward his episcopal innovations. On 
 this occasion, while the parliament was considering how to intrust powers of 
 ecclesiastical supremacy to the king, the clergy were convened to deliberate in a 
 collusive manner, so that every thing might appear to be done with the consent 
 and approbation of the church. This assemblage was attended by the bishops, 
 who affected to consider it an imitation of the convocations of the English church. 
 Calderwood, being now permitted to move about, though still forbidden to attend 
 synods or presbyteries, appeared at this meeting, which he did not scruple to 
 proclaim as in no respect a convocation, but simply a free assembly of the clergy. 
 Finding himself opposed by some friends of the bishops, Mr Calderwood took 
 leave of them in a short but pithy speech, allusive to the sly attempts of ihe 
 king to gain the clergy, by heightening their stipends : " It was absurd," he 
 said, " to see men sitting in silks and satins, crying poverty in the kirk, while 
 purity was departing." He assisted, however, at another meeting of the clergy, 
 where it was resolved to deliver a protest to parliament, against a particular 
 article, or bill, by which the power of framing new laws for the church was to 
 be intrusted to an ecclesiastical council appointed T>y the king. This protest 
 was signed by Mr Archibald Simpson, as representing all the rest, who, for his 
 justification, furnished him with a roll containing their own signatures. One 
 copy of the document was intrusted to a clergyman of the name of Hewat, who, 
 having a seat in parliament, undertook to present it. Another remained with 
 Mr Simpson, in case of accident Mr Hewat's copy having been torn in a dis- 
 pute with Archbishop Spottiswoode, Mr Simpson presented his, and was soon 
 after called before the tyrannical court of High Commission, as a stirrer up of 
 sedition. Being pressed to give up the roll containing the names of his abettors, 
 he acknowledged it was now in the hands of Mr David Calderwood, who was then 
 cited to exhibit the said roll, and, at the same time, to answer for his seditious 
 and mutinous behaviour. The Commission court sat at St Andrews, and the 
 king having come there himself, had the curiosity to examine Mr Calderwood 
 in person. Some of the persons present came up to the peccant divine, and, in 
 a friendly manner, counselled him to "come in the king's will,'* that his 
 majesty might pardon him. But Mr Calderwood entertained too strong a sense 
 of the propriety and importance of what he had been doing, to yield up the 
 point in this manner. " That which was done," he said, " was done with de- 
 liberation." In the conversation which ensued betwixt the king and him, the 
 reader will be surprised to find many of the most interesting points of modern 
 liberty, asserted with a firmness and dignity worthy of an ancient Roman. 
 
 King What moved you to protest?
 
 462 DAVID CALDEUWOOD. 
 
 Calderwood. An article concluded among the laws of the articles. 
 
 King. But what fault was there in it? 
 
 Calderwood. It cutteth off our General Assemblies. 
 
 King. ( After inquiring how long Mr Calderwood had been a minister,) 
 Hear me, Mr David, I have been an older keeper of General Assemblies than 
 you. A General Assembly serveth to preserve doctrine in purity, from error, 
 and heresy, the kirk from schism, to make confessions of faith, to put up petitions 
 to the king in parliament But as for matters of order, rites, and things indif- 
 ferent in kirk policy, they may be concluded by the king, with advice of bishops, 
 and a choice number of ministers. 
 
 Calderwood. Sir, a General Assembly should serve, and our General Assem- 
 blies have served these fifty-six years, not only for preserving doctrine from error 
 and heresy, but also to make canons and constitutions of all rites and orders be- 
 longing to the kirk. As for the second point, as by a competent number of 
 ministers may be meant a General Assembly, so also may be meant a fewer 
 number of ministers than may make up a General Assembly. 
 
 The king then challenged him for some words in the protestation. 
 
 Calderwood, Whatsoever was the phrase of speech, we meant nothing but to 
 protest that we would give passive obedience to his majesty, but could not give 
 active obedience to any unlawful thing which should flow from that article. 
 
 King. Active and passive obedience ! 
 
 Calderwood. That is, we will rather suffer than practise. 
 
 King. I will tell thee, man, what is obedience. The centurion, when he 
 6 lid to his servants, to this man, go, and he goeth, to that man, come, and he 
 cometh : that is obedience. 
 
 Calderwood. To suffer, Sir, is also obedience, howbeit, not of that same kind. 
 And that obedience, also, was not absolute, but limited, with exception of a coun- 
 termand from a superior power. 
 
 Secretary. Mr David, let alone [cease] ; confess your error. 
 
 Calderwood. My lord, I cannot see that I have committed any fault. 
 
 King. Well, Mr Calderwood, I will let you see that I am gracious and fa- 
 vourable. That meeting shall be condemned before ye be condemned ; all 
 that are in the file shall be filed before ye be filed, provided ye will conform. 
 
 Calderwood. Sir, I have answered my libel I ought to be urged no fur- 
 ther. 
 
 King. It is true, man, ye have answered your libel ; but consider I am here ; 
 I may demand of you wheii and what 1 will. 
 
 Calderwood. Surely, Sir, I get great wrong, if I be compelled to answer 
 here in judgment to any more than my libel 
 
 King. Answer, Sir ! ye are a refractor : the Bishop of Glasgow, your ordi- 
 nary, and the Bishop of Caithness, the moderator of your- presbytery, testify ye 
 have kept no order ; ye have repaired neither to presbyteries nor synods, and 
 in no wise conform. 
 
 Colder wood. Sir, I have been confined these eight or nine years ; so my con- 
 formity or non-conformity, in that point, could not be well known. 
 
 King. Good faith, thou art a very knave. See these self-same puritans ; 
 they are ever playing with equivocations. 
 
 Finally, the King asked, " If ye were relaxed, will ye obey or not ? 
 
 Calderwood. Sir, I am wronged, in that I am forced to answer questions be- 
 ride the libel ; yet, seeing I must answer, I say, Sir, I shall either obey you, or 
 pive a reason wherefore I disobey ; and, if I disobey, your Majesty knows 1 am 
 to lie under the danger as I do now. 
 
 King. That is, to obey either actively or passively.
 
 JOHN CALLANDER. 463 
 
 Calderwood. I can go no further. 
 He was then removed. Being afterwards called up, and threatone;! with de- 
 privation, he declined the authority of the bishops to that effect ; for which con- 
 tumacy, he was first imprisoned in St Andrews, and then banished from the king- 
 doiu. When we read such conversations as the above, we can scarcely wonder 
 at the civil war which commenced twenty years afterwards, or that the efforts of 
 the Stuarts to continue the ancient arbitrary government of England were finally 
 ineffectual. 
 
 Mr Calderwood continued to reside in Holland from the year 1619, till after 
 the death of king James, in 1G25. Before leaving his country, he published a 
 book on the Perth assembly, for which he would certainly have been visited with 
 some severe punishment, if he had not been quick to convey himself beyond seas. 
 In 1623, he published, in Holland, his celebrated treatise, entitled, " Altare 
 Damascenum," the object of which was to expose the insidious means by which 
 the polity of the English church had been intruded upon that of Scotland. King 
 James is said to have been severely stung in conscience by this work. He was 
 found very pensive one day by an English prelate, and being asked why he was 
 so, answered, that he had just read the Altar at Damascus. The bishop desired 
 his majesty not to trouble himself about that book, for he and his brethren would 
 answer it. " Answer that, man !" cried the king sharply ; " how can ye ? there 
 is nothing in it but scripture, reason, and the fathers." An attempt was made, 
 however, to do something of this kind. A degraded Scottish gentleman, named 
 Scott, being anxious to ingratiate himself at court, published a recantation as 
 from the pen of Mr Calderwood, who, he believed, and alleged, was just dead. 
 There was only one unfortunate circumstance against Mr Scott. Mr Calderwood 
 soon let it be known that he was still alive, and of the same way of thinking as 
 ever. The wretched impostor is said to have then gone over to Holland and 
 sought for Mr Calderwood, in order to render his work true by assassinating 
 him. But this red ink postscript was never added, for (he divine had just return- 
 ed to his native country. 
 
 Mr Calderwood lived in a private manner at Edinburgh for many years, chiefly 
 engaged, it is supposed, in the unobtrusive task of compiling a history of the 
 church of Scotland, from the death of James V. to that of James VI. His ma- 
 terials for this work lay in Knox's History, Mr James Melville's Observations, 
 Mr John Davidson's Diary, the Acts of Parliament and Assembly, and other 
 state documents. The work, in its original form, has hitherto been deemed too 
 large for publication ; but manuscript copies are preserved in the archives of the 
 church, Glasgow University, and in the Advocates' Library. On the breaking 
 out of the troubles in 1638, Mr Calderwood appeared on the public scene, as a 
 warm promoter of all the popular measures. At the Glasgow assembly in that 
 ^ear, and on many future occasions, his acquaintance with the records of the 
 church proved of much service. He now also resumed his duty as a parish niin 
 ister, being settled at Pencaitland, in East Lothian. In 1643, he was appointed 
 one of the committee for drawing up the directory for public worship ; and, in 
 1646, an abstract of his church history was published under the care of the 
 General Assembly. At length, in 1651, while Cromwell's army occupied the 
 Lothians, Mr Calderwood retired to Jedburgh, where, in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of the scene of his earliest ministrations, he sickened and died at ? 
 good old age. Both his " Altare Damascenum," and his " True History of the 
 Church of Scotland," have been printed oftener than once ; but an edition of his 
 larger history is still a desideratum in Scottish literature. 
 
 CALLANDER, JOHX, of Craigforth, an eminent antiquary, was born in the 
 early part of the eighteenth century. He was the descendant of John Callan-
 
 464 JOHN CALLANDER. 
 
 der, his majesty's master-smith in Scotland, who seems to have been an industri- 
 ous money-making person, and who, tradition says, acquired part of his fortune 
 from a mistake on the part of government in paying in pounds sterling an ac- 
 count which had been stated in Scots money. The estate of Craigiorth, which 
 originally belonged to lord Elphinstone, v>as, in 16t>4. purchased by Mr Alex- 
 ander lliggins, an advocate, who became embarrassed by the purchase, and con- 
 veyed his right to Callander, from whom he had obtained large advances 
 
 of money. From tliat period the estate has remained in the possession of the 
 family, notwithstanding the strenuous, but unsuccessful exertions of lliggins to 
 regain it ; and of this family the subject of the present memoir was the repre- 
 sentative. 1 Of his private history, very little has been collected ; nor would it 
 probably have much interest to our readers.' 4 The nex-t work published by him 
 was " Terra Australis Cognita, or Voyages to the Terra Australis, or Southern 
 Hemisphere, during the IGtli, 17th, and 18th centuries," Edinburgh, I76'(i ; 3 
 rols. 8vo., a work translated from the French of Ue Bvosses. It was not till 
 thirteen years afterwards that he gave to the world his " Essay towards a literal 
 English Version of the New Testament in the Epistle to the Ephesians," printed 
 in quarto at Glasgow, in 1779. This very singular production proceeds upon 
 the principle of adhering rigidly to the order of the Greek words, and abandon- 
 ing entirely the English idiom. As a specimen of the translation, the 31st verso 
 of chapter v. is here transcribed. " Because of this shall leave a man, the father 
 of him, and the mother, and he shall be joined to the wife of him, and they shall 
 be even the two into one flesh." The notes to the work are in Greek, "a 
 proof, certainly ," as lias been judiciously remarked, " of Mr Callander's learn- 
 ing, but not of his wisdom." ( Urine's Bibtiotheca Biblica, p. 71. ) After it 
 followed the work by which Mr Callander is best known : " Two ancient Scot- 
 tish poems ; the Gaberlunzie Man, and Christ's Kirk on the Green, with notes 
 and observations." Edin. ] 782, 8vo. It would seem that he had for some time 
 meditated a dictionary of the Scottish language, of which he intended this as a 
 specimen, but which he never prepared fc.r publication. His principle, as an 
 etymologist, which consists " in deriving the words of every language from the 
 radical sounds of the first or original tongue, as it was spoken by Noah and the 
 builders of Babel," is generally considered fanciful, and several instances have 
 been given by Chalmers and others of the absurdity of his derivations. It is to 
 be regretted, that, in preparing these poems for the press, lie should have adopt- 
 ed so incorrect a text. In editing the latter of the two, he neither consulted 
 the Bannatyne MS., nor adhered strictly to the version of bishop Gibson or 
 Allan Ramsay, but gave " such readings as appeared to him most consonant to 
 the phraseology of the sixteenth century." Throughout the work he was in- 
 debted to his friend Mr George 1'aton, of Edinburgh ; but it would appear, from 
 one of the letters lately published, that the latter is not to be considered respon- 
 sible either for the theories which the work contains, or for the accuracy with 
 which it was executed. 
 
 In April, 1781, Mr Callander was, without any solicitation on his part, elect- 
 ed a fellow of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, which had been formed in the 
 preceding November,- by the late earl of Buchan ; and in the first list of oftice- 
 
 1 Litters from Bishop Percy, &c. to George Paton. Preface, p. viii. 
 2 Though a member Of the Scottish bar, the early part of his life seems to have .be. n devoted 
 to ekissical pursuits', in which it is acknowledged, he made great proficiency . A considera- 
 ble portion of the results of these studies were presented by him to the Society of Scottish 
 Antiquaries, in August, 1761. His MS&, which are entitled, " Spicile.jjia Antiquitatis 
 Graese, sive ex Veteribus 1'oetis Deperdiu Fragmenta,"arein five volunn s, folio. The same 
 researches were aft rvvurds directed to the illustration of Milton's " Paradise Lost," of which 
 a .specimen, containing his annotations on the first book, was printed at Glasgow, by Mi >-'> 
 Fouiis, in 1750, (4in. pp. 16?.) Of these notis an ammnt wili afterwards bf giv\:i.
 
 JOHN CALLA.NDER. 465 
 
 bearers his name appears as Secretary for foreign correspondence. Along with 
 several other donations, he presented them, in August of the same ye.-:r, with the 
 " Fragment^" already mentioned, and with the MS. notes on Paradise Lost, in 
 niise folio volumes. For more than forty years these annotations remained un- 
 noticed in the society's possession, but at length a paper written, it is supposed, 
 by the respectable biographer of the Admirable Crichton and Sir Thomas Craig, 
 appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, in which Callander is charged with having, 
 without acknowledgment, been indebted for a large proportion of his materials 
 to the labours of Patrick Hume, a Scotsman, who published a huge folio of 321 
 pages, on the same subject, at London, in 1695. At the suggestion of Mr David 
 Laing, a committee was appointed, in 1820, to examine the MSS., and present 
 the result to the society. From the report* drawn up by Mr Laing, it appears 
 tliat, although there are some passages in which the analogy between Callander's 
 remarks and those of Hume are so close that no doubt can be entertained of the 
 one having availed himself of the notes of the other, yet that the proportion to the 
 whole mass is so small, that it cannot be affirmed with truth the general plan or 
 the largest portion of the materials of the work are derived from that source. 
 On the other hand, it is candidly admitted, that no acknowledgment of his obli- 
 gations to his fellow-countryman are made by Mr Callander ; but unfortunately 
 a preface, in which such obligations are generally noticed, has never been writ- 
 ten for, or, at all events, is not attached to, the work. .According to the testi- 
 mony of Bishop Newton, the work by Hume contains " gold ;" but it is concealed 
 among " infinite heaps of rubbish :" to separate them was the design of the 
 learned bishop, and our author seems to have acted precisely upon the same prin- 
 ciple. Nor does he confine himself merely to the commentaries of Hume ; he 
 avails himself as often, and to as great an extent, of the notes of Newton, and of 
 the other contemporary critics. 
 
 Besides the works already mentioned, Mr Callander seems to have projected 
 several others. A specimen of a " Bibliotheca Septentrionalis " was printed in 
 folio, in 1778, " Proposals for a History of the Ancient Music of Scotland, 
 from the age of the venerable Ossian, to the beginning of the sixteenth century," 
 in quarto, 1781, and a specimen of a Scoto-gothic glossary, is mentioned in a 
 letter to the Earl of Buchan, in 1781. He also wrote " VindicicB Miltonianje, 
 or a refutation of the charges brought against Milton by [the infamous] William 
 Lander." The publication of this work was, however, rendered unnecessary, 
 from the appearance of the well-known vindication by i "r Douglas, afterwards 
 bishop of Salisbury. This was, perhaps, fortunate for its author ; not aware 
 of Lauder's character, he had taken it for granted that all his quotations from 
 Milton's works were correct, but he soon found that he had defended the poet 
 where " he stood in no need of any apology to clear his fame." It is probably 
 hardly worth mentioning, that he also projected an edition of Sir David Lindsay's 
 " Satyre," to be accompanied by a life of Lindsay from the pen of George Paton, 
 which he does not seem to have accomplished. 
 
 ' 31 r Callander, says the editor of Paton's Letters, 4 was, for many years, par- 
 ticularly distinguished for his companionable qualities. He had a taste for music, 
 and was an excellent performer on the violin. Latterly he became very retired 
 in his habits, saw little company, and his mind was deeply affected by a religio 
 melancholy, which entirely unfitted him for society. He died, at a good old 
 ago, upon the 14th September, 1789. By his wife, who was of the lamily oi 
 
 3 See Trans, of the Soc. of Scot. Autiq. vol. 3, part I. pp. 
 4"LcUi-rs from Thomas Ptrcy, DD. afterwards Bishop t,,Uiouiore f 
 of Craig forth, Esq., David Herd, and others, to George Patoii. Edinburgh, 
 p. x. 
 
 3N
 
 466 RICHARD CAMERON. 
 
 Livingston of Westquarter, he had seventeen children. His great-grandson is at 
 present in possession of the estate." 
 
 CAMERON, RICHARD, an eminent martyr of the Scottish church, and whose 
 name is still retained in the popular designation of one of its sects, was the son 
 of a small shopkeeper at Falkland in Fife. His first appearance in life was in 
 the capacity of schoolmaster and precentor of that parish under the episcopal 
 clergyman. But, being converted by the field preachers, he afterwards became 
 an enthusiastic votary of the pure presbyterian system, and, resigning those 
 offices, went to i-eside as a preceptor in the family of Sir Walter Scott of 
 Harden. From this place he was soon compelled to remove, on account of his 
 refusal to attend the ministrations of the parish clergyman. He then fell into 
 the company of the celebrated Mr John Welch, and was by him persuaded to 
 accept a licence as a preacher. This honour was conferred upon him by Mr 
 Welch and another persecuted clergyman in the house of Haughhead in Rox- 
 burghshire ; so simple was the ceremony by which these unfortunate ministers 
 recruited their ranks. Cameron soon excited the hostility of the indulged pres- 
 byterian clergy, by the freedom with which he asserted the spiritual indepen- 
 dence of the Scottish church, He was, in 1677, reproved for this offence at a 
 meeting of the presbyterian clergy at Edinburgh. The indulged ministers 
 having threatened to deprive him of his licence, he was induced to promise that 
 he would be more sparing in his invectives against them; an engagement which 
 afterwards burdened his conscience so much as to throw him into a deep mel- 
 ancholy. He sought diversion to his grief in Holland, where his fervid eloquence 
 and decided character made a strong impression upon the banished ministers. 
 These men appear to have become convinced that his extraordinary zeal could 
 end only in his own destruction, as Mr Ward, in assisting at his ordination, 
 retained his hand for some time upon the young preacher's head, and exclaimed, 
 " Behold, all ye beholders, here is the head of a faithful minister and ser- 
 vant of Jesus Christ, who shall lose the same for his Master's interest, and it 
 shall be set up before the sun and moon, in the view cf the world." 
 Cameron returned to his native country in 1680, and, although field-preach- 
 ing had now been nearly suppressed by the severity of the government, he 
 immediately re-commenced that practice. It is necessary to be observed, that 
 Cameron did not identify himself at any time with the presbyterian clergy in 
 general ; while his proceedings, so little squared by prudence or expediency, 
 were regarded by his brethren with only a gentler kind of disapprobation than 
 that which they excited in the government. The persecutoi's had now, by dint 
 of mere brute force, reduced almost all men to a tacit or passive conformity; 
 and there only held out a small remnant, as it was termed, who could not be 
 induced to remain quiet, and at whose head Mr Richard Cameron was placed, 
 on account of his enthusiastic and energetic character. On the 20th of June, 
 1680, in company with about twenty other persons, well-armed, he entered the 
 little remote burgh of Sanquhar, and in a ceremonious manner proclaimed at 
 the cross, that he and those who adhered to him renounced their allegiance 
 to the king, on account of h<s having abused his government, and also de- 
 clared a war against him and all who adhered to him, at the same time 
 avowing their resolution to resist the succession of his brother the Duke of York. 
 The bulk of the prcsbyterians beheld this transaction with dismay, for they 
 knew that the government would charge it upon the party in general. The 
 privy council immediately put a reward of five thousand merks upon Cameron's 
 head, and three thousand upon the heads of all the rest ; and parties were 
 ient out to waylay them. The little band kept together in anus for a month, 
 in the mountainous country, between Nithsdale and Ayrshire. But at length, on
 
 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 467 
 
 the 20th of July, when they were lying in a secure place on Airsmoss, Bruce 
 of Earlshall approached them with a party of horse and foot much superior in 
 numbers. Cameron, who was believed by his followers to have a gift of pro- 
 phecy, is said to have that morning washed his hands with particular care, in 
 expectation that they Mere immediately to become a public spectacle. His 
 party, at sight of the enemy, gathered closely around him, and he uttered a 
 short prayer, in which he thrice repeated the expression " Lord, spare the 
 green and take the ripe" no doubt, including himself in the latter description, 
 as conceiving himself to be among the best prepared for death. He then said to 
 his brother, ' Come, let us h'ght it out to the last; for this is the day which I 
 have longed for, and the day tliat I have prayed for, to die fighting against our 
 Lord's avowed enemies ; this is the day that we will get the crown." To all 
 of them, in the event of falling, he gave assurance that he already saw the 
 gates of heaven open to receive them. A brief skirmish took place, in which 
 the insurgents were aHowed even by their enemies to have behaved with great 
 bravery, but nothing could avail against superior numbers. Mr Cameron 
 being among the slain, his head and hands were cut off, and carried to Edin- 
 burgh, along with the prisoners, among whom was the celebrated Mr Hackstoun 
 of Rathillet It happened that the father of Cameron was at this time in prison 
 for non-conformity. The head was shown to the old man, with the question, 
 " Did he know to whom it had belonged." He seized the bloody relics with 
 the eagerness of parental affection, and, kissing them fervently, exclaimed, 
 " I know, I know them; they are my son's, my own dear son's: it is the 
 Lord ; good is the will of the Lord, who cannot wrong me or mine, but has 
 made goodness and mercy to follow us all our days." The head and hands 
 were then fixed upon the Netherbow Port, the fingers pointing upwards, in 
 mockery of the attitude of prayer. The headless trunk was buried with the 
 rest of the slain in Airsmoss, where a plain monument was in better times 
 erected over them. To this spot, while the persecution was still raging, Peden, 
 the friend of Cameron, used to resort, not so much, apparently, to lament his 
 fate, as to wish that he had shared it. "Oh to be wi' Ritchie !" was the frequent 
 and touching ejaculation of Peden over the grave of his friend. The name of 
 Cameron was applied to the small but zealous sect of presbyterians which he had 
 led in life, and has since been erroneously extended to the persecuted presby- 
 terians in general. The twenty-sixth regiment, which was raised at the 
 Revolution out of the west-country people who flocked to Edinburgh, was 
 styled, on that account, the Cameronian Regiment, which appellation, notwith- 
 standing the obvious error, it still retains. 
 
 CAMPBELL, ALEXANDER, musician and poet, was born in 17G4, at Tombea, 
 on the banks of Loch Lubnaig, above Callendar, and received his education at 
 the grammar-school of that town. While yet a youth, he removed to Edinburgh, 
 and studied music under the celebrated Tenducci and others. A decided taste 
 for the art, and especially for the simple melodies of his native country, in- 
 duced him to become a teacher of the harpsichord and of vocal music in 
 Edinburgh ; and as he was a zealous adherent of the scattered remnant who 
 still espoused the cause of the unhappy Stuarts, he became at the same time 
 organist to a non-juring chapel in the neighbourhood of Nicolson Street, where 
 the Rev. Mr Harper then officiated. -While in this situation, and still possessed 
 of all the keen feelings of youth, he became acquainted with Robert Burns, who 
 is said to have highly appreciated his ardent character, as he must have strongly 
 sympathised in his national prepossessions. It may also be mentioned that Mr 
 Campbell was music-master to Sir Walter Scott, with whom, however, he never 
 made any progress, owing, as he used to say, to the total destitution of that
 
 4G8 
 
 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 
 
 great man in the requisite of in ear. Mr Campbell was twice married, and on 
 the second occasion with such prospects of advancement, that he was induced to 
 abandon his profession, in which he was rising to eminence, and turn his atten- 
 tion to the study of medicine, which, however, he never practised on an 
 extended scale, though he was ready and eager to employ his skill for bene- 
 volent purposes. The connections of Mr Campbell's second wife were of so 
 elevated a rank in life, that he entertained hopes of obtaining, through their 
 means, some employment under government, in his medical capacity ; but in 
 this, as in many other things, he was destined to experience a bitter disappoint- 
 ment. In 1798, he published his first literary work, namely, " An Introduction 
 to the History of Poetry in Scotland," quarto; to which were added, "the 
 Songs of the Lowlands," with illustrative engravings by David Allan. The 
 History of Poetry, though written in a loose style, and deformed here and 
 there by opinions of a somewluit fantastic nature, is a work of considerable 
 research. It was dedicated to the artist Fuseli. It is worth mentioning that a 
 Dialogue on Scottish Music, prefixed to the History, was the first means of 
 giving foreign musicians a correct understanding of the Scottish scale, which, 
 it is \\ell known, differs from tliat prevalent on the continent; and it is con- 
 sistent with our knowledge, that the author was highly complimented on this 
 subject by the greatest Italian and German composers. About this time, Mi- 
 Campbell began to extend his views from literature to the arts ; and lie attained 
 to a very respectable proficiency as a draughtsman. In 1802, appeared his 
 best work, " A Tour from Edinburgh through various parts of North Britain, 
 &c." 2 vols. quarto, embellished with a series of beautiful aquatint drawings by 
 his own hand. This book is very entertaining, and, in some parts, (for instance, 
 the account of Scottish society in the early part of the eighteenth century,) it 
 betrays powers much above the grade of the author's literary reputation. In 
 1804, Mr Campbell was induced to appear as an original poet, in a work 
 entitled " the Grampians Desolate." If in this attempt he was not very successful 
 in the principal object, it must at least be allowed, that his various knowledge, 
 particularly in matters of Scottish antiquity, and the warm zeal with which he 
 advocates the cause of the exiled Highlanders, give the work an interest for the 
 pntriot and the antiquary. Mr Campbell finally published, in 181(5, two parts 
 of a collection of native Highland music, under the title Albyn's Anthology, 
 for which Sir Walter Scott, Sir Alexander Boswell, and other eminent literary 
 men, contributed modern verses. Unhappily, Mr Campbell's acquirements, 
 though' such as would have eminently distinguished an independent gentleman 
 in private life, did not reach that point of perfection which the public demands 
 of those who expect to derive bread from their practice of the fine arts. Even 
 in music, it was ihe opinion of eminent judges, that Albyn's Anthology would 
 have been more favourably received, if the beautiful original airs had been left 
 unencumbered with the basses and symphonies which the editor himself thought 
 essential. 
 
 Mr Campbell, in early life, had been possessed of a handsome person, and a 
 lively and social disposition. Gifted, as he then was, with so many of those 
 accomplishments which are calculated to give a charm to existence, it might 
 have been expected that his life would liave been one of happiness and pros- 
 perity. It was in every respect the reverse. Some unhappy misunderstanding 
 with the relations of his second wife led to a separation between them, and two 
 individuals, who, united, could have promoted each other's happiness, lived 
 for ever after apart and miserable. A numerous train of disappointments, not 
 exclusively literary, tended further to embitter the declining years of this 
 unfortunate man of genius. Yet his own distresses, and they were numerous,

 
 : -*--ia 
 
 MARQUIS Qr AP 
 .AFTER THE OIUGtXAX, A
 
 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 469 
 
 both from disease and difficulty of circumstances, could never either break his 
 spirits, or chill his interest in the happiness of his friends. If he had the 
 foibles of a keen temper, he was free from the faults of a sullen and cold dispo- 
 sition. After experiencing as many of the vicissitudes of life as foil to the lot 
 of most men, he died of apoplexy on the 15th of May, 1824, in the sixty-first 
 year of his age. 
 
 CAMPBELL, ARCHIBALD, Marquis of Argyle, an eminent political character of 
 the seventeenth century, born in 1598, was the son of Archibald, seventh earl of 
 Argyle. He was carefully educated in a manner suitable to the important place 
 in society, which his birth distined him to occupy. Having been well grounded 
 in the various branches of classical knowledge, he added to these, an attentive 
 perusal of the holy scriptures, in consequence of which his mind became at an 
 early period deeply imbued with a sense of religion, which, amidst all the vicis- 
 situdes of an active and eventful life, became stronger and stronger till his 
 dying day. There had long been an hereditary feud subsisting between his 
 family and the clan of the 31acdonalds, against whom he accompanied his father 
 on an expedition in the year 1616, being then only in the eighteenth year of 
 his age ; and two years afterwards, his father having left the kingdom, the care 
 of the Highlands, and especially of the protestant interest there, devolved almost 
 entirely upon him. In 1626, he was sworn of his majesty's most honourable 
 privy council, and in 1628, surrendered into the hands of the king, so far as 
 lay in his power, the office of justice general in Scotland, which had been here- 
 ditary in his family, but reserving to himself and his heirs the office of justiciary 
 of Argyle, and the Western Isles, which was confirmed to him by act of parlia- 
 ment. In 1633, the earl of Argyle having declared himself a Roman Catholic, 
 WT.S commanded to make over his estate to his son by the king, reserving to 
 himself only as much as might support him in a manner suitable to his quality 
 during the remainder of his life. Lord Lome, thus prematurely possessed of 
 political and territorial influence, was, in 1634, appointed one of the extraor- 
 dinary lords of Session; and in the month of April, 1638, after the national 
 covenant had been framed and sworn by nearly all the ministers and people of 
 Scotland, he was summoned up to London, along with Traquair the treasurer, 
 and Roxburgh, lord privy seal, to give advice with regard to what line of con- 
 duct his majesty should adopt under the existing circumstances. They were all 
 equally aware that the covenant was hateful to the king ; but Argyle alone 
 spoke freely and honestly, recommending the entire abolition of those innova- 
 tions which bis majesty had recklessly made on the forms of the Scottish church, 
 and which had been solely instrumental in throwing Scotland into its present 
 hostile attitude. Traquair advised a temporizing policy till his majesty's affairs 
 should be in a better condition ; but the bishops of Galloway. Ross, and Firechin 
 insisted upon the necessity of strong measures, and suggested a plan for raising 
 an army in the north, that should be amply sufficient for asserting the dignity 
 of the crown, and repressing the insolence of the covenanters. This alone was 
 the advice that was agreeable to his majesty, and he followed it out with a 
 blindness alike fafcil to himself and the kingdom. The earl of Argyle, being 
 at this time at court, a bigot to the Romish faith, and friendly to the designs of 
 the king, advised his majesty to detain the lord Lome a prisoner at London, 
 assuring him that, if he was permitted to return to Scotland, he would certainly 
 do him a mischief. But the king, supposing (his advice to be the fruit of lh 
 old man's irritation at the loss of his estate, and probably afraid, as seeing no 
 feasible pretext for taking such a violent step, allowed him to depart in peace. 
 He returned to Edinburgh on the twentieth of May, and was one of the last of 
 the Scottish nobility that signed the national covenant, which he did not do till
 
 470 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 
 
 he was commanded to do it by the king. His father dying- this same >ear, he 
 succeeded to all his honours, and the remainder of his property. During the 
 time he was in London, Argyle was certainly informed of the plan that had 
 been already concerted for an invasion in Scotland by the Irish, under the 
 marquis of Antrim, who for the part he performed in that tragical drama, was 
 to be rewarded with the whole district of Kintyre, which formed a principal 
 part of the family patrimony of Argyle. This partitioning of his property 
 without having been either asked or given, and for a purpose so nefarious, must 
 have had no small influence in alienating from the court a man who had imbibed 
 high principles of honour, had a strong feeling of family dignity, and was 
 an ardent lover of his country. He did not, however, take any decisive step 
 till the assembly of the church, that met at Glasgow, November the twenty first, 
 1638, under the auspices of the marquis of Hamilton, as lord high commissioner. 
 When the marquis, by protesting against every movement that was made by the 
 court, and finally by attempting to dissolve it the moment it came to enter upon 
 the business for which it had been so earnestly solicited, discovered that he was 
 only playing the game of the king ; Argyle, as well as several other cf the 
 young nobility, could no longer refrain from taking an active part in the work 
 of Reformation. On the withdrawal of the commissioner, all the privy council 
 followed him, except Argyle, whose presence gave no small encouragement to 
 the assembly to continue its deliberations, besides that it impressed the specta- 
 tors with an idea that the government could not be greatly averse to the con- 
 tinuation of the assembly, since one of its most able and influential members 
 encouraged it with his presence. At the close of the assembly, Mr Henderson 
 the moderator, sensible of the advantages they had derived from his presence, 
 complimented him in a handsome speech, in which he regretted that his lordship 
 had not joined with them sooner, but hoped that God liad reserved him for the 
 best times, and that he would yet highly honour him in making him instru- 
 mental in promoting the best interests of his church and people. To this his 
 lordship made a suitable reply, declaring that it was not from the want of af- 
 fection to the cause of God and his country that he had not sooner come for- 
 ward to their assistance, but from a fond hope that, by remaining with the court, 
 he might have been able to bring about a redress of their grievances, to the 
 comfort and satisfaction of both parties. Finding, however, that it was impos- 
 sible to follow this course any longer, without being unfaithful to his God and 
 his country, he had at last adopted the line of conduct they witnessed, and 
 which he Mas happy to find had obtained their approbation. This assembly, 
 so remarkable for the bold character of its acts, all of which were liable to 
 the charge of treason, sat twenty-six days, and in that time accomplished all 
 that had been expected from it The six previous assemblies, all that had been 
 held since the accession of James to the English crown, were unanimously de- 
 clared unlawful, and of course all their acts illegal In that held at Linlithgow 
 1606, all the acts that were passed were sent down from the court ready framed, 
 and one appointing bishops constant moderators, was clandestinely inserted 
 among them without ever having been brought to a vote, besides that eight of 
 the most able ministers delegated to attend it, were forcibly prevented in an il- 
 legal manner by the constituted authorities from attending. In that held at 
 Glasgow in 1608, nobles and barons attended and voted by the simple mandate 
 of the king, besides several members from presbyteries, and thirteen bishops who 
 had no commission. Still worse was that at Aberdeen 1616, where the most 
 shameful bribery was openly practised, and no less than sixteen of his creatures 
 were substituted by the primate of St Andrews for sixteen lawfully chosen commis- 
 sioners. That which followed at St Andrews was so notoriously illegal, as nevei
 
 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 471 
 
 to h.ive found a defender; and the most noxious of all, that at Perth in 16U), 
 was informal and disorderly in almost all possible respects. The chair was 
 assumed by the archbishop of St Andrews without any election ; members, how- 
 ever regularly chosen and attested, lhat were suspected not to be favourable to 
 court measures, were struck out and their places filled up by such as the mana- 
 gers could calculate upon being perfectly pliable. The manner of putting the 
 votes and the use that was made of the king's name to influence the voters in 
 this most shamefully packed assembly, were of themselves good and valid reasons 
 for annulling its decisions. These six corrupt convocations being condemned as 
 illegal, their acts became illegal of course, and episcopacy totally subverted. 
 Two archbishops and six bishops were excommunicated, four bishops were de- 
 posed, and two who made humble submission to the assembly, were simply sus- 
 pended, and thus the whole Scottish bench was at once silenced. The assembly 
 rose in great triumph on the twentieth of December. " We have now," said the 
 moderator, Henderson, " cast down the walls of Jericho; let him that rebuildeth 
 them beware of the curse of Hiel the Bethelite." While the assembly was thus 
 doin- its work, the time-serving marquis of Hamilton was according to the in- 
 structions of his master, practising all the shifts that he could devise for affording 
 the king the better grounds of quarrel, and for protracting the moment of hos- 
 tilities, so as to allow Charles time to collect his forces. Preparations for an in- 
 vasion of Scotland had for some time been in progress, and in 3Iay, I63i), he 
 approached the border with about sixteen thousand men, while a large host of 
 Irish papists was expected to land in his behalf upon the west coast, and Ham- 
 ilton entered the Frith of Forth with a fleet containing a small army. 
 
 During this first campaign, while general Lesly with the main body of the 
 Scottish army marched for the border with the view of carrying the war into 
 England, Montrose, at this time the most violent of all the covenanters, was sent 
 to The north to watch over Huntly and the Aberdonians, and Argyle proceeded 
 to his own country to watch the Macdonalds, and the earl of Antrim, who 
 threatened to lay it waste. For this purpose he raised not less than nine hun- 
 dred of his vassals, part of whom he stationed in Kintyre, to watch the move- 
 ments of the Irish, and part in Lorn to guard against the 3Iacdonalds, while with 
 a third part he passed over into Arran, which he secured by seizing upon the 
 castle of Brodick, one of the strengths belonging to the marquis of Hamilton ; 
 and this rendered the attempt on the part of the Irish at the time -nearly impos- 
 sible. On the pacification that took place at Birks, near Berwick, Argyle was 
 sent for to court ; but the earl of Loudon having been sent up as commissioner 
 from the Scottish estates, and by his majesty's order sent to the Tower, where he 
 was said to have narrowly escaped a violent death, the earl of Argyle durst not, 
 at this time, trust himself in the king's hands. On the resumption of hostilities 
 in 1640, when Charles was found to have signed the treaty of Birks only to 
 gain time till he could return to the charge with better prospects of success, the 
 care of the west coast, and the reduction of the northern clans, was again in- 
 trusted to Argyle. Committing, on this occasion, J;he care of Kintyre and the 
 Islands to their own inhabitants, he traversed, with a force of about five thousand 
 men attended by a small train of artillery, the districts of Badenoch, Athol, and 
 Man- levying the taxes imposed by the estates, and enforcing subjection to their 
 authority. The earl of Athol having made a show of resistance at the Ford of 
 Lyon was sent prisoner to Stirling ; and his factor, Stuart, younger of Girant- 
 ullv with twelve of the leading men in his neighbourhood, he commanded to 
 enter in ward at Edinburgh till they found security for their good behaviour, 
 and he exacted ten thousand pounds Scots in the district, for the support of h,s 
 army Passin* thence into Angus, he demolished the castles of A.rly and For-
 
 472 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 
 
 thar, residences of the earl of Airly, ami returned to Argyllshire, the greater 
 part of his troops being sent to the main body in England. 
 
 In this campaign the king felt himself just as little able to contend with his 
 people, as in that of the previous year ; and by making concessions similar to 
 those he had formerly made, and, as the event showed, with the same insincerity, 
 he obtained another pacification at Rippon, in the month of October, HMO. 
 Montrose, who had been disgusted with the covenanters, and gained over by the 
 king, now began to form a party of loyalists in Scotland, preferring to be the 
 head of an association of that nature, however dangerous the place, to a second 
 or third situation in the insurgent councils. His designs were accidentally disco- 
 vered, while he was along with the army, and he was put under arrest. To ruin 
 Argyle, who was the object of his aversion, Montrose now reported, that at the 
 Ford of Lyon he had said that the covenanters had consulted both lawyers and 
 divines anent deposing the king, and had gotten resolution, that it might be 
 done in three cases desertion, invasion, and rendition, and that they had re- 
 solved, at the last sitting of parliament, to accomplish that object next session. 
 For this malicious falsehood Montrose referred to a Mr John Stuart, commissary 
 of Dunkeld, who upon being questioned retracted the accusation which he owned 
 he had uttered out of pure malice, to be revenged upon Argyle. Stuart '.vas, of 
 course, prosecuted before the justiciary for leading-making , and, though he pro- 
 fessed the deepest repentance for his crime, was executed. The king, though 
 he had made an agreement with his Scottish subjects, was getting every day upon 
 worse terms with the English, and in the summer of 1641, came to Scotland with 
 the view of engaging the affections of that kingdom to enable him to oppose the 
 parliament with the more effect. On this occasion his majesty displayed great 
 condescension ; he appointed Henderson to be one of his chaplains, attended 
 divine service without either service-book or ceremonies, and was liberal of his 
 favours to all the leading covenanters. Argyle was on this occasion particularly 
 attended to, together with the marquis of Hamilton, and his brother Lanark, 
 both of whom had become reconciled to the covenanters, and admitted to their 
 full share of power. Montrose, in the meantime, was under confinement, but 
 was indefatigable in his attempts to ruin those whom he supposed to stand be- 
 tween him and the object of his ambition, the supreme direction of public af- 
 fairs. For the accomplishment of this darling purpose, -he proposed nothing 
 less than the assassination of the earls of Argyle and Lanark, with the marquis 
 of Hamilton. Finding that the king regarded his proposals with horror, lie 
 conceived the gentler design of arresting these nobles during the night, after 
 being called upon pretence of speaking with him in his bed-chamber, when they 
 might be delivered to a body of soldiers prepared under the earl of Crawford, 
 who was to carry them on board a vessel in Leith Roads, or to assassinate them 
 if they made any resistance ; but, at all events, detain them, till his majesty had 
 gained a sufficient ascendancy in the country to try, condemn, and execute them 
 under colour of law. Colonel Cochrane was to have marched with his regiment 
 from Musselburgh to overawe the city of Edinburgh : a vigorous attempt was 
 at ^he same time to liave been made by Montrose to obtain possession of the cas- 
 tle, which, it was supposed, would have been the full consummation of their 
 purpose. In aid of this plot, an attempt was made to obtain a declaration for 
 the king from the English army, and the catholics of Ireland were to have made 
 a rising, which they actually attempted on the same day, all evidently under- 
 taken in concert for the promotion of the royal cause but all of which had t!i<; 
 contrary effect. Some one, invited to take a part in the plot against Argyle and 
 the Hamiltons, communicated it to colonel Hurry, who communicated it to general 
 Leslie, and he lost not a moment in warning the persons more immediately con-
 
 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 473 
 
 rorned, who took precautions for their security the ensuing right, and, next 
 taming, after Citing an apology to the king for their conduct, fled to KinieJ 
 Jruse, in \\ est Lothian, where the mother of the two Hamiltonsat that lime re- 
 The city of Edinburgh was thrown into a state of the utmost alarm, in 
 consequence of all the leading covenanters judging it necessary to have guards 
 placed upon their houses for the protection of their persons. In the afternoon 
 the king, going up the main street, was followed by upwards of five hundred' 
 armed men, who entered the outer hall of the Parliament house along with him, 
 which necessarily increased the confusion. The house, alarmed by this military 
 army, refused to proceed to business till the command of all the troops in the 
 city and neighbourhood was intrusted to general Leslie, and every stranger, 
 whose character and business was not particularly known, ordered to leave the 
 city. His majesty seemed to be highly incensed against the three noblemen, 
 and demanded that they should not be allowed to return to the house till the' 
 matter had been thoroughly investigated. A private committee was suggested, 
 to which the investigation might more properly be submitted than to the whole 
 house, in which suggestion his majesty acquiesced. The three noblemen re- 
 turned to their post in a few days, were to all appearance received into their 
 former state of favour, and the whole matter seemed in Scotland at once to have 
 dropped into oblivion. Intelligence of the whole affair was, however, sent up 
 to the English Parliament by their agents, who, under the name of commissioners, 
 attended as spies upon the king, and it had a lasting, and a most pernicious ef- 
 fect upon his affairs. This, and the news of the Irish insurrection, which speedily 
 followed, caused his majesty to hasten his departure, after he had feasted the whole 
 body of the nobility in the great hall of the palace of Holyrood, on the seven- 
 teenth of November, 1641, having two days before created Argyle a marquis. 
 On his departure the king declared, that he went away a contented prince from 
 a contested people. He soon found, however, that nothing under a moral as- 
 surance of the protection of their favourite system of worship, and church go- 
 vernment an assurance which he had it not in power, from former circum- 
 stances, to give could thoroughly secure the attachment of the Scots, who, to 
 use a modern phrase, were more disposed to fraternize with the popular party 
 in England, than with him. Finding on his return that the Parliament was get- 
 ting more and more intractable, he sent down to the Scottish privy council a 
 representation of the insults and injuries he had received from that parliament, 
 and the many encroachments they had made upon his prerogative, with a re- 
 quisition that the Scottish council would, by commissioners, send up to West- 
 minster a declaration of the deep sense they entertained of the danger and in- 
 justice of their present course. A privy council was accordingly summoned, to 
 which the friends of the court were more particularly invited, and to this meet- 
 ing all eyes were directed. A number of the friends of the court, Kinnoul, 
 Roxburgh, and others, now known by the name of Banders, having assembled 
 in the capital with numerous retainers, strong suspicions were entertained that a 
 design upon the life of Argyle was in contemplation. The gentlemen 'of Fife, 
 and the Lothians, with their followers, hastened to the scene of action, where 
 the high royalists, who had expected to carry matters in the council against the 
 English Parliament, met with so much opposition, that they abandoned their 
 purpose, and the king signified his pleasure that they should not interfere in 
 the business. When hostilities had actually commenced between the king and 
 the parliament, Argyle was so far prevailed upon by the marquis of Hamilton, 
 to trust the asseverations which accompanied his majesty's expressed wishes for 
 peace, as to be willing to second his proposed attempt at negotiation with the 
 Parliament, and he signed, along with Loudon, Warriston, and Henderson, tho 
 i. 3 o
 
 474 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 
 
 invitation, framed by the court party, to the queen to return from Holland, to 
 assist in mediating a peace between his majesty and the two houses of Parlia- 
 ment. '1 he battle of 'Edgehill, however, so inspirited the king, that he re- 
 jected the offer on the pretence tliat he durst not hazard her person. In l(i i^, 
 when, in compliance with the request of the Parliament of England, troops 
 were raised by the Scottish estates, to aid the protestants of Ireland, Arg\le \v;ts 
 nominated to a colonelcy in one of the regiments, and in the month of January, 
 1G14, he accompanied general Leslie, with the Scottish army, into England as 
 chief of the committee of Parliament, but in a short time returned with tidings 
 of the defeat of the marquis of Newcastle at Newburn. The ultra royalists, 
 highly offended at the assistance afforded by the estates of Scotland, to the 
 Parliament of England, had already planned and begun to execute different 
 movements in the north, which they intended should either overthrow the Estates, 
 or reduce them to the necessity of recalling their army from England for their 
 own defence. The marquis of Huntly having received a commission from 
 Cliarles, had already commenced hostilities, by making prisoners of the provost 
 and magistrates of Aberdeen, and at the same time plundering -the town of all 
 the arms and ammunition it contained. He also published a declaration of hos- 
 tilities against the covenanters. Earl Marischal, apprized of this, summoned the 
 committees of Angus and Mearns, and sent a message to Huntly to dismiss .his 
 followers. Huntly, trusting to the assurances he had had from Montrose, Crawford, 
 and Nithsdale of assistance from the south, and from Ireland, s.mt an insulting 
 reply to the committee, requiring them to dismiss, and not interrupt the peace 
 of the country. In the month of April, Argyle was despatched against him, with 
 what troops he could raise for the occasion, and came unexpectedly upon him 
 after his followers had plundered and set on fire the town of Montrose, whence 
 they retreated to Aberdeen. Thither they were followed by Argyle, who, learn- 
 ing that the laird of Haddow, with a number of his friends, had fortified them 
 selves in the house of Killie, marched thither, and invested it with his army. 
 Unwilling, however, to lose time by a regular siege, he sent a trumpeter offering 
 pardon to every man in the garrison who should surrender, the laird of Haddow 
 excepted. Seeing no means of escape, the garrison accepted the terms. Had- 
 dow was sent to Edinburgh, brought to trial on a charge of treason, found 
 guilty, and executed. Huntly, afraid of being sent to his old quarters in Edin- 
 burgh castle, repaired to the Bog of (iight, accompanied only by two or three 
 individuals of his own clan, whence he brought away some trunks filled with 
 silver, gold, and apparel, which he intrusted to one of his followers, who, find- 
 ing a vessel ready to sail for Caithness, shipped the trunks, and set off with them, 
 leaving the marquis to shift for himself. The marquis, who had yet one thou- 
 sand dollars, committed them to the care of another of his dependants, and tak- 
 ing a small boat, set out in pursuit of the trunks. On landing in Sutherland he 
 could command no better accommodation than a wretched ale-house. Next day 
 he proceeded to Caithness, where he found lodgings with his cousin-german, 
 Francis Sinclair, and most unexpectedly fell in with the runaway and his boxes, 
 with which by sea he proceeded to Strathnaver, where he remained in close re- 
 tirement for upwards of twelve months. In the meantime, about twelve hundred 
 of the promised Irish auxiliaries, under Alaster Macdonald, landed on the island 
 of Mull, where they captured some of the small fortresses, and, sailing for 
 the mainland, they disembarked in Knoydart, where they attempted to raise 
 some of the clans. Argyle, to whom this Alaster Macdonald was a mortal enemy, 
 having sent round some ships of war from Leith, which seized the vessels that 
 had transported them over, they were unable to leave the country, and he him- 
 self, with a formidable force, hanging upon their rear, they were driven into
 
 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 475 
 
 the interior, and traversed the wilds of Locliaber and Uadenoch, expectin* to 
 meet a royal army under Montrose, though in what place they had no kn"ow- 
 ledge. Macdonald, in order to strengthen them in numbers, liad sent through 
 the fiery cross in various directions, though with only indifferent success, till 
 Montrose at last met them, having found his way through the country in disguise 
 all the way from Oxford, with only one or two attendants. Influenced by Mon- 
 trose, the men of Athol, who were generally anti-covenanters, joined the royal 
 standard in great numbers, and he soon found himself at the head of a formid- 
 able army. His situation was not, however, promising. Argyle was in his rear, 
 being in pursuit of the Irish, who were perfect banditti, and had committed ter- 
 rible ravages upon Ins estates, and there were before him six or seven thousand 
 men under lord Elcho, stationed at Perth. Elcho's troops, however, were only 
 raw militia, officered by men who had never seen an engagement, and the lead- 
 ers among them were not unjustly suspected of being disaffected to the cause. 
 As the most prudent measure, he did not wait to be attacked, but went to meet 
 Montrose, who was marching through Strathearn, having commenced his career 
 by plundering the lands, and burning the houses of the clan Menzies. Eldio 
 took up a position upon the plain of Tippermuir, where he was attacked by 
 Montrose, and totally routed in the space of a few minutes. Perth fell at once 
 into the hands of the victor, and was plundered of money, and whatever was 
 valuable, and could be earned away. The stoutest young men he also impressed 
 into the ranks, and seized upon all the horses fit for service. Thus strength- 
 ened, he poured down upon Angus, where he received numerous reinforcements. 
 Dundee he attempted, but finding there were troops in it sufficient to hold it out 
 for some days, and dreading the approach of Argyle, who was still following 
 him, he pushed north to Aberdeen. Here his covenanting rage had been bit- 
 terly felt, and at his approach the committee sent off the public money and all 
 their most valuable effects to Dunnottar castle. They at the same time threw up 
 some rude fortifications, and had two thousand men prepared to give him a 
 warm reception. Crossing the Dee by a ford, he at once eluded their fortifications 
 and deranged their order of battle ; and issuing orders for an immediate attack, 
 they were defeated, and a scene of butchery followed which has few parallels in 
 the annals of civilized warfare. In the fields, the streets, or the houses, armed 
 or unarmed, no man found mercy : the ragged they killed and stripped ; the 
 well-dressed, for fear of spoiling their clothes, they stripped and killed. 
 
 After four days employed in this manner, the approach of Argyle, whom they 
 were not sufficiently numerous to combat, drove them to the north, where they 
 intended to take refuge beyond the Spey. The boats, however, were all 
 removed to the other side, and the whole force of Moray was assembled to 
 dispute the passage. In this dilemma, nothing remained for 31ontrose but 
 to take refuge among the hills, and his rapid movements enabled him to gain 
 the wilds of Badenoch with the loss only of his artillery and heavy baggage, 
 where he bade defiance to the approach of any thing like a regular army. 
 After resting a few days, he again descended into Athol to recruit, having sent 
 Macdonald into the Highlands on the same errand. From Athol he entered 
 Angus, where he wasted the estates of lord Couper, and plundered the house of 
 Dun, in which the inhabitants of Montrose had deposited their valuables, and 
 which also afforded a supply of arms and artillery. Argyle, all this while, fol- 
 lowed his footsteps with a superior army, but could never come up with him. 
 He, however, proclaimed him a traitor, and offered a reward of twenty thousand 
 pounds for his head. Having strengthened his army by forced levies in Atholj 
 Montrose again crossed the Grampians, and spreading devastation along his 
 line of march, attempted once more to raise the Gordons. In this he was
 
 476 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 
 
 still unsuccessful, and at tlie castle of Fyvie, which he had taken, ^as ai 
 last surprised by Argyle and the earl of Lothian, who, with an army of three 
 thousand horse and foot, were within two miles of his camp, when he believed 
 them to be on the other side of the Grampians. Here, had there been an\ 
 tiling like management on the part of the army of the Estates, his career liad 
 <vrlainly closed, but in military affairs Argyle was neither skilful nor brave. 
 After sustaining two assaults from very superior numbers, Montrose drew oft' his 
 little army with scarcely any loss, and by the way of Stralhbogie plunged again 
 into the wilds of liadenoch, where he expected Macdonald and the Irish with 
 what recruits they had been able tt> raise. Argyle, whose army was now greatly 
 weakened by desertion, returned to Edinburgh and threw up his commission in 
 disgust. The Estates, however, received him in the most friendly manner, and 
 passed an act approving of his conduct. 
 
 By the parliament which met this year, on the 4th of June, Argyle was named, 
 along with the chancellor Loudoun, lords Balmerino, Yl'arriston, and others, 
 as commissioners, to act in concert with the English parliament in their nego- 
 tiations with the king ; but from the manner in which he was occupied, he 
 must have been able to overtake a very small part of the duties included 
 in the commission. Montrose no sooner found that Argyle Lad retired and 
 left the field clear, than, to keep up the spirit of his followers, and to satiate 
 his revenge, he marched them into Glenorchy, belonging to a near relation of 
 Argyle, and in the depth of winter rendered the whole country one wide field 
 of blood : nor was this destruction confined to Glenorchy ; it was extended 
 through Argyle and Lorn to the very confines of Lochaber, not a house he was 
 able to surprise being left unburned, nor a man unslaughtercd. Spalding adds, 
 " he left not a four-footed beast in the haill country ; such as would not drive 
 he houghed and slew, that they should never make stead." Having rendered 
 the country a wilderness, he bent his way for Inverness, when he was informed 
 that Argyle had collected an army of three thousand men, and had advanced as 
 far as Inverlochy, on his march t6 the very place upon which lie himself was 
 advancing. Montrose was no sooner informed of the circumstance, than, striking 
 across the almost inaccessible wilds of Lochaber, he came, by a march of about 
 six and thirty hours, upon the camp of Argyle at Inverlochy, and was within 
 half a mile of it before they knew that there was an enemy within several 
 days' march of them. The state of his followers did not admit of an immediate 
 attack by Montrose ; but every thing was ready for it by the dawn of day, and 
 with the dissolving mists of the morning. On the second of February, lb'45, 
 Argyle, from his pinnace on the lake, whither he had retired on account of a hurt 
 he had caught by a fall from his horse, which disabled him from fighting, beheld 
 the total annihilation of his army, one luilf of it being literally cut to pieces, 
 and the other dissipated among the adjoining mountains, or driven into the 
 water. Unable to afford the smallest assistance to his discomfitted troops, he 
 immediately hoisted sails and made for a place of safety. On the twelfth of the 
 month, he appeared before the parliament, then sitting in Edinburgh, to which 
 he related the tale of his own and their misfortune, in the best manner 
 no doubt which the case could admit of. The circumstances, however, were 
 such as no colouring could hide, and the Estates were certainly deeply affected. 
 But the victory at Inverlochy, though JLS complete as victory can well be sup- 
 posed, and gained with the loss too of only two or three men, was perhaps 
 more pernicious to the victors than the vanquished. The news of it unhap- 
 pily reached Charles at a time when he was on the point of accepting the 
 terms of reconciliation offered to his parliament, which reconciliation, if 
 effected, might liave closed the war for ever, and he no sooner heard
 
 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 477 
 
 of this remarkable victory, than he resolved to reject them, and trust to 
 continued hostilities for the means of obtaining a more advantageous treaty. 
 Alontrose, also, whose forces were always reduced after a victory, as the High- 
 landers were wont to go home to deposit their spoils, could take no other 
 advantage of " the day of Inverlochy," than to carry on, upon a broader scale, 
 and with less interruption, the barbarous system of warfare which political, 
 religious, and feudal hostility had induced him to adopt. Instead of marching 
 towards the capital, where he might have followed up his victory to the utter 
 extinction of the administration of the Estates, he resumed his march along the 
 course of the Spey into the province of Moray, and, issuing an order for all the 
 men above sixteen and below sixty to join his standard, under the pain of 
 military execution, proceeded to burn the houses and destroy the goods upon 
 the estates of Grangehill, Brodie, Cowbin, Innes, Ballendalloch, Foyness, and 
 Pitchash. He plundered also the village of Garmouth and the lands of Burgle, 
 Lethen, and Duft'us, and destroyed all the boats and nets upon the Spey. 
 Argyle having thrown up his commission as general of the army, which was 
 given to general Baillie, he was now attached to it only as member of a 
 committee appointed by the parliament to direct its movements, and in this 
 capacity was present at the battle of Kilsyth, August 15th, 1645, the most dis- 
 astrous of all the six victories of Mont-rose to the Covenanters, upwards of six 
 thousand men being slain on the field of battle and in the pursuit This, 
 however, was the last of the exploits of the great marquis. There being no 
 more detachments of militia in the country to oppose to him, general David 
 Leslie, with some regiments of horse, were recalled from the army in England, 
 who surprised and defeated him at Fhiliphaugh, annihilating his little army, 
 and, according to an ordinance of parliament, hanging up without distinction ab 1 
 the Irish battalions. 
 
 In the month of February, 1646, Argyle was sent over to Ireland to bring 
 home the Scottish troops that had been sent to that country to assist in repres- 
 sing the turbulence of the Catholics. He returned to Edinburgh in the month 
 of May following. In the meantime, Alister Macdonald, the coadjutor ol 
 Montrosa, had made another tour through his country of Argyle, giving to the 
 sword and the devouring flame wliatever had escaped in the former inroads, so 
 that upwards of twelve hundred of the miserable inhabitants, to escape absolute 
 starvation, were compelled to emigrate, under one of their chieftains, Ardinglass, 
 into Menteith, where they attempted to settle themselves upon the lands of the 
 malio-nant. But scarcely liad they made the attempt, when they were attack- 
 ed by Inchbrackie, with a party of Athol men, and chased beyond the Forth 
 near Stirling, where they were joined by the marquis, who earned them into 
 Lennox, and quartered them upon the lands of lord Napier, till he obtained an 
 act to embody them into a regiment, to be stationed in different parts ot the 
 Highlands, and a grant from parliament for a supply of provisions for lus castle 
 So deplorably liad his estates been wasted by the inroads of Montrose ai 
 Macdonald, that a sum of money was voted him for the support of himseil 
 family and for paying annual rents to some of the more necessitous credi 
 upon'his estates. A collection was at the same time ordered through 
 churches of Scotland, for the relief of his poor people who had been plund 
 bv the Irish. In the month of July, 1 646, when the king had surrendered lum- 
 self to the Scottish army, Argyle went up to Newcastle to wait upon and pay h 
 respects to him. On (he 3d of August following, he was sent up to London 
 along with London, the chancellor, and the earl of Dunfermhne to treat will 
 the parliament of England, concerning a mitigation of the art.cles they 1 
 nrJuited to the king" with some of which he was not at all saUshed. He ,
 
 478 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 
 
 also on this occasion the bearer of a secret commission from the king, to consult 
 with the duke of Richmond and the marquis of Hertford concerning tlie pro- 
 priety of the Scottish army and parliament declaring for him. Both of these 
 noblemen totally disapproved of the scheme, as they were satisfied it would be 
 the entire ruin of his interests. In this matter, Argyle certainly did not act 
 with perfect integrity; and it was probably a feeling of conscious duplicity 
 which prevented him from being present at any of the committees concerning 
 the king's person, or any treaty for the withdrawal of the Scottish army, or the 
 payment of its arrears. The opinion of these two noblemen, however, he 
 faithfully reported to his majesty, who professed to be satisiied, but spoke of 
 adopting some other plan, giving evident proof tliat his pretending to accept 
 conditions was a mere pretence a put oft till he might be able to lay hold uf 
 some lucky turn in the chapter of accidents. It was probably from a painful 
 anticipation of the fatal result of the king's pertinacity, that Argyle, when he 
 returned to Edinburgh and attended the parliament, which assembled on the 
 3d of November, demanded and obtained an explicit approval of all that 
 he had transacted, as their accredited commissioner ; and it must not be lost 
 sight of, that, for all the public business he had been engaged in, except what 
 was voted him in consequence of his great losses, he never hitherto had received 
 one farthing of salary. 
 
 When the Engagement, as it was called, was entered into by the marquis of 
 Hamilton, and other Scottish presbyterian loyalists, Argyle opposed it, because, 
 from what he had been told by the duke of Richmond and the marquis of 
 Hertford, when he liad himself been half embarked in a scheme somewhat 
 similar, he believed it would be the total ruin of his majesty's cause. '1 he event 
 completely justified his fears. By exasperating the sectaries and republicans, 
 it was the direct and immediate cause of the death of the king. On the 
 march of the Engagers into England, Argyle, Eglinton, Cassilis, and Lothian, 
 inarched into Edinburgh at the head of a great multitude of people whom they 
 had raised, before whom the committee of Estates left the city, and the irre- 
 mediable defeat of the Engagers, which instantly followed, entirely sinking the 
 credit of the party, they never needed to return, the reins of government falling 
 into the hands of Argyle, Warriston, London, and others of the more zealous 
 party of the presbyterians. The flight of the few Engagers who reached their 
 native land, was followed by Cromwell, who came all the way to Berwick, uitli 
 the purpose apparently of invading Scotland. Argyle, in the month of .September 
 or October, 1<>48, went to Mordington, where he had an interview with that 
 distinguished individual, whom, along with general Lambert, he conducted to 
 Edinburgh, where he was received in a way worthy of his high fame, and 
 every thing between the two nations was settled in the most amicable manner, 
 the Solemn League and Covenant being renewed, the Engagement proscribed, and 
 all who had been concerned in it summoned to appear before parliament, \\hich 
 was appointed to meet at Edinburgh on the 4th of January, lu'4'J. It has 
 been, without the least particle of evidence, asserted that Argyle, in the 
 various interviews he held with Cromwell at this time, agreed tliat diaries 
 should be executed. The losses to which Argyle was afterwards subjected, and 
 the hardships he endured for adhering to Charles' interests after he was laid in 
 his grave, should, in the absence of all evidence to the contrary, be a sufficient 
 attestation of his loyalty, not to speak of the parliament, of which he \vas 
 unquestionably the most influential individual, in the ensuing month of February 
 proclaiming Charles II. king of Scotland, England, France, and Ireland, &:c. 
 than which nothing could be more offensive to the then existing government ol 
 England. In sending over the deputation that waited upon Charles in Holland
 
 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 479 
 
 in the spring of 1649, Argyle was heartily concurring, though he had been not 
 a little disgusted with his associates in the administration, on account of the 
 execution of his brother-in-law, the marquis of Huntly, whom he in vain exerted 
 all his influence to save. It is also said that he refused to assist at the trial, 
 or to concur in the sentence passed upon the marquis of Montrose, in the month 
 of .May, 1650, declaring that he was too much a party to be a judge in tliat 
 matter. Of the leading part he performed in the installation of Charles II., 
 upon whose head he placed the crown at Scone on the 1st of January, 1G51, 
 we have not room to give any particular account. Of the high consequence in 
 which his services were held at the time, there needs no other proof than the 
 report that the king intended marrying one of his daughters. For the defence 
 of the king and kingdom, against both of whom Cromwell was now ready to 
 lead all his troops, he, as head of the Committee of Estates, made the most 
 vigorous exertions. Even after the defeat at Dunbar, and the consequent 
 ascendancy of the king's personal interests, he adhered to his majesty with 
 unabated zeal and diligence, of which Charles seems to have been sensible at 
 the time, as the following letter, in his own hand writing, which he delivered 
 to Argyle under his sign manual, abundantly testifies: " Having taken into 
 consideration the faithful endeavours of the marquis of Argyle for restoring me 
 to my just rights, and the happy settling of my dominions, I am desirous to let 
 the world see how sensible I am of his real respect to me by some particular 
 marks of my favour to him, by which they may see the trust and confidence 
 which I repose in him: and particularly, I do promise that I will make him 
 duke of Argyle, knight of the garter, and one of the gentlemen of my bed- 
 chamber, and this to be performed when he shall think it fit. And I do farther 
 promise him to hearken to his counsels, [passage worn out}. Whenever it 
 shall please God to restore me to my just rights in England, I sliall see him 
 paid the 40,000 sterling which is due to him; all which I promise to make 
 good to him upon the word of a king. CHARLES REX, St Johnston, September 
 ^ith, 1650." When Charles judged it expedient to lead the Scottish army into 
 England, in the vain hope of raising the cavaliers and moderate presbyterians in 
 his favour, Argyle obtained leave to remain at home, on account of the illness 
 of his lady. After the whole hopes of the Scots were laid low at Worcester, 
 September 3d, 1651, he retired to Inverary, where he held out against the 
 triumphant troops of Cromwell for a whole year, till, falling sick, he was sur- 
 prised by general Dean, and carried to Edinburgh. Having received orders 
 from Monk to attend a privy council, he Mas entrapped to be present at the 
 ceremony of proclaiming Cromwell lord Protector. A paper was at the same 
 time tendered him to sign, containing his submission to the government, as 
 settled without king or house of lords, which he absolutely refused, though 
 afterwards, when he was in no condition to struggle farther, he signed a pro- 
 mise to live peaceably under that government. He was always watched, 
 however, by the ruling powers, and never was regarded by any of the autho- 
 rities as other than a concealed loyalist. When Scotland was declared by 
 Cromwell to be incorporated with England, Argyle exerted himself, in opposi- 
 tion to the council of state, to have Scotsmen alone elected to serve in jarlia- 
 ment for North Britain, of which Monk complained to Thurlow, in a letter from 
 Dalkeith, dated September 30, 1658. Under Richard he was himself elected 
 for the county of Aberdeen, and took his seat accordingly in the house, where 
 he wrought most effectually for the service of the king, by making that breach 
 through which lu's majesty entered. On the Restoration, Argyle's best friends 
 advised him to keep out of the way on account of his compliances with the 
 usurpation ; but he judged it more honourable and honest to go and congratu-
 
 480 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 
 
 Inte his majesty upon so happy a turn in his affairs. To this he must Iinve been 
 misled from the promissory note of kindness which he held, payable on demand, 
 as well as by some flattering expressions which Charles had made use of regard- 
 ing him to his son, lord Lorn ; but when he arrived at Whitehall, July 8, IGfiO 
 the king no sooner heard his name announced, than, " with an angry stamp r{ 
 the foot, he ordered Sir William Fleming to execute his orders," which were to 
 carry him to the Tower. To the Tower he was carried accordingly, where he 
 lay till the month of December, when he was sent down to Leitli aboard a 
 man-of-war, to stand his trial before the high court of parliament. While con- 
 fined in the Tower, the marquis made application to have the affidavits of several 
 persons in England taken respecting some matters of fact, when he WPS con- 
 cerned in the public administration before the usurpation, which, had justice been 
 the object of the prosecution against him, could not have been denied. 
 Revenge, however, being the object, facts might have happened to prove 
 inconvenient, and the request was flatly refused. 
 
 On his arrival at Leith, he was conveyed to the castle of Edinburgh, and, 
 preparatory to his being brought to trial, the president of the committee for 
 bills, on the eighteenth of January, reported to the parliament that a supplica- 
 tion had been presented to them by the laird of Lament, craving warrant to 
 cite the marquis of Argyle, with some others, to appear before parliament, to 
 answer for crimes committed by him and them as specified in the bill given in. 
 Some little opposition was made to this; but it was carried by a vast plurality to 
 grant wan-ant according to the prayer of the petition. This charge could net 
 be intended to serve any other purpose than to raise a prejudice in the public 
 mind against the intended victim; for it was a charge which not a few of the 
 managers themselves knew well to be false. Middleton could have set the ques- 
 tion at once to rest, as he had had a deeper hand in many of the cruelties com- 
 plained of than Argyle, for he had acted under general Leslie, in suppressing 
 the remains of Montrose's army, and, much nearer home than the islands, 
 namely at Kincardine house, belonging to Montrose, had shot twelve cavaliers 
 without any ceremony, sending the remainder to be hanged at Edinburgh, all 
 which, be it observed, was in defence of a party of Argyle's people who had 
 been driven to seek refuge in Lennox, and was no doubt one of the items in the 
 general charge. Put the charge generally referred to the clearing of his own 
 territories of Alister Macdonald and his Irish bands by Leslie, who. in reducing 
 the strengths belonging to the loyalists in the north, had, conformably to 
 the orders of parliament, shot or hanged every Irishman he found in them 
 without ceremony. Sir James Turner, who was upon this expedition, and has 
 left an account of it in his Memoirs, acquits Argyle of all blame, in so far as 
 concerns the seizure of the castle of Dunavertie, one of the cases that has been 
 most loudly complained of, though he fastens a stain on the character of Air 
 John Nevoy, the divine who accompanied the expedition, who, he says, took a 
 pleasure in wading through the blood of the victims. A small extract will 
 show that Leslie confined himself strictly to the parliamentary order, which 
 was perhaps no more severe than the dreadful character of the times had ren- 
 dered necessary. " From Ila we boated over to Jura, a horrid isle, and a habita- 
 tion fit for deer and wild beasts, and so from isle to isle till we come to Mull, 
 which is one of the best of the Hebrides. Here Maclean saved his lands with 
 the loss of his reputation, if he ever had any : he gave up his strong castles to 
 Leslie ; gave his eldest son for hostage of his fidelity, and, which was unchris- 
 tian baseness in the lowest degree, he delivered up fourteen very pretty Irish- 
 men, who had been all along faithful to him, to the lieutenant general, who 
 immediately caused hang them all. It was net well done to demand them from
 
 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 481 
 
 Maclean ; but inexcusably ill dene in him to betray them. Here I cannot for- 
 get one Donald Campbell, fleshed in blood from his very infancy, who, with all 
 imaginable violence, pressed that the whole clan Maclean should be put to the 
 sword, nor could lie be commanded to forbear his bloody suit by the lieutenant 
 general and two major generals, and with somo difficulty was he commanded 
 silence by his chief, the marquis of Argyle. For my part, I said nothing, for 
 indeed 1 did not care though he had prevailed in his suit, the delivering of tlie 
 Irish liad so much irritated me against that whole clan and name." Argyle was 
 brought before parliament on the 13th of February 1661. His indictment, 
 consisting of fourteen articles, comprehended the history of all the transactions 
 tliai had taken place in Scotland since 1638. The whole procedure, on one 
 side of the question, during all that time, had already been declared rebellion, 
 and each individual concerned was of course liable to the cliarge of treason. 
 Middleton, lord high commissioner to parliament, eager to possess his estate, 
 of which he doubted not he would obtain the gift, conducted the trial in a man- 
 ner not only inconsistent with justice, but with the dignity and the decency that 
 ought ever to characterise a public character. From the secret conversations he 
 had held with Cromwell, Middleton drew the conclusion, that the interruption 
 of the treaty of Newport and the execution of Charles had been the fruit of their 
 joint deliberations. He was defended on this point by Sir John Gihnour, pre- 
 sident of the court of -Session, with such force of argument as to compel the re- 
 luctant parliament to exculpate him from all blame in the matter of the king's 
 death ; and, after having exhibited the utmost cpntempt for truth, and a total 
 disregard of character or ciedit, provided they could obtain their point, the 
 destruction of the pannel, the crown lawyers were at length obliged to fix on 
 his compliance with the English during the usurpation, as the only species of 
 treason that could at all be made to affect him. Upon this point there was not 
 one of his judges who had not been equally, and some of them much more guilty 
 than himself. " How could I suppose,'' said the marquis, with irresistible effect in 
 iiis defence on this point, " that 1 was acting criminally, when the learned gentle- 
 man who now acts as his majesty's advocate, took the same oaths to the common- 
 wealth with myself ."' He was not less successful in replying to every iota of 
 his indictment, in addition to which he gave in a signed supplication and sub- 
 mission to his majesty, which was regarded just as little as his defences. The 
 moderation, the good sense, and the magnanimity, however, which he displayed, 
 joined to his innocence of the crimes charged against him, wrought so strongly 
 upon the house, that great fears were entertained tliat, after all, he would be ac- 
 quitted ; and to counteract the influence of his two sons, lord Lome and lord 
 Neil Campbell, who were both in London, exerting themselves as far as they 
 could in his behalf, Glencairn, Rothes, and Sliarpe were sent up to court, where, 
 when it was found that the proof was thought to be defective, application uas 
 made to general Monk, who furnished them with some of the marquis of Ar- 
 gyle's private letters, which were sent down post to Middleton, who laid them 
 before parliament, and by this means obtained a sentence of condemnation 
 against the noble marquis, on Saturday the 25th, and he was executed 
 accordingly on Monday the 27th of May, 1GG1. Than the behaviour 
 of this nobleman during his trial, and after his receiving sentence of death, 
 nothing could be more dignified or becoming the cliaracter of a Christian. 
 Conscious of his integrity, he defended his character and conduct with firmness 
 and magnanimity, but with great gentleness and the highest respect for author- 
 ity. After receiving his sentence, when brought back to the common jail, his 
 excellent lady wits waiting for him, and, embracing him, wept bitterly ^exclaim- 
 ing, " the Lord will requite it ;" but, calm and composed, he said, " i'crbeor ;
 
 482 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 
 
 truly, I pity them ; they know not what they are doing ; they may shut me in 
 where they please, but they cannot shut out God from me. For my part, I am 
 as content to be here as in the castle, and as content in the castle as in the 
 Tower of London, and as content there as when at liberty, and I hope to be as 
 content on the scaffold as any of them all.'' His short time till Monday he 
 spent in serenity and cheerfulness, and in the proper exercises of a dying 
 Christian. To some of the ministers he said that they would shortly envy him 
 for having got before them, for he added, ' my skill fails me, if you who are 
 ministers will not either suffer much, or sin much; for, though you go along 
 with those men in part, if you do it not in all things, you are but where you 
 were, and so must suffer ; and if you go not at all with them, you shall but suf- 
 fer." On the morning of his execution, he spent two hours in subscribing papers, 
 making conveyances, and forwarding other matters of business relating to his 
 estate ; and while so employed, he suddenly became so overpowered with a feeling 
 of divine goodness, according to contemporary authority, that he was unable to 
 contain himself, and exclaimed, " I thought to have concealed the Lord's good- 
 ness, but it will not do : I am now ordering my affairs, and God is sealing my 
 charter to a better inheritance, and saying to me, ' Son, be of good cheer ; 
 thy sins are forgiven thee.'" He wrote the same day a most affecting letter 
 to the king, recommending to his protection his wife and children. " lie came 
 to the scaffold," says Burnet, " in a very solemn, but undaunted manner, accom- 
 panied with many of the nobility and some ministers. He spoke for half an 
 hour with a great appearance of serenity. Cunningham, his physician, told me 
 that he touched his pulse, and it did then beat at the usual rate, calm and strong." 
 It is related, as another proof of the resolution of Argyle, in the Last trying 
 scene, that, though he had eaten a whole partridge at dinner, no vestige of it 
 was found in his stomach after death ; if he had been much afiected by the an- 
 ticipation of death, his digestion, it may be easily calculated, could not have 
 been so good. His head was struck off by the instrument called the Maiden, 
 and affixed on the west end of the Tolbooth, where that of Montrose had been 
 till very lately perched ; a circumstance that very sensibly marks the vicissi- 
 tudes of a time of civil dissension. His body was conveyed by his friends to 
 Uunoon, and buried in the family sepulchre at Kilmun. 
 
 Argyle, with few qualities to captivate the fancy, has always been esteemed 
 by the people of Scotland as one of the most consistent and meritorious of their 
 array of patriots. For the sake of his exemplary moral and religious charac- 
 ter, and his distinguished exertions in the resistance to the measures of Charles 
 I., as well as his martyrdom in that cause, they have overlooked a quality gen- 
 erally obnoxious to their contempt his want of courage in the field which 
 caused him, throughout the whole of the transactions of the civil war, to avoid 
 personal contact with danger, though often at the head of large bodies of troop*. 
 The habits of Argyle in private life were those of an eminently and sincerely 
 pious man. In Mr Wodrow's diary of traditionary collections, which remains 
 in manuscript in the Advocates' Library, it is related, under May 9, 170^, 
 upon the credit of a clergyman, the last survivor of the General Assembly of 
 lu'51, that his lordship used to rise at five, and continue in private till eight : 
 besides family worship, and private prayer, morning and evening, he prayed 
 with his lady morning and evening, in the presence of his own gentleman and 
 her gentlewoman; he never went abroad, though but for one night, without 
 taking along with him his writing-standish, a bible, and Newman's Concor- 
 dance. Upon the same authority, we relate the following anecdote : " After 
 the coronation of king Charles II. at Scone, he waited a long time for an op- 
 portunity of dealing freely with his majesty on religious matters, and particular-
 
 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 483 
 
 ly about his suspected disregard of the covenant, and his encouragement of 
 indignant., and other sins. One sabbath night, after supper, he went into the 
 closet, and began to converse with him on these topics, diaries was 
 eemingly sensible, and they came at length to prav and mourn together till 
 >r three m the morning. When he came home to his lady, she was sur- 
 r,scd, and told him she never knew him so untimeous. He said he never had 
 liad such a sweet night an the world, and told her all -what liberty he had in 
 prayer, and how much convinced the king Mas. She said plainly that that 
 ght would cost li,,n his head which came to pass." Mr Wodrow also men- 
 ions that during the Glasgow Assembly, Henderson and other ministers spent 
 any nights in prayer, and conference with the marquis of Argyle, and lie 
 i his conversion, or his knowledge of it, from those times. His lordship 
 was .named to Margaret, second daughter of William, second earl of Morton 
 and by her left two sons and three daughters. 
 
 OA31PHELL, ARCHIBALD, ninth Ear! of Argyle, son of the preceding, Mas 
 an equally unfortunate, though less distinguished political character, in the 
 happiest era of Scottish history. H e was educated under the eye of Jiis 
 father, and, at an early period of life, Mas highly distinguished for his per- 
 sonal accomplishments. After going through the schools, he Mas sent to tra- 
 vel on the continent, and, during the years 1647, 1648, and 1649, spent 
 the greater part of his time in France and Italy. He appears to have returned 
 to Scotland about the close of 1649, and we find him, in 1653, after Charles II. 
 had arrived in Scotland, appointed colonel of one of the regiments of foot-guards, 
 that were embodied on tliat occasion, which he held by commission from the 
 king, refusing, from a principle of loyalty, to act under a commission from the 
 parliament He Mas present at the battle of Dunbar, fought in the month of 
 September, 1653, when he displayed great bravery ; and where his lieutenant- 
 colonel, Wallace, who aftenvards commanded the covenanters at Pentland, Mas 
 taken prisoner. After the battle of Worcester, he still continued in amis, and 
 kept up a party in the Highlands ready to serve his majesty on any favourable 
 opportunity that might occur. Nor did he hesitate, for this purpose, to act along 
 with the most deadly enemies of his house. In 1654, he joined the earl of 
 Glencairn, with a thousand foot, and fifty horse, contrary to advice of his father, 
 who saw no possibility of any good being done by that ill-advised armament. 
 After having remained, along with this assemblage of cavaliers, for a fortnight, 
 finding his situation neither safe nor comfortable among so many Murrays, Gor- 
 dons, and Macdonalds, he withdrew from them, taking the road for the barracks 
 of liuthven, and was pursued by Macdonald of Glengary, Mho Mould certainly have 
 slain him, had he not escaped with his horse, leaving his foot to shift for themselves. 
 Glengary, liaving missed lord Lome, Mould have revenged himself by killing his 
 people, but \vas prevented by Glencairn, Mho took from them an oath of fidelity, 
 and carried them back to the camp ; whence they, in a short time, found means 
 to escape in small bodies, till there was not one of them remaining. On this 
 occasion, he carried a commission of lieutenant-general from Charles II., Mhicli 
 rendered him so obnoxious to Cromwell, that he excepted him from his Act of 
 Grace, published in the month of April this year. Lord Lome was soon after 
 this necessitated to take refuge in one of his remote islands, with only four or 
 five attendants ; and, seeing no prospect of any deliverance, submitted to the 
 Knglish in despair. In November of the following year, 1655, Monk compelled 
 him to find security for his peaceable behaviour, to the amount of five thousand 
 pounds sterling. He was, notwithstanding of all this, constantly Matched, par- 
 ticularly by the lord Broghill, Mho had the meanness to corrupt even his body 
 servants, and constitute them spies upon their master's conduct. In the spring
 
 484: ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 
 
 of 1C 57, Monk committed him to prison, and Rroghill was earnest to have him 
 carried to England, for the more effectually preventing his intrigues among the 
 royalists. Shortly after the Hestoration, he waited on his majesty, Charles II., 
 with a letter from his father, and was received so graciously, that the marquis 
 was induced to go up to London upon the same errand as his son, but was sent 
 to the Tower without an audience. During the time that Middleton was practis- 
 ing against his father the marquis, lord Lome exerted himself with great zeal, 
 and though he failed in rescuing his beloved parent from the toils into which 
 he had been hunted, he left a favourable impression on the mind of Charles 
 with regard to himself, and, in place of bestowing the estates of Argyle upon 
 Middleton, as that profligate fondly expected, he was induced to restore them, 
 as well as the original title of earl, to the rightful heir. Nor was this all ; when, 
 to the astonishment of all the world, he was, by the Scottish parliament, con- 
 demned to death, under the odious statute respecting leasing-making, he was 
 again saved by the royal favour, to the confusion of his enemies. For some 
 considerable time after this, there is little to be told of the earl of Argyle, and 
 that little no way creditable to his fame. He had his share of the preferments 
 and of the dirty work of the period, in which he fouled his hands more than 
 was meet, as a Highlander would say, for the son of his father. It was on the 
 29th of June, 1681, tliat Argyle gave his vote in the council against Donald 
 Cargill ; and the very next day the parliament sat down, which framed under 
 the direction of the bigoted James VII., then duke of York, and commissioner 
 to the Scottish parliament, that bundle of absurdities known by the name of the 
 Test, which was imposed without mercy upon all, especially such as lay under 
 any suspicion of presbyterianism. This absurd oath was refused by many of 
 the episcopal ministers, who relinquished their places rather than debauch their 
 consciences by swearing contradictions. Some took it with explanations, among 
 whom was Argyle, who added the following ; that, as the parliament never 
 meant to impose contradictory oaths, he took it as far as consistent with itself 
 and the protestant faith, but that he meant not to bind or preclude himself in 
 his station, in a lawful manner, from wishing or endeavouring any alteration 
 which he thought of advantage to the church or state, and not repugnant to the 
 protestant religion and his loyalty ; and this he understood to be a part of his 
 oath. Of the propriety of taking the test, even with this explanation, in a 
 moral point of view, some doubt may reasonably be entertained. With such 
 an explanation, why might not any oath be taken that ever was framed, and 
 what can save such swearing from the charge of being a taking of God's name 
 in vain ; for an oath so explained is after all not an oath in the proper sense and 
 meaning of the word. This explanation he submitted to the duke of York, who 
 seemed to be perfectly satisfied ; but he had no sooner put it in practice than 
 he was indicted for his explanation, as containing treason, leasing, and perjury, 
 and, by a jury of his peel's, brought in guilty of the two first charges. This 
 was on the 13th of December, 1681, and on the night of the 20th, fearing, as 
 he had good reason, that his life would be taken, he made his escape out of the 
 castle, disguised as a page, and bearing up the train of his step-daughter, lady- 
 Sophia Lindsay, sister to the earl of Balcarras. On the third day after sen- 
 tence of death was pronounced upon him, Fountainhall says, " '1 here was a 
 great outcry against the criminal judges and their timorous dishonesty. The 
 marquis of Montrose was chancellor of this assize. Sir George Lockhart called 
 it lucrative treason to the advantage of church and state ; and admired how a 
 man could he condemned as a traitor for saying he would endeavour all the 
 amendment he can to the advantage of church and state." Even those who 
 thought the words deserved some lesser punishment, called it diabolical alchemy,
 
 AHCHIBALT) CAMPBELL. 485 
 
 to screw them into treason. Lord Halifax told Charles himself, that he knew 
 not the Scottish law, but the English law would not have hanged a dog for such 
 a crime. On his escape from the castle, Argyle, by the direction of Mr John 
 Scott, minister of Hawick, rode straight to the house of Pringle of Torwoodlee, 
 who sent his servant along with him to the house of Mr William Veitch, who 
 conducted him to Clapwell, in Derbyshire; where, becoming afraid from the 
 alarm that had been everywhere given, Mr Veiteh thought it prudent to advise 
 with Lockyer, an old Cromwellian captain, who generously offered his services 
 to conduct Argyle safely to London; which he did, bringing him first to 
 Battersea, four miles above London, to Mr Smith's, a sugar baker's house, whose 
 wife was a very pious and generous gentlewoman. They were rich, ana 
 had no children ; of- course they were able to do a great deal in the way of 
 charity, without hurting themselves. They acquainted the lady with the earl's 
 secret, but concealed it from her husband, and his lordship passed for an ordi- 
 nary Scottish gentleman of the name of Hope. The lady, however, in a 
 day or two, sent to one of her agents in the city to provide two chambers at a 
 good distance from one another, where two friends of her's might be quiet and 
 retired for a while ; and Argyle and Veitch were sent to town by night to the 
 house of Mr Holmes, the lady's agent, to be directed to their lodgings. None 
 of them knew Holmes ; but the moment Holmes came into the room which they 
 had been shown, he took Argyle in his arms, saying, my dear lord Argyle, you 
 are most welcome to me. Argyle, in astonishment, and not without some visi- 
 ble concern, inquired how he knew him. 1 knew you, said Holmes, since that 
 day 1 took you prisoner in the Highlands, and brought you to the castle of 
 Edinburgh. But now we are on one side, and I will venture all that is dear to 
 me to save you. So he carried them to their several lodgings ; those of Argyle 
 being known to no one but Mr Veitch and Holmes. As soon as the noise about 
 his escape was over, Mrs Smith brought them both out to a new house they had 
 moved to at Brentford ; Argyle passing for a Mr Hope, and Veitch for a captain 
 Fabes. Here there were frequent meetings of noblemen, gentlemen, and rich 
 merchants, with a view of devising means for preventing the nation from falling 
 into slavery ; but the whole ended in the discovery of the Rye-house plot, which 
 occasioned the apprehending of Mr William Carstairs, Mr Spence, and Baillie 
 of Jerviswood ; the two former of whom were put to the torture, and the latter 
 executed in the most cruel manner. Upon the appearance of the plot 
 being discovered, Argyle went over to Holland ; and Mrs Smith, who was deep 
 in the plot also, persuaded her husband to emigrate to that country from general 
 motives, for he was ignorant of the plot; and they continued to live together, 
 taking up their abode at Utrecht. Veitch, happily, when the search was made 
 for them in London, had departed for Scotland ; and, after hiding for some time 
 in the best manner he could, he also stole over to Holland. There he met 
 with Monmouth, Argyle, the earl of Melville, lord Polwart, Torwoodlee, 
 James Stuart, and many others similarly situated, who all took a deep interest 
 in the plan now formed for invading both kingdoms at the same time, Monmouth 
 to lead the attack upon England, and Argyle that upon Scotland, 
 them," says Veitch, who seems to have been quite familiar with the whole plan, 
 " had great promises sent them of assistance, but it turned to nothing, and i 
 wonder; for the one part kept not their promises, and the other followed not 
 the measures contrived and concerted at Amsterdam, April the 17th, 1 
 The persons present at this meeting were Argyle, and his son Charles Campbell, 
 Cochrane ofOchiltree, Hume of Polwart, Pringle of Torwoodlee, Denholm o 
 Westshields, Hume of Bassendean, Cochrane of Waterside, Mr George U isheart, 
 William Cleknd, James Stuart, and Gilbert Elliot. Mr Veitch says, he brought
 
 486 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 
 
 old president Stairs to the meeting with much persuasion ; and he gave bond 
 for one thousand pounds to Madam Smith, whose husband was now dead ; and 
 she lent out six dr seven thousand more to Argyle and others for carry ing on the 
 enterprise. Having made all necessary arrangements, so far as was in their 
 power, and dispatched Messrs Barclay and Veitch, Cleland and Torwoodlce, to 
 different parts of Scotland to prepare for their reception, Argyle and his com- 
 pany went on board their fleet of three ships, the Anna, Sophia, and David, lying 
 off* the Vlie, on the 28th of April ; and, with a fair wind, set sail for Scotland, 
 and in tliree days approached the Orkneys. At Kirkwall, most unfortun- 
 ately, Spence, Argyle's secretary, and Blackadder, his physician, went on shore, 
 were instantly apprehended by the bishop and sent up to Edinburgh, which 
 alarmed the government, and gave them time to prepare for the attack which 
 they liad heard of, but of which they were now certain. Sailing round to Ar- 
 gyle's country, his son was landed, who sent through the fiery cross, but with no 
 great effect. Finding tliat they were pursued by a frigate, they put into a oivek 
 and landed their arms and stores at the old castle of Allangreg. In the mean- 
 time, the marquis of Athol came against them with a considerable force, by 
 whom they were drawn away from the castle, leaving only one hundred and fifty 
 men to defend it in case of an attack. Being attacked, the small garrison iled, 
 and the whole of their provisions and stores fell into the hands of the c-ncm). 
 All this was discouraging enough ; but, wliat was worse, they were not agreed 
 among themselves, nor was the country agreed to take part with them. The 
 suffering presbyterians would have nothing to do with Argyle, with whom they 
 were highly offended, for the part he had hitherto acted, and the declaration he 
 emitted did not give them great hopes of that which was yet to come. In short, 
 it was soon evident that they would be obliged to separate, and every man shift 
 for himself in the best manner he could. Disappointed in the Highlands, it w;is 
 proposed to try the Lowlands ; but they had wandered in the Highlands till the 
 government forces, under Athol, Gordon, and Dumbarton, had cut off their com- 
 munication with the disaffected parts of the country, and even cut them off from 
 the possibility of escape. It was at last, however, resolved,, that they should 
 march upon Glasgow ; and they crossed the water of Leven three miles above 
 Dumbarton, on the night of the 16th of June. Marching next morning towards 
 Kilniaronock, in the hope of finding some provisions, of which they were in ab- 
 solute want, they discovered a party of horse, and stood to their arms, but the 
 party they had observed being only a small body of horsemen not sufficiently 
 strong to attack them, they passed on. On setting their watch the same night, 
 they were alarmed again by a party of the king's forces. Attempting a night- 
 march to Glasgow, they wandered into a moss, where they were so broken and 
 siattered that, in the morning, there were not above five hundred of them together. 
 All hope of success was now over. Sir John Cochrane and Sir Patrkfe 
 Hume crossed the Clyde, with about one hundred and fifty men ; and Argyle 
 refusing to follow them, they inarched to Muirdykc, where they were attacked 
 by lord Ross, whom they repulsed in a very gallant manner, but were under the 
 necessity of separating shortly after. Argyle, thus left to himself, despatched Sir 
 Duncan Campbell and two Duncansons, father and son, to his own country, to 
 attempt raising new levies ; and repaired himself to the house of an old servant, 
 where he calculated upon a temporary asylum, but was peremptorily denied 
 entrance. In consequence of this lie crossed the Clyde, attended only by one 
 companion. At the ford of Inchinnan they were stopped by a party of militia 
 men. Fullarton, the name of Argyle's companion, used every means he could 
 think of to save his general, who was habited as a plain country man, and whom 
 he passed for his guide. Seeing them determined to go after his guide, as he
 
 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 
 
 487 
 
 called him, he offered to surrender without a blow, provided they did not hurt 
 the poor man who was conducting him. These terms they accepted, but did not 
 adhere to; two of their number going after Argyle, who beii% on horseback, 
 grappled with them, till one of them and himself came to the ground. He then 
 presented his pocket pistol, when the two retired, but other five coming up, knock- 
 ed him down with their swords, and seized him. When they found who it was they 
 had made prisoner, they were exceedingly sorry, but they durst not let him go. 
 Fullarton, perceiving the stipulation on which he had surrendered broken, 
 snatched at the sword of one of them in order to take vengeance upon his per- 
 fidious opponents, but, failing in his attempt, he too was overpowered and made 
 prisoner. Renfrew was the first place that was honoured with the presence of 
 this noble captive ; whence, on the 20th of June, he was led in triumph into 
 Edinburgh. The order of the council was particular and peremptory, that he 
 should be led bareheaded in the midst of Graham's guards witli their matches 
 cocked, with his hands tied behind his back, and preceded by the common hang- 
 man ; and that he might be more exposed to those insults which the unfeeling 
 vulgar are ever ready to heap upon the unfortunate, it was specially directed 
 that he should be led to the castle, which was to be the place of his confinement, 
 by a circuitous route. All this, however, while it manifested the native baseness 
 of the Scottish rulers and the engrained malevolence of their hearts, only served 
 to display more strongly the heroic dignity, the meekness, the patience, and 
 the unconquerable fortitude which animated the bosom of their unfortunate victim; 
 and it tended in no small degree to hasten that catastrophe which all this studied 
 severity was intended to avert. The Scottish parliament, on the llth of June, 
 sent an address to the king- ; wherein, after commending his majesty in their usual 
 manner for his immeasurable gifts of prudence, courage, and conduct ; and 
 loading Argyle, whom they style an hereditary traitor, with every species of 
 abuse, and with every crime, particularly that of ingratitude for the favours 
 which he had received, as well from his majesty as from his predecessor ; they 
 implore his majesty to show him no favour ; and that his family, the heritors, 
 the preachers, &c. who have joined him, may for ever be declared incapable 
 of mercy, or of bearing any honour or estate in the kingdom ; and all subjects 
 discharged, under the pains of treason, to intercede for them in any manner of 
 way. Accordingly, the following letter, with the royal signature, and counter- 
 signed by lord 3Iilford, secretary of state for Scotland, was despatched to tho 
 council at Edinburgh, and by them entered and registered on the 2Dth of June. 
 " Whereas, the late earl of Argyle is, by the providence of God, fallen into 
 our power, it is our will and pleasure, that you take all ways to know from 
 him those things which concern our government most; as, his assisters with men, 
 arms, and money, his associates and correspondents, his designs, c. but this 
 must be done so as no time may be lost in bringing him to condign punishment, 
 by causing him to be denounced as a traitor within the space of three da)s, after 
 this sliall come to your hands, an account of which, with what he shall confess, 
 you shall send immediately to our secretaries, for which this shall be your war- 
 rant." James, who, while he was viceroy in Scotland, attended the infliction of 
 torture upon the unhappy victims of his tyranny, and frequently called for an 
 other touch, watrhing, at the same time, the unhappy victim with the eager 
 curiosity of a philosophical experimenter, evidently, by this letter, intended that 
 it should have been applied to Argyle. " It is our will and pleasure, tliat you 
 take all ways to know from him, &c." seems positively to enjoin it ; and when 
 we reflect that torture was at the time in common use, and that the men 
 to whom this order was addressed were in the habit of practising it, we mi^ht 
 almost say, every day, it is somewhat of a mystery how he escaped it. Certain
 
 483 
 
 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. 
 
 it is, however, that he did escape it, but how will, in all probability, never be 
 known. Tliat he did not escape it by any undue disclosures, is equally cer- 
 tain. Tliat they* had received such orders he was told, and of their readiness to 
 obey them, he had too many proofs ; yet, when examined in private by Queens- 
 berry, he gave no information with respect to his associates in England ; he also 
 denied that he had concerted his design with any persons in Scotland ; but he 
 avowed boldly, and with the utmost frankness, tliat his hopes of success were 
 founded on the cruelty of the administration, and such a disposition in the peo- 
 ple to revolt as he conceived to be the natural consequence of oppression, lie 
 owned, at the same time, that he liad laid too much weight upon this principle. 
 Writing, too, to a friend, just before his examination, he has these words : u What 
 may liave been discovered from any paper tliat may have been taken, he knows 
 not. Otherwise, he has named none to their disadvantage." Perhaps it w;is to 
 atone for their neglect with regard to the torture, tliat the council ordered his 
 execution on the very next day, although they had three to choose upon ; and, 
 to make the triumph of injustice complete, it was ordered upon the iniquitous 
 sentence of 1682. The warning was short, but it must have been, in some de- 
 gree, anticipated; and he received it with the most perfect composure, lie 
 possessed a laitli full of assurance that triumphed over all his alilictions, and a 
 hope tliat breathed immortality. 
 
 The morning of his execution was spent in religious exercises, and in writing 
 short notices to friends. He had his dinner before he left the castle, at the 
 usual hour, at which he discoursed with those that were along with 31r (Jharteris 
 and others, with cheerful and becoming gravity. After dinner he retired, as \xas 
 his custom, to his bedchamber, where it is recorded he slept quietly for about a 
 quarter of an hour. While he was in bed, one of the members of the council 
 came, and wished to speak with him. Being told that the earl was asleep, and 
 had left orders not to be disturbed, lie seemed to think tliat it was only a shift 
 to avoid further questionings, and the door being thrown open, he beheld, in a 
 sweet and tranquil slumber, the man who, by the doom of himself and his fellows, 
 was to die within the space of two short hours. Struck with the sight, he left the 
 castle with the utmost precipitation ; and entering the house of a friend that lived 
 near by, threw himself on the first bed that presented itself. His friend natu- 
 rally concluding that he was ill, offered him some wine, which he refused, say- 
 ing, ' No, no, tiiat will not help me I have been at Argyle, and saw him sleep- 
 ing as pleasantly as ever man did, but as for me ." The name of the person 
 to whom this anecdote relates is not mentioned, but Wodrow says he liad it from 
 the most unquestionable authority. After his short repose, he was brought to 
 the high council-house, from which is dated the letter to his wife, and thence to 
 the place of execution. On the scaftbld he discoursed with Mr Annanil, a minis- 
 ter appointed by the government to attend him, and with Mr (Jharteris, both of 
 whom lie desired to pray for him. He then prayed himself with great fervency. 
 The speech which he made was every way worthy of his character full of for- 
 titude, mildness, and charity. He ollered his prayers to God for the three king- 
 doms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and that an end might be speedily put 
 ' to their present trials. Having then asked pardon for his own failings, both ot 
 God and man, he would liave concluded, but being reminded that he liad said 
 nothing of the royal family, he prayed that there never might be wanting one 
 in it to support ills protestant religion; and if any of them liad swerved from the 
 true faith, he prayed tliat God might turn their hearts, but at any rate to save his 
 people from their machinations. Turning round he said, Gentlemen, 1 pray you 
 do not misconstruct my behaviour this day. 1 freely forgive all men their wrongs 
 and injuries done against me, ;;s 1 desire to be forgiven of God. Mr Annand
 
 .1 . Bogle . 
 
 REV. G.EORGE CAM PB [ LL, O. ID 
 
 PRINCIPAL OF MARISCHAL COLLEGE. 
 
 He SON . GIASGOW, F.DD1BTJRGH It IdNMJT.
 
 DR. GEORGE CAMPBELL. 
 
 489 
 
 siiitl, this gentleman dies a protestant ; when he stepped forward and said, I 
 die not only a protestant, but with a heart-hatred of popery, prelacy, and all 
 superstition whatsomever. He then embraced his friends, gave some tokens of 
 remembrance to his son-in-law, lord Maitland, for his daughter and grand-chil- 
 dren, stripped himself of part of his apparel, of which he likewise made presents, 
 and laying his head upon the block, repeated thrice, Lord Jesus, receive mj 
 spirit, when he gave the signal, and his head was severed from his body. Thus 
 died Archibald Campbell, earl of Argyle, on the 30th of June, 1685, of 
 whom it has been said, " Let him be weighed never so scrupulously, and in the 
 nicest scales, he will not be found in a single instance wanting in the charity of 
 a Christian, the firmness and benevolence of a patriot, nor the integrity and 
 fidelity of a man of honour." 
 
 CAMPBELL, DB GEORGE, an eminent theological writer, was born on Christ- 
 mas day, 1719. His father was the Rev. Colin Campbell, one of the ministers 
 of Aberdeen ; a man whose simplicity and integrity of character were well known 
 throughout the country, and the cause of his being held in general esteem. 
 While the theological sentiments of this respectable person were perfectly ortho- 
 dox, his style of preaching was very peculiar : it no doubt partook of the fashion 
 of the times, but he seems to have also had a singular taste of his own. Dr 
 Campbell frequently spoke of his father ; and though his connection with so ex- 
 cellent a man afforded him great pleasure, he sometimes amused himself and his 
 friends by repeating anecdotes respecting the oddity of his conceits in preaching. 
 He delighted much in making the heads and particulars of his discourses begin 
 with the same letter of the alphabet. Some very curious examples were in the 
 possession of his son, which he related with great good humour, and which no 
 one enjoyed more than himself. He had followed the fortunes, and adhered 
 to 'the principles of the Argyle family. He was therefore a decided whig, 
 and was very active in promoting, in 1715, among his parishioners, the cause 
 of the Hanoverian succession, and in opposing the powerful interest of the nume- 
 rous tory families in Aberdeen. This worthy man died suddenly, on the 27th 
 of August, 1728, leaving a widow, with three sons and three daughters. The 
 subject of this memoir was the youngest of the sons. 
 
 The grammar school of Aberdeen has long maintained a high rank among the 
 Scottish seminaries ; and it now enjoyed more than its usual reputation from the 
 connection of Mr Alexander Malcolm, the author of by far the most extensive 
 and philosophical system of arithmetic in the English language, besides an ex- 
 cellent treatise on Music. Such a man produces a strong sensation, wherever 
 the sphere of his exertions happens to be, but in a provincial town like Aber- 
 deen, where almost all the youth are his pupils, the impression he makes is na- 
 turally much greater. George Campbell, though said to have been a lively and 
 idle, rather than a studious boy, made a respectable appearance in this school. 
 He was afterwards enrolled a member of Marischal college, and went through 
 the common course. A senior brother, whose name was Colin, had been devoted 
 to the church, and George therefore proposed to study law. He was bound ap- 
 prentice to Mr Stronach, W. S., Edinburgh, and regularly served the stipu- 
 lated time. But he does not seem to have entered upon this line of hie with 
 any ardour. Before he had finished his apprenticeship, his resolutions were 
 fixed for another profession, and, in 1741, he attended the prelections of pro- 
 fessor Goldie, who then held the theological chair in the Edinburgh university. 
 The celebrated Dr Blair began, about this time, as minister ot the Canongate, to 
 attract public attention by his discourses ; and Campbell became a devoted ad* 
 mirer of the style of that great divine, with whom he, at the same time, formed 
 an intimate personal friendship. 
 
 T O (I
 
 490 DR. GEORGE CAMPBELL. 
 
 At the conclusion of his apprenticeship, 31r Campbell returned to Aberdeen, 
 and concluded his education as a clergyman in the divinity halls of that univer- 
 sity. His superior intellect was now marked among his fellows, and he became 
 the leader of a disputing society which WTIS instituted by them in 174-2, under 
 the name of the Theological Club. Being licensed in I74(i, he soon attracted 
 attention by his discourses ; yet in 1747, he was an unsuccessful candidate for 
 the church of Fordoun, in the 3Iearns. When his reputation had acquired more 
 consistency, he was presented to the church of Banchory Teruan, a few miles 
 from Aberdeen, under circumstances of a somewhat extraordinary nature. Nei- 
 ther the patron nor those who recommended Campbell, were aware of his Chris- 
 tian name. It therefore happened that Colin, his elder brother, a man of great 
 worth, but comparatively slender abilities, was applied to, and invited to preach 
 at Banchory, as a prelude to his obtaining the living. Coliii's public exhibitions 
 did not equal the expectations which had been formed ; and, in the course of 
 conversation, the sagacity of the patron, Sir Alexander Burnett, discovered tliat 
 it was his brother whose recommendations had been so ample. George Camp- 
 bell was afterwards invited, and the satisfaction which he gave insured success, 
 for he was ordained minister of that parish, June 2, 1746. He was not long in 
 this situation when he married a young Lady of the name of Farquharson. 
 
 Though Mr Campbell did not, at this early period of his life, give token of 
 that power of intense application which he manifested in his later years, it is 
 supposed that he formed, in the solitude of Banchory, the original ideas of all 
 his great works. He here composed the most important parts of his Philosophy 
 of Rhetoric. This admirable and truly classical work, in which the laws of 
 elegant composition and just criticism are laid down with singular taste and per- 
 spicuity, originally formed a series of detached essays, and contains, with a few 
 exceptions, the outlines of all the works he ever published At this time also 
 he began his great work, the Translation of the Gospels ; Hhough it is probable 
 Uiat lie did not make much progress until his professional duties directed Ins 
 attention more forcibly to the same subject. His character as a country clergy- 
 man was established in a very short time. The amiable simplicity of his man- 
 ners, the integrity and propriety of his behaviour, conjoined with his extensive 
 knowledge, and the general esteem in whiph he was held by literary men, 
 very soon brought him into notice. He was consequently induced to relinquish 
 his charge in the country, and comply with the invitation of the magistrates of 
 Aberdeen, and take charge of one of the quarters of that city. Hero he derived 
 great advantage from the society of literary men, and the opportunity of con- 
 sulting public libraries. Mr Campbell joined the Literary Society of Aberdeen, 
 which had been formed in the year 1758, and which comprehended many men 
 afterwards eminent in literature and philosophy. The subjects discussed in 
 this association were not confined to those coming strictly within the category 
 of the belles lettres; all the different branches of philosophy were included 
 in its comprehensive range. Campbell took a very active part in the business 
 of the society, and delivered in it the greater part of his " Philosophy of Rhe- 
 toric." 
 
 1 When Mr Alexander Fraser Tytler (afterwards Lord Woodhonselee) published his 
 Essay on the Principles of Translation," a correspondence ensued betwixt him and Dr 
 Campbell, in consequence of the latter asserting that many of the ideas contained in the 
 Essay had been appropriated without acknowledgment from his "Translation of the 
 Gospels," published a short time previously. It was, however, satisfactorily established 
 by Mr Tytler, that the supposed plagiarism was in reality the result of coincidence of 
 opinion. Of this the doctor became thoroughly satisfied, and a warm friendship grew up 
 between the parties.
 
 DR. GEORGE CAMPBELL. 491 
 
 Principal Pollock of Marischal College died in 1759, and it was supposed at 
 the time that the chance of succeeding him was confined to two gentlemen pos- 
 sessed of all the local influence which in such rases generally insures success. Mi- 
 Campbell, who was ambitious of obtaining the situation, resolved to lay his 
 pretensions before the duke of Argyle, who, for many years, had dispensed tlie 
 government patronage of Scotland. It happened tliat one of Mr Campbell's 
 ancestors, his grandfather or great-grandfather, had held the basket into which 
 the marquis of Argyle's head fell when he was beheaded. Mr Campbell hinU-d 
 at this in the letter he addressed to his grace ; and the result was his appoint- 
 ment to the vacant place. This anecdote, we need scarcely remind the reader, 
 lias been lately used in fictitious history. 
 
 Shortly after this Mr Campbell received the degree of doctor of divinity from 
 King's College, Aberdeen ; and, in 1763, he published his celebrated" Treatise 
 on Miracles," in answer to what was advanced on that subject by David Hume ; a 
 work which has been justly characterised as one of the most acute and con- 
 vincing treatises that has ever appeared upon the subject. 
 
 A condensed view of the respective arguments of these two philosophers, 
 on one of the most interesting points connected with revealed religion, is thus 
 given by the ingenious William Smellie, in the first edition of the Encyclo- 
 pedia Britannica, under the article ABRIDGMENT : 
 
 Mr Hume argues, " That experience, which, in some things is variable, in 
 others uniform, is our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact. A 
 variable experience gives rise to probability only ; a uniform experience 
 amounts to a proof. Our belief of any fact from the testimony of eye-witnesses 
 is derived from no other principle than our experience in the veracity of hu- 
 man testimony. If the feet attested be miraculous, here arises a contest of two 
 opposite experiences, or proof against proof. Now, a miracle is a violation of 
 the laws of nature ; and as a firm and unalterable experience lias established 
 these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is 
 as complete as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined ; and, 
 if so, it is an undeniable consequence, that it cannot be surmounted by any 
 proof whatever derived from human testimony. 
 
 Or Campbell, in his answer, aims at showing the fallacy of Mr Hume's argu- 
 ment by another single position. He argues, " That the evidence arising from 
 human testimony is not solely derived from experience ; on the contrary, tes- 
 timony hath a natural influence on belief, antecedent to experience. The 
 early and unlimited assent given to testimony by children gradually contracts as 
 they advance in life : it is, therefore, more consonant to truth, to say, that our 
 diffidence in testimony is the result of experience, than that our faith in it has 
 this foundation. Besides, the uniformity of experience, in favour of any fact, is 
 not a proof against its being reversed in a particular instance, 
 arising from the single testimony of a man of known veracity will go far t 
 establish a belief in its being actually reversed : If his testimony be confirmed 
 by a few others of the same character, we cannot withhold our assent to th 
 truth of it Now, though the operations of nature are governed by u 
 laws and though we have not the testimony of our senses in favour of any vj 
 lation of them, still, if, in particular instances, we have the testimony ot 
 sands of our fellow-creatures, and those, too, men of strict integrity, swayed by 
 no motives of ambition or interest, and governed by the principles of coii 
 sense, That they were actual eye-witnesses of these violations, the constit. 
 our nature obliges us to believe them." 
 
 Or Campbell's essay was speedily translated into the French, D 
 man languages.
 
 DR. GEORGE CAMPBELL, 
 
 The activity and application of Dr Campbell received an impulse in 1771, 
 from his being appointed professor of divinity in Marisclial college, in place of 
 L)r Alexander Gerard, who had removed to the corresponding chair in King's. 
 These two eminent men had been colleagues, and preached alternately in the 
 same churclu They were now pitted against each other in a higher walk, 
 and there can be no doubt, that, as the same students attended both, a consider- 
 able degree of emulation was excited betwixt them. Gerard was perfectly 
 sensible of the talents of his new rival His friends had taken the freedom of 
 hinting to him that he had now some reason to look to his laurels; in answer 
 to which he remarked carelessly, that Dr Campbell was indolent. An unfor- 
 tunate misunderstanding had existed between these two excellent men for many 
 years: it was now widened by the report of Gerard's trivial remark, which 
 some busy person earned to Dr Campbell's ears, probably in an exaggerated 
 shape. This circumstance is said, however, to have had the beneficial effect of 
 stimulating Dr Campbell's exertions. The manner in which he discharged his 
 duties was most exemplary; and the specimens which he has given in his 
 Preliminary Dissertations to the Translation of the Gospels, in his Lectures on 
 Ecclesiastical History, and on Theology, afford abundant proofs of his high 
 qualifications as a public lecturer. It will be at the same time observed, from 
 the list of his works, immediately to be submitted, that the vacations of his 
 professional labours were most sedulously employed for the advantao- e of the 
 public and posterity. 
 
 Dr Campbell appears to us to have been one of the most splendidly gifted 
 men that appeared during the course of the last century. His body was re- 
 markably feeble; his stature greatly below that of ordinary men in this country. 
 His health was extremely delicate, and required for the long period of three- 
 score years and ten the utmost care and attention. Yet his powers of appli- 
 cation were above those of most men, and, what is strange, were exemplified 
 chiefly in his later and feebler years. He was a man of the utmost simplicity 
 of manners and naivete of character, and remarkably pleasant in conversation. 
 The works which he has published prove, in the most indisputable manner, that 
 he was possessed of true philosophical genius. His powers of abstraction appear 
 to have been greater than those of most men of ancient or modern times. The 
 study of languages was employed by him to the best advantage ; and the 
 accuracy of his disquisitions throws a light upon the nature of the human 
 mind, while it discovers a habit of attention to the actings of his own mind, 
 which lias certainly not been surpassed by any of those who have cultivated tlic 
 science of morals. 
 
 As a minister of religion, he was no less eminent than in any other situation 
 which he ever filled. He was esteemed by his hearers as an excellent lecturer ; 
 but his lectures were perhaps a little superior to his ordinary sermons. As the 
 head of his college, he appeared to the greatest advantage, unassuming, mild, 
 and disposed to show the greatest kindness and tenderness to those who were 
 his inferiors, both in regard to lank or to literary reputation. As professor of 
 divinity, his fame was unrivalled. Many of his pupils have expressed in the 
 warmest language the pleasure they derived from his prelections. Ihere was a 
 peculiar unction in his manner which charmed every one. He encouraged 
 those whom he conceived to be diffident, and equally discountenanced those 
 who appeared to him to be forward or conceited. In church courts he never 
 aimed at shining ; but he was sometimes roused to great extemporaneous exer- 
 tion in that field, and it was remarked that his replies were generally better 
 than his introductory speeches. He was a zealous advocate for liberty of con- 
 science, and lent all his influence to his friend principal Robertson respecting
 
 JOHN CAMPBELL 
 
 ! 07 A'RGYKE AHD CKEENWICH . 
 

 
 JOHN CAMPBELL. 493 
 
 the popish bill. His preponderance in the town of Aberdeen was never great 
 in public questions ; and indeed he never aimed at such an object : but in 
 private society, he was always esteemed the life of the company, and never 
 failed to make a strong impression. 1 
 
 Dr Campbell died, April 6, 1796, in the 77th year of his age. 
 
 CAMPBELL, JOHN, duke of Argyle and Greenwich, a distinguished soldier 
 and statesman, was the son of Archibald, first duke of Argyle, by Elizabeth, 
 daughter of Sir Lionel Talmas of Helmingham, by Elizabeth, afterwards duchess 
 of Lauderdale, daughter of William Murray, earl of Dysart. His grace was 
 born, October 10, 1678 ; and on the day in which his grandfather, Archibald, 
 earl of Argyle, fell a sacrifice to the tyranny of James VII., (some say at the 
 very moment of his execution), the subject of this narrative, being then 
 in his seventh year, fell from a window in the third story of the house of 
 Dunybrissel, then possessed by his aunt, the countess of Murray, and, to the 
 astonishment of the whole household, was taken up without having suffered any 
 material injury ; a circumstance which his relatives and friends considered as 
 indicating not only future greatness, but that he was destined to restore the 
 lustre of the house of Argyle, which at that moment was under a melancholy 
 eclipse. The care of his education was confided to a licentiate of the Scottish 
 church, named Walter Campbell, who, for his diligence, was afterwards rewarded 
 by the family with a presentation to the parish of Dunoon. Under this gentle- 
 man he studied the classics, and some branches of philosophy. But he was 
 distinguished by a restless activity, rather than a fondness for study, and his 
 father, anxious to place him in a situation where he might have it in his power 
 to retrieve the fortunes of the family, took an early opportunity of presenting 
 him to king William, who, in 1694, bestowed upon the young nobleman the 
 command of a regiment, he being yet in his sixteenth year. In this situation 
 he continued till the death of his father in the month of December, 1703, when, 
 succeeding to the dukedom, he was sworn of his majesty's privy council, 
 and appointed captain of the Scots horse guards, and one of the extraordinary 
 lords of session. In 1704, the order of the thistle being revived in Scotland, 
 his grace was installed one of the knights, which dignity he subsequently ex- 
 changed for the order of the garter. 
 
 In 1705, being exceedingly popular among his countrymen, the duke of 
 Argyle was appointed her majesty's high commissioner to the Scottish parlia- 
 ment, in order to prepare the way for the treaty of union, which her majesty, 
 queen Anne, in concert with her English counsellors, had now determined to 
 carry into effect. For his services in this parliament, he was created an English 
 peer, by the titles of baron of Chatham and earl of Greenwich. His grace, 
 after this, sewed four campaigns in Flanders, under the duke of Marlborough, 
 where he rose to the rank of lieutenant-general, and was honourably distin- 
 guished in the battles of Ramilies, Oudinarde, and Malplaquet, in the last of 
 which he narrowly escaped, having a number of balls shot through his coat, hat, 
 and periwig. He was also employed at the sieges of Ostend, Menin, Lisle, Ghent, 
 and Tournay. 
 
 On the change of ministry in 1710, Argyle veered with the win. 
 
 1 The following is A list of his writings:!. The Character of a 
 Pattern. 2. Dissertation on Mirades.-3. The Spirit of the Gos pel.- 
 
 11. Lectures on Theology
 
 494 JOHN CAMPBELL. 
 
 court, and having become a declaimer against the duke of Marlborongh, was 
 by the tories appointed generalissimo in Spain, where there were groat complaints 
 of mismanagement on the part of the former ministry, and where it was now 
 proposed to carry on the war with more than ordinary vigour. Here, however, 
 his grace was completely overreached, the ministry having no intention <>t 
 carrying on the war any where. On his arrival in Spain, he found (he army 
 in a state of perfect disorganization, without pay and without necessaries, and 
 though the parliament had voted a large sum for its subsistence, not one farthing 
 was sent to him. He was under the necessity of raising money upon his plate 
 and personal credit for its immediate wants, and in a short time returned to 
 England, having accomplished nothing. This treatment, with a report that a 
 design had been laid to take him off by poison while he was on his ill-fated 
 journey, and, above all, the superior influence of the earl of Mar, who, as well 
 as himself, aspired to the sole administration of Scottish affairs, totally alienated 
 him from his new friends, the tories. He became again a leading whig, and a 
 violent declaimer for the protestant succession, in consequence of which he \\as 
 deprived of all his employments. His grace had been a principal agent in 
 accomplishing the union, by which his popularity was considerably injiuvd 
 among the lower orders of his countrymen ; this he now dexterously retrieved, 
 by joining with Mar and his Jacobite associates at court, for the dissolving of 
 that treaty which he now pretended had completely disappointed his expecta- 
 tions. A motion for this end was accordingly made in the house of lords on the 
 Hrst of June, 1713, by the earl of Seafield, who also had been one of the most 
 forward of the original supporters of the measure. The motion was seconded 
 by the earl of Mar, and urged by Argyle with all the force of his eloquence. 
 One of his principal arguments, however, being the security of the protestant 
 succession, he was led to speak of the pretender, which he did with so much 
 acrimony, that several of the high Jacobites fled the house without waiting for 
 the vote. This was the means of disappointing the project, which otherwise 
 had most certainly been carried, it having been lost after all by no more than 
 four voices. 
 
 On the illness of the queen in the following year, the zeal of his grace for 
 the protestant succession was most conspicuous, as well as most happy. No- 
 body at the time entertained any doubt that Bolingbroke and his party had an 
 intention at least to attempt the pretender's restoration on the death of the 
 queen ; and to prevent any undue advantages being taken of circumstances, 
 Argyle no sooner was apprized of her dangerous situation, than, along with the 
 duke of Somerset, he repaired to the council-board, and prevailed to have all 
 the privy counsellors- in and about London, without any exceptions, summoned 
 to attend, which, with the sudden death of the queen, so completely'disconcerted 
 the tories, that, for the time, there w;is not the smallest manifestation of one 
 discordant feeling. The queen was no sooner dead, than the seven lords who 
 had by a previous act of parliament been appointed to the regency, together 
 with sixteen additional personages nominated by the heir apparent, in virtue of 
 the same act of parliament, proclaimed the elector of Hanover king of (treat 
 Britain. They at the same time took every precaution for preserving tranquillity, 
 and preparing for his mr.jesty's being peacefully and honourably received on liis 
 arrival. The services of Argyle on this occasion were not overlooked : he was 
 made groom of the stole to the prince, while his majesty had advanced no fur- 
 ther than Greenwich, and two days after was appointed commander-in-chief of 
 his majesty's forces for Scotland. 
 
 Though by this strange combination of circumstances, viz. the sudden demise 
 of die queen, the disunion of the Jacobites, with the prompt decision of the
 
 JOHN CAMPBELL. 495 
 
 Whigs, among whom the subject of this memoir was a most efficient leader, the 
 icession of the new dynasty was to all appearance easy and peaceable, the 
 iffled faction very soon rallied their forces and returned to the charge with an 
 energy and a perseverance worthy of a better cause. The cry of " Church in 
 danger" was again raised, and for some weeks England was one srane of 
 universal riot. Many places of worship belonging to dissenters were thrown 
 down, and in several places most atrocious murders were committed. Through 
 the energy of the government, however, open insurrectiomvas for a while prevented, 
 and tranquillity in some measure restored. Still the activity of the Pretender at 
 foreign courts, and the restlessness of his adherents at home, created strong 
 suspicions that an invasion on his behalf was intended, and every preparation 
 that could be thought of was taken to defeat it. A number of new regiments 
 were raised, officers of doubtful character were displaced, suspected persons 
 taken into custody, and lords-lieutenant, with the necessary powers, every 
 where appointed. In the meantime Scotland, where the friends of the exiled 
 family were proportionally much more numerous than in England, was by a strange 
 fatality neglected In the southern and western shires, through the influence 
 of the Hanoverian club, at the head of which was the earl of Buchan, the atten- 
 tion of the people had been awakened, and right feeling to a considerable 
 extent excited ; yet even there Jacobitism was not a rare thing, and in the 
 north, through the influence of the earl of > T ar, it was altogether triumphant. 
 That nobleman, indeed, had cajoled into his views almost all the clans, at the 
 head of whom, to the amount of twelve thousand men, he had taken possession 
 of Perth, and was ready to seize upon the fords of the Forth before the govern- 
 ment had observed his mano?uvres, or taken any proper precautions to counteract 
 them. Sensible at last of the danger, they proclaimed the law for encouraging 
 loyalty in Scotland, summoned a long list of suspected persons to deliver them- 
 selves up to the public functionaries, and, to call forth those supplies of men 
 and money which they had hitherto shown a disposition to forbid rather than to 
 encourage, sent down the difke of Argyle, who had already been constituted com- 
 mander-in-chief of the forces, with all the necessary powers for that purpose. 
 His grace arrived in Edinburgh on the 14th of September, 1715, where his 
 first care was to inspect the garrison, the fortifications, and the magazines, from 
 the List of which he ordered thirty cart loads of arms and ammunition to be sent 
 to Glasgow and Stirling for the use of the inhabitants. He then proceeded to 
 review the army which had been assembled at Stirling, general Wightman 
 having there formed a camp of all the disposable forces in Scotland, which fell 
 short of two thousand men, a number altogether inadequate to the arduous duties 
 they had to perform. The first care of his grace was, of course, to augment the 
 forces by every possible means ; for which end he wrote to the magistrates of 
 Glasgow, and through them to all the well affected in the west of Scotland, to 
 forward such troops as they mijjht have in readiness without loss of time, and to 
 have as many more provided against a sudden emergency as possible. Glasgow, 
 which had been in expectation of such a catastrophe for a considerable time, 
 immediately forwarded to Stirling upwards of seven hundred men well equipped, 
 under the command of provost Aird, with whom they joined colonel John 
 Blackadder, governor of Stirling castle. These seven hundred were instantly 
 replaced at Glasgow by detachments from Kilmarnock, Irvine, Greenock, and 
 Paisley, where, with the exception of detachments sent out to garrison the 
 houses of Drummaki 11, Gartartan, and Cardross, they were allowed to remain 
 for the convenience of provisions, which were rather scarce at Stirling. He also 
 ordered Jevies to fill up every company in the regular regiments to fifty men, 
 and to add two fresh companies to each regiment. But though he offered
 
 496 JOHN CAMPBELL. 
 
 a strictly limited term of service, and a liberal bounty for that period (two 
 pounds sterling for each nian), he does not appear to have been successful in 
 adding to his numbers. Nor, with all his earnestness of application, could h 
 prevail on the government to spare him from En-jland, where troops were 
 plentiful, a single man. One regiment of dragoons and two of foot from Ireland 
 was the utmost he could obtain, which, till he should he able to ascertain the 
 intentions of the earl of Mar, were also stationed at Glasgow. While Argyle 
 was thus struggling with difficulties, and completely hampered in all his opera- 
 tions, 3Iar had greater means than he had genius to employ, and could, without 
 any exertion, keep his opponent in perpetual alarm. He had already, by a 
 stratagem, nearly possessed himself 'of the castle of Edinburgh, ere the magis- 
 trates of that city were aware of his being in arms. A detachment from his 
 army, by a night march, descended upon Burntnland, where a vessel loaded with 
 arms for the earl of Sutherland, had been driven in by stress of weather. 'Ihis 
 vessel they boarded, tarrying off the arms, with as many more as could be found 
 in the town. A still bolder project was about the same time attempted in the 
 north-west, where a numerous party of the 3Iacdonalds, 3Iacleans, and Camevons, 
 under the orders of general Gordon, attempted to surprise the garrison of 
 Inverlochy. They were, however, repulsed, after having made themselves 
 masters of two redoubts and taken twenty men. They then turned south upon 
 Argyleshire for the purpose of raising men, and general Gordon, who had the 
 reputation of an excellent officer, threatened to fall down upon Dumbarton 
 and Glasgow. This was another source of distraction to Argyle, whose small 
 army could not well admit of being divided. Gordon, however, met with little 
 encouragement in the way of recruiting, and after alarming Inverary, where 
 the duke had stationed his brother, lord Hay, dropped quietly into 3Iar's camp 
 at Perth, where nearly the whole strength of the rebels was now concentrated. 
 
 Though Argyle was thus circumscribed in his means, he displayed ceaseless 
 activity and considerable address in the application of them, and the great re- 
 putation he had acquired under Marlborough, rendered him, even with his scanty 
 means, formidable to his opponent, who was altogether a novice in the art mili- 
 tary. One talent of a great general too his grace possessed in considerable 
 perfection, that of finding out the plans and secret purposes of his adversary, of 
 all whose movements he had generally early and complete intelligence ; 3Iar, 
 on the contrary, could procure no intelligence whatever. He knew that a 
 simultaneous rising was to tike place under Thomas Fester of Etherstane, mem- 
 ber of parliament for the county of Northumberland, and another in Nithsdale 
 under viscount Kenmure ; but how they were succeeding, or to what their at- 
 tention had been more immediately directed, he was utterly ignorant. To as- 
 certain these points, to stimulate his friends in their progress, and to open up 
 for himself an easier passage to the south, he detached two thousand five 
 hundred of his best troops under the laird of Borlum, the bravest and the most 
 experienced officer perhaps in his whole army. This detachment was to force 
 its way across the Firth below Edinburgh, and through the Lothians by the 
 way of Kelso till it should find Kenmure or Foster upon the English border. This 
 romantic project the old brigadier, as he was called in the army, accomplished 
 with great facility, one boat with forty men being all that in crossing the Firth 
 fell into the hands of the enemy. A few with the earl of Stratlunore were cut 
 o/Ffrom the rest, but made their escape into the isle of May, whence in a day 
 or two they found their way back to Perth. The principal part of the expedi- 
 tion, consisting nearly of two thousand men, landed between Tantalon, North 
 Berwick and Aberlady, and for the first night quartered in Haddington. Early 
 next morning, the 13th of October, the whole body marched directly for
 
 JOHN CAMPBELL. 497 
 
 Edinburgh. This threw the citizens into the utmost consternation, and an express 
 was sent off directly to Stirling for troops to protect the city. Two hundred 
 infantry mounted upon country horses and three hundred cavalry arrived the 
 same evening ; but had Borlum persisted in his original design, they had cer- 
 tainly come too late. On his arriving, however, within a mile of the city, and 
 meeting with none of the citizens, a deputation of whom he had expected to in- 
 voke his aid, and perhaps secretly dreading the movements of Argyle, Borlum 
 turned aside to Leith, which he entered, as he would in all probability have entered 
 Edinburgh, without the smallest opposition. Here the insurgents found and liber- 
 ated their forty companions who had been taken the previous day in crossing the 
 Firth. They also seized upon the Custom-house, where they found considera- 
 ble quantities of meal, beef, and brandy, which they at once appropriated to 
 their own use, and possessing themselves of the citadel, with such materials as 
 they found in the harbour, they fortified it in the best manner they could for 
 their security through the night. Next morning Argyle, with his three hundred 
 cavalry, two hundred infantry, and a few militia, marched against Borlum, accom- 
 panied by generals Evans and Wightman, giving him a summons under pain of 
 treason to surrender, adding that if he waited for an attack, he should have no 
 quarter. The laird of Kynnachin, who was spokesman for the rebels, haughtily re- 
 plied, that the word surrender they did not understand, quarter they would nei- 
 ther take nor give, and his grace was welcome to force their position if he could. 
 Sensible that without artillery no attack could be made upon the place, barricad- 
 ed as it was, with any prospect of success, the duke withdrew to prepare the means 
 of more efficient warfare, and Borlum, disappointed in his views upon Edinburgh, 
 and perhaps not at all anxious for a second interview with the king's troops, 
 took the advantage of an ebb tide and a very dark night, to abandon his posi- 
 tion, marching round the pier by the sands for Seaton house, the seat of the 
 earl of Winton, who was in the south with Kenmure and his associated rebels. 
 This place, after sundry accidants, they reached in safety about two o'clock in 
 the morning. Here they were joined by a number of their companions, who 
 having crossed the Firth farther down were unable to come up with them on the 
 preceding day. Forty of their men, who had made too free with the custom- 
 house brandy, some stragglers who had fallen behind on the march, with a 
 small quantity of baggage and ammunition, fell into the hands of a detachment 
 of the king's troops. Argyle, in the meantime, aware of the strength of Seaton 
 house, sent off an express to Stirling for cannon to dislodge its new possessors, 
 when he was informed that Mar was on his march to foiv-e the passage of the 
 Forth. This compelled him to hasten to Stirling, where he found that Mar 
 had actually commenced his march, and had himself come as far south as Dun- 
 blane, whence hearing of the arrival of the duke, he returned to Perth, having 
 attained his object, \\hich was only a safe retreat for his friends from Seaton 
 house. 
 
 On his sudden departure for Stirling, Argyle left the city of Edinburgh an-,1 
 Seaton house to the care of general Wightman and colonel Ker, with a few 
 regular troops and the neighbouring militia. Finding Seaton impregnable 
 to any force they could bring against it, they retired from it, to save themselves 
 the disgrace of making an unsuccessful attack. Borlum finding himself un- 
 molested, and in a country where he could command with ease all kinds of 
 provision, proposed nothing less than to establish there a general magazine for 
 the pretender, and to enlist an army from among the Jacobites of Edinburgh and 
 the adjacent country ; but before he left the citadel of Leith, he despatched a 
 boat with intelligence to Mar ; and, firing after her, the king's ships took her 
 for one of their own boats, and allowed her to pass without molestation. In 
 
 i. ;3 K
 
 498 JOHN CAMPBELL. 
 
 consequence ol this notice, 31ar lia<l lauie a leint to cross the Forth, m,,i eiy to 
 allow him to escape, and now he had an answer at Seaton house, with express 
 orders to proceed south, and to put himself under the orders of Kenmure or 
 Foster, without a moment's delay. He accordingly proceeded next day to- 
 wards Kelso, where he met with Foster and Kenmure on the 22d of 
 October, when, after all the desertion they had experienced by the way, 
 which was very considerable, the whole formed an army of fourteen hundred 
 foot, and six hundred horse. Here they were threatened with an attack from 
 general Carpenter, who was within a day's march of them, and became violently 
 divided in opinion respecting the course they ought to pursue. Foster and his 
 Northumbrian friends were anxious to transfer the scene of their operations 
 to England, where they promised themselves a prodigious increase of numbers. 
 The Highlanders, on the contrary, were anxious to return and join the clans, 
 taking the towns of Dumfries and Glasgow in their way. The contention was 
 so hot that it had almost come to blows, and it ended in five hundred Highland- 
 ers adopting the latter plan, who, separating from their companions, and taking 
 their route for the heads of the Forth, were either famished, killed, or taken 
 prisoners by the way. The remainder followed the former, and proceeded as 
 far as Preston, where on the 1 3th of November, the very day on which 
 the main armies met on the Sheriff-muir, they were all made prisoners and de- 
 livered over, some to the executioner, and the remainder to be slaves in the 
 plantations. 
 
 Argyle all this while continued at Stirling, and Mar at Perth, carrying on 
 an insignificant war of maiufestoes, equally unprofitable to both parties ; and 
 perhaps equally harassing to the country. On the 23d of October, how- 
 ever, the duke, having learned that a detachment of rebels was passing by 
 castle Campbell, towards Dunfermline, sent out a body of cavalry, which came 
 up with the party, and defeated it, taking a number of gentlemen prisoners, 
 with the trifling damage of one dragoon wounded in the cheek, and one horse 
 slightly hurt Nothing further occurred between the armies till 3Iar, finding that 
 without action it would be impossible to keep his army together, called a coun- 
 cil of all the chiefs on the 9th of November, in which it was resolved to cross 
 the Forth without loss of time. Nor could this be, one would have supposed, 
 to them any thing like a difficult undertaking. After having disposed of three 
 thousand men in the different garrisons along the coast of Fife, they had still 
 twelve thousand effective troops for the attack, which they proposed should be 
 made in the following manner. First, with one division of one thousand men 
 to attempt the bridge of Stirling with a second of an equal number the Abbey 
 Ford, a mile below the bridge with a third of an equal number, the ford cal- 
 led the Drip Coble, a mile and a half above the bridge. These three attacks, 
 they supposed, would amply occupy the duke's whole army, which did not ex- 
 ceed three thousand men, and, in the meantime, with their main body, consisting 
 of nine thousand men, they intended to cross the river still higher up, and 
 push directly for England, leaving the other three divisions after having disposed 
 of the duke, to follow at their leisure. Argyle, however, having acquainted 
 himself, by means of his spies, with the plan, took his measures accordingly. 
 Aware that if he waited for the attack on the Forth, he would, from the nature 
 of the ground, be deprived of the use of his cavalry, upon which he placed his 
 principal dependence, he determined to take up a position in advance of that river, 
 and for this purpose, having appointed the earl of Buchan with the Stirlingshire 
 militia, and the Glasgow regiment to guard the town of Stirling, commenced 
 his inarch to the north on th* morning of Saturday the 12th of November, and
 
 JOHN CAMPBELL. 499 
 
 in the afternoon encamped on a rising ground, having on his right the Sheriff- 
 muir, and on his left the town of Dunblane. 
 
 Mar having committed the town of Perth to the care of colonel Balfour on 
 
 10th had come as far south as Auchterarder, with an effective force c 
 ten thousand five hundred men, the cavalry in his army being nearly equal to 
 Argyle's whole force. The 11th he devoted to resting the troops, fixing the 
 order of batt e, &c., and on the 12th, general Gordon, with eight squadrons 
 horse, and all the clans, was ordered to occupy Dunblane. The remainder 
 the rebel army had orders to parade early in the morning on the muir of 
 llibardme, and thence to follow general Gordon. This part of the army which 
 was under the command of general Hamilton, had scarcely begun to move' when 
 an express came to the general that the royal troops had already oc'cupied 
 Dunblane in great force. On this the general halted, and drew up his men in 
 the order of battle on the site of the Roman camp, near Ardoch. Mar him- 
 self, who had gone to Drummond castle, being informed of the circumstance 
 came up with all speed, and nothing further having been heard from general 
 Gordon, the whole was supposed to be a false alarm. The troops, however 
 were ordered to be in readiness, and the discharge of three cannons' was to be 
 the signal for the approach of the enemy. Scarcely had these orders been is- 
 sued, when an express from general Gordon informed the earl of Mar that Ar- 
 gyle had occupied Dunblane with his whole force. The signal guns were of 
 course fired, and the rebel army, formed in order of battle on the muir of Kin- 
 buck, lay under arms during the night. 
 
 The duke of Argyle, having certain intelligence before he left Stirling of 
 Mar's movements, was perfectly aware, that before his army had finished its 
 encampment the watch guns of the rebels would be heard, disposed every thing 
 exactly in the order in which he intended to make his attack next mornino- ; of 
 course no tent was pitched, and officers and men, without distinction, lay 
 under arms during the night, which was uncommonly severe. The duke alone 
 sat under cover of a sheep cote at the foot of the hill. Every thing being 
 ready for the attack, his grace, early in the morning of Monday, the 13th, 
 rode to the top of the hill, where his advanced guard -was posted, to reconnoitre 
 the rebels' army, which, though it had suffered much from desertion the two 
 preceding days, was still upwards of nine thousand men, disposed in the follow- 
 ing order Ten battalions of foot, comprising the clans commanded by Clan- 
 ronald, Glengary, Sir John Maclean, and Campbell of Glenlyon. On their 
 right were three squadrons of horse ; the Stirling, which carried the standard 
 of the pretender, and two of the marquis of Huntley's ; on their left were the 
 Fifeshire and Perthshire squadrons. Their second line consisted of three bat- 
 talions of Seaforth's, two of Huntley's, those of Panmure, Tullibardine, lord 
 Drummond, and Strowan, commanded by their respective chieftains, Drum- 
 mond's excepted, which was commanded by Strathallan and Logie Almond. 
 On the right of this line were Marischal's dragoons, and on their left those of 
 Angus. Of the left of their army his grace had a tolerable view, but a hollow 
 concealed their right, and, being masters of the brow of the hill, he was unable 
 to discover the length of their lines. 
 
 While the rebels, notwithstanding their great superiority of force, were 
 losing their time in idle consultation whether they should presently fight or re- 
 turn to Perth, the duke had an opportunity of examining 1 their dispositions, 
 but for a considerable time could not comprehend what was their plan, and was 
 at a loss how to form his own. No sooner had they taken the resolution to fight, 
 however, than he perceived that they intended to attack him in front with their 
 right, and in flank with their left, at the same time ; the severity of the frost
 
 500 JOHN CAMPBELL. 
 
 the night having rendered a morass, tvhich covered that part of his posi- 
 tion, perfectly passable : he hastened to make his dispositions accordingly. 
 Before these dispositions, however, could be completed, general Witham, who 
 commanded his left, was attacked by the clans, with all their characteristic furv, 
 and totally routed, Witham himself riding full speed to Stirling with tidings oi 
 a total defeat. In the meantime, Argyle, at the head of Stair's and Evans' 
 dragoons, charged the rebel army on the left, consisting mostly of cavalry, 
 which he totally routed in his turn, driving them, to the number of five thou- 
 sand men, beyond the water of Allan, in which many of them were drowned 
 attempting to escape. General Wightman, who commanded the duke's centre, 
 followed with three battalions of foot as closely as possible. The right of the 
 rebels were all this time inactive, and seeing, by the retreat of Argyle's left, the 
 field empty, joined the clans who had driven it oft', and crossing the field of 
 battle, took post, to the number of four thousand men, on the hill of Kippen- 
 darie. Apprised by general Wightman of his situation, which was now critical 
 in the extreme, Argyle instantly wheeled round formed the few troops he had, 
 scarcely one thousand men, the Grays on the right, Evans' on the left, with the 
 foot in the centre, and advancing towards the enemy, took post behind some 
 fold dykes at the foot of the hill. Instead of attacking him, however, the rebels 
 drew off towards Ardoch, allowing him quietly to proceed to Dunblane, where, 
 having recalled general Withani, the army lay on their arms all night, expect- 
 ing to renew the combat next day. Next day, finding the enemy gone, he re- 
 turned to Stirling, carrying along with him sixteen standards, six pieces of can- 
 non, four waggons, and a great quantity of provision, captured from the enemy. 
 The number of tha slain on the side of the rebels has been stated to have been 
 eight hundred, among whom were the earl of Strathmore, Clanranald, and several 
 other persons of distinction. Panmure and Drummond of Logic were among 
 the wounded. Of the royal army there were killed, wounded, and taken pris- 
 oners upwards of six hundred. The lord Forfar was the only person of en.i- 
 nence killed on that side. 
 
 The obvious incapacity of both generals, though, from his great superiority 
 of forces, Marr's is by far the most conspicuous, is the only striking feature of 
 this battle ; both claimed the victory at the time, and both had suffered a de- 
 feat, yet the consequences were decisive. The rebels never again faced the 
 royal troops, and for any thing they effected might have separated that very 
 day. The period indeed was fatal in the extreme to the Pretender. The 
 whole body of his adherents in the south had fallen into the hands of generals 
 Willis and Carpenter at Preston, and Inverness, with all the adjacent country, 
 had been recovered to the government, through the exertions of the earl of 
 Sutherland, lord Lovat, the Rosses, the Monros, and the Forbeses, nearly on 
 this same day ; and though Marr, on his return to Perth, celebrated his victory 
 with Te Deuma, thanksgivings, sermons, ringing of bells, and bonfires, his fol- 
 lowers were dispirited, and many of them withdrew to their homes in disgust 
 Owing to the paucity of his numbers and the extreme rigour of the season, Ar- 
 gyle was in no great haste to follow up his part of the victory, and the govern- 
 ment, evidently displeased with his tardy procedure, sent down general Cado- 
 gan to quicken, and perhaps to be a spy upon his motions. He, however, 
 brought along with him six thousand Dutch and Swiss troops, with Newton's 
 and Stanhope's dragoons, by which the royal army was made more than a match 
 tor the rebels, though they had been equally strong as before the battle of 
 Dunblane. On the arrival of these reinforcements, orders were issued to the 
 commander in Leith roads, to cannonade the town of Bruntisland, which was in 
 possession uf a large body of the rebels, which he did with so much effect, that
 
 JOHN CAMPBELL. 501 
 
 they abandoned the place, leaving behind them six pieces of cannon, a number 
 of small arms, and a large quantity of provisions. Several other small garrisons 
 on the coast were abandoned about the same time, and a detachment of the 
 Uutch and Swiss troops, crossing over at the Queenst'erry, took possession cf 
 Inverkeithing, Dunfermline, and the neighbouring towns, in consequence of which 
 Fife was entirely abandoned by the rebels. Some trifling skirmishes took 
 place, but no one of such magnitude as to deserve a formal detail. 
 
 Cadogan, writing to the duke of Marlborough at this period, says, that he 
 found the duke anxious to invent excuses for sitting still and endeavouring to 
 discourage the troops, by exaggerating the numbers of the enemy, and the dan- 
 gers and difficulties of the service. Now. however, having received from Lon- 
 don, Berwick, and Edinburgh, a sufficient train of artillery, pontoons, engineers, 
 &c. no excuse for inaction was left, but the inclemency of the weather ; and 
 this, in a council of war, it was determined to brave. Colonel Guest was accord- 
 ingly sent out, on the 21st of January, 1716, with two hundred horse, to view 
 the roads and reconnoitre the positions of the enemy. The colonel reported the 
 roads impassable for carriages and heavy artillery, in consequence of which seve- 
 ral thousands of the country people were called in and employed to clear them. 
 A sudden thaw, on the 24th, followed by a heavy fall of snow, rendered the roads 
 again impassable ; but the march was determined upon, and the country men 
 had to clear the roads a second time. But, besides s the impassability of the roads, 
 there were neither provisions, forage, nor shelter, (frozen rocks, and mountains 
 of snow excepted.) to be found between Perth and Dunblane ; the Chevalier, 
 having ordered every village with all that could be of use either to man or beast, to 
 be destroyed. Provisions and forage for the army were therefore to be provided, 
 subsistence for twelve days being ordered to be earned along with them, and more 
 to be in readiness to send after them when wanted. In the meantime, two regi- 
 ments of dragoons and five hundred foot were sent forward to the broken bridge 
 of Doune, in case the rebels might have attempted to secure the passage ; and, on 
 the 29th, the main army began its inarch, quartering that night in Dunblane. 
 On the night of the 30th, the army quartered among the ruins of Auchterarder, 
 without any covering save the canopy of heaven, the night being piercingly cold 
 and the snow upwards of three feet deep. On this day's march the army was 
 preceded by two thousand labourers clearing the roads. Next morning they sur- 
 prised and made prisoners fifty men in the garrison of Tullibardine, where the duke 
 received, with visible concern, if we may credit Cadogan, the news of the Pretender 
 having abandoned Perth on the preceding day, having thrown his artillery into the 
 Tay, which he crossed on the ice. Taking four squadrons of dragoons, and two 
 battalions of foot, whatever might be his feelings, Argyle hastened to take posses- 
 sion of that city, at which he arrived, with general Cadogan and the dragoons, 
 about one o'clock on the morning of the 1st of February. The two colonels, Camp- 
 bell of Finab, and Campbell of Lawers, who had been stationed at Finlarig, hearing 
 of the retreat of the rebels, had entered the town the preceding day, and had made 
 prisoners of a party of rebels who had got drunk upon a quantity of brandy, 
 which they had not had the means otherwise to carry away. Eight hundred bolls 
 of oat meal were found in Marr's magazine, which Argyle ordered to be, by the 
 miller of the mill of Earn, divided among the sufferers of the different villages 
 tliat had been burned by order of the Pretender. Finab was despatch- 
 ed instantly to Dundee in pursuit of the rebels ; and entered it only a few 
 hours after they had departed. On the 2d, his grace continued the pursuit, 
 and lay that night at Errol. On the 3d, he came to Dundee, where he was 
 joined by the main body of the army on the 4th. Here the intelligence from 
 the rebel army led his grace to conclude that they meant to defend Montrose,
 
 502 JOHN CAMPBELL. 
 
 v,iioi-e they could mure easily receive supplies from abroad than at Perth; and, 
 to allow them as little time as possible to fortify themselves, two detachments 
 were sent forward without a moment's loss of time ; the one by Aberbrothick, 
 and the other by Brechin. Owing to the depths of the roads the progress of 
 these detachments was slow, being under the necessity of employing the country 
 people to clear away the snow before them. They were followed next day by 
 the whole army, the duke, with the cavalry and artillery, taking the way by 
 Brechin, and Cadogan, with the infantry, by Aberbrothick. On this day's ONHCfa 
 they learned that the Chevalier, Marr, and the principal leaders of the rebel 
 army had embarked the day before at Montrose, on board the Maria Teresa, 
 and had sailed for France, while their followers had marched to Aberdeen 
 under the charge of general Gordon and earl Marischal. On the (5th, the duke 
 entered Montrose, and the same day the rebels entered Aberdeen. Thither his grace 
 followed them on the 8th ; but they had then separated among the lulls of 
 Badenoch, and were completely beyond the reach of their pursuers. A number 
 of their chieftains, however, with some Irish officers, being well mounted, rode 
 off in a body for Peterhead, expecting there to find the means of escaping 
 to France. After these a party of horse were sent out, but they had escaped. 
 Finab was also sent to Frazerburgh in search of stragglers, but found only the 
 Chevalier's physician, whom he made prisoner. 
 
 Finding the rebels completely dispersed, Argyle divided his troops and dis- 
 persed them so as he thought best for preserving the public tranquillity ; and, 
 leaving Cadogan in the command, set out for Edinburgh, where he arrived on 
 the 27th of February, and was present at the election of a peer to serve in the 
 room of the marquis of Tweeddale, deceased. On the 1st of March, after having 
 been most magnificently entertained by the magistrates of the Scottish capital, 
 his grace departed for London, where he arrived on the Gth, and was, by his 
 majesty, to all appearance, most graciously received. There was, however, at 
 court a secret dissatisfaction with his conduct ; and, in a short time, he Mas dis- 
 missed from all his employments, though he seems in the meantime to have acted 
 cordially enough with the ministry, whose conduct was, in a number of instances, 
 ridiculous enough. They had obtained an act of parliament for bringing all 
 the Lancaster rebels to be tried at London, and all the Scottish ones to be tried 
 at Carlisle, under the preposterous idea that juries could not be found in those 
 places to return a verdict of guilty. Under some similar hallucination, they 
 supposed it impossible to elect a new parliament without every member thereof 
 being Jacobite in his principles ; and, as the parliament was nearly run, they 
 brought in a bill to enable themselves, as well as all other parliaments which 
 should succeed them, to sit seven years in place of three. The bill was intro- 
 duced into the house of lords, on the 10th of April, by the Duke of Devonshire, 
 who represented triennial parliaments as serving no other purposes than the 
 keeping alive party divisions and family feuds, with a perpetual train of enor- 
 mous expenses, and particularly to encourage the intrigues of foreign powers, 
 which, in the present temper of the nation, might be attended with the most 
 fatal consequences. All these dangers he proposed to guard against, by prolong- 
 ing the duration of parliaments from three to seven years. He was supported 
 by the earls of Dorset and Buckingham, the duke of Argyle, the lord Town- 
 shend, with all the leaders of the party ; and though violently opposed by the 
 lories, who, very justly, though they have been its zealous advocates ever since, 
 denounced it as an inroad upon the fundamental parliamentary law of the king- 
 dom, the measure was carried by a sweeping majority, and has been parliamen- 
 tary law from that time. 
 
 Previously to this, Argyle had honourably distinguished himself by a steady
 
 JOHN CAMPBELL. 503 
 
 opposition to the schism bill, against which, along with a number of the greatest 
 names England has ever produced, he entered his protest upon the journals of 
 the house. Subsequently, in a debate on the bill for vesting the forfeited estates 
 in Britain and Ireland in trustees for the public behoof, we find him speaking 
 and voting against it with the Jacobite lords North and Grey, Trevor, and liar- 
 court, but he was now out of all his employments and pensions, and the Jacobite 
 Lockhart was every day expecting to hear that he had declared for James VIII. 
 which there is every probability he would have done, had that imbecile prince 
 been able to profit by the wisdom of his advisers. In the beginning of the year 
 1718, when the Pretender became again a tool in the hands of Cardinal Albe- 
 roni for disturbing the tranquillity of the British government, Argyle was restored 
 to favour, appointed steward of the household, and created duke of Greenwich, 
 when he again lent his support to the ministry in bringing forward the famous 
 peerage bill ; another insane attempt to subvert the balance of the constitution. 
 By this bill the peerage was to be fixed so as that the number of English peers 
 should never be increased above six, more than their number at that time, which, 
 on the failure of heirs male, were to be filled up by new creations. Instead of 
 the sixteen elective Scottish peers, twenty-five were to be made hereditary on 
 the part of that kingdom, to be also kept up by naming other Scottish peers on 
 the failure of heirs male. This bill was introduced by the duke of Somerset, 
 seconded by Argyle, and being also recommended by his majesty, could not fail 
 of passing the lords, but met with such violent opposition in the commons that it 
 was found expedient to lay it aside for the time. When again brought forward 
 it was rejected by a great majority. After this his grace seems for a long 
 period to have enjoyed his pensions, and to have lived for the most part on 
 peaceable terms with his colleagues. Only, in the year 1721, we find him, in 
 order to supplant the Squadrone and secure to himself and his brother the sole 
 and entire patronage of Scotland, again in treaty with Lockhart of Carnwath, 
 and the tories, in consequence of which, Lockhart assures the king [James] that 
 if there is to be a new parliament, the tories will have the half of the sixteen 
 peers, and Argyle's influence for all the tory commons they shall be able to bring 
 forward as candidates. " I also inserted," he adds, " that matters should be 
 made easy to those who are prosecuted for the king's [James] sake, and that 
 Argyle should oppose the peerage bill, both of which are agreed to." The 
 ministry, however, contrived to balance the Squadrone and his grace pretty 
 equally against one another, and so secured the fidelity of both, till 1725, when 
 the Squadrone were finally thrown out, and the whole power of Scotland fell 
 into the hands of Argyle and his brother Hay ; they engaging to carry through 
 the malt tax, as the other had carried through the forfeiture of the rebels' 
 estates. From this, till the affair of captain Porteous, in 1737, we hear little 
 of his grace in public. On that occasion we find him again in opposition to the 
 ministry ; defending the city of Edinburgh, and charging the mob upon a set of 
 upstart fanatical preachers, by which he doubtless meant the seceders. The 
 effect, however, was only the display of his own ignorance, and the infliction of 
 a deeper wound upon the Scottish church, by the imposition of reading what was 
 called Porteous' Paper upon all her ministers. Edinburgh, however, contrary 
 to the intentions of the court, was left in the possession of her charter, her gates 
 and her guards; but the lord provost was declared incapable of ever again hold- 
 ing a civil office, and a mulct of two thousand pounds sterling was imposed upon 
 the city funds for the captain's widow. In the succeeding years, when the na- 
 tion was heated into frenzy against Spain, his grace made several appearances 
 on the popular side; and, in 1740, after an anti-ministerial speech on the state 
 of the nation, he was again deprived of all his employments. On the resignation
 
 504: JOHN CAMPBELL. 
 
 offeiir Kobert U alpole, his grace was, by llie new ministry, once more restored 
 to all his places. The ministry, however, were unable to maintain their popu- 
 larity, and Ar^-yle finally quitted the stage of public life. From this time for- 
 ward he affected privacy, and admitted none to his conversation but particular 
 friends. 
 
 The Jacobites were now preparing to make a last ellbrt to destroy that spirit 
 of freedom which was so rapidly annihilating their hopes. They had all along 
 believed that Argyle, could he have reconciled them with his own, was not un- 
 friendly to their interests, and now that he was old, idle, and disgusted, hoping 
 to work upon his avarice and his ambition at the same time, they prevailed upon 
 the Chevalier, now also approaching to dotage, to write him a friendly letter. 
 The time, however, liad been allowed to go by. Argyle had acquired a high re- 
 putation for patriotism he was now old and paralytic, utterly unfit for going 
 through those scenes of peril that had been the pride of his youth; and lie u.-is 
 too expert a politician not to know, that from the progress of public opinion, 
 as well as from the state of property and private rights, the cause of the 
 Stuarts was utterly hopeless. The letter was certainly beneath his notice ; but 
 to gratify his vanity, and to show that he was still of some little consequence in 
 the world, he sent it to his majesty's ministers. The Jacobites, enraged at his 
 conduct, and probably ashamed of their own, gave out, that the whole was a 
 trick intended to expose the weakness of the ministry, and to put an affront 
 upon the duke of Argyle. The loss to either party was not considerable, as his 
 grace's disorder now began rapidly to increase. He fell by degrees into a state 
 of deep melancholy, 1 and departed this life on the 3d day of September, 1743, 
 in the sixty-fifth year of his age. 
 
 His grace was twice married first to Mary, daughter of John Brown Esq., 
 and niece to Sir Charles Dnncombe, lord mayor of London, by whom he had no 
 issue. Secondly, to Jane, daughter of Thomas Warburton of Wilmington, in 
 Cheshire, by whom he had four daughters. He was succeeded in his Scottish 
 titles and estates by his brother lord Hay, but wanting male issue his English titles 
 became extinct. 
 
 From the brief sketch we have given of his life, the reader, we apprehend, 
 will be at no loss to appreciate the character of John duke of Argyle. Few men 
 have enjoyed such a large share of popularity fewer still have, through a long 
 life, threaded the mazes of political intrigue with the same uniform good for- 
 tune. The latter, however, illustrates the former. He who has liad for life the 
 sole patronage of a kingdom, must have had many a succession of liumMe ser- 
 vants ready to give him credit for any or for all perfections, and he must have 
 exercised thnt patronage with singular infelicity, if he has not benefited many 
 individuals who will think it a duty they owe to themselves, if not to extenuate 
 his faults, to magnify his virtues. Such a man can never want popularity, espe- 
 cially if he has an assistant upon whom he can impose the drudgery, and the 
 less dignified duties of his place, reserving to himself more especially the per- 
 formance of those that flatter public opinion, and conciliate public affection. 
 Such a man was Argyle, and such an assistant he had in his brother, lord Hay, 
 who, supported by his influence, had the reputation, for upwards of thirty years, 
 of being the king of Scotland. In early life he acquired considerable military 
 reputation under the duke of ATarlborough, and when he was paying court to the 
 tories had the temerity, on a military question, to setup his opinion in the house 
 of lords, in opposition to that most accomplished of all generals. How justly, 
 let Sheriffmuir and the hill of Kippendavie say ! Happily for his grace 
 there was no lord George Murray with the rebels on that occasion. If there 
 had. Sir John Cope might at this day have been reputed a brave man, and a
 
 JOHN CAMPBELL, LL.D. 505 
 
 great general. His eloquence and his patriotism have been highly celebrated 
 by Thomson, but the value of poetical panegyric is now perfectly understood ; 
 besides, he shared the praises of that poet in common with Bubb Doddington, 
 the countess of Hertford, and twenty other names of equal insignificance. Gen- 
 eral Cadogan, who accompanied him through the latter part of his northern cam- 
 paign, seems to have made a very low estimate of his patriotism. He charges 
 him openly with being lukewarm in the cause he defended, and of allowing his 
 Argyleshire men to go before the army, and plunder the country, " which,'' 
 says he, " enrages our soldiers, who are not allowed to take the worth of a far- 
 thing out of even the rebels' houses." What was taken out of houses by either 
 of them we know not ; but M r e know that our army in its progress north, par- 
 ticularly the Dutch part of it, burnt for fuel ploughs, narrows, carts, cart-wheels, 
 and barn doors indiscriminately, so that many an honest farmer could not cultivate 
 his fields in the spring for the want of these necessary implements, which to us 
 proves pretty distinctly, that there was a very small degree of patriotism felt by 
 either of them. Of learning his grace had but an inconsiderable portion ; still 
 he had a tolerable share of the natural shrewdness of his countrymen, and 
 though his speculative views were narrow, his knowledge of mankind seems to 
 have been practically pretty extensive. His disgraceful truckling to, and traf- 
 ficking with the Tories and the Jacobites, at all times when he was out of place, 
 demonstrates his principles to have been sordid, and his character selfish. His 
 views of liberty seem to have been very contracted, the liberty of lords and 
 lairds to use the people as might suit their purposes and inclinations. In per- 
 fect accordance with this feeling, he was kind and affectionate in domestic life, 
 particularly to his servants, with whom he seldom parted, and for whom, in old 
 age, he was careful to provide. He was also an example to all noblemen in 
 being attentive to the state of his affairs, and careful to discharge all his debts, 
 particularly tradesmen's accounts, in due season. We cannot sum up his character 
 more appropriately than in the words of Lockhart, who seems to have appre- 
 ciated very correctly the most prominent features of the man with whom he was 
 acquainted " He was not," says he, " strictly speaking, a man of sound under- 
 standing and judgment, for all his natural endowments were sullied with too 
 much impetuosity, passion, and positiveness, and his sense lay rather in a flash 
 of wit, than a solid conception and reflection yet, nevertheless, he might well 
 enough pass as a very well-accomplished gentleman." 
 
 CAMPBELL, JOHN, LL.D., an eminent miscellaneous writer, was born at Edin- 
 burgh, March 8, 1708. He was the fourth son of Robert Campbell, of Glenlyon, 
 
 by Elizabeth Smith, daughter of Smith, Esq., of Windsor. By his father, 
 
 Dr Campbell was connected with the noble family of Breadalbane, and other 
 distinguished Highland chiefs ; by his mother, he was descended from the poet 
 Waller. If we are not much mistaken, this distinguished writer was also allied 
 to the famous Rob Roy Macgregor, whose children, at the time when Dr Camp- 
 bell enjoyed a high literary reputation in the metropolis, must have been pursu 
 ing the lives of outlaws in another part of the country, hardly yet emerged from 
 barbarism. When only five years of age, he was conveyed from Scotland, which 
 country he never afterwards saw, to Windsor, where he received his educati 
 under the care of a maternal uncle. It was attempted to make him t 
 profession of an attorney ; but his thirst for knowledge rendered that disagri 
 able to him, and caused him to prefer the precarious life of an author by pro 
 sion. It would be vain to enumerate the many works of Dr Campbel 
 first undertaking of any magnitude, was " The Military History of the E 
 Marlborough and Prince Eugene," which appeared in 1736, in two vol. 
 folio, and was well received. He was next concerned in the preparation of the 
 
 3 s
 
 506 JOHN CAMPBELL, LL.D. 
 
 Ancient Universal History, which appeared in seven folios, the last being pub- 
 lished in 1744. The part relating to the cosmogony, which is by far the most 
 learned, was written by Dr Campbell. In 1742, appeared the two first volumes 
 of his Lives of the Admirals, and, in 1744, the remaining two : this is the only 
 work of Dr Campbell which has continued popular to the present time, an 
 accident probably arising, in a great measure, from the nature of the subject. 
 The activity of Dr Campbell at this period is very surprising. In the same year 
 in which he completed his last mentioned work, he published a Collection of 
 Voyages and Travels, in 2 volumes, folio. In 1745, he commenced the publi- 
 cation of the Biographia Britannica, in weekly numbers. In this, as in all the 
 other works of Dr Campbell, it is found that he did not content himself with the 
 ordinary duties of his profession, as exercised at that time. While he wrote to 
 supply the current necessities of the public, and of his own home, he also endea- 
 voured to give his works an original and peculiar value. Hence it is found thai 
 the lives composing his Biographia Britannica are compiled with great tare from 
 a vast number of documents, and contain many striking speculations on literary 
 and political subjects, calculated to obtain for the work a high and enduring 
 character. The candour and benevolent feelings of Dr Campbell have also 
 produced the excellent effect of striking impartiality in the grand ques- 
 tions of religious and political controversy. Though himself a member of the 
 church of England, he treated the lives of the great non-conformists, such as 
 Baxter and Calamy, with such justice as to excite the admiration of their own 
 party. Dr Campbell's style is such as would not now, perhaps, be much admired; 
 but it was considered, by his own contemporaries, to be superior both in accu 
 racy and in warmth of tone to what was generally used. He treated the article 
 BOYLE in such terms as to draw the thanks of John, fifth earl of Orrery, "in the 
 name of all the Boyles, for the honour he had done to them, and to his own 
 judgment, by placing the family in such a light as to give a spirit of emulation 
 to those who were hereafter to inherit the title." A second edition of the Bio- 
 graphia, with additions, was undertaken, after Dr Campbell's death, by Dr Kip- 
 pis, but only carried to a fifth volume, where it stopped at the letter F. It is 
 still, in both editions, one of the greatest works of reference in the language. 
 While engaged in these heavy undertakings, Dr Campbell occasionally relaxed 
 himself in lighter works, one of which, entitled, " Hermippus Redivivus," is a 
 curious essay, apparently designed to explain in a serious manner an ancient 
 medical whim, which assumed that life could be prolonged to a great extent by 
 inhaling the breath of young women. It is said that some grave physicians were 
 so far influenced by this mock essay, as to go and live for a time in female 
 boarding-schools, for the purpose of putting its doctrine to the proof. In reality, 
 the whole affair was a jest of Dr Campbell, or rather, perliaps, a sportive exer- 
 cise of his mind, being merely an imitation of the manner of Bayle, with whose 
 style of treating controversial subjects he appears to have been deeply impressed, 
 as he professedly adopts it in the Biographia Britannica. In 1750, Dr Camp- 
 bell published his celebrated work, " The Present State of Europe," which after- 
 wards went through many editions, and was so much admired abroad, that a son 
 of the duke de Belleisle studied English in order to be able to read it. The 
 vast extent of information which Dr Campbell had acquired during his active 
 life, by conversation, as well as by books, and the comprehensive powers of 
 arrangement which his profession had already given him, are conspicuous in this 
 work. He was afterwards employed in writing some of the most important arti- 
 cles in the " Modern Universal History," which extended to sixteen volumes, 
 folio, and was reprinted in a smaller form. His last great work was the " Poli- 
 tical Survey of Britain ; being a Series of Reflections on the situation, lands,
 
 JOHN CAMPBELL, LL.D. 
 
 507 
 
 inhabitant*, revenues, colonies, and commerce, of this island ;" which appeared 
 m 1774, in 2 volumes 4to, having cost him the labour of many years. Though 
 its value is so far temporary, this is perhaps the work which does its author the 
 highest credit It excited the admiration of the world to such a degree as 
 caused him to be absolutely overwhelmed with new correspondents. He tells a 
 friend, in a letter, that he had already consumed a ream of paper, (nearly a thou- 
 sand sheets, ) in answering these friends, and was just breaking upon another, 
 which perhaps would share the same fate. 
 
 Dr Campbell had been married early in life to Elizabeth, daughter of Benja- 
 min Robe, of Leominster, in the county of Hereford, gentleman, by whom 'he 
 had seven children. Though it does not appear that he had any other resources 
 than his pen, his style of life was very respectable. His time was so exclusively 
 devoted to reading and writing, that he seldom stirred abroad. His chief exer- 
 cise was an occasional walk in his garden, or in a room of his house. He was 
 naturally of a delicate frame of body ; but strict temperance, with the regularity 
 of all his habits, preserved his health against the effects of both his sedentary 
 life and original weakness, till his sixty-eighth year, when he died, December 
 28, 1775, in full possession of his faculties, and without pain. 
 
 It would only encumber our pages to recount all the minor productions of Dr 
 Campbell. A minute specification of them is preserved in the second edition of 
 his Biographia Britannica, where his life was written by Dr Kippis. So multitu- 
 dinous, however, were his fugitive compositions, that he once bought an old pamph- 
 let, with which he was pleased on dipping into it, and which turned out to be 
 one of his own early writings. So completely had he forgot every thing con- 
 nected with it, that he had read it half through before he had discovered that it 
 was written by himself. On another occasion, a friend brought him- a book, 
 in French, which professed to have been translated from the German, and which 
 the owner recommended Dr Campbell to try in an English dress. The Doctor, 
 on looking into it, discovered it to be a neglected work of his own, which had 
 found its way into Germany, and there been published as an original work. 
 Dr Campbell, in his private life, was a gentleman and a Christian : he possessed 
 an acquaintance with the most of modern languages, besides Hebrew, Greek, and 
 various oriental tongues. His best faculty was his memory, which was surpris- 
 ingly tenacious aud accurate. Dr Johnson spoke of him in the following terms, 
 as recorded by Boswell : " I think highly of CampbelL In the first place, he 
 has very good parts. In the second place, he has very extensive reading ; not, 
 perhaps, what is properly called learning, but history, politics, and, in short, 
 that popular knowledge which makes a man very useful In the third place, he 
 has learnt much by what is called the voce viva. He talks with a great many 
 people." The opportunities which Dr Campbell enjoyed of acquiring informa- 
 tion, by the mode described by Dr Johnson, were very great He enjoyed a 
 universal acquaintance among the clever men of his time, literary and otherwise, 
 whom he regularly saw in conversations on the Sunday evenings. The advan- 
 tage which a literary man must enjoy by this means is very great, for conversa- 
 tion, when it becomes in the least excited, strikes out ideas from the minds of 
 all present, which would never arise in solitary study, and often brings to a just 
 equilibrium disputable points which, in the cogitations of a single individual, 
 would be settled all on one side. Smollett, in enumerating the writers who had 
 reflected lustre on the reign of George II., speaks of " the merit conspicuous in 
 the works of Campbell, remarkable for candour, intelligence, and precision." 
 It only remains to be mentioned, that this excellent man was honoured, in 1754, 
 with the degree of LL.D. by the university of Glasgow, and that, for some years
 
 508 JOHN CAMPBELL. 
 
 before his death, having befriended the administration of the earl of Bute in 
 his writings, he was rewarded by the situation of his majesty's agent for the 
 province of Georgia. 
 
 CAMPBELL, LIEUTENANT- COLONEL JOHN, a distinguished soldier, was born 
 at Edinburgh, December 7, 1753. He was second son of John Campbell, Esq., 
 of Stonefield, one of the judges of the court of session, and lady Grace Stuart, 
 sister to John, third earl of Bute. Lord Campbell was a judge of the supreme 
 court for the long period of thirty-nine years, and died on the 19th of June, 
 1801. His son John received the greater part of his education in his native city, 
 the High School of which he attended from the year 1759 to 1763. When 
 eighteen years of age, he entered the army, as ensign in the 57th regiment of 
 foot; and in three years afterwards, was appointed to a lieutenancy in the 7th 
 foot, or royal fusileere. With this regiment he served in Canada, and was 
 made prisoner there, when that country was overrun by the American generals, 
 Montgomery and Arnold. Having obtained his release, he was, two years 
 afterwards, namely, in 1775, appointed to a captaincy in the 71st, or, as they 
 were then called, F razor's Highlanders ; and with this corps he served in 
 America, until towards the close of the war with that country, having been, in 
 the mean time, appointed major of the 74th regiment, or Argyleshire High- 
 landers. 
 
 ID February, 1781, major Campbell exchanged into the 100th regiment, 
 with which corps he embarked in the expedition fitted out by the British 
 government against the Cape of Good Hope, under the command of commodore 
 Johnston, and general, afterwards Sir William Meadows. On this occasion, the 
 general orders bore, that the troops on board of the Porpoise and Eagle trans- 
 ports, were to receive their orders from major Campbell. Circumstances, 
 however, having subsequently rendered it advisable, in the opinion of the 
 commodore and general, not to make any attempt on the Cape, but rather to 
 proceed to the East Indies, to aid the British forces there, the transports pro- 
 ceeded to their new destination, and arrived in Bombay in January, 1782. 
 In the February following, major Campbell was appointed to command the 
 flank corps of a small army assembled at Calicut, on the Malabar coast, under 
 the command of lieutenant-colonel Humberston. This army marched into the 
 interior, for the purpose of attacking Palagatcherry, an important stronghold 
 of Hyder Ally ; but it was found too strong to be assailed, with any chance 
 of success, by so small a force as that which was now brought against it ; colonel 
 Humberston, therefore, found it necessary to retreat, without attempting any- 
 thing. During this retreat, the British forces were for some time pursued by 
 the enemy, who, however, were kept so effectually at bay by the retiring 
 troops, that they were unable to obtain any advantage over them ; and the sole 
 merit of this was ascribed by the commanding officer, to the able and soldier- 
 like manner in which major Campbell covered the retreat, in which service he 
 had a horse shot under him. 
 
 The retreating army having reached Paniana, a British station, the command 
 was assumed by colonel Macleod, who made immediate preparations for receiv- 
 ing the enemy, who, though now left at some distance in the rear, were still 
 advancing. In the disposition of his forces on this occasion, colonel Macleod 
 confided the command of the centre to major Campbell, who had, in the in- 
 terim, been appointed to the majority of the second battalion of the 42nd 
 regiment. The enemy, led by Tippoo Sultan, shortly afterwards appeared, 
 and attacked the posts where major Campbell and major Shaw, who com- 
 manded the left, were situated ; but was repulsed with such loss, that he 
 retreated with his army to a considerable distance, and did not again seek to
 
 JOHN CAMPBELL. 509 
 
 renew the contest. In this engagement, major Campbell wai wounded, but 
 remained in the field till the enemy \vas defeated. The singular intrepidity 
 and admirable conduct which he displayed throughout the whole of this affair, 
 called forth the warmest encomiums from colonel Macleod, who, in the general 
 orders which he issued on the following day, bore the most aattering testimony 
 to his merits. 
 
 The most important service in which major Campbell wag engaged, was the 
 siege of Annantpore, which he reduced, and took from the enemy. 
 
 In May, 1783, he was appointed by the governor and select committee of 
 Bombay, to the provisional command of the army in the Bidnure country, in 
 absence of colonel Macleod, who was prisoner with the enemy. Soon after 
 major Campbell had assumed the command, Tippoo having got possession of 
 Bidnure, meditated an attack on Mangalore, where major Campbell was sta- 
 tioned ; and with this view, and as a preparatory proceeding, he sent a 
 detachment of his army, consisting of about four thousand horse and foot, and 
 some field pieces, in advance. Having been informed of the approach of these 
 troops, major Campbell marched from Mangalore at midnight, on the 6th of 
 May, 1783, with fourteen hundred men, with the intention of surprising them; 
 and in this he was eminently successful. He reached the enemy's camp about 
 lay break, attacked them, and instantly put them to the route, capturing four 
 brass field pieces, and one hundred and eighty draught bullocks ; the latter, a 
 singularly valuable prize, as, from the country being in possession of the enemy, 
 cattle was not to be had for the commissariat. The defeat of Tippoo's detach- 
 ment, however, instead of diverting him from his intended attack on Mangalore, 
 had the effect only of urging him to hasten his proceedings ; and on the 1 9th 
 of May, his vanguard appeared in sight of that place, which by the 23d was 
 regularly invested by an army, computed at not less than one hundred and 
 forty thousand men, accompanied by an hundred pieces of artillery. 
 
 Major Campbell's defence of this important fortress against such a prodigious 
 force, is justly reckoned one of the most remarkable achievements that ever 
 distinguished the British arms in India. The garrison under his command con- 
 sisted only of one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three men, and of these not 
 more than two or three hundred were British soldiers, the remainder being 
 seapoys, or native infantry ; and they were, besides, in want of almost every 
 accommodation and comfort necessary to enable them to endure a siege. They 
 were short of both provisions and medicine ; and, from the insufficient shelter 
 which the fort afforded, they were exposed to the inclemencies of the monsoon. 
 Notwithstanding all this, however, this little garrison resisted all the efforts of 
 Tippoo, who commanded at the siege in person, till the 2nd of August, two 
 months and a half, when, through the intervention of the envoy from the 
 French court, at Tippoo's Durbar, a cessation of hostilities took place ; but at 
 neither side meant, notwithstanding this parley, to give up the contest, the 
 siege was now converted into a blockade ; and though the garrison was thus 
 relieved from the danger of casualties by the band of the enemy, it was uot 
 relieved from the miseries of famine, which had now reduced them to the last 
 extremity of distress. 
 
 Soon after the cessation of hostilities took place, Tippoo expressed a wish 
 to see major Campbell, whose bravery, though an enemy, he had generosity 
 enough to appreciate. Major Campbell accepted the invitation, and had an 
 audience of the eastern potentate, who received him with much politeness, and 
 paid him many flattering compliments. The major was accompanied by several 
 of his officers on this occasion, and amongst these by two captains of the 42nd, in 
 their full costume ; a sight with which Tippoo was extremely delighted. To each
 
 510 ANDREW CANT. 
 
 of the officers he presented a handsome shawl ; and after they had returned to 
 the fort, he sent major Campbell an additional present of a very fine horse, 
 which the famishing garrison, such was the melancholy condition to which they 
 were reduced, afterwards killed and ate. 
 
 By the assistance of occasional, but extremely inadequate, supplies of neces- 
 saries, which reached them from time to time by sea, the intrepid defenders of 
 Mangalore held out till the 24th of January, 1784, by which time they were 
 reduced to the most deplorable condition by disease and famine, when major 
 Campbell determined on calling a council of war, to consider whether they 
 should continue the defence, or capitulate. The council decided on the latter, 
 and terms were accordingly submitted to Tippoo, who accepted them ; and on 
 the 30th January, the troops evacuated the fort, and embarked for Tillicherry, 
 one of the British settlements on the coast of Malabar ; after enduring, under 
 all the disadvantageous circumstances already related, a siege of eight months, 
 and sustaining a loss in killed and wounded, besides other casualties, of no le*s 
 than seven hundred and forty-nine, nearly the half of the whole garrison. 
 
 Though thus eventually compelled to capitulate, the service performed by 
 colonel Campbell, (a rank to which he was promoted, 19th February, 1783,) 
 by the determined and protracted resistance he had made, was of the last 
 importance to the British interests in India, inasmuch as it concentrated 
 and occupied all Tippoo's forces for eight entire months, at a most critical 
 period, and prevented him from attempting any hostile operations in any other 
 part of the empire during all that time ; and of the value of that service, the 
 government of Bombay expressed itself deeply sensible ; and there is no doubt 
 that some especial marks of its favour and approbation would have followed this 
 expression of its sentiments regarding the conduct of colonel Campbell, had he 
 lived to receive them ; but this was not permitted to him. He was not destined 
 to enjoy the fame he had won, or to reap its reward. The fatigue he had un- 
 dergone during the siege of Mangalore had undermined his constitution, and 
 brought on an illness, which soon terminated fatally. 
 
 Under this affliction, he quitted the army on the 1 9th February, and pro- 
 ceeded to Bombay, where he arrived on the 13th March, past all hope of re- 
 covery ; and on the 23rd of the same month, he expired, in the 31st year of 
 his age. A monument was erected to his memory in the church at Bombay, 
 by order of the Court of Directors of the East India Company, as a testimony 
 at once to his merits, and of their gratitude for the important services he had 
 rendered to the British interests in India. 
 
 CANT, ANDREW, a Presbyterian preacher of great vigour and eloquence at 
 the period of the Second Reformation. In 1638 he was minister of Pitsligo in 
 Aberdeenshire. Unlike the generality of the clergy in that district of Scotland, 
 he entered heartily into the national covenant for resisting the episcopalian 
 encroachments of Charles I., and took an active part in the struggles of the 
 time for civil and religious liberty. He was associated with the celebrated 
 Alexander Henderson, David Dickson, the Earls of Montrose and Kinghorn, 
 and Lord Cupar, in the commission appointed in July 1638, by the Tables, or 
 deputies of the different classes of Covenanters, noblemen, gentlemen, burgesses, 
 and ministers, to proceed to the north and endeavour to engage the inhabitants 
 of the town and county of Aberdeen in the work of reformation. The doctors 
 of divinity in the town had steadily resisted the progress of reforming principles, 
 and were greatly incensed when they heard of this commission. They ful- 
 minated against it from the pulpit; and the town council, under their influence 
 and example, enacted, by a plurality of votes, that none of the citizens should 
 subscribe the covenant. The deputies arrived on the 20th of the month,
 
 FROM THE ORIGINAL IN MAHI3CHAL COLLEGE. ABERDEEN 
 
 < SON GLASGOW. EDINBURGH t LONDON
 
 ANDREW CANT. 511 
 
 and were hospitably received by the magistrates ; but they declined their proffera 
 of friendship till they should first show their favour to the object of their visit. 
 Montrose, "in a bold and smart speech," remonstrated with them on the danger 
 of popish and prelatical innovations ; but the provost excused himself and his 
 coadjutors by pleading that they were protestants and not papists, and intimating 
 their desire not to thwart the inclination of the king. Immediately after their 
 interview with the magistrates, the deputies received from the doctors of the two 
 universities a paper containing fourteen ensnaring propositions respecting the cove- 
 nant, promising compliance should the commissioners return a satisfactory answer. 
 These propositions had been carefully conned over previously, and even printed 
 and transmitted to the court in England before the arrival of the deputies. 
 They were speedily answered by the latter, who sent their replies to the doctors 
 in the evening of the next day. Meanwhile the nobles applied to the magistrates 
 for the use of the pulpits on the Sabbath following, for the ministerial com- 
 missioners, but this being refused, the three ministers preached in the open air, 
 to great multitudes, giving pointed and popular answers to the questions of the 
 doctors, and urging the subscription of the covenant with such effect that five 
 hundred signatures were adhibited to it upon the spot, some of the adherents 
 being persons of quality. On Monday the deputies went out into the country 
 districts, and although the Marquis of Huntly and the Aberdeen doctors had 
 been at pains to pre-occupy the minds of the people, yet the covenant was signed 
 by about forty-four ministers and many gentlemen. Additional subscriptions 
 awaited the deputies on their return to Aberdeen, where they preached again 
 as on the former Sabbath ; but finding that they could produce no effect upon 
 the doctors of divinity, whose principles led them to render implicit .obedience 
 to the court, they desisted from the attempt and returned to Edinburgh. 
 
 In the subsequent November, Mr Cant sat in the celebrated Glasgow Assem- 
 bly (of 1638), and took part in the abolition of episcopacy with the great and 
 good men whom the crisis of affairs had brought together on that memorable 
 occasion. In the course of the procedure, the Assembly was occupied with a 
 presentation to Mr Cant to the pastoral charge of Newbattle : " My Lord Lowthian 
 presented ane supplication to the Assemblie, anent the transportation of Mr 
 Andrew Cant from Pitsligo to Newbotle, in the Presbitrie of Dalkeith. Moderatour 
 (Henderson) said It would seeme reasonable your Lordship should get a favour- 
 able answer, considering your diligence and zeale in this cause above many uthers, 
 and I know this not to be a new motion, but to be concludit by the patron, pres- 
 bitrie, and paroche. The commissioner of Edin r - alleadged that they had made 
 an election of him 24 yeares since. Then the mater was put to voitiug Whither 
 Mr Andro Cant should be transported from Pitsligo to Edinburgh ? And the 
 most pairt of the Assembly voited to his transplantation to Newbotle; and so the 
 Moderalour declaired him to be minister at Newbotle." 
 
 From his proximity to Edinburgh in his new charge, Mr Cant was enabled to 
 devote much of his attention to public affairs, with which his name is closely 
 connected at this period. In 1640, he, and Alexander Henderson, Robert Blair, 
 John Livingston, Robert Baillie, and George Gillespie, the most eminent ministers 
 of the day, were appointed chaplains to the army of the Covenanters, which they 
 accompanied in the campaign of that year. When the Scots gained possession 
 of Newcastle, August 30, Henderson and Cant were the ministers nominated to 
 preach in the town churches. In the same year the General Assembly agreed to 
 translate Mr Cant from Newbattle to Aberdeen. In 1641 we again find him at 
 Edinburgh, where public duty no doubt often called him. On the 21st of August 
 he preached before Charles I., on the occasion of his majesty s second visit for 
 the purpose of conciliating his Scottish subjects. When the union of the church
 
 512. ANDREW CANT. 
 
 and nation, cemented by the covenant, was dislocated by the unhappy deed 
 known as the Engagement, in 1648, Cant, as might have been expected from his 
 zeal and fidelity, stood consistently by the covenanting as now distinguished from 
 the political party. When General David Leslie was at Aberdeen in November, 
 1650, on an expedition against some northern insurgents, he was visited by Messrs 
 Andrew Cant, elder and younger, ministers of Aberdeen, who, amongst many 
 other discourses, told the lord general, " that wee could not in conscience asist 
 the king to recover his crowne of England, but he thoughts one kingdome might 
 serve him werey weill, and one crowne was eneuche for anyone man; one 
 kingdome being sufficient for one to reuell and governe." Half our' sAnnals,\v. 161. 
 
 In the year 1660, a complaint was presented to the magistrates, charging Mr 
 Cant with having published Rutherford's celebrated book, entitled Lex Rex, 
 without authority, and for denouncing anathemas and imprecations against many 
 of his congregation, in the conrse of performing his religious duties. A variety of 
 proceedings took place on this question before the magistrates, but no judgment 
 was given; Mr Cant, however, finding his situation rather unpleasant, withdrew 
 himself from his pastoral charge, removed from the town with his wife and family, 
 and died about the year 1664. 
 
 A clergyman, named Mr Andrew Cant, supposed to have been son to the above, 
 was a minister of Edinburgh during the reign of Charles II., and consequently 
 must have been an adherent of episcopacy. He was also principal of the University 
 between the years 1675 and 1685. The same person, or perhaps his son, was 
 deprived of his charge in Edinburgh, at the Revolution, and, on the 17th of 
 October, 1722, was consecrated as one of the bishops of the disestablished epis~ 
 copal church in Scotland. This individual died in 1728. 
 
 How far it may be true, as mentioned in the Spectator, that the modern word 
 Cant, wJiich in the beginning of the last century was applied to signify religious 
 unction, but is now extended to a much wider interpretation, was derived from 
 the worthy minister of Aberdeen, we cannot pretend to determine. The more 
 probable derivation is from the Latin cantus, singing or chanting. 
 
 We have some further anecdotes of Mr Cant in Wodrow's Analecta, or private 
 memorandum book; a valuable manuscript in the Advocates' Library. 
 
 "Mr David Lyall, who was formerly a presbyterian minister, was ordained by 
 the presbytery of Aberdeen, Mr Andrew Cant being at that time moderator. He 
 afterwards complied with episcopacy, and was the man who intimated the sentence 
 of Mr Andrew Cant's deposition, who was present in the church hearing him, and 
 immediately after he had done it, it's said Mr Cant should have spoken publicly to 
 him in the church in these words, ' Davie, Davie, I kent aye ye wad doe this since 
 the day I laid my hands on your head.' He [Mr Lyall] was afterwards minister 
 of Montrose, and had ane thundering way of preaching, and died at Montrose 
 about 10 or 12 years agoe. It's said that some days before his death, as he was 
 walking in the Links, about the twilight, at a pretty distance from the town, he 
 espyed, as it were, a woman all in^white standing not far from him, who immedi- 
 ately disappeared, and he coming up presently to the place saw no person there, 
 though the Links be very plain. Only, casting his eyes on the place where she 
 stood, he saw two words drawn and written, as it had been with a staff upon the 
 sand ' SENTENCED AND CONDEMNED ;' upon which he came home very pensive 
 and melancholy, and in a little sickens and dyes. What to make of this, or what 
 truth is in it, I cannot tell ; only I had it from a minister who lives near Montrose, 
 Mr J. G. i. 149. 
 
 " Mr Andrew Cant, in Aberdeen, was a violent royalist, and even when the 
 English were there, he used to pray for our banished king, and that the Lord 
 would deliver him from the bondage of oppressors. One day in the time of the
 
 DONALD CARGILL. 513 
 
 English, p. e. while Scotland was subject to the English commonwealth,] when 
 there were a great many officers in the church, he was preaching very boldly 
 upon that head, and the officers and soldiers got all up, and many of them drew 
 their swords : all went into confusion. Mr Menzies, his colleague, was very timor- 
 ouse and crap in beneatli the pulpit, as is said. The soldiers advanced towards 
 the pulpit. After he had stopped a little, he said, with much boldness, here is 
 the man spoke soe and soe, and opened his breast ready to receive the thrusts, if 
 any will venture to give them for the truth. He had once been a captain, and 
 was one of the most bold and resolute men in his day. iii, 153. 
 
 " Mr Andrew Cant was minister of the new town of Aberdeen. He was a 
 most zealous straight man for the covenant and cause of God. I hear he had 
 that expression at his death, that his conscience bare him witness that he never 
 gave a wrong touch to the ark of God all his dayes. The malignants used to 
 call him one of the apostles of the covenant" iv, 265. 
 
 CARGILL, DONALD, an eminent preacher of the more uncompromising order 
 of presbyterians in the reign of Charles II., was the son of respectable parent* 
 in the parish of Eattray, in Perthshire, where he was born, about the year 
 1610. 1 We find the following account of the state of his mind in early life, 
 amongst the memoranda of Mr VVodrow, who appears to have written down 
 every tradition of the fathers of the church, which came to his ears." " Mr 
 Donald Cargill," says the pious historian, " for some twenty or thirty years be- 
 fore his death, was never under doubts as to his interest, and the reason was 
 made known to him in ane extraordinary way, and the way was this, as Mr C. 
 told my father. When he was in his youth, he was naturally hasty and fiery, 
 and he fell under deep soul exercise, and that in a very high degree, and for 
 a long time after all means used, public and private, and the trouble still 
 increasing, he at length came to a positive resolution to make away with him- 
 self, and accordingly went out more than once to drown himself in a water, but 
 he was still scarred by people coming by, or somewhat or other. At length, 
 after several essays, he takes on a resolution to take a time or place where nothing 
 should stop, and goes out early one morning by break of day to a coal pit, and 
 when he comes to it, and none at all about, he comes to the brink of it to throw 
 himself in, and just as he was going to jump in he heard ane audible voice from 
 heaven, Son, be of cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee,' and that stopped him, 
 
 and he said to , that he never got leave to doubt of his interest But, 
 
 blessed be God, we have a more sure word of prophecy to lean to, though 1 
 believe where such extraordinary revelations are, there is ane inward testimony 
 of the spirit cleaving marks of grace to the soul too." 
 
 We learn from other sources that Mr Cargill, having studied at Aberdeen, 
 and, being persuaded by his father to enter the church, became minister of the 
 Barony Parish in Glasgow, some time after the division among the clergy, n 
 1650. He continued to exercise the duties of this situation in a very pious and 
 exemplary manner, until the restoration of the episcopal church, when his ref. 
 ing to accept collation from the archbishop, or celebrate the king's birth- day, 
 drew upon him the attention of the authorities, and he was banished, by a, 
 council to the country, beyond the Tay. To this edict, he appears to have pai, 
 little attention ; vet he did not awake the jealousy of the government 
 when he was called before the council, and commanded peremptorily tc 
 their former act. In September, 1669, upon his petition to the council, he was 
 permitted to come to Edinburgh upon some legal busmess, but not 
 
 1 Howie's Scots' Worthies. 
 Wodrow's Analecta, or Memorandum-book, (MS. Advocate, Library,) ,. 3.
 
 514 DONALD CARGILL. 
 
 the city, or to approach Glasgow. For some years after this period, he led the 
 life of a field preacher, subject to the constant vigilance of the emissaries of the 
 government, from whom he made many remarkable escapes. So far from accept- 
 ing the indulgence offered to the presbyterian clergy, he was one of that small 
 body who thought it their duty to denounce openly all who did so. In 1679, he 
 appeared amongst the unfortunate band which stood forward at Bothwell bridge 
 in vain resistance to an overpowering tyranny. On this occasion, he \\as 
 wounded, but had the good fortune to make his escape. Subsequent to this 
 period, he took refuge for a short while in Holland. In the months of May 
 and June, 1680, lie was again under hiding in Scotland, and seems to have been 
 concerned in drawing up some very strong papers against the government He, 
 and a distinguished lay member of the same sect, named Henry Hall, of Haugh- 
 head, lurked for some time about the shores of the Firth of Forth above Queens- 
 ferry, till at length the episcopal minister of Carriden gave notice of them to the 
 governor of Blackness, who, June 3d, set out in search of them. This officer hav- 
 ing traced them to a public house in Queensferry, went in, and pretending a great 
 deal of respect for Mr Cargill, begged to drink a glass of wine with him. He had, 
 in the meantime, sent off his servant for a party of soldiers. The two fugitives 
 had no suspicion of this man's purpose, till, not choosing to wait any longer for 
 the arrival of his assistants, he attempted to take them prisoners. Hall made a 
 stout resistance, but was mortally wounded with the dog-head of a carabine by 
 one George, a waiter. Cargill, escaping in the struggle, though not without 
 wounds, was received and concealed by a neighbouring farmer. He even fled 
 to the south, and next Sunday, notwithstanding his wounds, he preached at 
 Cairn-hill, near Loudoun. A paper of a very violent nature was found on the 
 person of the deceased Mr Hall, and is generally understood to have proceeded 
 from the pen of Mr CargilL It is known in history by the title of the QUEENS- 
 KERRT COVENANT, from the place Avhere it was found. Mr Cargill also appears 
 to have been concerned with his friend Richard Cameron, in publishing the 
 equally violent declaration atSanquhar, on the 22nd of June. In the following 
 September, this zealous divine proceeded to a still more violent measure against 
 the existing powers. Having collected a large congregation in the 'lor wood, 
 between Falkirk and Stirling, he preached from I Corinthians, verse 13, and 
 then, without having previously consulted a single brother in the ministry, or 
 any other individual of his party, he gave out the usual form of excommunica- 
 tion against the king, the duke of York, the dukes of Monmouth, Lauderdale, 
 and Kothes, Sir George Mackenzie, and Sir Thomas Dalzell, of Binns. His 
 general reasons were their exertions against the supremacy of the pure church 
 of Scotland. The privy council felt that this assumption of ecclesiastical author- 
 ity^was not only calculated to bring contempt upon the eminent persons named, 
 but tended to mark them out as proper objects for the vengeance of the igno- 
 rant multitude ; and they accordingly took very severe measures against the 
 offender. He was intercommuned, and a reward of 5000 merks offered for his 
 apprehension. For several months he continued to exercise his functions as a 
 minister when he could find a convenient opportunity ; and many stories are 
 told of hair-breadth escapes which he made on those occasions from the soldiers, 
 and others sent in search of him. At length, in May, 1681, he was seized at 
 Covington in Lanarkshire, by a person named Irving of Bonshaw, who carried 
 him to Lanark on horseback, with his feet tied under the animal's belly. Soon 
 after he was conducted to Glasgow, and thence to Edinburgh, where, en the 
 sJtith of July, he was tried and condemned to suffer death for high treason. Ho 
 was next day hanged and beheaded, his last expressions being- suitable in their 
 piety to the tenor of his whole life. Cargill is thus dejuritjed by Wodrow, \vliu
 
 ALEXANDER CARLYLE. 515 
 
 by no means concurred with him in all his sentiments : *' He was a person of 
 a very deep and sharp exercise in his youth, and had a very extraordinary out- 
 gate from it. Aftenvards he lived a most pious and religious life, and was a 
 zealous and useful minister, and of an easy sweet natural temper. And I am of 
 opinion, the singular steps he took towards the end of his course were as much to 
 he attributed unto his regard to the sentiments of others, for whom he had a 
 value, as to his own inclinations." 
 
 CARLYLE, ALEXANDER, an eminent divine, was born about the year 1721. 
 His father was the minister of Prestonpans, and he received his education at the 
 universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Leyden. While he attended these 
 schools of learning, the extreme elegance of his person, his manners, and his 
 taste, introduced him to an order of society far above any in which such students 
 as he generally mingle, and rendered him the favourite of men of science and 
 literature. At the breaking out of the insurrection of 1745, he was an ardent 
 youth of four-and-twenty, and thought proper to accept a commission in a 
 troop of volunteers, which was raised at Edinburgh for the purpose of defend- 
 ing the city. This corps having been dissolved at the approach of the Highland 
 army, he retired to his father's house at Prestonpans, where the tide of war, 
 however, soon followed him. Sir John Cope having pitched his camp in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of Prestonpans, the Highlanders attacked him early 
 on the morning of the 21st of September, and soon gained a decided victory. 
 Carlyle was awaked by an account that the armies were engaged, and hurried to 
 the top of the village steeple in order to have a view of the action. He was 
 just in time to see the regular soldiers flying in all directions to escape the broad- 
 swords of the enemy. This incident gave him some uneasiness on his own 
 account, for there was reason to apprehend that the victors would not be over 
 kind to one who had lately appeared in arms against them. He therefore 
 retired in the best way he could to the manse of Bolton, some miles off, where 
 he lived unmolested for a few days, after which he returned to the bosom of his 
 own family. Having gone through the usual exercises prescribed by the church 
 of Scotland, Mr Carlyle was presented, in 1747, to the living of Inveresk, which 
 was, perhaps, the best situation he could have obtained in the church, as the dis- 
 tance from Edinburgh was such as to make intercourse with metropolitan society 
 very easy, while, at the same time, he enjoyed all the benefits of retirement and 
 country leisure. From this period till the end of the century, the name of Dr 
 Carlyle enters largely into the literary history of Scotland ; he was the intimate 
 associate of Hume, Home, Smith, Blair, and all the other illustrious men who 
 flourished at this period. Unfortunately, though believed to possess talents fit- 
 ting him to shine in the very highest walks of literature and intellectual science, 
 he never could be prevailed upon to hazard himself in competition with his dis- 
 tinguished friends, but was content to lend to them the benefit of his assistance 
 and critical advice in fitting their productions for the eye of the world. In his 
 clerical character, Mr Carlyle was a zealous moderate ; and when he had acquired 
 some weight in the ecclesiastical courts, was the bold advocate of some of the 
 strongest measures taken by the General Assembly for maintaining the standards 
 of the church. In 1757, he himself fell under censure as an accomplice if we 
 may use such an expression of Mr Home, in bringing forward the tragedy of 
 Douglas. At the first private rehearsal of this play, Dr Carlyle enacted the part 
 of Old Norval ; and he w as one of those clergy men who resolutely involved them- 
 selves in the evil fame of the author, by attending the first representation. Dur- 
 ing the run of the play, while the general public, on the one hand, was lost in 
 admiration of its merits, and the church, on the other, was preparing its sharp- 
 est thunders of condemnation, Dr Carlyle published a burlesque pamphlet, enti-
 
 510 WILLIAM CARSTAIRS. 
 
 tied, "Reasons why the Tragedy of Douglas should be burnt by the hands of 
 the Common Hangman ;" and, afterwards, he wrote another, calculated for the 
 lower ranks, and which was hawked about the streets, under the title, " History 
 of the Bloody Tragedy of Douglas, as it is now performed at the Theatre in the 
 Canongate." Mr Mackenzie informs us, in his life of Home, that the latter 
 pasquinade had the effect of adding two more nights to the already unprecedented 
 rim of the play. For this conduct Dr Carlyle was visited by his presbytery, with 
 a censure and admonition. A person of right feeling in the present day 
 is only apt to be astonished that the punishment was not more severe ; for assur- 
 edly, it would be difficult to conceive any conduct so apt to be injurious to the 
 usefulness of a clergyman as his thus mixing himself up with the impurities and 
 buffooneries of the stage. The era of 1757 was perhaps somewhat different 
 from the present The serious party in the church were inconsiderately zealous 
 in their peculiar mode of procedure, while the moderate party, on the principle 
 of antagonism, erred as much on the side of what they called liberality. Hence, 
 although the church would not now, perhaps, go to such a length in condemning 
 the tragedy of Douglas, its author, and his abettors, neither would the provoca- 
 tion be now given. No clergyman could now be found to act like Home and 
 Carlyle ; and therefore the church could not be called upon to act in so ungra- 
 cious a manner as it did towards those gentlemen. Dr Carlyle was a fond lover 
 of his country, of his profession, and, it might be said, of all mankind. He 
 was instrumental in procuring an exemption for his brethren from the severe 
 pressure of the house and window tax, for which purpose he visited London and 
 was introduced at court, where the elegance and dignity of his appearance are 
 said to have excited both admiration and surprise. It was generally remarked 
 that Tiis noble countenance bore a striking resemblance to the Jupiter Tonans in 
 the capitol. Smollett mentions in his Humphrey Clinker, a work in which fact 
 and fancy are curiously blended, that he owed to Dr Carlyle his introduction to 
 the literary circles of Edinburgh. After mentioning a list of celebrated names, 
 he says, " These acquaintances I owe to the friendship of Dr Carlyle, who wants 
 nothing but inclination to figure with the rest upon paper." It may be further 
 mentioned, that the world owes the preservation of Collins' fine ode on the super- 
 stitions of the Highlands, to Dr Carlyle. The author, on his death-bed, had 
 mentioned it to Dr Johnson as the best of his poems ; but it was not in his pos- 
 session, and no search had been able to discover a copy. At last, Dr Carlyle 
 found it accidentally among his papers, and presented it to the Royal Society of 
 Edinburgh, in the first volume of whose transactions it was published. 
 
 Dr Carlyle died, August 25, 1805, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, and 
 the fifty-eighth of his ministry. By his wife, who was a woman of superior un- 
 derstanding and accomplishments, he had had several children, all of whom died 
 many years before himself. Dr Carlyle published nothing but a few sermons 
 and jeux d'esprit, and the statistical account of the parish of Inveresk in Sir 
 John Sinclair's large compilation ; but he left behind him a very valuable me- 
 moir of his own time, which, to the surprise of the literary world, is still con- 
 demned by his relations to manuscript obscurity. 
 
 CARSTAIRS, WILLIAM, an eminent political and ecclesiastical character, 
 was born at the village of Cathcart in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, on the 
 llth of February, 1649. His father was Mr John Carstairs, descended of a 
 very ancient family in Fife, and minister in the high church of Glasgow, where 
 he had for his colleague the Rev. James Durham, well known for his commen- 
 tary on the Revelation and other learned and pious works. His mother's name 
 was Jane Muir, of the family of Glanderston in the county of Renfrew. Giving 
 early indications of an uncommon genius, young Carstairs was by his father
 
 Engcav- 
 
 RGH. 
 
 .P OF KEPPO CR > 
 
 

 
 WILLIAM CARSTAIRS. 517 
 
 placed under the care of a Mr Sinclair, an indulged presbyterian minister, who 
 at that time kept a school of great celebrity at Oriniston, a village in east 
 Lothian. Under Mr Sinclair, in whose school, as in all schools of that kind at 
 the time, and even in the family, no language but Latin was used, Carstairs 
 acquired a perfect knowledge of that language, with great fluency of expressing 
 himself in it, and a strong taste for classical learning in general. He had also 
 the good fortune to form, among the sons of the nobility who attended this 
 celebrated seminary, several friendships, which were of the utmost consequence 
 to him in after life. 
 
 Having completed his course at the school, Mr Carstairs entered the college 
 of Edinburgh in his nineteenth year, where he studied for four years under 
 Mr, afterwards Sir William Paterson, who in later life became clerk to the privy 
 council of Scotland. Under this gentleman he made great proficiency in the 
 several branches of the school philosophy then in vogue ; but the distracted 
 state of the country determined his father to send him to study divinity in Hol- 
 land, where many of his brethren, the persecuted ministers of the church of 
 Scotland, had already found an asylum. He was accordingly entered in the 
 university of Utrecht, where he studied Hebrew under Leusden and Divinity 
 under Herman Witsius, at that time two of the most celebrated professors in 
 Europe. He had also an opportunity, which he carefully improved, of attend- 
 ing the lectures of the celebrated Graevius, who was at this time in the vigour of 
 his faculties and the zenith of his reputation. The study of theology, however, 
 was what he made his main business, which having completed, he was licensed 
 as a preacher of the gospel, but where or by whom seems not to have been 
 known by any of his biographers. In all probability, it was by some of the 
 classes of Holland. Being strongly attached to the presbyterian system, in 
 which he had been educated, and for adherence to which his father was a suf- 
 ferer at home, and himself in a limited sense a wanderer in a strange land, for 
 it was to avoid the taking of unnecessary or unlawful oaths imposed by the 
 bishops that he had been sent by his father to study at Utrecht, he naturally 
 took a deep interest in the affairs of his native country, and was early engaged 
 in deliberating upon the means of her deliverance. On sending him to Holland 
 by the way of London, his father introduced him by letter to an eminent 
 physician of that city, who kindly furnished him with a letter to the physician 
 of the prince of Orange. This latter gentleman, upon the strength of his 
 friend's recommendation, introduced Carstairs to the Pensionary Fogel, who 
 finding him so much a master of every thing relative to the state of parties and 
 interests in Great Britain, introduced him to a private interview with his master, 
 the prince, who was at once struck with his easy and polite address, and with 
 the extent of his political knowledge. This favourable opinion was heightened 
 by subsequent interviews, and in a short time nothing of consequence was tran- 
 sacted at his court relative to Great Britain, till Carstairs had been previously 
 consulted. Holland had, from the first attempts of the court after the Restora- 
 tion to suppress the presbyterians, been the general resort of such of the Scot- 
 tish clergy as found it impossible to retain their stations, and they were soon 
 followed by numbers of their unhappy countrymen who had vainly perilled their 
 lives on the fatal fields of Pentland and Bothwell, with the principal of whom 
 Carstairs could not, in the circumstances in which he was placed, fail to become 
 acquainted. Being well connected, and in no way obnoxious to the government, 
 he seems to have been selected both by his expatriated countrymen and by the 
 agents of the prince of Orange to visit Scotland on a mission of observation in 
 the year 1682. 
 
 Nothing could be more hopeless than the condition of Scotland at this time.
 
 518 \VI 1.1,1 AM CAUSTAIRS. 
 
 Her ministers where every where silenced : Cargill and Cameron, the only two 
 that remained of the intrepid band that had so long kept up the preached gospel 
 in the fields, had both fallen, the one on the scaffold by an iniquitous sentence, 
 the other on the open heath by the hand of violence. Her nobles were either 
 the slaves of arbitrary royalty, or they had already expatriated themselves, or 
 were just about to do so, while the body of her people, Issachar-like, were 
 crouching beneath their burdens in the most hopeless dejection. Finding- no 
 encouragement in Scotland, where the few individuals that felt any of the true 
 aspirations of liberty, were seriously engaged in a project for purchasing lands 
 and transporting themselves, their families, and their friends to Carolina in 
 North America, Mr Carstairs determined to return to Holland, where, under 
 a rational and indulgent government, he had enjoyed a liberty which he found 
 to his grief was not to be obtained at home. He, however, probably not with- 
 out instructions, took London in his way, where he arrived in the month of 
 November, 1682, at the very time when Shaftesbury, Monmouth, Sydney, Essex, 
 Russell, Hampden, and Howard were engaged in what lias been called Shaftesbury's 
 plot, or more generally, from a forged story of a design to murder the king 
 and the duke of York at a farm called the Rye, possessed by colonel Rumbold, 
 the Ryehouse plot. These gentlemen were actuated by very different views. 
 Monmouth had probably no object but the crown ; Russell and Hampden were 
 for restraining the prerogative and securing the nation's liberties, civil and reli- 
 gous ; Sydney and Essex wei-e for restoring the republic, while Howard, a man 
 without principle, seems to have had nothing in view, but to raise a tumult, 
 whereby he might by accident promote his private interest. All of them, how- 
 ever, agreed in soliciting the co-operation of those Scotsmen, who, no longer 
 able to subsist under the impositions of a government whose sole object seemed 
 to be not the protection, but the entire ruin of its subjects, were about to trans- 
 port themselves to a distant and desert country. Most of the conspirators hav- 
 ing some previous knowledge of Carstairs, he was employed to negotiate be- 
 tween the parties ; and he was empowered by a letter from Sir James Stewart, 
 afterwards lord advocate for Scotland, to assure the English conspirators that, 
 upon furnishing a certain sum of money for the purchase of arms and ammuni- 
 tion, the Scottish refugees in Holland were ready to co-operate with them by 
 an immediate descent upon the west coast of Scotland. This letter he com- 
 municated to Russell and Sydney, seconding its contents by a fervent eulogium 
 upon the influence, the talents, and the particular merits of Argyle, whose 
 numerous vassals, extensive jurisdictions, as well as his past sufferings, pointed 
 him out as the most proper person to head an insurrection in that country. All 
 this must have been self-evident to the whole party ; yet they do not seem to 
 have been so cordial as might have been expected. Though Carstairs ceased 
 not to press the object of his mission, he was put on" from time to time till he 
 was at length told by Shepherd, an eminent wine-merchant in London, who 
 was one of the subaltern conspirators, that he had heard Sydney declare that he 
 would have nothing to do with Argyle, being well aware that, whatever his 
 present circumstances might prompt him to undertake, he was too strongly at- 
 tached to the reigning family and to the present government, both in church and 
 state, to unite cordially with them in the measures they had determined to pur- 
 sue. At the same time, he was told both by Shepherd and Ferguson that tha 
 party were jealous of Sydney as driving a secret design of his own, and Fer- 
 guson took the opportunity to hint to Mr Carstairs, that there might be an easier 
 method of attaining their point than by an open rebellion, as by taking the 
 lives of at most two men, they might spare the lives of thousands, evidently, 
 hinting at what must have been spoken of among the inferior members of this
 
 WILLIAM CARSTAIRS. 519 
 
 conspiracy, though certainly never among the higher, the assassination of the 
 king and the duke of York. Feeling himself insulted, and the cause disgraced 
 by such a proposal, Mr Carstairs told Ferguson, that he and the men with 
 whom he was engaged, thought themselves warranted even with arms in their 
 hands, to demand, for redress of their grievances, those constitutional remedies 
 which had been so often denied to their complaints and remonstrances ; but 
 they held it beneath them, both as men and as Christians, to adopt any such 
 mean and cowardly contrivances either against the king or his brother. From 
 that time forward, Ferguson never mentioned any such thing in his presence, 
 nor did he ever hear any such thing alluded to in his intercourse with any other 
 of the party. Disgusted, however, Avith their procrastination he took his de- 
 parture for Holland, without carrying any message, having refused to do so, 
 except it were a full compliance with his demands. 
 
 Scarcely had he landed in Holland, than Shaftesbury found it convenient to 
 follow him, not daring to trust himself any longer in England ; and by his 
 desertion, the remaining conspirators, finding their connection with the city of 
 London, upon which they had placed great dependence, broken, saw it the 
 more necessary to unite with Argyle and the refugees abroad, as well as with 
 the Scots at home. Sydney now dropped all his objections, and letters were 
 immediately for warded to Carstaira, requesting him to come over, and an ex- 
 press was sent do\vn to Scotland, for his friends to come up, in order to a speedy 
 adjustment of every particular relative to the insurrection and consentaneous in- 
 vasion. In consequence of this, consultations were held among the refugees, 
 Argyle, Stair, Loudoun, Stewart, and others, where it was proposed that the 
 conspirators in England should contribute thirty thousand pounds sterling in 
 money, and one thousand horse, to be ready to join Argyle the moment he 
 should land upon the west coast of Scotland. Mr Stewart was for accepting a 
 smaller sum of money, if so much could not be obtained ; but all agreed in the 
 necessity of raising the horse before any thing should be attempted. Stair 
 seemed more cold in the matter than the others ; but Argyle having assured 
 Carstairs that, so soon as the preliminaries were settled, he would be found 
 abundantly zealous, he consented to carry their proposals and lay them before 
 the committee or council, that had been by the conspirators appointed to con- 
 duct the business at London. When he arrived there, he was mortified to find 
 that the difficulty of raising the money now was as formidable an obstacle as the 
 opposition of Sydney had formerly been. Russell frankly acknowledged that 
 the whole party could not raise so much money ; and begged that ten thousand 
 pounds might be accepted as a beginning, and even this was never paid to 
 Shepherd, who was appointed cashier to the concern, nor was one single step 
 taken for levying the proposed number of troops upon the borders. After hav- 
 ing spent several weeks in London, fruitlessly prosecuting the business that had 
 been entrusted to him, he became perfectly convinced from the temper of the men 
 and their mode of procedure that the scheme would come to nothing. This 
 opinion he communicated to a meeting of his countrymen, where were present 
 Baillie of Jerviswood, lord Mclvill, Sir John Cochrane, the Campbells of Cess- 
 nock, and others, recommending it to them to attend to their own safety, 
 by putting an immediate stop to further preparations, till their brethren of Eng- 
 land should be more forward, and better prepared to join them. Baillie of Jer- 
 viswood, the most ardent and decisive of all his countrymen who had engaged 
 in this enterprise, reflected bitterly upon the timidity of the English, who had 
 suffered their zeal to evaporate in talk, when they might, by promptitude of 
 action, have been already in possession of the benefits they expected to derive
 
 520 WILLIAM CARSTAIRS.. 
 
 from the undertaking ; and insisted that the Scots should prosecute the undertaking 
 by themselves. There was, no doubt, in this something; very heroic ; but alas, it 
 was vain, and he himself was speedily brought to confess that it was so. It 
 was agreed to, however, by all, that a communication should be made to their 
 English friends, that, unless they were determined to act with more vigour, they 
 were not to expect co-operation on the part of the Scots any longer. In the 
 meantime they wrote to their friends in Scotland, to suspend their preparations 
 till further notice. This was a very proper and wise determination ; only it 
 came loo late. The English conspirators had no unity of purpose, and they 
 had no decision. They had talked away the time of action, and the whole 
 scheme was already falling to pieces by its own weight In short, before they 
 could return an answer to their Scottish brethren, the whole was betrayed, and 
 they were alone to a man in the hands of the government. 
 
 The prudence of the Scots saved them in part ; yet the government got im- 
 mediate information, that there had been a correspondence carried on with Ar- 
 gyle by the conspirators, and Major Holmes, the person to whom all Argyle's 
 letters were directed, was taken into custody, having a number of the letters, and 
 the cypher and key in his possession. The cypher and key belonged to Mr 
 Carstairs, who had sent it to Monuiouth only two days before, to enable him to 
 read a letter from Argyle, which having done, he returned it to Major Holmes, 
 in whose hands it was now taken. The earl of Melfort no sooner saw the 
 cypher than he knew part of it to be the handwriting of Carstairs, and an 
 order was instantly issued for his apprehension, as art and part in the assassina- 
 tion plot Though Mr Carstairs was conscious of being innocent as to this part 
 of the plot, he had gone too far with the conspirators for an examination on the 
 subject to be safe either for himself or his friends. He therefore assumed a fic- 
 titious name, and concealed himself among his friends in Kent the best way he 
 could. Being discovered in this situation, he was suspected to be the notorious 
 Ferguson, of all the conspirators the most obnoxious to government, and as such 
 was seized in the house of a friend at Tenterden, and thrown into the jail of 
 that place on the Monday after the execution of lord Russell. Here he con- 
 tinued for a fortnight, when orders came for his being brought up to London, 
 where he was for some days committed to the charge of a messenger at anus. 
 During this interval Sir Andrew Forrester brought him a message from the king 
 informing him, that though his majesty was not disposed to believe that he had 
 any direct hand in plotting either his death, or that of the duke of York ; yet 
 as he liad corresponded with Argyle and Russell, he was convinced that he knew 
 many particulars relative to the Rye House plot, which if he would discover, 
 with what he knew of any other machinations against the government, he would 
 not only receive an ample pardon for the past, but the king would also show 
 him all manner of favour for the time to come. If, however, he rejected this, 
 he was to abide by the consequences, which, in all likelihood, would be fatal to 
 him. His answer not proving satisfactory, he was committed to close custody in 
 the Gatehouse, where he continued upwards of eleven weeks. During this time 
 he was often before the privy council, but revealed nothing. At length, finding 
 that he could obtain no favour through the king, but upon dishonourable condi- 
 tions, he petitioned the court of king's bench for his habeas corpus, instead of 
 which he received an intimation, that he was to be sent down to Scotland within 
 twenty-four hours, to take his trial in that kingdom. It was in vain that he re- 
 presented it as a breach of law to send him to be tried in Scotland for a crime 
 said to be committed in England. He was sent off next day with several other 
 of his friends, who were consigned into the hands of the Scottish privy council, 
 to be tried for compassing the death of the king in London, or at the Rye
 
 WILLIAM CARSTAIRS. 521 
 
 House, between London and Newmarket Among that unhappy number was a 
 servant of Argyle, of the name of Spence, who was instantly brought before 
 that most abominable tribunal, the privy council of Scotland, where, because he 
 refused to take an oath to criminate himself, he was first put to the torture of 
 (he boot, which he endured with unshrinking firmness ; then kept from sleep 
 upwards of nine nights together -which not answering the expectations that 
 had been formed, steel screws were invented for his thumbs, which proved so 
 exquisite a torment, that he sunk under it, the earl of Perth assuring him at 
 the same time, that they would screw every joint of his body in the same man- 
 ner till he took the oath. Even in this state, Spence had the firmness to sti- 
 pulate, that no new questions should be put to him, that he should not be brought 
 forward as a witness against any person, and that he himself should be pardoned. 
 He then acquainted them with the names of Argyle's correspondents, and as- 
 sisted them in de-cyphering the letters, by which it was seen what Argyle had 
 demanded, and what he had promised to dp upon his demands being granted ; 
 but there was nothing in them of any agreement being then made. 
 
 Carstairs, in the mean time, was laid in irons, and continued in them 
 several weeks, Perth visiting him almost daily, to urge him to reveal what he 
 knew, with promises of a full pardon, so far as he himself was concerned. On 
 this point, however, Mr Carstairs was inflexible ; and when brought before the 
 council, the instruments of torture being laid before him, and he asked by the 
 carl of Perth if he would answer upon oath such questions as should be put to 
 him, he replied, with a firmness that astonished the whole council, that in a cri- 
 minal matter he never would, but, if they produced his accusers, he was ready 
 to vindicate himself from any crime they could lay to his charge. He was then 
 assured, that if he would answer a few questions that were to be put to him 
 concerning others, nothing he said should ever militate against himself, nor 
 should they ever inquire, whether his disclosures were true or false ; but he 
 peremptorily told them, that with him, in a criminal cause, they should never 
 found such a detestable precedent. To the very foolish question put to him, if 
 he had any objections against being put to the torture, he replied, he had great 
 objections to a practice that was a reproach to human nature, and as such 
 banished from the criminal courts of every free country. Here he repeated the 
 remonstrances he had given in to the council at London, and told them that he 
 did consider his trial a breach of the habeas corpus act. To this Perth re- 
 plied, that he was now in Scotland, and must be tried for crimes committed 
 against the state by the laws of that country, had they been committed at Con- 
 stantinople. The executioner was now brought forward, and a screw of a par- 
 ticular construction applied to his thumb with such effect, that large drops of 
 sweat streamed over his brow. Yet he was self-possessed, and betrayed no in- 
 clination to depart from his first resolution. The earl of Queensberry was much 
 affected, and after telling Perth that he saw the poor man would rather die than 
 confess, he ran out of the council, followed by the duke of Hamilton, both being 
 unable longer to witness the scene. Perth sat to the last without betraying any 
 symptoms of compassion for the sufferer. On the contrary, when by his express 
 command the executioner had turned the screw with such violence as to make 
 Carstairs cry out, that now he had squeezed the bones to pieces, the monster, in 
 great indignation, told him that if he continued longer obstinate, he hoped tc 
 see every bone in his body squeezed to pieces. Having kept their victim 
 under this cruel infliction for an hour and a half without effect, the execu- 
 tioner was ordered to produce the iron boots, and apply them to his legs ; 
 but, happily for Mr Carstairs, the executioner, young at his trade, and com- 
 posed of less stern stuff than liis masters, was so confused that he could not 
 i. 3 u
 
 522 WILLIAM CARSTAIRS. 
 
 fix them on. After repeated attempts, he was obliged to give it up, and the 
 council adjourned. 
 
 Torture having thus proved vain, the council once more assailed him in the 
 way of flattery, promising him an ample pardon for himself, and that he should 
 never be called in any court as a witness on any trial, and they further stipu- 
 lated, that none of his answers to the interrogatories to be put to him, should 
 ever be produced in evidence, either directly or indirectly, in any court, or 
 against any person whatsoever. On these conditions, as they had already ex- 
 tracted from Mr Spence and Major Holmes, nearly all that he could inform them 
 of upon the stipulated questions, he consented to answer them, provided the 
 promise made him was ratified by a deed of court, and recorded in their 
 books. He had, however, scarcely given his answers, when they were printed 
 and hawked through the streets, under the name of Carstairs' Confession. 
 Had they been printed correctly, less might have been said ; but they were 
 garbled to suit the purpose of the ruling party, which was to criminate Jervis- 
 wood, on whose trial Mackenzie the advocate read them to the jury as an admi- 
 nicle of proof, without taking any notice of the qualifications with which they 
 were clothed, the alleviating circumstances with which the facts to which they 
 related were accompanied, or the conditions upon which he delivered them. 
 They were so far true to their agreement, however, as to relieve him from his 
 confinement in a dungeon of the castle, where he had remained for some months 
 cut off from all communication with his friends, and struggling under the infir- 
 mities of a shattered constitution. He was also permitted to leave Scotland, on 
 condition that he should wait on the secretaries at London, on his way to Hol- 
 land. Milport being then at court, he went to him and demanded a pass, which 
 he found no difficulty in obtaining ; but the king was desirous to see him, and 
 the secretary thought he ought in duty to wait upon him, and receive his com- 
 mands. On stating, however, that, in such a conversation with the king, he 
 might be led to say what might not be so honourable to some of his majesty's ser- 
 vants in Scotland, the secretary made out his pass, and he departed for Holland, 
 where he arrived in the end of the year 1684, or the beginning of 1685, only 
 a few months before the death of Charles II., and the accession of James VII. 
 
 This was by far the most important event in the life of Carstairs, and it is 
 impossible to say how much the human race may be indebted to his firmness and 
 his address on this occasion. He had, at this very time, secrets of the greatest 
 consequence from Holland, trusted to him by the pensionary Fogel, of which 
 his persecutors had no suspicion. The discovering of these secrets would not 
 only have saved him from torture, but would undoubtedly have brought him a 
 high reward, and, had they been at that time discovered, the glorious revolution 
 might have been prevented, and these kingdoms, instead of being the first and 
 most exalted, as they are at this day, been among the lowest and most debased 
 of nations. The great anxiety the Scottish managers were under to take the 
 life of Baillie, by implicating him in the Rye House plot, seems so totally to 
 have blinded them, that they had no suspicion of the Dutch connection, which 
 Carstairs was so apprehensive about, and which he was so successful in conceal- 
 ing. On his return to Holland, William, fully appreciating his merits, received 
 him into his family, appointed him one of his own chaplains, and at the sanio 
 time procured him to be elected minister of the English protestant congregation 
 at Leyden. To the day of his death William reposed upon the advice of Car- 
 stairs with the most perfect confidence. He - was now, indeed, much better 
 qualified than ever for being serviceable to his illustrious patron. During his 
 stay in Britain he liad had a fair opportunity of judging of public men and pub- 
 lic measures. He had not only witnessed in others, but he had felt himself, the
 
 WILLIAM CARSTAIRS. 523 
 
 severities of a popish administration ; and he saw the universal alienation of all 
 ranks from the system of government they had adopted, and perceived tliat the 
 very methods fallen upon for stilling popular clamour was only tendino- to it' 
 increase. The narrow politics of the duke of York he had thoroughly pene 
 trated, was aware of all the schemes he had laid for enslaving the nation, and 
 saw that the tools with which he was working could easily be turned to his own 
 destruction. Of all these interesting particulars he was admitted to give his 
 sentiments freely to the prince of Orange, who was no longer at pains to con 
 ceal his aversion to the means James was employing to restore the Catholic 
 church. This encouraged still greater numbers of suffering British subjects to 
 place themselves under his protection, and for the characters of these new 
 comers his Royal Highness generally applied to Carstairs, and he was wont to 
 remark, that he never in one instance had occasion to charge him with the 
 smallest attempt to mislead or deceive him. It cannot indeed be doubted that 
 he was made the channel of many complaints and advices to William, which were 
 never made known to the public. Of these secret warnings the prince had 
 sagacity enough to make the best use, even when he was to outward appearance 
 treating them with neglect, and Carstairs himself was in all probability not a 
 little surprised when he was summoned to attend him on an expedition to Great 
 Britain. Notwithstanding all that has been spoken and written and printed 
 about it, we believe that William felt very little, and cared very little about the 
 Bufferings of the British people ; but he had an eye steadily fixed upon the 
 British crown, to which, till the birth of a prince of Wales, June 10th, 1688 
 his wife was the heir apparent, and so long as he had the prospect of a natural 
 succession, whatever might be the disorders of the government or the wishes o) 
 the people, he was not disposed to endanger his future greatness by any thing 
 like a premature attempt to secure it. The birth of the prince, however, gave 
 an entirely new aspect to his atfairs. He behoved now to fix upon the disorder? 
 of the government, and embrace the call of the people, or abandon all reasonable 
 hopes of ever wearing that diadem which he so fondly coveted, and by which 
 alone he could ever hope to carry into effect those mighty plans of policy with 
 which his mind had been so long pregnant. Equally wise to discern and 
 prompt to act, he lost not a moment in idle hesitation ; but while he seemed to 
 discourage all the invitations he was now daily receiving, hastened to complete 
 his preparations, and on the 19th ofOctober, 1688, set sail for the shore of Britain 
 with sixty-five ships of war, and five hundred transports, carrying upwards oi 
 fifteen thousand men. The subject of this memoir accompanied him as his 
 domestic chaplain aboard his own ship, and he had in his train a numerous 
 retinue of British subjects, whom the tyranny of the times had compelled to take 
 refuge in Holland. On the evening of the same day, the fleet was dispersed in 
 a tremendous hurricane, and by the dawn of next morning not two of the whole 
 fleet were to be seen together. On the third day William returned to port, 
 with only four ships of war and forty transports. The ship in which he himself 
 sailed narrowly escaped being wrecked, which was looked on by some about 
 him as an evil omen, and among the rest by Burnet, afterwards bishop of Salis- 
 bury, who remarked that it seemed predestined they should not set foot on Eng- 
 lish ground. A few days, however, collected the whole fleet once more, and 
 on the 1st of November, the whole sailed again with a fair wind, and on Mon- 
 day the 5th, the troops were safely landed at Torbay in Devonshire, the English 
 fleet all' the while lying wind-bound at Harwich. On the landing of the troops, 
 Mr Carstairs performed divine service at their head, after which the whole army 
 drawn up along the beach sang the 118th psalm before going into a camp. 
 From this time till the settlement of the crowns upon William and Mary, Car-
 
 524 WILLIAM CARSTAIRS. 
 
 stall's continued about the person of the prince, being consulted and employe** 
 in negotiating affaire of peculiar delicacy, and disposing of sums of money witl- 
 which he* was entrusted, in various quarters. " It was during this interval,' 
 says his biographer, and the editor of his state papers, the Rev. Joseph M'Cor 
 mick, " that he had it in his power to be of the greatest service to the prince 
 of Orange, nothing being carried on relative to the settlement of Scotland which 
 the prince did not communicate to him, and permit him to give his sentiments 
 of in private." He was highly instrumental in procuring the settlement of the 
 church of Scotland in its present presbyterian form ; which was found to be z> 
 matter of no small difficulty, as the king was anxious that the same system should 
 continue in both parts of the island. Carstairs has been often blamed for hav- 
 ing acceded to the king's wishes for maintaining patronage, and also for re- 
 commending that some of the worst instruments of the late monarch should be 
 continued in office, which he did upon the plea that most of them were possessed 
 of influence and qualifications, which, if properly directed, might be useful un- 
 der the new regime. It must be recollected, that, at such a critical time, 
 a man of Carstairs' political sagacity was apt to be guided rather by what was 
 practically expedient than wliat was abstractly proper. It is probable that Car- 
 stairs, who was unquestionably a sincere man, was anxious to render the settle- 
 ment of the church and of the government as liberal as he thought consistent with 
 their stability, or as the circumstances he had to contend against would permit. 
 King William now took an opportunity of atoning to his counsellor for all his 
 former sufferings ; he appointed Mr Carstairs his chaplain for Scotland, with 
 the whole revenue of the Chapel RoyaL He also required the constant presence 
 of Mr Carstairs about his person, assigning him apartments in the palace when 
 at home, and when abroad with the army allowing him 500 a year for camp 
 equipage. 
 
 He was of course with his majesty at all times, and by being thus always at 
 hand was enabled on some occasions, to do signal service both to his king and 
 his country. Of this we have a remarkable instance, which happened in the 
 year 1694. In 1693, the Scottish parliament had passed an act, obliging all 
 who were in office to take the oath of allegiance to their majesties, and at the 
 same time to sign the assurance, as it was called, whereby they declared William 
 to be king de jure as well as de facto. This was one of the first of a long 
 series of oppressive acts, intended secretly to ruin the Scottish church, by 
 bringing her into collision with the civil authorities, and in the end depriv- 
 ing her of that protection and countenance which she now enjoyed from them. 
 This act had been artfully carried through the parliament by allowing a dis- 
 pensing power to the privy council in cases where no known enmity to the 
 king's prerogative existed. No honest presbyterian at that time had any ob- 
 jection to king William's title to the crown ; but they had insuperable objections 
 to the taking of a civil oath, as a qualification for a sacred office. Numerous 
 applications were of course made to the privy council for dispensations ; but that 
 court which had still in it a number of the old persecutors, so far from complying 
 with die demand, recommended to his majesty, to allow no one to sit down in 
 the ensuing general assembly till he had taken the oath and signed the assur- 
 ance. Orders were accordingly transmitted to lord Carmichael, the commissioner 
 to the assembly to that effect. When his lordship arrived in Edinburgh, how- 
 ever, he found the clergy obstinately determined to refuse compliance with his 
 demand, and they assured him it would kindle a flame over the nation which it 
 would surpass the power of those who had given his majesty this pernicious 
 council to extinguish. Lord Carmichael, firmly attached to his majesty, and 
 aware that the dissolution of this assembly might not only be fatal to the church
 
 WILLIAM CA.RSTAIRS. 625 
 
 of Scotland, but to the interests of his majesty in that country, sent a flying 
 [jacket to the king, representing the difficulty, and requesting further instruc- 
 tions. Some of the ministers at the same time wrote a statement of the case to 
 Carstairs, requesting his best offices in the matter. Lord Carmichael's packet 
 arrived at Kensington on a forenoon in the absence of Mr Carstairs, and William, 
 who, when he could do it with safety, was as fond of stretching the prerogative as 
 any of his predecessors, with the advice of the trimming lord Stair and the in- 
 famous Tarbet, both of whom being with him at the tune, calumniously repre- 
 sented the refusal on the part of the clergy to take the oaths, as arising from 
 disaffection to his majesty's title and authority, peremptorily renewed his in- 
 structions to the commissioner, and despatched them for Scotland without a 
 moment's delay. 
 
 Scarcely was this done, when Carstairs arrived ; and learning the nature of 
 the despatch that had been sent for Scotland, hastened to find the messenger before 
 his filial departure, and having found him, demanded back the packet, in his 
 majesty's name. It was now late in the evening ; but no time was to be lost ; 
 so he ran straight to his majesty's apartment, where he was told by the lord in 
 waiting that his majesty was in bed. Carstairs, however, insisted on seeing him ; 
 and, being introduced to his chamber, found him fast asleep. He turned aside 
 the curtain, and gently awakened him ; the king, astonished to see him at so 
 late an hour, and on his knees by his bedside, asked, with some emotion, what 
 was the matter. " I am come," said Cai-stairs," to beg my life !" " Is it possi- 
 ble," said the king, with still higher emotion, " that you can have been guilty 
 of a crime that deserves death ?" " I have, Sire," he replied, showing the 
 packet he had just brought back from the messenger. " And have you, indeed," 
 said the king, with a severe frown, " presumed to countermand my orders ?" 
 " Let me be heard but for a few moments," said Carstairs, " and I am ready to 
 submit to any punishment your majesty shall think proper to inflict" He then 
 pointed out very briefly the danger of the advice he liad acted upon, and the 
 consequences that would necessarily follow if it was persisted in, to which his 
 majesty listened with great attention. When he had done, the king gave him 
 the despatches to read, after which he ordered him to throw them into the fire, 
 and draw out others to please himself, which he would sign. This was done 
 accordingly ; but so many hours' delay prevented the messenger from reaching 
 Edinburgh, till the very morning when the assembly was to meet ; when 
 nothing but confusion was expected ; the commissioner finding himself under 
 the necessity of dissolving the assembly, and the ministers being determined to as- 
 sert their own authority independent of the civil magistrate. Both parties were 
 apprehensive of the consequences, and both were happily relieved by the arri- 
 val of the messenger with his majesty's letter, signifying that it was his pleasure 
 that the oaths should be dispensed with. With the exception of the act estab- 
 lishing presbytery, this was the most popular act of his majesty's government in 
 Scotland. It also gained Mr Carstairs, when his part of it came to be known, 
 more credit with his brethren and with presbyterians in general, than perhaps 
 any other part of his public procedure. From this period, down to the death 
 of the king, there is nothing to be told concerning Carstairs, but that he con- 
 tinued still in favour, and was assiduously courted by all parties ; and was sup- 
 posed to have so much influence, particularly in what related to the church, 
 that he was called CARDINAL CARSTAIRS. 
 
 Having only the letters that were addressed to him, without any of his replies, 
 we can only conjecture what these may have been. The presumption is, that 
 they were prudent and discreet. Though he was so great a favourite with Wil- 
 liam, there was no provision made for him at his death. Anne, however,
 
 526 WILLIAM CARSTAIRS. 
 
 though she gave him no political employment, continued him in the chaplain- 
 ship for Scotland, with the same revenues he had enjoyed under her predeces- 
 sor. In the year 1704, he was elected principal of the college of Edinburgh, 
 for which he drew up a new and very minute set of rules ; and, as lie was 
 wanted to manage affairs in the church courts, he was, at the same time, (at 
 least in the same year,) presented to the church of Greyfriars ; and, in conse- 
 quence of uniting this with his office in the university, he was allowed a salary 
 of 2200 merks a year. Three years after this he was translated to the High 
 Church. Though so deeply immersed in politics, literature had always engaged 
 much of Carstairs' attention ; and he had, so early as 1693, obtained a gift from 
 the crown to each of the Scottish universities, of three hundred pounds sterling 
 per annum, out of the bishops' rents in Scotland. Now that he was more closely 
 connected with these learned bodies, he exerted all his influence with the 
 government to extend its encouragement and protection towards them, and thus 
 essentially promoted the cause of learning. It has indeed been said, tliat from 
 the donations he at various times procured for the Scottish colleges, he was the 
 greatest benefactor, under the rank of royalty, to those institutions, that his 
 country ever produced. The first General Assembly that met after he became 
 a minister of the church of Scotland, made choice of him for moderator ; and 
 in the space of eleven years, he was four times called to fill that office. 
 From his personal influence and the manner in which he was supported, lie may 
 be truly said to have had the entire management of the church of Scotland. In 
 leading the church he displayed great ability and comprehensiveness of mind, 
 with uncommon judgment. " He moderated the keenness of party zeal, and infused 
 a spirit of cautious mildness into the deliberations of the General Assembly. 1 As 
 the great body of the more zealous clergy were hostile to the union of the king- 
 doms, it required all his influence to reconcile them to a measure, which he, as 
 a whole, approved of, as of mutual benefit to the two countries ; and although, 
 after this era, the church of Scotland lost much of her weight in the councils of 
 the kingdom, she still retained her respectability, and perhaps was all the better 
 of a disconnection with political aflairs. When queen Anne, among the last acts 
 of her reign, restored the system of patronage, he vigorously opposed it ; and, 
 though unsuccessful, his visit to London at that time was of essential service in 
 securing on a stable basis the endangered liberty of the church. The ultra-tory 
 ministry, hostile to the protestant interests of these realms, had devised certain 
 strong measures for curtailing the power of the church of Scotland, by discon- 
 tinuing her assemblies, or, at least, by subjecting them wholly to the nod of the 
 court. Mr Carstairs prevailed on the administration to abandon the attempt ; 
 and he, on his part, promised to use all his influence to prevent the discontents 
 occasioned by the patronage bill from breaking out into open insurrection. It 
 may be remarked, that, although patronage is a privilege which, if harshly 
 exercised, acts as a severe oppression upon the people ; yet, while justified so 
 far in abstract right, by the support which the patron is always understood to 
 give to the, clergyman, it was, to say the least of it, more expedient to be en- 
 forced at the commencement of last century than perhaps at present, as it tended 
 to reconcile to the church many of the nobility and gentry of the country, who 
 were, in general, votaries of episcopacy, and therefore disaffected to the state 
 and to the general interests." 
 
 Principal Carstairs was, it may be supposed, a zealous promoter of the suc- 
 cession of the house of Hanover. Of so much importance were his services 
 deemed, that George I., two years before his accession, signified his acknow- 
 
 1 We here quote from a memoir of Principal Carstairs, which nppeared in the Cliristian 
 Instructor, for March, 1827.
 
 WILLIAM CARSTAIRS. 527 
 
 ledgments by a letter, and, immediately after arriving in England, renewed 
 his appointment as chaplain for Scotland. The last considerable duty upon 
 which the Principal was engaged, was a mission from the Scottish church to 
 congratulate the first prince of the house of Brunswick upon his accession. He 
 did not long survive this period. In August, 1715, he was seized with an 
 apoplectic fit, which carried him off about the end of the December following, 
 in the 6 7th year of his age. His body lies interred in the Greyfriars' church- 
 yard, where a monument is erected to his memory, with a suitable inscription in 
 Latin. The university, the clergy, and the nation at large, united in lamenting 
 the loss of one of their brightest ornaments, and most distinguished benefactors. 
 Carstairs was one of the most remarkable men ever produced by this country. 
 He appears to have been born with a genius for managing great political under- 
 takings ; his father, in one of his letters, expresses a fear lest his " boy Willie " 
 should become too much of a public political man, and get himself into scrapes. 
 His first move in public life was for the emancipation of his country from tyran- 
 nical misrule ; and nothing could well equal the sagacity with which he con- 
 ducted some of the most delicate and hazardous enterprises for that purpose. 
 In consequence of the triumph of the principles which he then advocated, he 
 became possessed of more real influence in the state than has fallen to the lot 
 of many responsible ministers ; so that the later part of his life presented the 
 strangest contrast to the earlier part. What is strangest of all, he preserved 
 through these vicissitudes of fortune the same humble spirit and simple worth, 
 the same zealous and sincere piety, the same amiable and affectionate heart. It 
 fell to the lot of Carstairs to have it in his power to do much good ; and nothing 
 could be said more emphatically in his praise, than tliat he improved every 
 opportunity. The home and heart of Carstairs were constantly alike open. 
 The former was the resort of fill orders of good men ; the latter was alive to 
 every beneficent and kindly feeling. It is related of him, that, although per- 
 haps the most efficient enemy which the episcopal church of Scotland ever had, 
 he exercised perpetual deeds of charity towards the unfortunate ministers of 
 that communion who were displaced at the revolution. The effect of his gene- 
 rosity to them in overcoming prejudice and conciliating affection, appeared 
 strongly at his funeral. When his body was laid in the dust, two men were 
 observed to turn aside from the rest of the company, and, bursting into tears, 
 bewailed their mutual loss. Upon inquiry, it was found that these were two 
 non-jurant clergymen, whose families had been supported for a considerable time 
 by his benefactions. 
 
 In the midst of all his greatness, Carstairs never forgot the charities of domes- 
 tic life. His sister, who had been married to a clergyman in Fife, lost her 
 husband a few days before her brother arrived from London on matters of great 
 importance to the nation. Hearing of his arrival, she came to Edinburgh to 
 see him. Upon calling at his lodgings in the forenoon, she was told he was 
 not at leisure, as several of the nobility and officers of state were gone in to see 
 him. She then bid the servant only whisper to him, that she desired to know 
 when it would be convenient for him to see her. He returned for answer 
 immediately ; and, leaving the company, ran to her and embraced her in the 
 most affectionate manner. Upon her attempting to make some apology for her 
 unseasonable interruption to business, "Make yourself easy," said he, " these 
 gentlemen are come hither, not on my account, but their own. They will wait 
 with patience till I return. You know I never pray long," and, after a short, 
 but iervent prayer, adapted to her melancholy circumstances, he fixed the time 
 when he could see her more at leisure ; and returned in tears to his company. 
 The close attention which he must have paid to politics does not appear to
 
 528 DAVID CHAMBERS. 
 
 hare injured his literature any more than his religion, though it perhaps pro- 
 rented liini from committing any work of either kind to the press. We arc 
 told that his first oration in the public hall of the university, after his installa- 
 tion as principal, exhibited so much profound erudition, so much acquaintance 
 with classical learning, and such an accurate knowledge of the Latin tongue, 
 that his hearers were delighted, and the celebrated Dr Pitcairn declared, that 
 when Mr Carstairs began his address, he could not help fancying himself in the 
 forum of ancient Home. In the strange mixed character which he bore through 
 life, he must have corresponded with men of all orders ; but, unfortunately, 
 there is no collection of his letters known to exist. A great number of letters 
 addressed to him by the most eminent men of his time, were preserved by his 
 widow, and conveyed through her executor to his descendant, Principal M'Cor- 
 mick, of St Andrews, by whom they were published in the year 1774. 
 
 CHAMBERS, DAVID, a distinguished historical and legal writer, of the six- 
 teenth century, was a native of Ross-shire, and generally sulcd " of Ormond" in 
 that county. He received his education in the laws and theology at Aberdeen 
 college, and afterwards pursued his studies in the former branch of knowledge 
 in France and Italy. The earliest date ascertained in his life is his studying at 
 Bologna under 3Iarianus Sozenus in 1556. Soon after, returning to his native 
 country, he assumed the clerical offices of parson of Study and chancellor of 
 the diocese of Ross. His time, however, seems to have been devoted to the 
 legal profession, which was not then incompatible with the clerical, as has al- 
 ready been remarkably shown in the biography of his contemporary and friend 
 Sir James Balfour. In 1564, he was elevated to the bench by his patroness 
 Queen Mary, to whose fortunes he was faithfully attached through life. He was 
 one of the high legal functionaries, entrusted at this time with the duty of compil- 
 ing and publishing the acts of the Scottish parliament. The result of the 
 labours of these men was a volume, now known by the title of " the Black Acts," 
 from the letter in which it is printed. While thus engaged in ascertaining the 
 law* of his country, and diffusing a knowledge of them among his countrjmeu, 
 he became concerned in one of the basest crimes which the whole range of 
 Scottish history presents. Undeterred either by a regard to fundamental 
 morality, or, what sometimes lias a stronger influence over men, a regard to his 
 high professional character, he engaged in the conspiracy for destroying the 
 queen's husband, the unfortunate Darnley. After that deed was perpetrated, 
 a placard was put up by night on the door of the tolbooth, or hall of justice, 
 which publicly denounced lord Ormond as one of the guilty persons. " I have 
 made inquisition," so ran this anonymous accusation, " for the slaughter of the 
 king, and do find the earl of Bothwell, Mr James Balfour, parson of Flisk, 
 Mr David Chambers, and black Mr John Spence, the principal devysers there- 
 of." It affords a curious picture of the times, that two of these men wero 
 judges, while the one last mentioned was one of the two crown advocates, or 
 public prosecutors, and actually appeared in that character at the (rial of his 
 accomplice BothwelL There is matter of further surprise in the partly clerical 
 character of Balfour and Chambers. The latter person appears to liave ex- 
 perienced marks of the queen's favour almost immediately after the murder of 
 her husband. On the 19th of April, he had a ratification in parliament of the 
 lands of Ochterslo and Castleton. On the ensuing 12th of May, he sat as one 
 of the lords of Session, when the queen came forward to absolve Bothwell from 
 all guilt he might have incurred, by the constraint under which he had recently 
 placed her. He also appears in a sederunt of privy council held on the 2^(1 
 of Slay. But after this period, the fortunes of his mistress experienced a
 
 GEORGE CHALMERS. '529 
 
 strange overthrow, and Cliambers, unable to protect himself from the wrath ol 
 the ascendant party, found it necessary to take refuge in Spain. 
 
 He here experienced a beneficent protection from king Philip, to whom lie 
 must have been strongly recommended by his faith, and probably also the tran- 
 sactions in which he had lately been engaged. Subsequently retiring to 
 France, he published in 1572, " Histoire Abregee de tous les Roys de France, 
 Angleterre, et Ecosse," which he dedicated to Henry III. His chief authority 
 in this work was the fabulous narrative of Boece. In 1579, he published other 
 two works in the French language, " La Recherche des singularites les plus 
 remarkables concernant 1' Estait d' Ecosse," and " Discours de la legitime suc- 
 cession des femmes aux possessions des leurs parens, et du gouvernement des 
 princesses aux empires et royaume." The first is a panegyric upon the laws, 
 religion, and valour of his native country all of which, a modern may be inclined 
 to think, he had already rendered the reverse of illustrious by his own conduct 
 The second work is a vindication of the right of succession of females, being in 
 reality a compliment to his now imprisoned mistress, to whom it was dedicated. 
 In France, Chambers was a popular and respected character ; and he testified 
 his own predilection for the people by selecting their language for his composi- 
 tions against the fashion of the age, which would hare dictated an adherence 
 to the classic language of ancient Rome. Dempster gives his literary character 
 in a few words " vir multffi et variae lectionis, nee inamoeni ingenii," a man 
 of much and varied reading, and of not unkindly genius." He was, to use the 
 quaint phrase of Mackenzie, who gives a laborious dissection of his writings, 
 " well seen in the Greek, Latin, English, French, Italian, and Spanish lan- 
 guages." 
 
 On the return of quieter times, this strange mixture of learning and political 
 and moral guilt returned to his native country, where, so far from being called 
 to account by the easy James for his concern in the murder of his father, he was, 
 in the year 1586, restored to the bench, in which situation he continued till his 
 death in November 1592. 
 
 Another literary character, of the same name and the same faith, lived in the 
 immediately following age. He was the author of a work intitled " Davidis 
 Camerarii Scoti, de Scotorum Fortitudine, Doctrina, et Pietate Libri Quatuor," 
 which appeared at Paris, in small quarto, in 1631, and is addressed by the au- 
 thor in a flattering dedication to Charles I. The volume contains a complete 
 calendar of the saints connected with Scotland, the multitude of whom is apt to 
 astonish a modern protestant. 
 
 CHAL3IERS, GEORGE, an eminent antiquary and general writer, was born in 
 the latter part of the year 1742, at Fochabers, in Banffshire, being a younger 
 son of the family of Pittensear, in that county. He was educated, first at the 
 grammar-school of Fochabers, and afterwards at king's college, Aberdeen, where 
 he had for his preceptor the celebrated Dr Reid, author of the Enquiry into the 
 Human Mind. Having studied law at Edinburgh, Mr Chalmers removed, in his 
 twenty -first year (1763), to America, as companion to his uncle, who was pro- 
 ceeding thither for the purpose of recovering some property in Maryland. Being 
 induced to settle as a lawyer in Baltimore, he soon acquired considerable practice, 
 and, when the celebrated question arose respecting the payment of tithes to the 
 church, he appeared on behalf of the clergy, and argued their cause with great 
 ability, against Mr Patrick Henry, who subsequently became so conspicuous in 
 the war of independence. He was not only defeated in this cause, but was obliged, 
 as a marked royalist, to withdraw from the country. In England, to which 
 he repaired in 1755, his sufferings as a loyalist at last recommended him to 
 the government, and he was, in 1786, appointed to the respectable situation of 
 i. 3 x
 
 530 GQOROE CHALMERS. 
 
 clerk to the Board of Trade. The duties of this office he continued to execute, 
 with diligence and ability, for the remainder of his life, a period of thirty-niuc 
 years. 
 
 Before and after his appointment, he distinguished himself by the com- 
 position of various elaborate and useful works, of which, as well as of all his 
 subsequent writings, the following is a correct chronological list : 1. " The 
 Political Annals of the Present United Colonies, from their Settlement to the 
 Peace of 1763," of which the first volume* appeared in quarto, in 1780: the 
 second was never published. 2. Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great 
 Britain, during the present and four preceding reigns, 1782. 3. Opinions 
 on interesting subjects of Public Law and Commercial Policy ; arising from 
 American Independence, 1784, 8vo. 4. Life of Daniel Defoe, prefixed to an 
 edition of the History of the Union, London, 1786 ; and of Robinson Crusoe, 
 1790. 5. Life of Sir John Davies, prefixed to his Historical Tracts regarding 
 Ireland, 1786, 8vo. 6. Collection of Treaties between Great Britain and 
 other Powers, 1790, 2 vols. 8vo. 7. Life of Thomas Paine, 17 93-, 8vo. 8. 
 Life of Thomas Ruddiman, A.M., 1794, 8vo. 9. Prefatory Introduction to Dr 
 Johnson's Debates in Parliament, 1794, 8vo. 10. Vindication of the Privi- 
 lege of the People in respect to the constitutional right of free discussion ; 
 with a Retrospect of various proceedings relative to the Violation of that Right, 
 1796, 8vo. (An Anonymous Pamphlet.) 11. Apology for the Believers in the 
 Shakspeare Papers, which were exhibited in Norfolk street, 1797, 8vo. 12. 
 A Supplemental Apology for the Believers in the .Shakspeare Papers, being a 
 reply to Mr Malone's Answer, &c., 1799, 8vo. 13. Appendix to the Supple- 
 mental Apology; being the documents for the opinion that HughTBoyd wrote 
 Junius's Letters, 1800, 8vo. 14. Life of Allan Ramsay, prefixed to an edition 
 of his Poems, 1800, 2 vols., 8vo. 15. Life of Gregory King, prefixed to his 
 observations on the state of England in 1696, 1804, 8vo. 16. The Poetical 
 Works of Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, with a Lite of the Author, prefatory 
 dissertations, and an appropriate glossary, 1806, 3 vols., 8vo. 17. Caledonia, 
 &c., vol. i., 1807, 4to ; vcl. ii., 1810 ; vol. iii., 1824. 18. A Chronological Ac- 
 count of Commerce and Coinage in Great Britain, from the Restoration till 
 1810, 1810, 8vo. 19. Considerations on Commerce, Bullion and Coin, Cir- 
 culation and Exchanges ; with a view to our present circumstances, 1811, 8vo. 
 20. An Historical View of the Domestic Economy of Great Britain and Ire- 
 land, from the earliest to the Present Times, (a new and extended edition of 
 the Comparate Estimate,) Edinburgh, 1812, 8vo. 21. Opinions of Eminent 
 Lawyers on various points of English jurisprudence, chiefly concerning 
 the Colonies, Fisheries, and Commerce of Great Britain, 1814, 2 ols., 
 8vo. 22. A Tract (privately printed) in answer to Malone's Account of Snak- 
 speare's Tempest, 1815, 8vo. 23. Comparative Views of the State of Great 
 Britain before and since the war, 1817, 8vo. 24. The Author of Junius as- 
 certained, from a concatenation of circumstances amounting to moral demon- 
 stration, 1817, 8vo. 25. Churchyard's Chips concerning Scotland; being a 
 Collection of his Pieces regarding that Country, with notes and a life of the au- 
 thor, 1817, 8vo. 26. Life of Queen Mary, drawn from the State Papers, with 
 six subsidiary memoirs, 1818,2 vols., 4to; reprinted in 3 vols., 8vo. 27. The f 
 Poetical Reviews of some of the Scottish kings, now first collected, 1824, 8vo. 
 28. Robene and Makyne, and the Testament of Cresseid, by Robert Henryson, . 
 edited as a contribution to the Bannatyne Club, of which Mr Chalmers was a 
 member; Edinburgh, 1824. 29. A Detection of the Love-Letters lately at- 
 tributed in Hugh Campbell's work to Mary, Queen of Scots, 1825, 8vo. All 
 these works, unless in the few instances mentioned, were published in London.
 
 DR. GEORGE CHAPMAN. CHARLES I. 531 
 
 The author's "Caledonia" astonished the world with the vast extent of its 
 erudition and research. It professes to be an account, historical and topographical, 
 of North Britain, from the most ancient to the present times ; and the original 
 intention of the author was, that it should be completed in four volumes, quarto, 
 each containing nearly a thousand pages. Former historians had not presumed 
 to inquire any further back into Scottish history than the reign of Canmore, 
 describing all before that time as obscurity and fable, as Strabo, in his maps, 
 represents the inhabitants of every place which he did not know as Ichthyophagi. 
 But George Chalmers was not contented to start from this point. He plunged 
 fearlessly into the middle ages, and was able, by dint of incredible research, to 
 give a pretty clear account of the inhabitants of the northern part of the island 
 since the Roman conquest. The pains which he must have taken, in compiling in- 
 formation for this work, are almost beyond belief although he tells us in his 
 preface that it had only been the amusement of his evenings. The remaining 
 three volumes were destined to contain a topographical and historical account oi! 
 each county, and the second of these completed his task so far as the Lowlands 
 were concerned, when death, stepped in, and arrested the busy pen of the anti- 
 quary, May 31, 1825. 
 
 As a writer, George Chalmers does not rank high in point of elegance of style; 
 but the solid value of his matter is far more than sufficient to counterbalance both 
 that defect, and a certain number of prejudices by which his labours ase other- 
 wise a little deformed. Besides the works which we have mentioned, he was the 
 author of some of inferior note, including various political pamphlets on the Tory 
 side of the question. 
 
 CHAPMAN, Du. GEORGE, an eminent teacher and respectable writer on 
 education, was born in the parish of Alvale, Banffshire, in August, 1723. He 
 studied at Aberdeen, and taught successively in Dalkeith, Dumfries, and Banff. 
 He finally removed to Edinburgh, where he carried on business as a printer. 
 He died February 22d, 1806. Dr Chapman's Treatise on Education appeared 
 in 1782 ; a work of great practical utility. 
 
 CHARLES I., king of Great Britain, was the second son of James VI. of 
 Scotland, and First of Great Britain, by Anne, daughter of Frederick II., king 
 of penmark and Norway. Charles was born at Duufermline palace, which was 
 the dotarial or jointure house of his mother the queen, on the 19th of Novem- 
 ber, 1600, being the very day on which the earl of Gowry and his brother 
 were publicly dismembered at the cross of Edinburgh, for their concern in the 
 celebrated conspiracy. King James remarked with surprise that the principal 
 incidents of his own personal and domestic history had taken place on this par- 
 ticular day of the month : he had been born, he said, on the 19th of June ; he 
 first saw his wife on the 19th of May; and his two former children, as well as 
 this one, had been born on the 19th day of different months. Charles was only 
 two years and a half old when his father was called up to England to fill the 
 throne of Elizabeth. The young prince was left behind, in charge of the earl 
 of Dunfermline, but joined his father in July, 1603, along with his mother and 
 the rest of the royal family. Being a very weakly child, and not .likely to live 
 long, the honour of keeping him, which in other circumstances would have been 
 eagerly sought, was bandied about by the courtiers, and with some difficulty was 
 at length accepted by Sir Robert Carey and his wife. This was the gentleman 
 who hurried, with such mean alacrity, to inform king James of the demise of 
 his cousin Elizabeth, from whom, in life, he had received as many favours as he 
 could now hope for from her successor. Carey tells us in his own Memoirs, 
 that the legs of the child were unable to support him, and that the king had 
 some thoughts of mending the matter by a pair of iron boots, from which, how-
 
 532 CHARLES I. 
 
 ever, he was dissuaded. At his baptism, December 23, IfiOO, Charles bad re- 
 reived the titles of duke of Albany, marquis of Orinond, earl of Ross, and lord 
 Ardmanach. He was now, January 1605, honoured with the second title of the 
 English royal family duke of York. 
 
 King James, whatever may have been the frivolity of his character in some 
 respects, is undeniably entitled to the credit of having carefully educated his 
 children. Prince Henry, the elder brother, and also Charles, were proficients 
 in English, Latin, and French, at an amazingly early age. Although, from 
 their living in separate houses, he did not see them often, he Mas perpetually 
 writing them instructive and encouraging letters, to which they replied, by his 
 desire, in language exclusively supplied by themselves. The king was also in 
 the habit of sending many little presents to his children. " Sweete, sweete 
 father," says Charles, in an almost infantine epistle, yet preserved in the Advo- 
 cates' Library, " I learn to decline substantives and adjectives. Give me your 
 blessing. I thank you for my best man. Your loving son, YORK." The 
 character of Charles was mild, patient, and serious, as a child is apt to be who 
 is depressed by ill health, or an inability to take a share in youthful sports. 
 His brother Henry, who was nearly seven years his senior, and of more robust 
 character, one day seized the cap of archbishop Abbot, which he put upon Charles' 
 head, telling him, at the same time, that when he was king, he would make him 
 archbishop of Canterbury. Henry dying in November 1G 1 2, left a brighter pros- 
 pect open before his younger brother, who, in 1616, was formally created prince 
 of Wales. At this splendid ceremony the queen could not venture to appear, lest 
 the sight should renew her grief for the amiable Henry, whom she had seen go 
 through the same solemnity only a short time before his death. As he grew up to- 
 wards manhood, Charles gradually acquired strength, so that at twenty he was well 
 skilled in manly exercises, and accounted the best rider of the great horse in 
 his father's dominions. His person was slender, and his face but the majestic 
 melancholy of that face is too deeply impressed on every mind to require descrip- 
 tion. It was justly accounted very strange that the marquis of Buckingham, the 
 frivolous favourite of king James, should have become equally agreeable to the 
 grave temperament of the prince of Wales. Charles was perpetually in the 
 company of that gay courtier, and the king used to consider them both as his 
 children. He always addressed the prince by the epithet " Baby Charles," and 
 in writing to Buckingham, he as invariably subscribed himself as " his dear 
 dad." James liad high abstract notions as to the rank of those who should be- 
 come the wives of princes. He considered the sacred character of a king de- 
 graded by a union with one under his own rank. While his parliament, 
 therefore, wished him to match his son to some small German princess, who had 
 the advantage of being a good protestant, lie contemplated wedding him to the 
 grand-daughter of Charles V., the sister of the reigning king of Spain. Both 
 James and Charles had a sincere sense of the errors of Rome ; but the fatality 
 of matching with a Catholic princess was not then an established maxim in 
 English policy, which it is to be hoped it ever will be in this realm. It 
 was also expected that the Spanish monarch would be instrumental in procuring 
 a restoration of the Palatinate of the Rhine for the son-in-law of the king of 
 Great Britain, who had lost it in consequence of his placing himself at the head 
 of the Bohemians, in a rebellion against the emperor of Germany. The earl of 
 Bristol, British ambassador at Madrid, was carrying on negotiations for this 
 natch, when Charles, with the romantic feeling of youth, resolved to travel 
 into Spain, and woo the young princess in person. In February 1623, he set 
 out with the marquis of Buckingham, and only two other attendants, himself 
 bearing the incognito title of Mr John Smith, a union of the two most familiar
 
 CHARLES I. 533 
 
 names in England, while the marquis assumed that of Mr Thomas Smith. A 
 Paris, they obtained admission to the rehearsal or practising of a masque, wheiv 
 the prince beheld the princess Henrietta Maria of France, daughter of the il 
 lustrious Henry IV., and sister of the reigning king, Louis XIII., who was ir 
 reality destined to be his wife. It appears, however, that he paid no attention 
 to this lady on the present occasion. His heart being full of the object of hi 
 journey, he directed his whole attention to the queen of France, because she 
 was sister to the Spanish princess, whom he was going to see. In a letter to hi 
 father, he speaks in terms of high expectation of the latter individual, seeing 
 that her sister was the handsomest of twenty women ( Henrietta was of course 
 included ) whom he saw at this masque. That Charles subsequently placed hip 
 .whole affections on a woman whom he now saw with indifference is only another 
 added to the many proofs, that love is among the most transferable of all things. 
 On his arrival at Madrid, he was received in the most courteous manner by the 
 Spanish court, and his gallantry, as might be expected, made a strong impression 
 upon the people. The celebrated Lopez de Vega wrote a canzonet on the occa- 
 sion, of which the first verse has chanced to meet our eye : 
 
 Carlos Estuardo soy ; 
 
 Que siendo amor mi quia 
 Al cielo de Espana voy 
 
 For vor nir estrello Maria. 
 
 [Charles Stuart am I : 
 
 Love has guided me far 
 To this fair Spanish sky, 
 
 To see Mary my star.] 
 
 But, while he was entertained in the most affectionate manner by the people, 
 and also by their prince, the formal policy of the court dictated that he should 
 hardly ever see his intended bride. The marquis of Buckingham seriously pro- 
 posed that he should send home for some perspective glasses, in order to reduce 
 the distance at which she was kept from him. So far as his opportunities permit- 
 ted him to judge of her personal merits, he admired her very much ; but we sus- 
 pect that if he had fallen in love, as he had.expected, he never would have broken 
 off the match. After spending all the summer at the Spanish court, waiting for 
 a dispensation from the Pope, to enable the princess to marry a protestant, he 
 was suddenly inspired with some disgust, and abruptly announced his intention 
 of returning home. The marquis, now duke, of Buckingham, whose mercurial 
 manners had given great offence to the Spaniards, and who had conceived great 
 offence in return, is supposed to have caused this sudden change of purpose. 
 The earl of Bristol was left to marry the princess in the way of proxy, but with 
 secret instructions not to do so till he should receive further orders. 
 
 It would be rash to pronounce judgment upon this affair with so little evi- 
 dence as history has left us ; but it seems probable that the match was broken 
 off, and the subsequent war incurred, purely through some freakish caprice of the 
 favourite for upon such things then depended the welfare of the nations. 
 This contemptible court-butterfly ruled with absolute power over both the king 
 and his son, but now chiefly sided with the latter against his father, being sensi- 
 ble that the old king was no longer able to assert his independency against the 
 growing influence of his son. As the English people would have then fought 
 in any quarrel, however unjust, against the Spaniards, simply because they were 
 catholics, the war was very popular ; and Buckingham, who chiefly urged it, 
 became as much the favourite of the nation, as he was of the king and prince. 
 A negotiation was subsequently opened with France, for a match with the prin-
 
 534 CHARLES I. 
 
 cess Henrietta Maria. On the 27th of March, 1625, Charles succeeded his father 
 as king; and, on the 22d of June, the princess, to whom he had previously been 
 espoused by proxy, arrived in London. 
 
 It would be foreign to the character of this work to enter into a full detail of 
 the public transactions in which Charles was concerned in his regal character. 
 We shall, therefore, be content with an outline of these transactions. The 
 arrogant pretensions of his father, founded on " the right divine of kings to govern 
 wron"," had roused a degree of jealousy and resistance among the people; whilst 
 the weakness and vacillation of his character, and the pusillanimity of his ad- 
 ministration, had gone far to bring the kingly office into contempt. Charles had 
 imbibed the arbitrary principles of his father, and, without appreciating the 
 proffress of public opinion, resolved, on his accession, to carry out the extravagant 
 theories of James. During the whole reign of the latter, the Commons had kept 
 up a constant warfare with the crown, making every supply which they voted 
 the condition of a new concession to the popular will. The easy nature of James 
 had got over these collisions much better than was to be expected frem the grave 
 and stern temperament of his son. After a few such disputes with his parliament 
 (for the House of Lords always joined with the Commons), Charles concluded 
 his wars, to save all expense, and, resolving to call no more parliaments, endea- 
 voured to support the crown in the best way he could by the use of his pre- 
 rogative. For ten years subsequent to 1628, when the duke of Buckingham was 
 assassinated, he contrived to carry on the state with hardly any assistance from 
 his officers, using chiefly the ill-omened advice of Laud, bishop of London, after- 
 wards archbishop of Canterbury, and also relying considerably upon the queen, to 
 whom he was devotedly attached. The result was to sow distrust and discon- 
 tent throughout the kingdom, to array the subject against the sovereign, and 
 leave no alternative betwixt the euthralment of the people and the destruction 
 of the king. The earnest struggles for religious freedom, in England and 
 Scotland, added a fresh impulse to the growing spirit of civil liberty. Charles 
 rashly encountered the powerful body of nonconformists in England and the 
 sturdy presbyterians of Scotland, and at last sank under the recoil. 
 
 The dissenters from the Church of England were at this time a rapidly 
 increasing body ; and the church, to maintain her power, thought proper to visit 
 them with some severe sentences. The spirit with which the regular clergy 
 were animated against the nonconformists, may be argued from the fact, that 
 Laud publicly blessed God, when Dr Alexander Leighton was sentenced to 
 lose his ears, and be whipped through the streets of London. The king and 
 the archbishop had always looked with a jealous eye upon Scotland, where 
 the episcopal form of government was as yet only struggling for supremacy 
 over a people who were, almost without exception, presbyterian. In 1633, 
 Charles visited Scotland for the purpose of receiving the crown of his ancient 
 kingdom ; and measures were thenceforth taken, under the counsel of his evil 
 genius Laud, who accompanied him, for enforcing episcopacy upon the Church 
 of Scotland. It was not, however, till 1637, that this bold project was carried 
 into effect. 
 
 The Scots united themselves in a solemn covenant against this innovation, and 
 at the close of the year 1638, felt themselves so confident in their own strength 
 as to abolish episcopacy in a General Assembly of the church held in Glasgow, 
 and which conducted its proceedings in spite of the prohibition of the king's 
 commissioner. In 1639, his finances being exhausted, Charles was compelled, 
 after the lapse of eleven years, to assemble a parliament, which met in April, 
 1640. Like their predecessors, the Commons refused to grant supplies till they 
 had stated their grievances. The king hastily dissolved parliament, and prose-
 
 CHARLES I. 535 
 
 cuted several of the members who had led on the opposition. The king, in 
 spring, 1639, conducted an army of 20,000 to put down the Scots; but they met 
 him with an equal force, and Charles was reduced to a pacification, which left 
 the grounds of quarrel undecided. Next year, Charles raised another army ; but 
 the Scots anticipated him by invading England, and at Newburn on the Tyne 
 overthrew a large detachment of his forces, and immediately after gained posses- 
 sion of Newcastle. All expedients for supporting his army now failed, and he 
 seemed about to be deserted in a great measure by the affections of his subjects. 
 A large portion of the English entered heartily into the views of the Scots. It 
 was agreed by all parties that the northern army should be kept up at a certain 
 monthly pay, till such time as a parliament should settle the grievances of the 
 nation. Charles called together the celebrated assembly which afterwards 
 acquired the name of the Long Parliament. This was only giving collective 
 force and energy to the party which longed for his overthrow. He was obliged 
 to resign his favourite minister,- Strafford, as a victim to this assembly. Some 
 of his other servants only escaped by a timely flight. He was himself obliged to 
 abandon many points of his prerogative which he had hitherto exercised. 
 Fearing that nothing but the sword could decide the quarrel, he paid a visit in 
 autumn, 1641, to Scotland, and endeavoured, by ostensible concessions to the 
 religious prepossessions of that nation, to secure its friendship, or at least its 
 neutrality. In August, 1642, he erected hi* standard at Nottingham, and soon 
 found himself at the head of a considerable army, composed chiefly of the 
 country gentry and their retainers. The parliament, on the other hand, was 
 supported by the city of London, and by the mercantile interest in general. At 
 the first, Charles gained several advantages over the parliament ; but the balance 
 was restored by the Scots, who took side against the king, and, in February 
 1644, entered England with a large army. The cause of royalty from this time 
 declined, and in May 1646, the king was reduced to the necessity of taking 
 refuge in the camp of the Scottish, army at Newark. He was treated with 
 respect, but regarded as a prisoner, and after some abortive negotiations, was, 
 January 30, 1647, surrendered to the commissioners of the English parliament, 
 on the payment of the arrears due to the Scottish army. If Charles would have 
 now consented to abolish episcopacy, and reign as a limited monarch, he would 
 have been supported by the presbyterian party, and might have escaped a violent 
 death. But his predilections induced him to resist every encroachment upon 
 that form of ecclesiastical polity ; and he therefore lost, in a great measure, the 
 support of the presbyterians, who, though the body that had begun the war, 
 were now sincerely anxious for a pacification, being in some alarm respecting a 
 more violent class, who had latterly sprung up, and who, from their denial of all 
 forms of church government, were styled Independents. This latter party, 
 which reckoned almost the whole army in its numbers, eventually acquired an 
 ascendancy over the more moderate presbyterians ; and, the latter being forcibly 
 excluded from parliament, the few individuals who remained formed themselves 
 into a court cf justice, before which the king was arraigned. Having been 
 found guilty of, appearing in arms against the parliament, Charles was by this 
 court condemned to suffer death as a traitor, which sentence was put in execution, 
 January 30, 1649, in front of his own palace of Whitehall, in the forty-ninth 
 year of his age, and twenty-fifth of his reign. 
 
 The Scottish subjects of Charles had made strenuous exertions to avert this 
 fearful issue ; and by none was his death mourned with a deeper sorrow than 
 by the very Covenanters who had risen in arms to repel his invasion upon their 
 liberty of conscience. It was indeed impossible not to deplore the fate of that un- 
 fortunate and misguided monarch; but it cannot be doubted that it wasmainly brought
 
 536 WALTER CHEPMAN. 
 
 about by his own insincerity and obstinacy. By his queen, who survived him for 
 some years, he left six children, of whom the two eldest, Charles and James, 
 were successively kings of Great Britain ; a son and a daughter died in early 
 youth ; and his two remaining daughters, Mary and Henrietta, were respectively 
 married to the prince of Orange, and to the duke of Orleans, brother of Louis 
 XIV. In literature Charles is entitled to a high rank. There was published 
 after his death, a work entitled EIKON BASILIKE, which contained a series of re- 
 flections proceeding from himself, respecting various situations in which he was 
 placed towards the close of his life. This, in a short space of time, went through 
 upwards of forty editions, and it every where excited a keen interest in the fate of 
 the king and high admiration of his mental gifts. Although for a long time sus- 
 pected to have been written by another hand, it appears incontestibly proved by 
 Dr Christopher Wordsworth, in his work on this subject, (published in 1824,) to 
 have been his own express composition. 
 
 CHEPMAN, WALTER, who appears to have been chiefly concerned in intro- 
 ducing the art of printing into Scotland, was a servant of king James IV., who 
 patronised him in that undertaking. None of the honours of learning are known 
 to have been attached to the name of Walter Chepman ; but it is to be inferred 
 that his office in the royal household was of a clerical or literary character, as 
 we find that on the 21st of February, 1496, the lord treasurer enters the follow- 
 ing disbursement in his books: " Gifleu to a boy to rynne fra Edinburgh to 
 Linlithq, to Watte Chepman, to signet twa letteris to pas to Woddis, I2d." His 
 name is frequently mentioned in this curious record ; for instance, in August, 
 1503, amidst a variety of expenses " pro servitoribus " on the occasion of the 
 king's marriage, eight pounds ten shillings are given for " five elne Inglis 
 (English) claith to Walter Chepman, ilk clue 34 shillings," which may show 
 the high consideration in which this individual was held. Walter Chepman is 
 found at a somewhat later period in the condition of a merchant and burgess of 
 Edinburgh, and joining with one Andro Millar, another merchant, in the busi- 
 ness of a printer. It appears to have been owing to the urgent wishes of the 
 king that Scotland was first favoured with the possession of a printing press. A 
 grant under the privy seal, dated in 1507, recites the causes and objects of this 
 measure in the following terms : 
 
 JAMES, &c. To al and sindrj our officiaris liegis and subdittis quham it 
 efferis, quhais knawlage thir our lettres salcum, greting ; wit ye that forsamekill 
 as our lovittis servitouris Walter Chepman and Andro Millar burgessis of our 
 burgh of Edinburgh, has, at our instance and request, for our plesour, the 
 honour and proffit of our Realme and leigis, takin on thame to furnis and bring 
 hame ane prent, with all stuff belangand tharto, and expert men to use the 
 samyne, for imprenting within our Realme of the bukis of our Lawis, actis of 
 parliament, croniclis, mess bukis, and portuus efter the use of our Healme, with 
 addicions and legendis of Scottish sanctis, now gaderit to be ekit tharto, and al 
 utheris bukis that salbe sene necessar, and to sel the sammyn for competent 
 pricis, be our avis and discrecioun, thair labouris and expens being considerit ; 
 And because we wnderstand that this cannot be perfurnist without rycht greit 
 cost Labour and expens, we have granted and promittit to thame that thai sail 
 nocht be hurt nor prevenit tharon be ony utheris to tak copyis of ony bukis 
 furtht of our Realme, to ger imprent the samyne in utheris countreis, to be 
 brocht and sauld agane within our Realme, to cause the said Walter and Andro 
 tyne thair gret labour and expens ; And als It is divisit and thocht expedient be 
 us and our consall, that in tyme cuming mess bukis, nianualis, matyne bukis, and 
 portuus bukis, efter our awin scottis use, and with legendis of Scottis sanctis, as 
 is now gaderit and ekit be ane Reverend fader in god, and our traist consalour
 
 WALTER CHEPMAN. 537 
 
 Williame bischope of abirdene and utheris, be usit generaly within al our Realme 
 alssone as the sammyn may be imprented and providit, and that no nianer of 
 sic bukis of Salisbury use be brocht to be sauld within our Realme in tym cum- 
 ing ; and gif ony dois in the contrar, that thai sal tyne the sammyne ; Quharfor 
 we charge straitlie and coinmandis yow al and sindrj our officiaris, Hegis, and 
 subdittis, that nane of yow tak apon hand to do ony thing incontrar this our 
 awnpromitt, devise and ordinance, in tyme cuming, under the pane of escheting 
 of the bukis, and punishing of thair persons bringaris tharof within our Realme, 
 in contrar this our statut, with al vigour as efferis. Geven under our prive Sel at 
 Edinburgh, the xv day of September, and of our Regne the xx" yer. 
 (Registrum Sec. Sig. iii. 129.) 
 
 This typographical business would appear to have been in full operation be- 
 fore the end of 1 507, as, on the 22d of December that year, we find the royal 
 treasurer paying fifty shillings for " 3 prentit bukes to the king, tane fra Andro 
 Millaris wyrt!" The Cowgate, a mean street, now inhabited by the least 
 instructed class of the citizens of Edinburgh, was the place where that grand 
 engine of knowledge was established ; as appears from the imprints of some of 
 Chepman and 3Ii liar's publications, and also from a passage in the Traditions of 
 Edinburgh, where the exact site of the house is thus made out : " In the lower 
 part of the church-yard [ of St Giles, adjoining the Cowgate ] there was a small 
 place of worship, denominated the Chapel of Holyrood. Walter Chepman, the 
 first printer in Edinburgh, in 1528, endowed an altar in this chapel with his 
 tenement in the Cowgate ; and, by the tenor of this charter, we are enabled to 
 point out very nearly the residence of this remarkable person. The tenement 
 is thus described : ' All and haill this tenement of laud, back and foir, with 
 houses, biggings, yards, and well, thereof, lying in the Cowgate of Edinburgh, 
 on the south side thereof, near the said chapel, betwixt the lands of James 
 Lamb on the east, and the lands of John Aber on the west, the arable lands, 
 called Wairam's croft, on the south, and the said street on the north part.' " 
 It is probable that the site is now covered by the new bridge thrown across the 
 Cowgate at that point. 
 
 In the course of a few years, Chepman and Millar produced works, 1 of which 
 hardly any other set is known to exist than that preserved in the Advocates' 
 Library. 
 
 The privilege granted to Chepman and Millar was of a rigidly exclusive kind 
 for at this early period the system of monopolizing knowledge, which is now 
 an absurdity and a disgrace, was a matter of necessity. In January t l 509, we 
 find Walter Chepman asserting the right of his patent against various indivi- 
 duals who had infringed upon it by importing books into the country. The 
 lords of council thus re-inforced the privilege they had formerly granted to 
 him : 
 
 ANENT the complaint maid by Walter Chepman, that quhar he, at the desyre 
 of our soverane lord, furnist and brocht hame ane prent and prentaris, for 
 prenting of croniclis, missalis, portuuss, and utheris buikis within this realme, 
 
 1 The Porteousof Nobleness, translatit out of Ffrenche in Soottis, be Maister Andro Cadyou. 
 The Knightly tale of Golagras and Gawane. Sir Glamore. Balade: In all our Gar- 
 tlenne growes their no flowres. The Golden Targe ; compilit be Maister William Dunbar. 
 The JMayng, or Disport of Chaucere. The flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy. The Traite 
 
 of Orpheus Kin<r. The Nobilness and grete Magneficence. The Balade of ane right Noble 
 
 Victorious and jVlighty Lord Barnard Stewart, of Aubigny, Earl of Beaumont, &c. Com- 
 pilit be Mr Wilyam Dunbar. The Tale of the T\va .Mariit' Wemeii and the Wedo. Lament 
 for the death of" the Makkaris. Poetical Peice, of one page in length, commencing, My 
 Gudame was a gay Wyf. The Testament of Mr Andro Kennedy Fitts, &c. of Uob\ii 
 
 Hud. Breuiarij Aberdonensis ad percelebris Ecclesie Sector. Ejusdem Breviarii Pars 
 
 -a^tivalis, per Reverendum in Christo Patrem \Vilelmum, Abirdon. Episcopum, studio 
 si us, maximisijue cum laboribus collect. 
 
 i. 3 Y
 
 538 GEORGE CHEYNE. 
 
 and to seclude salisberyis use ; And to that effect thair wes lettres under GUI 
 said soverane lordis priue sele direct, till command and charge oure soverane 
 iordis liegis, that nain of thaiin suld inbring or sell ony bukis of the said use of 
 Salisbery, under the pane of escheting of the samyn ; Neuirtheless, Wilyiaiu 
 Frost, Francis Frost, William Sym, Andro Ross, and diuers uthers, nierchandis 
 within the burgh of Edinburgh, hes brocht haini, and selis daly, diuers bukis of 
 the said use, sik as mess bukis, maimualis, portuiss, matinbuikis, and diuers uther 
 bukis, in the disobeing of the said command and lettres, lik as at mar lenth Is 
 contenit in the said complaint : The saidis Walter, William, Francis, William, 
 and Andro, being personally present, And thair Richtis reasons and allegacions 
 herd sene and understand, and thairwith being Riply avisit, The Lordis of Coun- 
 sale forsaidis commandit and chargit the saids William Frost, Francis Frost, 
 William Sym, and Andro Ros, personaly, that nain of thaim, in tyme to cum, 
 bring hame, nor sell within this Realme, ony misale bukis, mannuals, portuiss, 
 or matinbukis, of the said use of Salusbery, under the payn of escheting of the 
 samyn ; And that lettres be written in dew forme to the provest and balyies of 
 Edf and to officeris of the kingis Sheriffes in that pairt, to command and charge 
 be oppin proclamation, all utheris merchandis and persons, that nain of thaiin 
 bring haim, nor sell within this Realme, ony of the bukis abonewritten of the 
 said use of salusbury, in tyme to come under the said pain, according to 
 the said lettres under our souerane lordis priue sele direct thairuppon ; And as 
 to the bukis that ar ellis brocht hame be the saidis merchantis and uther per- 
 sons, that thai bring nain to the merket, nor sell nain, within this Realme, hot 
 that thei have the samyn furth of this Realme, and sell thaim ; and that the 
 saidist provest, baillies, and officiaris forsaidis, serche and seik quhar ony of the 
 saidis manuale, bukis, mesbukis, matinbukis, and portuiss, of the said use beis 
 brocht haim in tyme tocum, or sauid of thaim that ar ellis brocht hame, and 
 eschete the samyn to our soverane lordis use : And als, that na persons tak copijs 
 of the buikis abomvrittin and donatis, and .... or uther buikis that the 
 said Walter hes prentit ellis for till haf thaim to uther Realmes to ger tliaim be 
 prentit, brocht haim, or sauld, within this Realme In tyme tocum, under the pain 
 of escheting of the samin ; And quha dois in the contrair, that the said pain be 
 put to executioun on thaim, And that lettres be direct herapon, in dew forme, 
 as said Is. (Acta Dom. Cone, xxi. 70.) 
 
 The troubles which befell the kingdom in 1513, in consequence of the battle 
 of Flodden and the death of the king, appear to have put a stop for another age 
 to the progress of the typographical art in Scotland. There is no further trace 
 of it till the year 1542, when the national mind was beginning to feel the im- 
 pulse of the Reformation. Nothing further is known of Walter Chepman, ex- 
 cept what is to be gathered from the above passage in the Traditions of Edin 
 burgh namely, that he was employed in 1528 in bequeathing his property to 
 the church, being then in all probability near the end of life. 
 
 CHEYNE, GEORGE, a physician of considerable eminence, was born in 1671, 
 " of a good family, though neither the name of his father, nor the place of his 
 birth, has been commemorated. He received a regular and liberal education, 
 and was at first designed by his parents for the church. But though his mind 
 was naturally of a studious and abstracted turn, he afterwards preferred the me- 
 dical profession. He studied physic at Edinburgh, under the celebrated Dr 
 Pilcairne, to whom he became much attached, and whom he styles, in the pre- 
 face to his Essay on Health and Long Life, "his great master and generous 
 friend." He has informed us that he was, at this period of his life, addicted to 
 gay studies and indulgences ; but that he was soon apprised by the shaking of his 
 hands, and a disposition to be easily ruffled "on a surprise, of the unfitness of
 
 GEORGE CHEYNE. 539 
 
 liis constitution for intemperance. When about thirty years of age, having 
 taken the degree of M. D. he repaired to London, and there com- 
 menced practice as a physician. It affords a curious picture of the times, that 
 he found it necessary to become a frequenter of taverns in order to get into 
 practice. His cheerful temper, and vivacious conversation soon rendered him 
 the favourite of the other gentlemen who frequented those places ; he " grew 
 daily," he says, " in bulk, and in friendship with those gay men, and their 
 acquaintances." But this could not last long. He soon became excessively fat, 
 short-winded, and lethargic, and being further admonished by an attack of ver- 
 tigo, nearly approaching to apoplexy, he was obliged to abandon that style of 
 life altogether. 
 
 Previous to this period, he had written, at the request of Dr Pitcairne, " A 
 new Theory of Acute and Slow continued Fevers ; wherein, besides the appear- 
 ances of such, and the manner of their cure, occasionally, the structure of the 
 gknds, and the Manner and Laws of Secretion, the operation of purgative, 
 vomitive, and mercurial medicines, are mechanically explained." Dr Pitcairne 
 had wished to write such a work himself, in order to overthrow the opposing 
 theories of some of his brethren, but was prevented from doing so by his con- 
 stant application to practice, and therefore desired Dr Cheyne to undertake the' 
 task in his place. The work was hastily produced, and, though it was favour- 
 ably received, the author never thought it worthy of receiving his name. The 
 next work of Dr Cheyne was entitled, " Fluxionum Methodus Inversa : sive 
 quantitatum fluentium leges generates. '' Like many men who are eminent in 
 one professional branch of knowledge, he was anxious to display an amateur's 
 accomplishment in another ; and hence this attempt at throwing light upon the 
 mysteries of abstract geometry. In later life, he had the candour to say of this 
 work, that it was " brought forth in ambition, and brought up in vanity. 
 There are some things in it," he adds, " tolerable for the time, when the 
 methods of quadratures, the mensuration of ratios, and transformation of curves 
 into those of other kinds, were not advanced to such heights as they now are. 
 But it is a long time since I was forced to forego these barren and airy studies 
 for more substantial and commodious speculations : indulging and rioting in 
 these so exquisitely bewitching contemplations being only proper to public pro- 
 fessors, and those who are under no outward necessities. Besides, to own a 
 great but grievous truth, though they may quicken and sharpen the invention, 
 strengthen and extend the imagination, improve and refine the reasoning 
 faculty, and are of use both in the necessary and luxurious refinement of me- 
 clianical arts ; yet, having no tendency to rectify the will, sweeten the temper, 
 or mend the heart, they often leave a stiffness, positiveness, and sufficiency on 
 weak minds, much more pernicious to society, and the interests of the great 
 ends of our being, than all the advantages they can bring can recompense." 
 
 On finding his health so materially affected by intemperance, Dr Cheyne left 
 off eating suppers entirely, and in his other meals took only a little animal food, 
 and hardly any fermented liquor. He informs us, that being now confined to 
 the penitential solitude of a sick chamber, he had occasion to experience the 
 faithlessness of all friendship formed on the principle of a common taste for 
 sensual indulgences. His boon companions, even those who had been particu- 
 larly obliged to him, left him like the stricken deer, to bewail his own unhappy 
 condition ; " so that at last," says the doctor, " I was forced into the country 
 alone, reduced to the state of cardinal Wolsey, when he said, ' if he had served 
 his Maker as faithfully and warmly as he had his prince, he would not liave 
 forsaken him in that extremity ;' and so will every one find, when union and 
 friendship is not founded on solid virtue, and in conformity to the divine order,
 
 540 GEORGE CHEYNE. 
 
 but in mere jollity. Being thus forsaken, dejected, melancholy, and confined 
 in my country retirement, my body melting away like a snow-ball in summer, I 
 had a long season for reflection. Having had a regular and liberal education, 
 with the instruction and example of pious parents, I had preserved a firm per- 
 suasion of the great fundamental principles of all virtue and morality ; namely, 
 pure religion ; in which I had been confirmed from abstract reasonings, as well 
 as from the best natural philosophy. This led me to consider who of all my 
 acquaintance I could wish to resemble most, or which of them had received and 
 lived up to the plain truths and precepts contained in the gospels, or particularly 
 our Saviour's sermon on the Mount I then fixed on one, a worthy and learned 
 clergyman ; and as in studying mathematics, and in turning over Sir Isaac New- 
 ton's philosophical works, I always marked down the authors and writings 
 mostly used and recommended, so in this case I purchased and studied such 
 spiritual and dogmatic authors as I knew this venerable man approved. Thus I 
 collected a set of religious books of the first ages since Christianity, with a few 
 of the most spiritual of the moderns, which have been my study, delight, and 
 entertainment ever since, and on these I have formed my ideas, principles, and 
 sentiments, which have never been shaken." Dr Cheyne further informs us, 
 that this reformation in his religious temperament, contributed greatly to for- 
 ward the cure of his nervous diseases, which he perfected by a visit to Bath. 
 
 On his return to London, Dr Cheyne commenced living upon a milk diet, 
 which he found remarkably salutary ; but after a long course of years he gra- 
 dually relapsed into a freer style of living, and though he never indulged to the 
 least excess either in eating or drinking, his fat returned upon him, and at last 
 he weighed upwards of thirty-two stone. Being again admonished of the evil 
 effects of his indulgences, he all at once reverted to his milk diet, and in time 
 regained his usual health. From this moderate style of living he never again 
 departed ; and accordingly he enjoyed tolerable health till 1743, when, on the 
 12th of April, he died at Bath, in full possession of his faculties to the last, and 
 without experiencing a pang. 
 
 Besides the works already mentioned, Dr Cheyne published, in 1705, his 
 " Philosophical Principles of Natural Religion, containing the Elements of Na- 
 tural Philosophy, and the Proofs for Natural Religion, arising from them." 
 This work he dedicated to the earl of Roxburgh, at whose request, and for 
 whose instruction, it appears to have been originally written. He also pub- 
 lished " An Essay on the True Nature and Due Method of treating the Gout, 
 together with an account of the Nature and Quality of the Bath Waters," which 
 passed through at least fiVe editions, and was followed by " An Essay on Health 
 and Long Life." The latter work he afterwards published in Latin. In 1733 
 appeared his " English Malady, or a Treatise on Nervous 'Diseases of all kinds, 
 as Spleen, Vapours, Lowness of Spirits, Hypochondriacal and Hysterical Dis- 
 tempers." From the preface of this work we have derived the particulars here 
 related respecting his own health through life. In 1740, Dr Cheyne published 
 " An Essay on Regimen." His last work, which he dedicated to his friend 
 and correspondent the earl of Chesterfield, was entitled, " The Natural Me- 
 thod of Curing the Diseases of the Human Body, and the Disorders of the Mind 
 attending on the Body." 
 
 Dr Cheyne was eminently the physician of nervous distempers. He wrote 
 chiefly to the studious, the voluptuous, and those who inherited bad constitutions 
 from their parents. As a physician, he seemed to proceed, like Hippocrates of 
 old, and Sydenham of modern times, upon a few great perceptible truths. He 
 is to be ranked among those who have accounted for the operations of medicine, 
 and the morbid alterations which take place upon the human body, upon me-
 
 HUGH CLAPPERTON. 541 
 
 chanical principles. A spirit of piety and benevolence, and an ardent zeal for 
 the interests of virtue, run through all his writings. It was commonly said, that 
 most of the physicians of his own day were secretly or openly tainted with irre- 
 ligion ; but from this charge Dr Cheyne rendered himself an illustrious excep- 
 tion. He was as much the enemy of irreligion in general society, as of intem- 
 perance in his professional character. Some of the metaphysical notions which 
 he lias introduced in his writings, may be thought fanciful and ill-grounded ; 
 but there is an agreeable vivacity in his productions, together with much candour 
 and frankness, and, in general, great perspicuity. Of his relatives, his half- 
 brother, the Rev. William Cheyne, vicar of Weston, near Bath, died September 
 6, 1767, and his son, the Rev. John Cheyne, vicar of Brigstock, Northampton- 
 shire, died August 11, 1768. 
 
 CLAPPERTON, HUGH, the distinguished African traveller, was born at An- 
 nan, in Dumfriesshire, in the year 1788. His father, Mr George Clapperton, 
 was a respectable surgeon in that town. His paternal grandfather, who was a 
 physician of considerable ability, was a native of the north of Scotland, and 
 married to a cousin of colonel Archibald Campbell of Glenlyon : this person 
 settled in practice at Lochmaben, another town in Dumfriesshire, and enjoyed 
 some local fame as a collector of mineralogical and antiquarian curiosities, as 
 well as of old Border ballads and genealogies, some of which were used by Sir 
 Walter Scott in his ' Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." Mr George Clapper- 
 ton, the father of the traveller, was married twice ; by the first marriage, he had 
 ten or eleven sons and a daughter, by the second, three sons and three daugh- 
 ters. The subject of this memoir was the youngest son by the first marriage. 
 Owing partly to the number of his family, and partly to an improvident dispo- 
 sition, Mr Clapperton was unable to give his son Hugh that classical education 
 which is so generally bestowed by people of the middle, ranks in Scotland upon 
 their children. When able to do little mqre than read and write indifferently, 
 Hugli was placed under the care of Mr Bryce Downie, eminent as a mathema- 
 tical teacher, through whom he acquired a knowledge of practical mathematics, 
 including navigation and trigonometry. Mr Downie ever after spoke in terms 
 of warm affection respecting his pupil, whom he described both as an apt 
 scholar, and a most obliging boy, and able to bear with indifference the ex- 
 tremes of heat and cold. 
 
 It is frequently the fate of a large family of the middle order in Scotland, that 
 at least one half of the sons leave their fathers house, at an early age, with 
 little more than the sailor's inheritance of a light heart and a thin pair of 
 breeches, to push their way in search of fortune over every quarter of the globe, 
 and in every kind of employment. The family of Mr George Clapperton ap- 
 pears to have been one of this order, for, while Hugh found distinction and a 
 grave in the plains of Africa, no fewer than five of his brothers had also adopted 
 an adventurous career, in the course of which some rose to a considerable rank 
 in the navy and marine service, while others perished in their bloom. At the 
 age of seventeen, the subject of this memoir was bound apprentice to Mr Smith, 
 of the Postlethwaite of Maryport, a large vessel trading between Liverpool and 
 North America. In this situation he continued for some years, already distin- 
 guished for coolness, dexterity, and intrepidity, when his course of life was 
 suddenly changed by what appeared to be a most unhappy incident. On one 
 occasion the ship, when at Liverpool, was partly laden with rock-salt, and as 
 that commodity was then dear, the mistress of a house which the crew frequented 
 very improperly enticed Clapperton to bring her ashore a few pounds in his 
 handkerchief. After some intreaty the youth complied, probably from his igno- 
 rance of the revenue laws ; was caught in the act by a custom-house officer and
 
 542 HUGH CLAPPERTON. 
 
 menaced with the terrors of trial and imprisonment, unless he consented to go 
 on board the Tender. He immediately chose the latter alternative, and, shortly 
 after, gave a brief account of what had occurred, and the new situation in which 
 he found himself placed, in a letter addressed to Mr Scott, banker, Annan, 
 concluding, though in modest and diffident terms, by soliciting the good offices 
 of this gentleman to procure him promotion. By the influence of Mr Scott, 
 exerted through general Dirom of Mount Annan, and his equally amiable lady, 
 Clapperton was draughted on board the Clorinde, which was then fitting out for 
 the East Indies. The commander of this vessel, in compliance with the request 
 of Mrs general Dirom, to whom he was related, paid some attention to Clapper- 
 ton, and finding him active and intelligent beyond his years, speedily promoted 
 him to the rank of a midshipman ; a circumstance which tended in no mean de- 
 gree to fix his destiny, and shape his fortune in life. " It has often been remarked," 
 says his biographer, Mr M'Diarmid, " that what at first appears to be a misfor- 
 tune, is sometimes the happiest thing that could have befallen us; and so it 
 chanced in the present instance. It may be safely said, that if Clapperton had 
 not smuggled a few pounds of salt, he would never have figured as an African 
 traveller. Had he remained in the American or coasting trade, he might first 
 have become mate, then master, then ship's husband and part owner, and finally 
 retired to his native burgh, with a fortune of a few thousand pounds, and vege- 
 tated tranquilly for ten or twenty years, reading the newspapers, or playing at 
 billiards in the forenoon, and smoking cigars, and drinking whisky punch or 
 negus in the evening. But where would have been his laurels where his 
 glory where his zeal in the cause of science where his defiance of death and 
 danger where his place in the British annals !" 
 
 Without allowing that the one fate lias been much better than the other, either 
 for the traveller or for his country, it is sufficiently obvious, that this step was in 
 itself a fortunate one for Clapperton, as it opened up to him a much higher career 
 of exertion, and one more worthy of his genius, than that which he had hitherto 
 pursued. I'revious to 1813, the British sailors were trained to no particular 
 method of managing the cutlass. It being suggested that this was a defect, a 
 few clever midshipmen, among whom was Clapperton, were ordered to repair to 
 Plymouth Dock-yard, to be instructed by the celebrated swordsman, Angelo, in 
 what was called the improved cutlass exercise. When their own instructions had 
 been completed, they were distributed as teachers over the fleet, and Mr Clap- 
 perton happened to be appointed to the Asia, 74, the flag-ship of vice-admiral 
 Sir Alexander Cochrane, then lying at Spithead. This vessel set sail in 
 January, 1814, for Bermuda, and Mr Clapperton continued during the voyage 
 to act as drill-sergeant At this time occurred an incident which strikingly illus- 
 trates his characteristic coolness and intrepidity. One evening the alarm was 
 given that the ship was on fire ; the drums immediately beat to quarters, and 
 the firemen were piped away to the gun-room, where an immense quantity of 
 luggage had been temporarily deposited, and whence were issuing huge and in- 
 creasing volumes of smoke. The after magazine, containing some hundred 
 barrels of gun-powder, was immediately beneath, and the appearance of the 
 combustion had become so alarming, that every man awaited his fate in silence, 
 under an impression that the vessel would be speedily blown to atoms. At this 
 moment, Clapperton was observed by a friend, sitting at a table in the larboard 
 berth, very quietly smoking a cigar. His friend having expressed surprise at 
 his seeming indifference, he stated quite coolly, " that being only a supernume- 
 rary, no particular station had been assigned to him, and it was therefore of no 
 importance where he was at the time the ship blew up." The fire was fortu- 
 nately extinguished.
 
 HUGH CLAPPERTON. 543 
 
 While lying at Bermuda, and on the passage out, nothing could exceed Mr 
 Clapperton's diligence in discharging the duties of his new occupation. Officers 
 as well as men, received instructions from him in the cutlass exercise ; and his 
 manly figure and sailor-like appearance tended, in the opinion of all who saw 
 him, to fix the attention, and improve the patriotic spirit of the crew. At his 
 own, as well as the other messes, where he was a frequent guest, he was the 
 very life and soul of the party ; sung a good song, told a merry tale, painted 
 scenes for the ship's theatricals, sketched views, drew caricatures, juid, in one 
 word, was an exceedingly amusing and interesting person. Even the admiral 
 became acquainted with his delightful properties, and honoured him with his 
 warmest friendship and patronage. Clapperton was obliged, however, to repair 
 to the Canadian lakes, which were then about to become the scene of important 
 naval operations. Here he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and soon 
 after appointed to the command of the Confiance schooner, the crew of which 
 was composed of nearly all the unmanageable characters in the squadron. To 
 keep these men in order was no easy task ; yet his measures were at once so 
 firm and so judicious, that, although he rarely had recourse to flogging, and 
 withheld or disbursed allowances of grog, as a better system of rewards and 
 punishments, his troops in the end became so orderly, that the Confiance was 
 allowed to be one of the smartest barks on the water. When she rode at anchor 
 on the spacious shores of Lake Erie or Lake Huron, her commander occasion- 
 ally repaired to the woods, and with his gun kept himself in fresh provisions. 
 In these excursions he cultivated an acquaintance with the aborigines, and was 
 so much charmed with a mode of life, full of romance, incident, and danger, 
 that he once entertained serious thoughts, when the war was ended, of becoming 
 a denizen of the forest himself. It was his custom, on returning to the vessel, 
 to swim out to it, instead of taking a boat, so that he might, by approaching 
 unperceived, detect the crew in any little neglect of duty. On one occa- 
 sion, having dined heartily on shore, the water propelled the blood to his head, 
 so that he soon became too weak either to retreat or advance. In this situation 
 he contrived to float, and called for a boat as loudly as he was able. For a 
 long time his cries were disregarded ; and he often expressed his firm convic- 
 tion, that the watch were willing to leave him to his fate, as the best means of 
 getting rid of a rigid disciplinarian. But at length, fearing that if he survived, 
 a worse fate would befall them, they sent out a boat, which saved him when at 
 the very point of sinking through exhaustion. This adventure frightened him 
 out of the practice. 
 
 In the year 1817, when the flotilla on the lakes was dismantled, Clapperton 
 returned to England, to be placed, like many others, on half pay, and he ulti- 
 mately retired to the old burgh of Lochmaben. There he remained till 1820, 
 amusing himself chiefly with rural sports, when he removed to Edinburgh, and 
 shortly after became acquainted with a young Englishman of the name of Oud- 
 ney, who had just taken his degree as doctor of medicine in the college. It 
 was at the suggestion of this gentleman that he first turned his thoughts to Afri- 
 can discovery. On the return of captain Lyon from his unsuccessful attempt to 
 penetrate northern Africa, earl Bathurst, then Colonial Secretary, relying on the 
 strong assurances of his majesty's consul at Tripoli, that the road to the south 
 of Mourzook, (the extreme point of Lyon's expedition,) was now open, resolved 
 that a second mission should be sent out, to explore this unhappy quarter of the 
 globe. Dr Oudney was, upon strong recommendations from Edinburgh, ap- 
 pointed to proceed on this expedition, in the capacity of consul at Bornou in 
 central Africa, being allowed to take Clapperton along with him as a companion. 
 About that time, the late colonel Denham having volunteered his services in an
 
 544 HUGH CLAPPERTON. 
 
 attempt to pass from Tripoli to Timbuctoo ; and it being intended tliat researches 
 should be made from Bornou, as the fixed residence of the consul, to the east 
 and to the west, lord Bathurst added his name to the expedition. The expedi- 
 tion set out from Tripoli early in 1822. It advanced in a line nearly south to 
 Mourzook, which is situated in lat. 25 N. and long. 14 E., and which it reached 
 on the 8th of April. Unfortunately, from various circumstances, it was here 
 found impossible to proceed any further this season ; and while Denham re- 
 turned to Tripoli to make new arrangements, Oudney and Clapperton made an 
 excursion during June, July, and August, to the westward of Mourzook, into the 
 country of the Tuaricks, which they penetrated to Ghraat, in the eleventh degree 
 of east longitude. 
 
 On the return of Denham in October, he found Clapperton ill cf an ague, and 
 Oudney of a cold, and both were in a very wretched condition. On the 29th 
 of November, however, the whole expedition was able to proceed. Keeping as 
 nearly as possible in a direction due south, and very nearly in the fourteenth 
 degree of east longitude, they arrived in February 1823, in the kingdom of 
 Bornou, which they found to be a far more powerful and civilized state than 
 they could have formerly believed, the most of the inhabitants professing IMa- 
 homedanism. This, it must be observed, was a part of the world never before 
 known to have been trodden by a European foot On the 17th, the travellers, 
 who went in company with a great African merchant named Boo-Khaloom, 
 reached Kouka, the capital of the country, \vhere the sultan had several thou- 
 sand well mounted cavalry drawn up to receive them. This city became their 
 head quarters for the winter ; and while Clapperton and Oudney remained there, 
 Denham made an excursion still farther to the south, which he penetrated to 
 Musfeia in latitude 9 15'N., thereby adding in all 14^ degrees, or nearly 900 
 geographical miles to the European knowledge of Africa in this direction. Af- 
 terwards, Denham made an excursion with Oudney to Munga and Gambaroo in 
 a western direction. 
 
 On the 14th of December, 1823, Mr Clapperton, accompanied by Dr Oud- 
 ney, commenced a journey to the west, for the purpose of exploring the course 
 of the Niger, leaving Denham to explore the neighbouring shores of the great 
 lake Chad, which may be called the Caspian of Africa. The two travellers ar- 
 rived in safety at Murmur, where Oudney. who had previously been very weakly, 
 breathed his last in the arms of liis companion. " At any time, in any place," 
 says Clapperton in his narrative, " to be bereaved of such a friend had proved 
 a severe trial ; but to me his friend and fellow-traveller, labouring also under 
 disease, and now left alone amid a strange people, and proceeding tlirough a 
 country which had hitherto been never trod by European feet, the loss was se- 
 vere and afflicting in the extreme." Proceeding on his journey, Clapperton 
 reached Kano, the capital of the kingdom of Houssa, which he entered on the 
 23d of January, 1824. In general the native chiefs treated him with kindness, 
 partly from a sense of the greatness of his master, the king of Great Britain. 
 On the I Oth of March, he reached Jackatoo, a large city in lat. 13 N. and long. 
 G^ E., which was the extreme point of the expedition in that direction. The 
 sultan of this place treated him with much attention, and Mas found to be a per- 
 son of no small intelligence, considering his situation. 
 
 " March 19, I was sent for," says Clapperton, "by the sultan, and desired 
 to bring with me the ' looking-glass of the sun,' the name they gave to my sex- 
 tant. I first exhibited a planisphere of the heavenly bodies. The sultan knew 
 all the signs of the Zodiac, some of the constellations, and many of the stars, 
 by their Arabic names. The looking-glass of the sun was then brought forward, 
 and occasioned much surprise. I had to explain all its appendages. The in-
 
 HUGH CLAPPERTON. 545 
 
 verting telescope was an object of immense astonishment ; and I had to stand 
 at some little distance, to let the sultan look at me through it, for his people 
 were all afraid of placing themselves within its magical influence. I had next 
 to show him how to take an observation of the sun. The case of the artificial 
 horizon, of which I had lost the key, was sometimes very difficult to open, as 
 happened on this occasion : I asked one of the people near me for a knife to 
 press up the lid. He handed me one quite too small, and I quite inadver- 
 tently asked for a dagger for the same purpose. The sultan was immediately 
 thrown into a fright ; he seized his sword, and half-drawing it from the scab- 
 bard, placed it before him, trembling all the time like an aspen leaf. I did 
 not deem it prudent to take the least notice of his alarm, although it was I who 
 had in reality most cause of fear ; and on receiving the dagger, I calmly opened 
 the case, and returned the weapon to its owner with apparent unconcern. 
 When the artificial horizon was arranged, the sultan, and all his attendants had a 
 peep at the sun ; and my breach of etiquette seemed entirely forgotten." The 
 courage and presence of mind of Clapperton are most strikingly displayed in 
 this anecdote. 
 
 Clapperton was very anxious to have pressed westwards in order to fall in 
 with the Niger, which he was told was within five days' journey, and the course 
 of which was described to him by the sultan. But owing to some of those 
 malign jealousies which the slave trade inspires into the African mind, he was 
 not permitted to proceed. He set out, May 4, on his return to Kouka, which 
 he reached on the 8th of July. Here he was rejoined by Denham, who scarcely 
 knew him, on account of the ravages which illness had committed upon his once 
 manly frame. The two remaining travellers then set out on their return to 
 Tripoli, which, after a harassing journey across the desert, they reached, Janu- 
 ary, 26, 1825, about three years after they had first set foot in Africa. They 
 returned through Italy to Europe, and arrived in England on the 1st of June. 
 
 The result of this expedition was a work published in 1826, under the title 
 of " Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa, in 
 the years 1822, 1823, and 1824, by Major Denham, F.R.S., Captain Clapper- 
 ton, and the late Dr Oudney," of which a third edition was published in 1828. 
 The greater part of this work was the composition of Denham, Clapperton only 
 writing a minor part, respecting the excursion to Jackatoo, which, however, is 
 not the least interesting in the book. The subject of our memoir wrote in a 
 plain, manly, unaffected style, as might have been expected from his character. 
 The work was published under the immediate superintendence of major Den- 
 ham ; and it was not the fate of Clapperton ever to see the result of his labours 
 in print. 
 
 This enterprising person was solicited, immediately after his return, to un- 
 dertake the management of another expedition to Africa, in company with cap- 
 tain Pearce of the royal navy, Dr Morrison, and Mr Dickson. On this occasion 
 it was projected, that he should enter the continent, with his companions, at 
 the Guinea coast, and thence endeavour to reach Jackatoo in a north-easterly 
 direction, so as to make sure of intersecting the Niger. An enterprising youth, 
 named Richard Lander, applied to Clapperton for permission to join the expe- 
 dition in any capacity he might think proper. " The captain,'' we are in- 
 formed by this individual, in his Narrative subsequently published, " listened to 
 me with attention, and, after I had answered a few interrogations, willingly en- 
 gaged me to be his confidential servant. In this interview,'' adds Mr Lander, 
 " the keen, penetrating eye of the African traveller did not escape my observa- 
 tion, and by its fire, energy, and quickness, denoted, in my own opinion at 
 least, the very soul of enterprise and adventure." After being entrusted with 
 i. 3 z
 
 546 HUGH CLAPPERTON. 
 
 an answer from the lung to a letter which he had brought from the sultan Bello 
 of Jackatoo, and with a letter to El Kanemy, the Shiekh of Bornou, Clapper- 
 ton left England with his company, on the 27th August, not three months from 
 the time of his return, Mr Dickson having been, at his own request, landed at 
 Whydah, the rest disembarked, on the 28th of November, at Badagry in tho 
 Bight of Benin. 
 
 The journey into the interior was commenced on the 7th of December, and 
 Clapperton soon had the pain of seeing his two companions, Pearce and Morri- 
 son, fall a sacrifice to its hardships. Accompanied by a merchant named Hout- 
 son, who joined him as a volunteer, he pursued his enterprise, and on the 15th 
 of January 1826, arrived at Katunga, the capital of Youriba. From this point 
 Mr Houtson returned without molestation, leaving Clapperton and Lander to 
 pursue their journey alone. They soon after crossed the Quorra, or Niger, 
 at Boussa, the place where Park had met his untimely fate. In July, the tra- 
 vellers reached Kano, a large city on the line of road which Clapperton had 
 formerly traversed, and here, on the 24th, the latter individual left his servant 
 with the baggage, while he proceeded by himself to Soccatoo. This parting in 
 the wilderness is afiectingly described by Mr Lander. " Every arrangement 
 having been previously made, my master came to bid me adieu, and gave me 
 final instructions relative to proceeding to Bornou and Tripoli, in case of his 
 death, or of any unforeseen accident that might befall him. On this occasion 
 each of us was much moved. Our little party had left their native country full 
 of hope and enterprising spirit, and we had seen them sicken and die by our 
 sides without being in a condition to mitigate their sufferings, or * smooth down 
 their lonely pillow.' Like the characters in Mozart's ' Farewell,' they had 
 dropped one by one ; and they were buried in a strange land, far from the 
 graves of their fathers, with scarce a memento to point out the solitary spot. 
 These were my thoughts at the moment of separation from my valued master. I 
 knew that it was by no means unlikely we might never meet again, and we were 
 well assured, that in the event of our dissolution when apart, no one would be 
 found to close our eyes, still less to perform the rites of Christian burial over 
 our remains. My master therefore left me with emotion. For my own part, I 
 was yet, if possible, more sensibly agitated : as soon as the captain was out of 
 sight, I threw myself upon my couch, from which I did not again arise for 
 twenty-four hours." 
 
 It was the wish of Clapperton to obtain permission from sultan Bello to visit 
 Timbuctoo, and revisit Bornou. But all his plans were frustrated in consequence 
 of Bello having engaged in a war with the Shiekh of Bornou. Clapperton, in 
 his former visit, had presented the latter individual with several Congreve 
 rockets, which he had employed effectually in setting fire to some of the sultan's 
 towns. The traveller also bore, on this occasion, some considerable presents from 
 the king of England to the Shiekh of Bornou ; and thus every circumstance 
 conspired to introduce jealousy into the mind of the sultan. Clapperton was 
 detained for several months at Soccatoo in bad health, and Lander was inveigled 
 by the sultan to come also to that city, along with the baggage, *in order that 
 the presents intended for Bornou might be intercepted. Lander reached Soc- 
 catoo in November, to the surprise of his master, and immediately their baggage 
 was seized in the most shameless manner, and the travellers expressly forbidden 
 to proceed to Bornou. 
 
 To pursue the narrative of Lander : " My master and myself enjoyed 
 tolerable health for some weeks after my arrival, I say tolerable, for per- 
 fect health we felt not even a single day in Africa. We variously employed 
 our leisure hours, as inclination or circumstances might guide our choice. Wo
 
 HUGH CLAPPERTON. 547 
 
 each went a-shooting repeatedly : this was captain Clapperton's favourite 
 amusement, and almost the only out-of-door exercise he was at all eager to 
 cultivate. He frequently went out with his gun at an early hour in the morn- 
 ing, and returned not till the evening was pretty far advanced. On all of these 
 occasions the captain was dressed in the costume of the country, which con- 
 sisted, besides other articles, of a large, flowing tobe, and a red cap with a white 
 muslin turban : the tobe was confined to his waist by a broad belt, in which a 
 brace of pistols and a short dagger were stuck; thus accoutred, my master 
 looked more like a mountain robber setting out on a predatory excursion, than 
 a British naval officer. His beard, also, which he had permitted gradually to 
 grow, had undisputed possession of his chin, and was of a truly patriarchal 
 length, extending even below his breast This imparted to his countenance a 
 venerable expression, and to his general appearance a degree of dignity, that 
 excited the envy and admiration of the Arabs and Falatahs, who attach great 
 importance to large bushy beards, which they all strive to obtain by Various 
 means." 
 
 Mr Lander next describes the way in which they generally spent their even- 
 ings, while confined in this place. "Sometimes, although neither of us was 
 gifted with a voice of much power or compass, we attempted to sing a few 
 English or Scottish tunes ; and sometimes I played others on my bugle-horn. 
 How often have the pleasing strains of ' Sweet, sweet Home,' resounded through 
 the melancholy streets of Soccatoo ! How often have its inhabitants listened 
 with breathless attention to the white-faced strangers ! and observed to each 
 other, as they went away, ' Surely those Christians are sending a blessing to 
 their country and friends ! ' Any thing that reminded my master of his native 
 Scotland was always heard with interest and emotion. The little poem, ' My 
 native Highland home,' I have sung scores of times to him, as he has sat with his 
 arms folded on his breast opposite to me in our dwelling ; and notw ithstanding 
 his masculine understanding, and boasted strength of nerve, the captain used to 
 be somewhat moved on listening to the lines : 
 
 ' Then gang wi' me to Scotland dear, 
 
 We ne'er again will roam ; 
 And with thy smile, so bonny, cheer 
 
 My native Highland home ! 
 For blithesome is the breath of day, 
 
 And sweet 's the bonny broom, 
 And pure the dimpling rills that play 
 
 Around my Highland home.' 
 
 * * * 
 
 "On the 12th of March [1827], all thoughts of further enjoyment ceased, 
 through the sudden illness of my dear kind master, who was attacked with 
 dysentery on that day. He had been almost insensibly declining for a week or 
 two previously, but without the slightest symptoms of this frightful malady. 
 From the moment he was first taken ill, captain Clapperton perspired freely, 
 large drops of sweat continually rolling over every part of his body, which 
 weakened him exceedingly ; and, being unable to obtain any one, even of our 
 own servants, to assist, I was obliged to wash the clothes, kindle and keep in 
 the fire, and prepare the victuals, with my own hands. Owing to the intense 
 heat, my master was frequently fanned for hours together : indeed, all my lei- 
 sure moments were devoted to this tedious occupation ; and I have often held 
 the fan till, from excessive weakness, it has fallen from my grasp. 
 
 Finding that, from increasing debility, I was unable to pay that unremitting
 
 548 HUGH CLAPPERTON. 
 
 attention to the numerous wants of the invalid which his melancholy state so 
 peculiarly demanded, I sent to 31alam Mudey on the 15th, entreating him to 
 lend me a female slave to perform the operation of fanning. On her arrival the 
 girl began her work with alacrity and cheerfulness ; but soon becoming weary 
 of her task, ran away, and never returned to our hut. I was therefore obliged 
 to resume it myself; and, regardless of personal inconvenience and fatigue, 
 strained every nerve, in order to alleviate, as much as possible, the sufferings 
 occasioned by this painful disorder. My master daily grew weaker, and suffered 
 severely from the intolerable heat of the atmosphere, the thermometer being, ic 
 the coolest place, 107 at twelve at noon, and 109 at three in the afternoon. 
 
 At his ownsuggestion I made a couch for him outside our dwelling, in the shade, 
 and placed a mat for myself by its side. For five successive days I took him 
 in my arms from his bed to the couch outside, and back again at sunset, after 
 which he was too much debilitated to encounter even so trifling an exertion. 
 He expressed a wish to write once, and but once, during his illness, but before 
 paper and ink could be handed to him, he had fallen back on his bed, completely 
 exhausted by his ineffectual attempt to sit up. 
 
 * * * # 
 
 " For twenty days the captain remained in a low and distressed state, and 
 during that period was gradually but perceptibly declining ; his body, from be- 
 ing strong and vigorous, having become exceedingly weak and emaciated, and, 
 indeed, little better tlian a skeleton. There could not be a more truly pitiable 
 object in the universe than was my poor dear master, at this time. His days 
 were sorrowfully and ignobly wasting in vexatious indolence ; he himself lan- 
 guishing under the influence of a dreadful disease, in a barbarous region, far, 
 very far removed from his tenderest connections, and beloved country ; the hope 
 of life quenched in his bosom ; the great undertaking, on which his whole soul 
 was bent, unaccomplished ; the active powers of his mind consumed away ; and 
 his body so torn and racked with pain, that he could move neither head, hand, 
 nor foot without suppressed groans of anguish ; while the fire and energy that 
 used to kindle in his eye had passed away, and given place to a glossy appear- 
 ance a dull saddening expression of approaching dissolution. 
 
 " In those dismal moments, captain Clapperton derived considerable consolation 
 from the exercise of religious duties ; and, being unable himself to hold a book 
 in his hand, I used to read aloud to him daily and hourly some portions of the 
 Sacred Scriptures. At times a gleam of hope, which the impressive and appro- 
 priate language of the Psalmist is so admirably calculated to excite, would pierce 
 the thick curtain of melancholy that enveloped us ; but, like the sun smiling 
 through the dense clouds of a winter's day, it shone but faintly, and left us in a 
 state of gloomier darkness than before. 
 
 # # * 
 
 " On the first of April the patient became considerably worse ; and, although 
 evidently in want of repose, the virulence of his complaint prevented him from 
 enjoying any refreshing slumbers. On the 9th, Maddie, a native of Bornou, 
 whom my master had retained in his service, brought him about twelve ounces of 
 green bark, from the butter-tree, recommended to him by an Arab in the city ; 
 and assured us that it would produce the most beneficial effects. Notwithstand- 
 ing all my remonstrances, a decoction of it was ordered to be prepared imme- 
 diately, the too confiding invalid remarking tliat no one would injure him. 
 Accordingly, Maddie himself boiled two basins full, the whole of wliich stuff 
 was swallowed in less tlian an hour. 
 
 " On the following day he was greatly altered for the worse, as I had foretold 
 he would be, and expressed regret for not having followed my advice. About
 
 HUGH CLAPPERTON. 549 
 
 twelve o'clock at noon, calling me to his bed-side, he said ' Richard ! I shall 
 shortly be no more ; I feel myself dying.' Almost cheked with grief, I replied, 
 ' God forbid ! my dear master; you will live many years to come.' ' Do not be so 
 much affected, my dear boy, I entreat you,' rejoined he ; ' you distress me by your 
 emotion ; it is the will of the Almighty, and therefore cannot be helped. Take care 
 of my journal and papers after my decease ; and when you arrive in London, 
 go immediately to my agents, and send for my uncle, who will accompany you to 
 the Colonial office, and see you deposit them with the secretary. After my 
 body is laid in the earth, apply to Bello, and borrow money to purchase camels 
 and provisions for crossing the desert to Fezzan in the train o the Arab mer- 
 chants. On your arrival at Mourzuk, should your money be expended, send a 
 messenger to Mr Warrington, our consul for Tripoli, and wait till he returns 
 with a remittance. On your reaching the latter place, that gentleman will 
 further advance you what money you may require, and send you to England the 
 first opportunity. Do not lumber yourself with my books, but leave them behind, 
 as well as my barometer and sticks, and indeed every heavy or cumbersome 
 article you can conveniently part with ; you may give them to Malam Mudey, 
 Avho will preserve them. Remark whatever towns or villages you may pass 
 through, and put on paper any thing remarkable that the chiefs of the different 
 places may say to you.' I said, as well as my agitation would permit me, ' If 
 it be the will of God to take you, Sir, you may confidently rely, as far as cir- 
 cumstances will permit me, on my faithfully performing all that you have de- 
 sired ; but I hope and believe that the Almighty will yet spare you to see your 
 home and country again.' ' I thought at one time,' continued he, ' that that 
 would be the case, but I dare not entertain such hopes now ; death is on 
 me, and I shall not be long for this world ; God's will be done.' He then took 
 my hand betwixt his, and looking me full in the face, while a tear glistened in 
 his eye, said in a tremulous, melancholy tone : ' My dear Richard, if you had 
 not been with me I should have died long ago. I can only thank you with my 
 latest breath for your devotedness and attachment to me ; and if I could live to 
 return to England with you, you should be placed beyond the reach of want ; 
 the Almighty, however, will reward you.' 
 
 " This pathetic conversation, which occupied almost two hours, greatly exhausted 
 my master, and he fainted several times while speaking. The same evening he 
 fell into a slumber, from which he awoke in much perturbation, and said, that 
 he had heard with peculiar distinctness th tolling of an English funeral bell ; but 
 I entreated him to be composed, observing, that sick people frequently fancy 
 things which in reality can have no existence. He shook his head, but said 
 nothing. 
 
 " About six o'clock on the morning of the llth April, on my asking him how 
 lie did, my master replied in a cheerful tone, that he felt much better ; and re- 
 quested to be shaved. He had not sufficient strength to lift his head from the 
 pillow ; and after finishing one side of the face I was obliged myself to turn his 
 Iiead in order to get at the other. As soon as he was shaved, he desired me to 
 fetch him a looking-glass which hung on the opposite side of the hut ; and on 
 seeing the reflection of his face in it, observed that he looked quite as ill in 
 Bornou on his former journey, and that as he had borne his disorder for so long 
 a time, there was some possibility of his yet recovering. On the following day 
 he still fancied himself to be convalescent, in which belief I myself agreed, as 
 he was enabled to partake of a little hashed guinea fowl in the course of the 
 afternoon, which he had not done before during the whole of his confinement, 
 having derived his sole sustenance from a little fo\\l soup, and milk and water. 
 " These flattering anticipations, however, speedily vanished, for on the morn-
 
 550 HUGH CLAPPERTON. 
 
 ing of the 13th, being awake, I was greatly alarmed on hearing a peculiar 
 rattling noise issuing from, my master's throat, and his breathing at the same 
 time was loud and difficult At that moment, on his calling out ' Richard ! in 
 a low, hurried, and singular tone, I was instantly at his side, and was astonished 
 beyond measure on beholding him sitting upright in his bed (not having been 
 able for a long time previously to move a limb), and staring wildly around. 
 Observing him ineffectually struggling to raise himself on his feet, I clasped him 
 in my arms, and whilst I thus held him, could feel his heart palpitating violently. 
 His throes became every moment less vehement, and at last they entirely ceased, 
 insomuch that thinking he had fallen into a slumber, or was overpowered by 
 faintings, I placed his head gently on my left shoulder, gazing for an instant, 
 on his pale and altered features ; some indistinct expressions quivered on his 
 lips, and whilst lie vainly strove to give them utterance, his heart ceased to vi- 
 brate, and his eyes closed for ever ! 
 
 " I held the lifeless body in my arms for a short period, overwhelmed with 
 grief; nor could I bring myself to believe that the soul which had animated it 
 with being, a few moments before, had actually quitted it I then unclasped my 
 arms, and held the hand of my dear master in mine ; but it was cold and dead, 
 and instead of returning the warmth with which I used to press it, imparted some 
 of its own unearthly dullness to my frame, and fell heavily from my grasp. 
 God ! what was my distress in that agonizing moment ? Shedding floods of 
 tears, I flung myself along the bed of death, and prayed that Heaven would in 
 mercy take my life." 
 
 By the permission of Sultan Bello, Mr Lander buried his fellow-traveller at 
 Jungavie, about five miles south-east from Soccatoo ; after describing the 
 mournful scene, he thus proceeds to draw the character of his master : 
 
 " No one could be better qualified than captain Clapperton by a fearless, indomi- 
 table spirit, and utter contempt of danger and death, to undertake and carry into 
 execution an enterprise of so great importance and difficulty, as the one with which 
 he was entrusted. He had studied the African character in all its phases in its 
 moral, social, and external form ; and, like Alcibiades, accommodated himself with 
 equal ease to good, as well as to bad fortune to prosperity, as well as to adver- 
 sity. He was never highly elated at the prospect of accomplishing his darling 
 wishes the great object of his ambition nor deeply depressed when environed 
 by danger, care, disappointment, and bodily suffering, which, hanging heavily 
 upon him, forbade him to indulge in hopeful anticipations. The negro loved 
 him, because he admired the simplicity of his manners, and mingled with plea- 
 si /re in his favourite dance; the Arab hated him, because he was overawed by 
 his commanding appearance, and because the keen penetrating glance of the 
 British captain detected his guilty thoughts, and made him quail with apprehen- 
 sion and fear. 
 
 " Captain Clapperton's stature was tall ; his disposition was warm and benevo- 
 lent; his temper mild, even, and cheerful; while his ingenuous manly counte- 
 nance pourtrayed the generous emotions that reigned in his breast. In fine, 
 he united the figure and determination of a man, with the gentleness and sim- 
 plicity of a child ; and, if I mistake not, he will live in the memory of many 
 thousands of Africans, until they cease to breathe, as something more than mor- 
 tal ; nor have I the least doubt that the period of his visiting their country will 
 be regarded by some as a new era, from which all events of consequence, that 
 affect them, will hereafter be dated." 
 
 The surviving traveller was permitted to leave Soccatoo a few days afterwards, 
 and return on the way to Badagry. He reached that part of the coast, after 
 almost incredible hardships, and returning safely to England, prepared for the
 
 GEORGE CLEGHORN. 551 
 
 press a work entitled, " Records of Captain Clapperton's Last Expedition to 
 Africa," which appeared in 1830, in two volumes 12mo. Before the publica- 
 tion of this book, Mr Lander had set out on another expedition, in company 
 with his younger brother, John ; and pursuing nearly the same route as that of 
 captain Clapperton, again reached the Niger at Boussa. It was an impression 
 of Mr Lander, that that river ran into the Bight of Benin, and he had, on his 
 return, endeavoured to prove the fact by descending the stream, but was pre- 
 vented by the natives. He now fairly settled the question by sailing down the 
 river, and entering the sea by the outlet which is marked on the maps by the 
 name of Nun. Thus was a youth of about twenty-six years of age at last suc- 
 cessful in solving a problem which many older and better instructed men had 
 failed to expound. It is to be allowed, however, that Clapperton is indirectly 
 entitled to a large share of this honour, as it was he who introduced Lander to the 
 field of African adventure, and who inspired him with the desire, and invested 
 him with the accomplishments, necessary for the purpose. 
 
 CLEGHORN, GEORQB, a learned physician, was the son of a farmer at Gran- 
 ton, in the parish of Cramond, near Edinburgh ; and was born there, on the 
 13th of December 1716. In 1719, the father of Dr Cleghorn died, leaving a 
 widow and five children. George, who was the youngest, received the rudiments 
 of his education at the parish school, and in 1728, was sent to Edinburgh, 
 to be further instructed in Latin, French, and Greek ; where, to a singular 
 proficiency in those languages, he added a considerable stock of mathematical 
 knowledge. At the age of fifteen, he commenced the study of physic and sur- 
 gery, and had the good fortune to be placed under the tuition of the illustrious 
 Monro, and under his roof. For five years, he continued to profit by the in- 
 struction and example of his great master ; at the same time, he attended the 
 lectures on botany, chemistry, materia medica, and the theory and practice of 
 medicine ; and by extraordinary diligence, he attracted the notice of all his 
 preceptors. He was at this time the intimate friend and fellow-student of the 
 celebrated Fothergill, in conjunction with whom, and a few other young men, 
 he established the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh, an institution of a very 
 valuable kind, which still exists. So great was the distinction of Cleghorn, even 
 as a student, that, when little more than nineteen years of age, he was appoint- 
 ed by the recommendation of Dr St Clair, surgeon to the 22d regiment of foot, 
 then stationed at Minorca, under the command of general St Clair. During 
 the thirteen years which he spent in that island, he applied himself most dili- 
 gently to his improvement in medical and anatomical studies, in which he was 
 much assisted by his friend Fothergill, who sent him out such books as he re- 
 quired from London. On leaving Minorca in 1749, he went with the regiment 
 to Ireland ; and next year he repaired to London, in order to give to the world 
 the fruit of some of his observations, in a work entitled, " The diseases of 
 Minorca." This work not only exhibits an accurate statement of the air, but 
 a minute detail of the vegetable productions of the island ; and concludes with 
 medical observations, important in every point of view, and in some instances 
 either new, or applied in a manner which preceding practitioners had not ad- 
 mitted. The medical world was indebted to Dr Cleghorn for proving the 
 advantage of acescent vegetables in low, putrid, and remittent fevers, and the 
 copious use of bark, which had been interdicted from mistaken facts, deduced 
 from false theories. While superintending the publication of this work, Dr 
 Cleghorn attended the anatomical lectures of Dr Hunter ; and on his return to 
 Dublin, where he settled in practice in 1751, he began to give a similar course 
 himself, and was the first person that established what could, with propriety, be 
 considered an anatomical school in Ireland. Some years afterwards, he w*.s
 
 WILLIAM CLELAND. 
 
 admitted into the university as lecturer on anatomy. From this period till his 
 death in December 1789, Dr Cleghorn lived in the enjoyment of a high and 
 lucrative practice, the duties of which he varied and relieved by a taste for 
 farming and horticulture, and by attentions to the family of a deceased brother, 
 which he undertook to support. In private life, Dr Cleghorn is said to have 
 been as amiable and worthy, as in his professional life he was great. He was 
 enabled before his death to acquire considerable estates in the county of Meath, 
 of which his nephew, George Cleghorn of Kilcarty, was High Sheriff in the 
 year 1794. 
 
 CLELAND, WILLIAM, the troubadour, as he may be called, of the covenanters, 
 was born about the year 1671, having been just twenty-eight years of age at his 
 death, in 1689. When only eighteen, he held command as a captain in the 
 covenanting army at Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge. It would thus appear 
 likely, that he was born in a respectable grade of society. He seems to 
 have stepped directly from the university into the field of arms ; for it is 
 known that he was at college just before completing his eighteenth year ; 
 at which age he enjoyed the rank above-mentioned in the whig army. Al- 
 though Cleland probably left the country after the affair at Bothwell, he is 
 found spending the summer of 1685, in hiding, among the wilds of Clydes- 
 dale and Ayrshire, having, perhaps, returned in the unfortunate expedition 
 of the earl of Argyle. Whether he again retired to the continent is not 
 known ; but, after the revolution, he re-appears on the stage of public life, in 
 the character of lieutenant-colonel of the earl of Angus' regiment, called the 
 Cameronian regiment, in consequence of its having been raised out of that body 
 of men, for the purpose of protecting the convention parliament That Cleland 
 had now seen a little of the wot Id, appears from a poem entitled, some Lines made 
 by him upon the observation of the vanity of worldly honours, after he had been 
 at several princes' courts. 1 
 
 It is a strong mark of the early popularity of Hudibras, that, embodying 
 though it did the sarcasms of a cavalier against the friends of civil and religious 
 liberty, it nevertheless travelled into Scotland, and inspired with the principle 
 of imitation a poet of the entirely opposite party. Cleland, who, before he left 
 college, had written some highly fanciful verses, of which we have preserved a 
 copy below," composed a poem in the Hudibrastic style, upon the celebrated 
 
 1 We also observe, in Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, that he published " Disputatio Juri- 
 dica de Probationibus," at Utrecht, in 1684 ; which would imply that he studied civil law 
 at that celebrated seminary. 
 
 2 These form port of a poem entitled, " Hollo, my Fancy," which was printed in Watson's 
 Collection of Scottish Poems, at the beginning of the last century : 
 
 In conceit-like Phaeton. 
 
 I'll mount Phoebus chair, 
 Having ne'er a hat on, 
 All my hair a-burniiig, 
 In my journeying, 
 
 Hurrying through the air. 
 Fain would 1 hear Jiis fiery horses neighing ! 
 And see how they on foamy bits are playing ' 
 Ail the stars and planets I will be surveying 
 Hollo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go/ 
 O, from what ground of nature 
 
 Doth the pelican, 
 That self-devouring creature, 
 Prove so froward 
 And untoward 
 
 Her vitals for to strain ! 
 
 And why the subtle fox, while in death's wounds Ij ing, 
 Doth not lament his wounds by howling and by crying ! 
 And why the milk-white swan doth sing when she's a-dyiiig ! 
 Hollo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go ? 
 &c. &c. &c.
 
 WILLIAM CLELAND. 553 
 
 expedition of the Highland host, which took place in 1678. His object was to 
 satirise both the men who composed this expedition and those who directed it to 
 take place. It chiefly consists in a ludicrous account of the outlandish appear- 
 ance, senseless manners, and oppressive conduct of the northern army. So far 
 as satire could repay the i-ank cruelty of that mode of constraining men's con- 
 sciences, it was repaid for the poem is full of poignant sarcasm, expressed in 
 language far above the poetical diction of that day, at least in Scotland. It was 
 not published, however, till 1697, nearly twenty years after the incident which 
 called it forth, when at length it appeared in a small volume, along with several 
 other poems by the same author. We present the reader with the following 
 specimen of the composition, being a description of the Highlanders : 
 
 Some might have judged they were the creatures 
 
 Call'd selfies, whose customes and features 
 
 Paracelsus doth descry, 
 
 In his occult philosophy, 
 
 Orfaunes, or brownies, if ye will, 
 
 Or satyres, come from Atlas hill ; 
 
 Or that the three-tongu'd tyke was sleeping, 
 
 Who hath the Stygian door a keeping : 
 
 Their head, their neck, their leggs, and tliighs 
 
 Are influenced by the skies , 
 
 Without a clout to interrupt them, 
 
 They need not strip them when they whip them ; 
 
 Nor loose their doublet when they're hanged. 
 
 * * # 
 But those who were their chief commanders, 
 As such who bore the pirnie standarfs ; 
 Who led the van and drove the rear, 
 
 Were right well mounted of their gear , 
 With brogues, and trues, and pirnie plaidt*, 
 And good blue bonnets on their heads, 
 Which on the one side had a flipe, 
 Adorn'd with a tobacco-pipe. 
 With dirk, and snap-work, and snuff-mill, 
 A bagg which they with onions fill, 
 And, as their strict observers say, 
 A tasse horn ful'd with usquebay. 
 A slashtout coat beneath her plaides, 
 A targe of timber, nails, and hides ; 
 With a long two handed sword, 
 As good's the country can afford 
 Had they not need of bulk and bones, 
 Who fight with all these arms at once ? 
 It's marvellous how in such weather 
 O'er hill and moss they came together ; 
 How in such stormes they came so far; 
 The reason is, they 're smeared with tar; 
 Which doth defend them heel and neck, 
 Just as it doth their sheep protect 
 
 * * * 
 Nought like religion they retain, 
 
 Of moral honestie they're clean. 
 In nothing they're accounted sharp, 
 Except in bagpipe and in harp. 
 4 A
 
 551 
 
 WILLIAM CLELAND. 
 
 For a misobliging word, 
 She'll durk her neighbour o'er the boord, 
 And then she'll flee like fire from flint, 
 She'll scarcely ward the second dint : 
 If any ask her of her thrift, 
 Foresooth, her nainsell lives by theft." 
 
 Colonel Cleland was not destined long to enjoy his command in the Cameron- 
 ian regiment, or the better times which the revolution had at length introduced. 
 In August, 1689, the month after the battle of Killiecrankie, he was sent with 
 his men to take post at Dunkeld, in order to prepare the way for a second 
 invasion of the Highlands. The remains of that army which Dundee had 
 , led to victory, but without gaining its fruits, gathered suddenly into the neigh- 
 bourhood, and, on the 21st of August, made a most determined attack upon 
 the town. Cleland, though he had only eight hundred men to oppose to four 
 thousand, resolved to fight it out to the last, telling his men, tliat, if they chose 
 to desert him, he would stand out by himself, for .the honour of the regiment, 
 and the good cause in which he was engaged. The soldiers were animated so 
 much by his eloquence and example, that they withstood the immense odds 
 brought against them, and finally caused the Highlanders to retire discomfited, 
 leaving about three hundred men behind them. Perhaps there was not a single 
 skirmish or battle during the whole of the Avar of liberty, from 1639, to 1689, 
 which conferred more honour on either party than this affair of Dunkeld. Cle- 
 land, to whom so much of the glory was due, unfortunately fell in the action, at 
 the early age of twenty-eight. He was employed in encouraging his soldiers in 
 front of Dunkeld house, when two bullets pierced his head, and one his liver, 
 simultaneously. He turned about, and endeavoured to get back into the house, 
 in order that his death might not discourage his men ; but he fell before reach- 
 ing the threshold. 
 
 It is stated by the editor of the Border Minstrelsy, but we know not with 
 what authority, that this brave officer was the father of a second colonel Cleland, 
 who flourished in the beau monde at London, in the reign of queen Anne, and 
 George I., and who, besides enjoying the honour of having his character em- 
 balmed in the Spectator under the delightful fiction of Will. Honeycomb, was 
 the author of a letter to Pope, prefixed to the Dunciad. The son of this latter 
 gentleman was also a literary character, but one of no good fame. John Cle- 
 land, to whom we are alluding, was born in 1709, and received a good educa- 
 tion at Westminster school, where he was the contemporary of Lord Mansfield. 
 He went on some mercantile pursuit to Smyrna, where he perhaps imbibed those 
 loose principles which afterwards tarnished his literary reputation. After his 
 return from the Mediterranean, he went to the East Indies, but, quarrelling witli 
 some of the members of the Presidency of Bombay, he made a precipitate retreat 
 from the east, with little or no advantage to his fortune. After living for some 
 time in London, in a state little short of destitution, he was tempted by a book- 
 seller, for the sum of twenty guineas, to write a novel of a singularly indecent 
 character, which was published in 1749, in two volumes, and had so successful a 
 run that the profits are said to have exceeded 10,000. It is related, that 
 having been called before the privy council for this offence, he pleaded his des- 
 titute circumstances as his oidy excuse, which induced the president, Lord Gran- 
 ville, to buy the pen of the unfortunate author over to the side of virtue, by 
 granting him a pension of 100 a year. He lived many years upon this in- 
 come, which he aided by writing occasional pieces in the newspapers, and also 
 by the publication of various works ; but in none of these was he very success-
 
 JOHN CLERK. 555 
 
 fuL He published a novel called the Alan of Honour, as an amende 'honorable 
 for his flagitious work, and also a work entitled the Memoirs of a Coxcomb. 
 His political essays, which appeared in the public prints under the signatures, 
 Modestus, a Briton, &<x are said to have been somewhat heavy and dull He 
 wrote some philological tracts, chiefly relating to the Celtic language. But it 
 was in songs and novels that he chiefly shone ; and yet not one of these compo- 
 sitions has continued popular to the present day. In the latter part of his life, 
 he lived in a retired manner in Petty France, Westminster, where he had a good 
 library ; in which hung a portrait of his father, indicating all the manners and 
 d' abord of the fashionable town-rake at the beginning of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. Though obliged to live frugally, in order that he might not exceed his 
 narrow income, Mr Cleland occasionally received visits from his friends, to 
 whom his conversation, enriched by many observations of foreign travel, and 
 all the literary anecdote of the past century, strongly recommended him. 
 He spoke with fluency the languages of Italy and France, through which 
 countries, as well as Spain and Portugal, he had travelled on his return from 
 the East Indies. He died in his house in Little France, January 23, 1789, at 
 the age of eighty. 
 
 CLERK, JOHN, of Eldin, inventor of some invaluable improvements in the 
 modern system of naval tactics, was the sixth son of Sir John Clerk of Pennycuick, 
 baronet, who filled the situation of a baron in his majesty's Scottish exchequer 
 between the years 1707 and 1755, and was one of the most enlightened men of 
 his age and country. The mother of John Clerk was Janet Inglis, daughter of 
 Sir John Inglis of Cramond. He appears at an early period of his life to have 
 inherited from his father the estate of Eldin, in the neighbourhood of Penny- 
 cuick, and southern part of the county of Edinburgh, and to have married Miss 
 Susanna Adam, sister of the celebrated architects, by whom he had several chil- 
 dren. The private life of Mr Clerk of Eldin presents as few incidents as that 
 of most country gentlemen. He was distinguished chiefly by his extraordinary 
 conceptions on the subject of naval tactics ; and it is to those that we are to di- 
 rect our chief attention. 
 
 In a fragment of an intended life of Mr Clerk, written by the late professor 
 Playfair, and published in the transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 
 that eminent man begins by remarking that the author of the Naval Tactics was 
 one of those men, who by the force of their own genius, have carried great improve- 
 ments into professions which were not properly their own. The learned profes- 
 sor shows how in many professions, and as particularly in the naval as in any, 
 the individual regularly bred to it is apt to become blindly habituated to parti- 
 cular modes of procedure, and thus is unfitted for suggesting any improvement in 
 it, while a man of talent, not belonging to it, may see possibilities of improve- 
 ment, and instruct those who are apt to think themselves beyond instruction. 
 " Mr Clerk," he says, '* was precisely the kind of man by whom a successful in- 
 road into a foreign territory was likely to be made. He possessed a strong and 
 inveptive mind, to which the love of knowledge and the pleasure derived from the 
 acquisition of it, were always sufficient motives for application. He had naturally no 
 great respect for authority, or for opinions, either speculative or practical, which 
 rested only on fashion or custom. He had never circumscribed his studies by the 
 circle of things immediately useful to himself; and I may say of him, that he was 
 more guided in his pursuits, by the inclinations and capacities of his own mind, 
 and less by circumstances and situation than any man I have ever known. Thus 
 it was that he studied the surface of the land as if he had been a general, and the 
 surface of the sea as an admiral, though he had no direct connection with the pro- 
 fession either of the one or of the other.
 
 556 JOHN CLEKK. 
 
 " From his early youth, a fortunate instinct seems to have directed his mind to 
 naval affairs. It is always interesting to observe the small and almost invisible causes 
 from which genius receives its first impulses, and often its most durable impressions. 
 ' I had, (says he,)* acquired a strong passion for nautical a lairs when a mere 
 child. At ten years old, before I had seen a ship, or even the sea at a less distance 
 than four or five miles, I formed an acquaintance at school with some boys who had 
 come from a distant sea-port, who instructed me in the different parts of a ship from 
 a model which they had procured. I had afterwards frequent opportunities of 
 seeing and examining ships at the neighbouring port of Leith, which increased my 
 passion for the subject ; and I was soon in possession of a number of models, many 
 of them of my own construction, which I used to sail on a piece of water in my fa- 
 ther's pleasure grounds, where there was also a boat with sails, which furnished me 
 with much employment. I had studied Robinson Crusoe, and I read all the sea 
 voyages I could procure.' 
 
 " The desire of going to sea," continues Mr Playfair, " which could not but arise 
 out of these exercises, was forced to yield to family considerations ; but fortunate- 
 ly for his country, the propensity to naval affairs, and the pleasure derived from 
 the study of them, were not to be overcome. He had indeed prosecuted the study 
 so far, and had become so well acquainted with naval affairs, that, as he tells us 
 himself, he had begun to study the difficult problem of the way of a ship to wind- 
 ward. This was about the year 1770, when an ingenious and intelligent gentle- 
 man, the late commissioner Edgar came to reside in the neighbourhood of Mr 
 Clerk's seat in the country. Mr Edgar had served in the army, and with the com- 
 pany under his command, had been put on board admiral Byng's ship at Gibraltar, 
 hi order to supply the want of marines ; so that lie was present in the action off the 
 island of Minorca, on the 20th of May, 1756. As the friend of Admiral Boscawen, 
 he afterwards accompanied that gallant officer in the more fortunate engagement 
 of Lagoo Bay." 
 
 To what extent Mr Clerk was indebted for his nautical knowledge to this gen- 
 tleman, we are not informed ; but it appears that previous to the year 1779, he had 
 become very extensively and accurately acquainted with both the theory and prac- 
 tice of naval tactics. The evil to which Mr Clerk more particularly applied his ac- 
 tive genius was the difficulty of bringing the enemy to action. The French, when 
 they met a British fleet, eager for battle, always contrived by a series of skilful 
 manoeuvres, to elude the blow^ and to pursue the object of their voyage, either par- 
 ading on the ocean, or transporting troops and stores for the attack and defence of 
 distant settlements ; and thus wresting from the British the fair fruits of their su- 
 perior gallantry, even while they paid a tacit tribute to that gallantry, by planning 
 ri defensive system to shelter themselves from its effects ; in which they succeeded so 
 well that the fleets of Britain and France generally parted, after some indecisive 
 firing. Mr Clerk now assured himself, from mathematical evidence, that the plan 
 followed by the British of attacking an enemy's fleet at once, from van to rear, ex- 
 posed the advancing ships to the formidable battery of the whole adverse fleet ; by 
 which means they were crippled and disabled, either for action or pursuit, while the 
 enemy might bear away and repeat the same manoeuvre, until their assailants are 
 tired out by such a series of fruitless attacks. This Scottish gentleman, in the soli- 
 tude of his country house, where after dinner, he would get up a mimic fight with 
 bits of cork upon the table, discovered the grand principle of attack, which Buona- 
 parte afterwards brought into such successful practice by land that is to say, he 
 saw the absurdity of an attacking force extending itself over the whole line of the 
 enemy, by which the amount of resistance became every where as great as the 
 force of attack ; when it was possible, by bringing the force to bear upon a 
 
 Preface to the second edition of his " Essay on Naval Tactics," 1804.
 
 JOHN CLERK. 557 
 
 particular point, and carrying that by an irresistible weight, to introduce confu- 
 sion and defeat over the whole. He conceived various plans for this purpose : 
 one was, to fall upon the rear vessels of the enemy, and endeavour to disable 
 him, as it Avere ; another and more splendid idea, was to direct the line of at- 
 tacking vessels through the line of those attacked ; and, by doubling in upon the 
 ships cut off, which of course must strike to so superior a force, reduce the 
 strength of the enemy, and even subject the remaining ships to the risk of fall- 
 ing successively a prey, as they awkwardly endeavoured to beat up to the rescue 
 of their companions. At the time when he was forming these speculations, the 
 British arms suffered great depression, both by sea and land. A series of great and 
 ill-directed efforts, if they had not exhausted, had so far impaired the strength and 
 resources of the country, that neighbouring nations thought they had found a fav- 
 ourable opportunity for breaking the power, and humbling the pride of a formi- 
 dable rival. In the naval rencounters which took place after France had joined 
 herself to America, the superiority of the British navy seemed almost to disap- 
 pear ; the naval armies of our enemies were every day gaining strength ; the 
 number and force of their ships were augmenting ; the skill and experience of 
 their seamen appeared to be coming nearer an equality with our own. All 
 this was owing to the generous waste of strength which the British commanders 
 had undergone in their gallant but vain attempts to come to a fair engagement with 
 the enemy. 
 
 " Being fully satisfied," says Mr Playfair, " as to the principles of his system, 
 Mr Clerk had begun to make it known to his friends so early as 1779. After 
 the trial of admiral Keppell had brought the whole proceedings of the affair off 
 Ushant before the public, Mr Clerk made some strictures on the action, which 
 he put in writing, illustrating them by drawings and plans, containing sketches 
 of what might have been attempted, if the attack had been regulated by other 
 principles, and these he communicated to several naval officers, and to his friends 
 both in Edinburgh and London. In the following year, [January, 1780] 
 he visited London himself, and had many conferences with men connected 
 with the navy, among whom he has mentioned Mr Atkinson, the particular 
 friend of Sir George Rodney, the admiral who was now preparing to take 
 the command of the fleet in the West Indies. A more direct channel of com- 
 munication with admiral Rodney, was the late Sir Charles Douglas, who went 
 out several months after the admiral, in order to serve as his captain, and did 
 actually serve in that capacity in the memorable action of the 12th of April, 
 1782. Sir Charles, before leaving Britain, had many conversations with Mr 
 Clerk on the subject of naval tactics, and before he sailed, was in complete pos- 
 session of that system. Some of the conferences with Sir Charles were by ap- 
 pointment of the late Dr Blair of Westminster, and at one of these interviews 
 were present Mr William and Mr James Adam, with their nephew, the late 
 lord chief commissioner for Scotland. Sir Charles had commanded the Stirling 
 Castle in Keppell's engagement ; and Mr Clerk now communicated to him the 
 whole of his strictures on that action, with the plans and demonstrations, on 
 which the manner of the attack from the leeward was fully developed. 
 
 " The matter which Sir Charles seemed most unwilling to admit, was the ad- 
 vantage of the attack from that quarter ; and it was indeed the thing most in- 
 consistent with the instructions given to all admirals. 
 
 " Lord Rodney himself, however, was more easily convinced, and in the ac- 
 tion off Martinico, in April, 1780, the original plan seemed regulated by the 
 principles of the Naval Tactics. * * * It was not till two years af- 
 terwards, in April, 1782, that lord Rodney gave the first example of completely 
 breaking through the line of the enemy, and of the signal success which will
 
 558 JOHN CLERK. 
 
 ever accompany that manoeuvre, when skilfully conducted. The circumstances 
 were very remarkable, and highly to the credit of the gallantry, as well as con- 
 duct of the admiral. The British fleet was to leeward, and its van, on reaching 
 the centre of the enemy, bore away as usual along his line ; and had the same 
 been done by all the ships that followed, the ordinary indecisive result would 
 infallibly have ensued. But the Formidable, lord Rodney's own ship, kept close 
 to the wind, and on perceiving an opening near the centre of the enemy, broke 
 through at the head of the rear division, so that, for the first time, the enemy's 
 line was completely cut in two, and all the consequences produced which Mr 
 Clerk had predicted. This action, which introduced a new system, gave a new 
 turn to our affairs at sea, and delivered the country from that state of depression, 
 into which it had been thrown, not by the defeat of its fleets, but by the entire 
 want of success. 
 
 " It was in the beginning of this year, that the [ Essay on ] Naval Tactics ap- 
 peared in print, though, for more than a year before, copies of the book had 
 been in circulation among Mr Clerk's friends. 1 Immediately on the publication , 
 copies were presented to the minister and the first lord of the admiralty ; and 
 the duke of Montague, who was a zealous friend of Mr Clerk's system, under- 
 took the office of presenting a copy to the king. 
 
 " Lord Rodney, who had done so much to prove the utility of this system, in 
 conversation never concealed the obligation he felt to the author of it Before 
 going out to take the command of the fleet in the West Indies, he said one day 
 to Mr Dundas, afterwards lord Melville, ' There is one Clerk, a countryman of 
 yours, who has taught us how to fight, and appears to know more of the matter 
 than any of us. If ever I meet the French fleet, I intend to try his way.' 
 
 " He held the same Language after his return. Lord Melville used often to 
 meet him in society, and particularly at the house of Mr Henry Drummond, 
 where he talked very unreservedly of the Naval Tactics, and of the use he bad 
 made of the system in his action of the 12th of April A letter from general 
 Ross states very particularly a conversation of the same kind, at which he was 
 present. ' It is,' says the general, ' with an equal degree of pleasure and truth, 
 that I now commit to writing what you heard me say in company at your house, 
 to wit, that at the table of the late Sir John Bailing, where I was in the habit 
 of dining often, and meeting lord Rodney, I heard his lordship distinctly state, 
 that he owed his success in the West Indies to the manoeuvre of breaking the 
 line, which he learned from Mr Clerk's book. This honourable and liberal 
 confession of the gallant admiral made so deep an impression on me, that I can 
 never forget it ; and I am pleased to think that my recollection of the circum- 
 stance can be of the smallest use to a man with whom I am not acquainted, but 
 who, in my opinion, has deserved well of his country.' " 
 
 Mr Playfair then proceeds to mention a copy of Mr Clerk's Essay, on winch 
 lord Rodney had written many marginal notes, full of remarks on the justness 
 of Mr Clerk's views, and on the instances wherein his own conduct had been in 
 strict conformity with those views ; and which copy of the Essay is now de- 
 posited in the family library at Pennycuick. The learned professor next re- 
 lates " an anecdote which sets a seal on the great and decisive testimony of the 
 noble admiral. The present [now late] lord Haddington met lord Rodney at 
 Spa, in the decline of life, when both his bodily and his mental powers were 
 sinking under the weight of years. The great commander, who had been the 
 bulwark of his country, and the terror of her enemies, lay stretched on his 
 
 1 Fifty copies were printed of this edition, and distributed in a private way. The work 
 *vas not published for sale till 1790. The edition of that year is therefore styled the first, and 
 that of 1804, the second edition.
 
 JOHN CLERK. 559 
 
 couch, while the memory of his own exploits seemed the only thing that inter- 
 ested his feelings, or afforded a subject for conversation. In this situation he 
 would often break out in praise of the Naval Tactics, exclaiming with great 
 earnestness, ' John Clerk of Eldin for ever.' Generosity and candour seemed 
 to have been such constituent elements in the mind of this gallant admiral, 
 that they were among the parts which longest resisted the influence of decay." 
 
 Mr Playfair then details some of the victories of the succeeding war, in which 
 Mr Clerk's system had been pursued. The great action fought by lord Howe, 
 on the 1st of June, 1794, was, in its management, quite conformable to that 
 system, and its success entirely owing to the manoeuvre of breaking the line. 
 Mr Playfair mentions, that Mr James Clerk, the youngest son of the author of 
 the essay, and who was a midshipman on board lord Howe's ship, in 1793, had 
 a copy of the recent edition of the work, " which was borrowed by captain Chris- 
 tian, no doubt for the admiral's use." Lord St Vincent, who possessed a copy 
 of the book, also gained the famous battle off the coast of Spain, by breaking 
 the line of the enemy as did lord Duncan, the more important victory of Cam- 
 perdown. But the grandest testimony of all to the excellence of Mr Clerk's 
 system, was the battle of Trafalgar, which finally set at rest the dominion of 
 Britain over the sea. Lord Nelson's instructions on that occasion contained 
 some entire sentences out of the " Essay on Naval Tactics." And it must also 
 be mentioned, that, in Ms splendid victory of the Nile, he had pursued the same 
 system. 
 
 We have hitherto pursued the train of demonstration favourable to Mr Clerk, 
 and to the originality and utility of his system ; it must now be mentioned that 
 a controversy, menacing the better part of his reputation, has arisen since his 
 decease. The family of Rodney, in a late publication of his memoirs, disavow 
 the claim made by the friends of Mr Clerk, and maintain, that no communica- 
 tion of that gentleman's plan was ever made to their relative, or that he had the 
 least knowledge of any such book or plan as that of Mr Clerk. Immediately 
 after the publication of this disavowal, Sir Howard Douglas, son of the late Sir 
 Charles Douglas, who was Rodney's captain at the time of the victory, came for- 
 ward, in a pamphlet, supported by authentic documents, to claim the honour on 
 behalf of his father. It would be vain to enter into a full discussion of the con- 
 troversy which has arisen on this subject ; the result seems to be, that Mr Clerk's 
 friends have not proved that lord Rodney adopted the idea of breaking the 
 enemy's line, on the 12th of April, from his system, although there are several 
 reports, by most honourable men, of acknowledgments from his lordship to that 
 effect. The testimony of these men Avould, in ordinary cases, be very good ; 
 but in this case it is invalidated by a tache of a very extraordinary nature, 
 which has fallen upon a particular part of professor Playfair's narrative. In 
 contradiction of the assertion that Mr Clerk had frequent interviews with Sir 
 Charles Douglas, for the explanation of his system, previous to the battle ; Sir 
 Howard, the son of that officer, brings forward a letter written by his father at 
 St Lucie, March 2, 1783, in answer to some representation of Mr Clerk's claim, 
 which had been set forward by one of his friends. Of this letter Sir Howard 
 gives the following account and extracts : 
 
 " After acknowledging the receipt of the letter, communicating Mr Clerk's 
 claim to the honour of having suggested the manoeuvre of breaking the line, by 
 which the victory had been gained, my father declares ' the whole story to be 
 so far-fetched, improbable, and groundless, as not to deserve a serious refuta- 
 tion.' That, in being so near his commander-in-chief, he had a far more 
 experienced instructor to guide and direct him in the execution of his duty, 
 than the author alluded to ; and so entirely positive was he that he had never
 
 560 ARCHIBALD COCHRANE. 
 
 cpoken on such matters with any civilian of the name, that he took the person 
 10 whom allusion had heen made, to be a lieutenant Clerk of the navy ; but that 
 even of such conversation he ( my father ) had no recollection whatever. He 
 then instructs his correspondent, that, inasmuch as he is mentioned or alluded 
 to, ' the subject should be treated as a production offensive to himself, and as 
 uighly injurious to the person who commanded in chief on that celebrated day,' 
 md who certainly did not stand in need of any instruction derived, or that could 
 Oe derived, from lieutenant Clerk, or any other person that he knew of.'' 
 
 Whether Mr Clerk be really entitled or not to the merit of having suggested 
 the manoeuvre of breaking the line, there can be no doubt that he conceived on 
 land, and without the least experience of sea life, that idea, at a period antece- 
 dent to the time when it was put in practice. 1 There is also no pretence in any 
 quarter to deny, that his system became a guide to all the operations of the Bri- 
 tish navy subsequent to the particular victory in which it first seemed to be acted 
 upon, and thus was the means of enabling British valour to gain a series of con- 
 quests, which unquestionably proved the salvation of the country. 
 
 Mr Clerk died at an advanced age, on the 10th of May, 1812 ; and, strange 
 to say, there exists no public monument whatsoever, to record the gratitude of 
 the country for his services. It may be mentioned, that Mr Clerk was the 
 father of the late John Clerk, Esq. advocate, ( afterwards raised to the bench, 
 where he took the designation of lord Eldin,) whose professional abilities, 
 joined to his exquisite taste in the fine arts, and the rich eccentricity of his 
 manners and conversation will long be remembered. 2 
 
 COCHRANE, ARCHIBALD, ninth earl of Dundonald, a nobleman distinguished 
 by his useful scientific investigations, w : as the son of Thomas, the eighth earl, by 
 Jane, daughter of Archibald Stewart of Torrence ; and was born on the 1st of 
 January, 1748. His lordship, before his father's death, entered life as a cornet, 
 in the 3d dragoons, which commission he afterwards abandoned, in order to 
 become a midshipman under his countryman captain Stair Douglas. While sta- 
 tioned as acting lieutenant in a vessel off the coast of Guinea, he had occasion 
 to observe the liability of vessels to be rotted by the sea, which in some cases 
 was so very great, that a few months was sufficient to render them not sea- 
 worthy. He conceived the idea of laying them over with tar extracted from 
 coal, a substance which was then little known, though now identified with the 
 very idea of marine craft. The experiment was first tried in Holland, and 
 found to answer all the purposes required. Being then tried upon a decked boat 
 at the Nore, and found equally answerable, his lordship procured a patent of his 
 invention for a short term, which was afterwards (1785) changed for an act of 
 parliament, vesting it in him and his heirs for twenty years. Unfortunately, 
 the general adoption of copper-sheathing rendered the speculation not only 
 
 1 Mr Clerk has been heard to acknowledge in the later part of his life, that he never tn- 
 joyed a longer sail than to the island of Arran, in the Firth of Clyde. 
 
 2 Sir George Clerk Maxwell, of Pennycuick, an elder brother of the author of the Naval 
 Tactics, born in 1715, and who succeeded his elder brother, Sir James, in the baronetcy, in 
 1783, was distinguished by his public spirited efforts to advance the commercial interests of 
 Scotland, at a time when they were in a state of infancy. He established, at a considerable 
 expense, a linen manufactory at Dumfries, and likewise set on foot many dilll-rent projetts 
 for working lead and copper mines. In 1755, he addressed two letters to the trustees for 
 fisheries, manufactures, and improvements, in Scotland, containing olserrations on the com- 
 mon mode of treating wool in this country, and suggesting a more judicious scheme of man- 
 agement. These were published, by direction of the Board, in 1756. He likewise wrote a 
 paper on the advantages of shallow ploughing, which was read to the Philosopliical Society, 
 and is published in the 3d volume of their essays. In 1741, this ingenious person was ap- 
 pointed king's remembrancer, an office of trust in the exchequer, of which liis father \\us 
 then one of the judges; and, in 1763, commissioner of the customs in Scotland. JSir George 
 Clerk Maxwell (the latter name had been assumed fur an estate) died in January , 1784.
 
 JOHN COCKBURN. 561 
 
 abortive, but ruinous to the inventor, who had burdened all his estates in order 
 to raise the necessary works. His lordship had succeeded to the family honours 
 in 1778. In 1785, he published two pamphlets one entitled, " The Present 
 State of the Manufacture of Salt explained," the other, " An Account of the 
 Qualities and Uses of Coal Tar and Coal Varnish." In 1795, his lordship pub- 
 lished a treatise showing the intimate connection between agriculture and che- 
 mistry, and in 1807 he obtained a patent for improvements in spinning ma- 
 chinery. It unfortunately happened that his lordship's inventions, although all 
 of them seemed to tend to the public good, proved unprofitable to himself. The 
 latter half of his long life was, on this account, spent in embarrassments and pri va- 
 tions, which may well excite our sympathy. His lordship was thrice married ; 
 first to Anne, daughter of captain Gilchrist of Annsfield, B. N. ; secondly, to 
 Isabella, daughter of Samuel Raymond, Esq. of Belchamp, in Essex ; thirdly, 
 to Anna Maria Plowden, daughter of the well-known historian of Ireland. By 
 the first of these matches, he had six sons, the eldest of whom, under the desig- 
 nation of lord Cochrane, distinguished himself by his gallant naval achievements 
 in the war of the French Revolution. The following remarks were made in allu- 
 sion to this noble and unfortunate votary of science, in the annual address of 
 the Registrars of the Literary Fund Society, in the year 1823 : 
 
 " A man born in the high class of the old British peerage has devoted his 
 acute and investigating mind solely to the prosecution of science ; and his 
 powers have prevailed in the pursuit The discoveries effected by his scientific 
 research, with its direction altogether to utility, have been in many instances 
 beneficial to the community, and in many have been the sources of wealth to in- 
 dividuals. To himself alone they have been unprofitable ; for with a superior 
 disdain, or ( if you please ) a culpable disregard of the goods of fortune, he has 
 scattered around him the produce of his intellect with a lavish and wild hand. 
 If we may use the consecrated words of an apostle, ' though poor, he hath made 
 many rich,' and though in the immediate neighbourhood of wealth, he has been 
 doomed to suffer, through a long series of laborious years, the severities of want 
 In his advanced age he found an estimable woman, in poverty, it is true, like 
 himself, but of unspotted character, and of high, though untitled family, to par- 
 ticipate the calamity of his fortunes ; and with her virtues and prudence, as- 
 sisted by a small pension which she obtained from the benevolence of the crown, 
 she threw a gleam of light over the dark decline of his day. She was soon, 
 however, torn from him by death, and, with an infant whom she bequeathed to 
 him, he was abandoned to destitution and distress, ( for the pension was exti n- 
 guished with her life.) To this man, thus favoured by nature, and thus perse- 
 cuted by fortune, we have been happy to offer some little alleviation of his sor- 
 rows ; and to prevent him from breathing his last under the oppressive sense of 
 the ingratitude of his species." 
 
 The earl of Dundonald died in poverty at Paris, on the 1st of July 1831, at 
 the advanced age of eighty-three years. 
 
 COCKBURN, JOHN, of Ormiston, the Father of Scottish husbandry, was born 
 in the latter part of the seventeenth century. His father, Adam Cockburn, of 
 Ormiston, (in East Lothian,) held the eminent office of Lord Justice Clerk 
 after the Revolution. His mother was lady Susan Hamilton, third daugh- 
 ter of John, fourth earl of Haddington. So early as the days of the refor- 
 mation, the family had distinguished itself by its zeal in behalf of liberal 
 institutions and public liberty. The laird of that day maintained an alliance 
 with the English reformers, when hardly any other Scottish gentleman dared 
 to oppose the tyranny of Beatoun ; and it was in his house that the celebrated 
 George Wishart was found, previous to his being brought to trial and burnt, 
 i 4 B
 
 JOHN COCKBURN. 
 
 From that period, down to the Revolution, the Cockburns of Ormiston were 
 invariably on the liberal side of the question. The subject of this memoir 
 inherited all the patriotism of his race, and in the lifetime of his father, in 
 his capacity as a member of the last Scottish parliament, took an active inter- 
 est in accomplishing the union. He was the first representative of East 
 Lothian in the parliament of Great Britain, and continued to be elected to that 
 distinguished place in all the successive parliaments, till 1741. Mr Cockburn, 
 at one period of his parliamentary career, held the post of lord of the Admiralty. 
 
 It was not, however, in a political career that this great man was destined to 
 gather his chief laurels. At the close of the 17th century, on account of the 
 religious and civil broils which had so long distracted the country, the condition 
 of agriculture in Scotland was at a very low ebb. The tenantry, so far from 
 being able to make any improvement, were too poor in general even to stock 
 the lands they occupied. Fletcher of Salton, who published a treatise on the 
 affairs of Scotland, in 1698, describes their situation as abject and miserable ; 
 and Lord Kaimes, in still stronger language, declares, that, before the union, 
 they were so benumbed with oppression, that the most able tutor in husbandry 
 would have made nothing of them. By a short-sighted policy, the landlords in 
 general had no other principle than to force as much from the soil for every 
 passing year as they could. The tenants were so much disheartened, that it was 
 difficult to let a farm, and none were taken upon leases of more than five years. 
 But, even if other circumstances had been more favourable, there was such a 
 rooted prepossession in favour of old systems, and so much ignorance of the 
 science of agriculture, that improvement was almost hopeless. 
 
 Lord Ormiston, father of Mr Cockburn, had made an attempt so early as 
 1698, to break through the old system of short leases. He then granted Ro- 
 bert Wight, eldest son of Alexander Wight, one of his tenants in Ormiston, a 
 lease of the farm of Muirhouse, now Hurrays, to endure for eleven years. Mr 
 Wight accordingly commenced enclosing his fields, a process heretofore quite 
 unknown in Scotland. In 1 7 1 3 , lord Ormiston granted to the same person a 
 lease of a neighbouring farm, to endure for nine years. 
 
 John Cockburn, who became possessed of the estate about the year 1714, im- 
 mediately entered upon a much more extensive system of improvement. He had 
 marked, with extreme concern, the supine condition of Scottish husbandry, 
 which his parliamentary visits to England had enabled him to contrast with 
 the more fortunate condition of that country ; and with an enlarged liber- 
 ality of soul, wliich scorned all his own immediate interests for the sake of ulti- 
 mate general good, he began to grant long leases of his farms upon exceedingly 
 small rents. As an instance it may be mentioned, that he granted to Robert 
 Wight a new lease of the Murrays farm for thirty-eight years, from 1718, at a 
 rent of 750 Scots, or 62 : 10 : sterling, and upon paying 1200 Scots, on 
 100 sterling, by way of fine or grassum, at the expiration of that term, a re- 
 newal thereof for other nineteen years, and so on from one period of nineteen 
 years to another in all time coming : a degree of liberality which speaks 
 more strongly than any thing else possibly could, for the backward state oi' 
 agriculture at the time. But the enterprising spirit of Mr Cockburn did not 
 rest here. In giving long lenses he had enabled his tenants to make the im- 
 provements he wished ; but still it was necessary to teach them how these im- 
 provements should be conducted. For this purpose he brought down skilful 
 persons from England, who introduced the culture of turnips, rape, and clover ; 
 and at the same time he sent up the sons of his tenants to study agriculture in 
 the best cultivated districts of the south. Experiments were likewise made of 
 the effects of enriching the laud by flooding. Turnips were sown upon the ea-
 
 JOHN COCKBURN. 563 
 
 tate so early as 1725, and Alexander Wight, one of his tenants, was probably 
 the first man in the island who sowed them in drills, and cultivated them with 
 the plough. The culture of this valuable root was brought by him to such per- 
 fection, that, in 1735, a turnip of his raising, weighing 34| Ibs, was carried to 
 Edinburgh, and hung up in John's Coffee-house as a show. 
 
 Even while engaged in his public duties in England, Mr Cockburn was con- 
 stantly reverting in thought to the improvements he had set on foot in East 
 Lothian, and he carried on a constant correspondence with his tenants respect- 
 ing the progress of their mutual plans. In some of these letters he breathes 
 the strongest sentiments of benevolence and patriotism. " No person," says he 
 to Mr Alexander Wight in 1725, " can have more satisfaction in the prosperity 
 of his children, than I have in the welfare of persons situated on my estate. I 
 hate tyranny in every shape ; and shall always show greater pleasure in seeing 
 my tenants making something under me, they can call their own, than in getting 
 a little more money myself, by squeezing a hundred poor families, till their ne- 
 cessities make them my slaves." 
 
 His proceedings were at first the subject of ridicule among the more narrow- 
 minded of his neighbours ; but the results in time overpowered every mean 
 feeling, and gradually inspired a principle of imitation. In 1726, he encour- 
 aged his tenant Alexander Wight, in setting up a malting brewery, and dis- 
 tillery, which soon got into repute, and promoted the raising of grain in the 
 neighbourhood. As a preliminary step to further improvements, he reformed 
 the village of Ormiston, changing it from the original mean and squalid hamlet 
 into a neat and well built street. He then commenced a series of operations for 
 setting up a linen manufactory. This he considered as one of the staple trades 
 of Scotland, and as the best support of the general interest He viewed it as 
 intimately connected with husbandry ; the land affording an opportunity of 
 producing the raw article to the manufacturers ; while they in return furnished 
 hands for carrying on agricultural works, especially in harvest, and for the con- 
 sumption of its various produce. To attain these objects, an eminent undertake* 
 from Ireland, both in the manufacturing and whitening of linen, was induced to 
 take up his residence at Ormiston ; and a favourable lease of a piece of ground 
 for a bleachfield and some lands in the neighbourhood was granted to him. 
 This was the first bleachfield in East Lothian, probably the second in Scotland . 
 for, before 1730, fine linens were sent to Haarlem in Holland to be whitened 
 and dressed. It is said that this Irish colony was the means of introducing the 
 potato in Scotland, at least as an object of field culture ; and that valuable root 
 was raised in the grounds on this estate so early as 1734. Mr Cockburn also 
 introduced some workmen from Holland, to give instructions in the art of 
 bleaching. He obtained, for his rising manufactory, the patronage of the Board 
 of Trustees, and likewise some pecuniary aid. 
 
 About the year 1736, the progress of agricultural improvement at Ormiston 
 had excited so much notice all over Scotland, that Mr Cockburn , always awake 
 to every circumstance which could forward his darling object, seized upon such a 
 notable opportunity of disseminating useful knowledge among his brother pro- 
 prietors and their tenantry. He instituted what was called the Ormiston Society, 
 composed of noblemen, gentlemen, and farmers, who met monthly for the discus- 
 sion of some appropriate question in rural economy, settled upon at their former 
 meeting, on which question all the members present delivered their opinion. 
 This club lasted for about eleven years, and was of great service in promoting 
 the views of its founder. It consisted at last of one hundred and six members, 
 comprising almost all the best intellects of Scotland at that time. 
 
 Mr Cockburn was married, first, in 1700, to the Hon. Miss Beatrix Car-
 
 564 PATRICK COLQUHOUN. 
 
 michael, eldest daughter of John, first earl of Hyndford ; secondly, to an Eng- 
 lish lady, related to the duchess of Gordon, by whom he had a son named 
 George. It is distressing to think that, about the year 1748, this great patriot 
 was obliged, probably in consequence of his spirited exertions for the public 
 good, to dispose of his estate to the earl of Hopetoun. He died at his son's 
 house at the Navy Office, London, on the 12th of November, 1758. His son, 
 who was a comptroller of the navy, married Caroline, baroness Forrester in her 
 own right, and was the father of Anna Maria, also baroness Forrester in her own 
 right, who died unmarried in 1808. Patrick Cockburn, advocate, brother of the 
 agriculturist, was married, in 1731, to Miss Alison Rutherford of Fernilie, a 
 woman of poetical genius, authoress of the more modern verses to the tune of 
 " The Flowers of the Forest," and who died in Edinburgh, November 22, 1 794. 
 
 It would be difficult to do full justice to the merits of such a character as Cock- 
 burn of Ormiston, or to describe the full effects of his exertions upon the 
 interests of his country. It may be said, that he lived at a time when the cir- 
 cumstances of Scotland were favourable to improvement, as it was the first 
 age of re-action after a long depression. But, although the country would have 
 no doubt made great advances without his aid, there can, in our opinion, be 
 little doubt that he considerably anticipated the natural period of improvement, 
 and gave it an impulse much greater than was likely to be otherwise received. On 
 what other principle are we to account for the immense degree to which Scotland 
 now transcends the agriculture of England the country from which it so recently 
 derived its first hints at the art ? 
 
 COLQUHOUN, PATRICK, a writer on statistics and criminal jurisprudence, 
 was born at Dumbarton, March 14, 1745. His father, who acted as Registrar 
 of the county Records, was nearly allied to Sir Robert Colquhoun, Bart, of 
 Nova Scotia, and also to Sir James Colquhoun of Luss. Having lost his 
 father ere he attained his sixteenth year, Patrick Colquhoun determined, like 
 many others of his countrymen, to seek his fortune abroad. He settled on 
 what was called the Eastern Shore, in Virginia, where for five years he carried 
 on commercial pursuits. It was the general custom of the inhabitant! of this 
 district to cross the Chesapeake Bay twice a year, in order to transact business 
 at the seat of government ; and such were the qualifications for public business 
 manifested even at this early period by Mr Colquhoun, that many were in the 
 habit of trusting their concerns to him, instead of going to the general mart in 
 person. Besides carrying on these trading speculations, he studied very hard 
 at this period, and endeavoured, both by reading intelligent books, and convers- 
 ing with intelligent men, particularly of the legal profession, to fit himself for 
 public duties. In 1766, when twenty-one years of age, lie returned to his own 
 country for the sake of his health, and settled as a merchant in Glasgow, where 
 he soon after married a lady of his own name, the daughter of the provost of 
 Dumbarton. On the breaking out of the war with (he colonies, Mr /Jolquhoun's 
 sympathies leant to the side of the government, and, in 1776, he was one of 
 fourteen principal contributors to a fund for raising a regiment in Glasgow, for 
 his majesty's service in that struggle. By this and other means he became a 
 person of some consideration in the eyes of the government, and succeeded, in 
 1780, in carrying through parliament a bill of great consequence to the trade 
 of the country. In 1781, when occupying a place in the town-council of Glasgow, 
 lie suggested and carried forward to completion the design for building the 
 coffee-house and exchange, in that city. Next year, he was elected provost of 
 Glasgow. He now became the founder of that excellent institution, the cham- 
 ber o Commerce and Manufactures at Glasgow, of which he was the first chair- 
 man. While holdincr these distinguished offices, he was also chairman of the 

 
 ,, 
 
 FROM THE OHIOfflAL IN POSSESSION OF TEE FAMILY. 

 
 PATRICK COLQUHOUN. 565 
 
 cjmmittee of management of the Forth and Clyde canal, and the leading man- 
 ager of various other public bodies. A genius for business on a large scale was 
 conspicuous in all his undertakings. In 1785, he repaired to London to obtain 
 legislative relief for the cotton trade, then in a languishing condition, and for 
 some years afterwards he devoted a large portion of his time to similar objects. 
 In 1788, lie visited Ostend, then a depot for East India goods, to ascertain how far 
 similar British manufactures could enter into competition with the imports of the 
 Flemings ; and it was owing to his exertions that our muslins, then an infant manu- 
 facture, became so extensively known throughout the continent Connected with 
 this subject lie published three pamphlets, which tended to make his efforts known 
 to the British merchants. In the same year, Mr Colquhoun laid the plan of a 
 general hall in London for the sale of cottons, which, however, was rendered of 
 little effect by the breaking out of the war with France. On this subject he 
 also published a pamphlet. In the month of November 1789, he settled with 
 his family in London, and soon after began to project those improvements in the 
 London police and magistracy, by which he earned the principal part of his 
 fame. The police of London was at this time in a state of shameful inefficiency, 
 while the magistrates, excepting in the city itself, were a set of low mercenary 
 individuals, known by the justly opprobrious title of " trading justices." On 
 this subject Mr Colquhoun composed several popular treatises, and in 1792, 
 when seven public offices were established, with three justices to each, he was 
 appointed to one of them, through the influence of his friend Mr Henry Dundas, 
 afterwards viscount Melville. His exertions as a magistrate were of a nature 
 truly useful ; and he published the result of his experience in 1796, under the 
 title of " A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis, explaining the various 
 Crimes and Misdemeanours which at present are felt as a Pressure on the Com- 
 munity, and suggesting Remedies." This work earned a merited reputation, 
 and went through a large annual reprint for the five succeeding years. It ob- 
 tained the praise of the select committee of finance, and particular marks of 
 approbation from the duke of Portland, then secretary of stole for the home de- 
 partment. He was, in consequence of this work, appointed agent in Great Bri- 
 tain for the colony of the Virgin Isles. In 1800, appeared his treatise on 
 the Police of the River Thames, a work certainly demanded in no small degree 
 by the circumstances. Though it may hereafter appear almost incredible, it is 
 nevertheless true, that the shipping of London, previous to this period, was to- 
 tally unprotected from the vast hordes of thieves which always exist in a large 
 city. W hile property on the banks of the river was so far protected, that which 
 floated on the river itself had no protection whatever. Accordingly, a genera- 
 tion of thieves called mudlarks, prowled constantly about the vessels, and made 
 prey annually of property to a vast amount. Not only did the cargoes suffer, 
 but even sails, anchors, and other such bulky articles, were abstracted by these 
 daring depredators. For many years this had been felt as a grievous hardship, 
 but it is amazing how long an evil may be tolerated for which no remedy has 
 been provided by the necessities of our ancestors. It was looked upon as a mat- 
 ter of course, a mischief incident to the situation of things ; and as each indivi- 
 dual only suffered his share of the immense amount of loss, there had been no 
 general effort at a reformation. Mr Colquhoun's work, however, effectually 
 roused public attention to the subject, and an effective river police was imme- 
 diately instituted, by which the shipping has been ever since fully protected. For 
 his services on this occasion, the West India merchants presented him with the 
 sum of five hundred pounds. 
 
 Although Mr Colquhoun bore externally a somewhat pompous and domineer- 
 ing- aspect, and was certainly a zealous advocate for keeping the people in due
 
 506 PATRICK COLQUHOUN. 
 
 subjection to the powers above them, there never, perhaps, was a heart more 
 alive than his to the domestic interests of the poor, or a mind more actively 
 bent upon improving both their physical and moral condition, lie was one 
 of the first men in this country who promoted a system of feeding the poor, 
 in times of severe distress, by cheap and wholesome soups. And, in the famine 
 of 1800, few men were more active in behalf of the starving population. He 
 also took an early interest in the system of charity schools, being of opinion, 
 that the true way of improving the condition of the people, was to enlighten 
 their minds. In 1803, he was instrumental in founding a school in Orchard 
 street, Westminster, in which three or four hundred children of both sexes were 
 taught the rudiments of human knowledge. He also published, in 1806, a 
 work entitled, " A New System of Education for the Labouring People," which 
 obtained an extensive circulation. Two years afterwards, appeared his " Trea- 
 tise on Indigence," in which the institution of a provident bank is strongly 
 urged. 
 
 In 1797, Mr Colquhoun was honoured with the degree of LL.D., by the 
 university of Glasgow, in consequence of his services in that part of the king- 
 dom. Throughout the course of his long and useful life, he received many 
 other testimonies of the public approbation. His last work appeared in 1814, 
 under the title, " A Treatise on the Population, Wealth, Power, and Resources 
 of the British Empire, in every quarter of the world, including the East In- 
 dies." Dr Colquhoun's publications in all amount to twenty ; and of these an 
 accurate list is given in the Annual Obituary for 1812. After having been con- 
 cerned in public life for about thirty-nine years, during which he had transacted 
 business with eight or ten successive administrations, in 1817 he tendered his 
 resignation as a magistrate, in consequence of his increasing years and infirmi- 
 ties : this, however, was not accepted by lord Sidmouth, until the subsequent 
 year, when the secretary of state for the home department expressed the high 
 sense entertained of his long and faithful services by his majesty's government. 
 Dr Colquhoun died of a schirrous stomach, April 25, 1820, in the seventy-sixth 
 year of his age. 
 
 The character of Dr Colquhoun has been thus drawn by Dr Lettsom : 
 " When the importance of the morals of the community, with its influence 
 on individual as well as general happiness is duly considered, one cannot 
 but contemplate a public character, who, with unceasing exertion, endeavours 
 to promote every virtuous and charitable sentiment, with gratitude and rever- 
 ence ; a magistrate clothed with power to enforce obedience, but possessing be- 
 nevolence more coercive than power; who is eminently vigilant to arrest in its 
 progress every species of vice, and commiserates, as a man humanized by Chris- 
 tian amenities, every deviation from rectitude, and reforms while he pities 
 such is a being clothed with robes of divinity. In this point of view, I, indeed, 
 saw my friend, Patrick Colquhoun, Esq., whose exertions point to every direc- 
 tion where morals require correction, or poverty and distress the aid of active 
 benevolence. As an indefatigable magistrate, and an able writer in general, 
 Mr Colquhoun is well known throughout Europe. I introduce him in this place, 
 as the founder and promoter of various institutions for supplying the poor, in 
 distress, with cheap and nutritious articles of food, to an extent truly astonish- 
 ing, and without which famine must have been superadded to poverty. The 
 enumeration alone of my friend's publications must evince the activity of his 
 benevolence, with which his time and fortune hare ever kept pace. May the 
 reader endeavour to emulate his virtues ! He will then not only diffuse happi- 
 ness among the community, particularly the lower classes, but ensure the supreme 
 enjoyment of it in his individual capacity."
 
 ARCHIBALD. CONSTABLE. 567 
 
 CONSTABLE, ARCHIBALD, an eminent publisher, was born, February 24, 
 1776, at Kellie in the county of File, where his father, Thomas Constable, 
 acted as overseer to the earl of Kellie. After receiving a plain education at 
 the school of his native parish (Carnbee), he became in 1788, apprentice to Mr 
 Peter Hill, bookseller in Edinburgh, ihe friend and correspondent of Robert 
 Burns. About the time of the expiration of his apprenticeship, he married 
 the daughter of Mr David Willison, printer, who, though averse to the match, 
 was of some service in enabling him to set up in business for himself. This 
 latter step he took in the year 1795, opening a shop on the north side or 
 the High Street, near the cross, and devoting himself at first chiefly to the sale 
 of old books connected with Scottish history and literature. In this line 
 of trade he speedily acquired considerable eminence, not so much by the ex- 
 tensiveness of his stock, for his capital was very limited, as by his personal ac- 
 tivity, agreeable manners, and the intelligence with which he applied himself 
 to serve the wants of his customers. At an early period of his career, his shop 
 was resorted to by Mr J. G. Dalzell, Mr Richard Heber, Mr Alexander Camp- 
 bell, 3Ir (afterwards Dr) Alexander Murray, Dr John Leyden, Mr Walter Scott, 
 Mr Thomas Thomson, and other young men possessed of a taste for Scottish lite- 
 rary and historical antiquities, for some of whom he published works of no in- 
 considerable magnitude, previously to the close of the eighteenth century. 
 In 1801, he acquired the property of the Scots Magazine, a venerable repertory 
 of historical, literary, and archaeological matter, upon which he employed the 
 talents of Leyden, Murray, .Macne.il, and other eminent men in succession, 
 though without any considerable increase to its reputation. In the preceding 
 year, he had commenced the Farmer's Magazine, under the management of an 
 able East Lothian agriculturist, Mr Robert Brown, then of Markle : this work, 
 which appeared quarterly, for many years enjoyed a considerable degree of 
 prosperity, but eventually drooped with the class to whom it appealed, and sank 
 with the house of the publisher. 
 
 The small body of ingenious and learned persons who, in 1802, originated 
 the Edinburgh Review, placed it under the commercial management of Mi- 
 Constable, who, though unprepared for the great success which it experienced, 
 was not long in perceiving the high merits of its conductors, and acting towards 
 them in an appropriately liberal manner. The business of publishing this great 
 work remained with him for twenty-four years. In 1804, he commenced the 
 Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, which remained with him till 
 1826. It was throughout a successful publication. In 1805, he published, 
 in conjunction with Longman & Co. of London, the first original work of 
 Sir Walter Scott, " The Lay of the Last Minstrel," the success of which 
 was also far beyond his expectations. In the ensuing year, he issued 
 a beautiful edition of what he termed " The Works of Walter Scott, Esq.," in 
 five volumes, comprising the poem just mentioned, the Minstrelsy of the Scot- 
 tish Border, Sir Tristrem, and a series of Lyrical Pieces. Notwithstanding 
 the success of the " Lay of the Last Minstrel," Mr Constable was looked upon 
 as a bold man when, in 1807, he offered Mr Scott one thousand pounds for a 
 poem which was afterwards entitled " 3Iarmion." Such munificence was quite 
 a novelty in the publishing trade of Scotland, and excited some attention even 
 in a part of the island where literary affairs had heretofore been conducted on 
 a larger scale. Not long after the appearance of this poetical romance, Mr 
 Constable and his partner had a serious difference with its illustrious author, 
 which lasted till 1813, although in the interval he edited for them the works 
 of Swift, as he had previously those of Dryden. An enumeration of the many 
 valuable books which were afterwards published by the subject of this memoir
 
 568 ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. 
 
 would be out of place in the present work ; but the mention of ;i lew, sucli a* 
 Mr J. P. Wood's excellent edition of Douglas's Scottish Peerage, Mr G. Chal- 
 mers's Caledonia, the Edinburgh Gazetteer, in six volumes, the Philosophical 
 Works of Mr Dugald Stewart, and the Supplement to the Encyclopedia 
 Britannica, (the stock and copyright of which work he purchased in 1812,) will 
 be sufficient to suggest a career far transcending in enterprise and brilliancy 
 anything of the kind ever known in Scotland. In 1804, Mr Constable 
 had assumed as partner Mr Alexander Gibson Hunter, of Blackness, and 
 from that time the business was carried on under the designation of Archibald 
 Constable and Company. A few years afterwards, when the concerns 
 of the house had become very extensive, Mr Constable thought it a hardship 
 that so much of his wares should pass through the hands of an English agency, 
 who at once absorbed a considerable share of his profits, and could not profess 
 to promote his interest with so much zeal as their own. He and his Edinburgh 
 partner therefore joined, December, 1808, with Mr Charles Hunter and Mi- 
 John Park, in commencing a general bookselling business in London, under 
 the designation of Constable, Hunter, Park, and Hunter. This speculation, 
 however, being found to be unattended with the expected advantages, was given 
 up in 1811. In the early part of this year, Mr A. G. Hunter retired from 
 the Edinburgh house, on which occasion Mr Constable, acting on the liberal view 
 which he usually took of the value of his stock, and perhaps not unwilling to 
 impress the world with an exalted idea of his prosperity, allowed to his partner 
 a greater amount of actual cash (seventeen thousand pounds is understood to have 
 been the sum paid,) than what was justly his due. Mr Robert Cathcart of Drum, 
 writer to the signet, and Mr Robert Cadell, then a clerk in Mr Constable's 
 shop, were assumed in Mr Hunter's place, and the firm still continued under 
 the designation of Archibald Constable and Company. Mr Cathcart being car- 
 ried off after a few days' illness in November, 1812, Mr Cadell remained Mr 
 Constable's sole partner. 
 
 Mr Constable and his partner published after 1813, all the poetical works of 
 Sir Walter Scott, and the whole of his prose fictions (excepting the first series of 
 the Tales of My Landlord) down to the year 1826. The vast amount of 
 lucrative business arising from these publications, and others of nearly equal 
 popularity and importance, produced in the subject of this memoir the sincere 
 though erroneous conviction that he was a prosperous, and in one respect a 
 wealthy man. He had never, it is true, possessed much free capital : he had 
 scarcely ever known what it was to be exempt from difficulties for ready 
 money ; yet he could calculate for certain on the productiveness of several of 
 his more important speculations, and he every day saw around him such a large 
 and increasing amount of stock, that nothing less than the demonstration of 
 figures could have given him greater assurance of his affluent condition. That 
 demonstration unfortunately was wanting. Mr Constable was no arithmetician. 
 His mind was one of those which delight in forming lofty enterprises and am- 
 bitious schemes, but are too much engrossed with the glories of the ultimate 
 object, to regard much the details by which it is proposed to be accomplished. 
 For very many of his publications, the literary labourer was greatly over- 
 paid ; in most cases he printed a much larger impression than was necessary, 
 or, if the demand came nearly up to the supply, the benefits of success were 
 lost upon an undemanded second edition. He had a magnificent way of 
 transacting every kind of business, seeming in general less to regard the merits 
 of the matter in hand, than the dignity of his name and profession. Proceeding 
 in this manner, rather like a princely patron of letters, than a tradesman aiming 
 at making them subservient to his personal interest, Mr Constable was easily led
 
 ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. 569 
 
 into a system of living greatly beyond his real means, and from which the pres- 
 sure of no embarrassments, however severe, could awaken him. Another error, 
 to which the steps were perhaps as natural and easy, was his yielding to the de- 
 sires of his friend Sir Walter Scott, for money, and the means of raising money, 
 as a fore-payment of literary labour. Both men were in some degree intoxi- 
 cated by the extraordinary success they had met with in their respective 
 careers, which seemed to assure them against the occurrence of any real 
 difficulty in any of the processes of worldly affairs ; and, mutually supporting 
 their common delusion, they launched without rudder or compass into an ocean 
 of bank credit, in which they were destined eventually to perish. The 
 reverence of the publisher for the author was not greater than was the confi- 
 dence of the author in " the strong sense and sagacious calculations," (his 
 own words) of the publisher. Both afterwards discovered that they had been 
 in a great measure wrong, as even the works of a Scott could only produce a 
 certain sum, while the calculations of Mr Constable, though bearing the impress 
 of an ardent and generous temperament, were not conducted upon those rules 
 which alone will ensure good results in commercial affairs. It is painful to 
 reflect on the change which adversity brought over the mutual sentiments 
 of these distinguished men. Mr Constable lived to lament on a death-bed-the 
 coldness which the results of his bankruptcy had introduced into the mind 
 of his former friend, and to complain (whether justly or not) that, if he had not 
 been so liberal towards that friend, he might have still known prosperity. Sir 
 Walter, on the other hand, lived to suffer the pain of pecuniary distress in con- 
 sequence of the loose calculations of himself and his publisher, and to entertain in 
 his benevolent and tranquil mind, so changed a feeling regarding that individual, 
 as prevented him from paying the common respect of a friend to his remains, 
 when, in the hour of calamity and sorrow, they were transferred to the grave. 
 
 Mr Constable had in early life entertained literary aspirations only less am- 
 bitious than those by which he distinguished himself in commercial life. 
 Though wanting the advantages of an academical education, he wrote his own 
 language fluently and correctly. Scottish antiquities formed the department in 
 which he desired to exert himself, and the present writer has heard him, 
 amidst the pressing cares of business, express a touching regret for the 
 non-fulfilment of the hopes which he once entertained in reference to this 
 favourite study. From respect for his literary abilities, Miss Seward bequeathed 
 to him her whole correspondence, in the expectation that he would personally 
 undertake the duty of editor; a task, however, for which he found it necessary 
 to employ a substitute, in the person of Mr Morehead. The only literary 
 efforts of Mr Constable which have ever been ascertained, consist in the editing 
 of Lamont's Diary in 1810, and of a compilation of" The Poetry contained in 
 the Waverley Novels," and the composition of a small volume which appeared in 
 
 1822, under the title of " Memoir of George Heriot, jeweller to king James, 
 containing an account of the Hospital founded by him at Edinburgh." Having 
 become a widower in 1816, Mr Constable, in 1818, married Miss Charlotte 
 Neale, who survived him. In the early part of 1822, he was obliged, by a due 
 regard to his physical and mental energies, to reside for some months in Eng- 
 land. It may also be mentioned among the particulars of his life, that, in 
 
 1823, though professedly a Whig in politics, he was included by the liberal 
 policy of the government in a list of new justices of the peace for the city of 
 Edinburgh. In the same year, he removed from the warehouse he had occu- 
 pied for nearly thirty years in the High street, to an elegant mansion adjacent 
 to the Register House, in the New Town, which had become his own by purchase 
 from the connexions of his second marriage. 
 
 ' 4n
 
 570 ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. 
 
 In the year 1825, Mr Constable projected perhaps the most remarkable of 
 all his undertakings a Miscellany of Original and Selected Works, in Litera- 
 ture, Art, and Science, which he designed to publish in small fasciculi at one 
 shilling, every three constituting a volume. Having marked the tendency to- 
 wards a system of cheap popular reading, which was at this time very observable 
 in the public mind and in the bookselling business, he had resolved to take ad- 
 vantage of the irresistible impulse, for the reproduction of some of his best copy- 
 rights ; calculating securely that these, especially if mixed up with new 
 productions from the pens of the best modern writers, would appropriate a 
 large share of the patronage extended by the people to cheap works, while the 
 vast sale that might be expected as a consequence of their humble price, could 
 not fail to afford an ample remuneration to all concerned. The design was 
 one worthy, in its daring novelty and its liberal promise, of a publisher who, 
 in almost all his enterprises, had shown a comprehensiveness of mind above his 
 fellows. Nor can it be doubted that, if carried into execution with the whole 
 powers of the original house, and the prestige which the name of Constable 
 now carried to every British ear, it would have met with a success more than 
 sufficient to redeem the fortunes of the establishment. Unfortunately the com- 
 mercial distresses which marked the close of 1825, operated unfavourably upon 
 a London firm with which Archibald Constable and Company were intimately 
 connected, and at the close of the January of the ensuing year both were com- 
 pelled to stop payment The debts of the latter house were understood to b 
 about a quarter of a million, for a considerable part of which Sir Walter Scott 
 unfortunately stood responsible. The stock, in which the subject of this memoir 
 was wont to contemplate an immense fund of dormant wealth, was consequently 
 sequestered, and its real value, (especially on a peremptory sale) being very dif- 
 ferent from the apparent, it sufficed to discharge but a small part of the existing 
 obligations. 
 
 Mr Constable, who at this time had the young family arising from his second 
 marriage springing up around him, now retired into comparative privacy, to ex- 
 perience the usual fate of those whom fortune has suddenly deserted. Most of 
 his friends, having suffered considerably by his bankruptcy, and being deeply 
 impressed with a sense of the imprudence which had led to that event, paid him 
 no longer any regard, though, while his fortunes lived, they would have given 
 " fifty, nay, an hundred ducats for his portrait in little." Notwithstanding 
 these painful circumstances, to which was soon added a return of some dropsi- 
 cal ailments which had formerly afflicted him, he resolved to make an endea- 
 vour for the support of his family, by commencing, though with material 
 restrictions of plan, the Miscellany which had formerly been announced. 
 Having made the necessary arrangements with the trustee upon the sequestered 
 estate, he issued the first number late in the year 1826, being the beginning 
 of a reproduction of captain Basil Hall's Travels, which that gentleman, with 
 a kindness worthy of his distinguished abilities, had conferred as a present upon 
 the veteran publisher. Though unable now to command all the copyrights and 
 new productions which he originally contemplated, he succeeded in calling 
 around him some of the rising talent of the day, and would in all probability 
 have soon been once more engaged in an extensive and enterprising course of 
 business, if death had not stepped in to claim his part. Mr Constable gradually 
 sank under his dropsical ailment, and, on the 21st of July in the year just 
 named, breathed his last, at his house in Park Place, in the fifty-second year 
 of his age. Mr Constable was of middle stature, and, in his latter years, of 
 somewhat unwieldy bulk ; his countenance, a fair index to his mind, displayed 
 lineaments of uncommon nobleness and beauty.
 
 THOMAS COTTTTS. 571 
 
 COUTTS, THOMAS, who long moved at the head of the monied and banking 
 interest of the metropolis, was the fourth and youngest son of John Courts, 
 originally of Dundee, and afterwards of Edinburgh, where he held the office of 
 chief magistrate in 1743. The mother of Mr Coutts was a daughter of Sir 
 John Stuart of Allanbank, in Berwickshire, who was the maternal grandson of 
 Miss Grizel Cochrane, daughter of Sir John Cochrane, the associate of Russell 
 and Sidney, in their project for liberating Britain from the tyranny of the last 
 Stuarts. Of this lady, great-great-grandmother to Mr Coutts, the following 
 anecdote has been related by her relation, the late earl of Dundonald. 
 
 " Sir John Cochrane being engaged in Argyle's rebellion against James the 
 Second, was taken prisoner after a desperate resistance, and condemned to be 
 hanged. His daughter having noticed that the death warrant was expected 
 from London, attired herself in men's clothes, and twice attacked and robbed 
 the mails ( betwixt Berwick and Belford,) which conveyed the death warrants ; 
 thus by delaying the execution, giving time to Sir John Cochrane's father, the 
 earl of Dundonald, to make interest with father Petre, ( a Jesuit,) king James's 
 confessor, who, for the sum of five thousand pounds, agreed to intercede with 
 his royal master in behalf of Sir John Cochrane, and to procure his pardon, 
 which was effected." 
 
 Mr Coutts was born about the year 1731. His father carried on the busi- 
 ness of a general merchant, and established the bank which has since attained 
 such distinguished respectability under the auspices of Sir William Forbes and 
 his descendants. An elder son, James, entered into partnership with a banking 
 house in St Mary Axe, London, which corresponded with that of John Coutts 
 and Co., Edinburgh. Subsequently, Thomas Coutts, the subject of the present 
 memoir, entered also into that house. He then became partner with his bro- 
 ther of a banking house in the Strand, which had long been carried on under 
 the title of Middleton and Campbell ; and, finally, on the death of his brother, 
 in 1778, he became the sole manager of this extensive concern. 
 
 Mr Coutts possessed the accomplishments and manners of a gentleman ; plain 
 but fashionable in his dress ; sedate in his deportment ; punctual and indefati- 
 gable in business even to a very advanced age. His great ambition through life 
 was to establish his character as a man of business, and he certainly obtained 
 such a reputation in this respect as few men have enjoyed. Instances are re- 
 lated of his refusing to overlook a single penny in accounts even with those 
 friends to whom he was in the habit of dispensing his hospitality with the most 
 liberal hand. With such qualifications, and blessed with length of days beyond 
 the usual span of human life, it is not surprising that he acquired immense 
 wealth, and placed himself at the head of that important class to which he be- 
 longed. Nor was he exclusively a man of business : he enjoyed the society of 
 literary men in a high degree, and was distinguished for his taste in theatricals. 
 He was also a liberal dispenser of his wealth to the poor. 
 
 Mr Coutts was twice married : first to Susan Starkie, a female servant of his 
 brother, James, by whom he had three daughters Susan, married, in 179(5, to 
 George Augustus, third earl of Guildford ; Frances, married, in 1800, to John, 
 first marquis of Bute; and Sophia, married, in 1793, to Sir Francis Burdett, 
 bart. About three months after the decease of his first wife, which took place in 
 1815, he married Harriet Mellon, an actress of some distinction in her profes- 
 sion, whom he constituted, at his death, sole legatee of his immense property, 
 consisting of personals in the diocese of Canterbury, sworii under 600,000, 
 besides considerable real estates in lands, houses, &rc., and the banking estab- 
 lishment in the Strand. This lady has since become, by marriage, Duchess o f
 
 572 JAMES CRAIG, M.A. JOHN CRAIG. 
 
 St Albans, and, by her acts of beneficence, has proved herself not unworthy 
 of the great fortune which she has acquired. Mr Coutts' death took place at 
 his house in Piccadilly, February 24th, 1822, about the ninetieth year of his 
 age. 
 
 CRAIG, JAMBS, M.A., was born at Gilford in East Lothian, in 1682, and 
 educated in the university ef Edinburgh. He was first minister at Yester, in 
 his native county, then at Haddington, and finally at Edinburgh, where he 
 was very popular as a preacher. While in the first of these situations, he wrote 
 a volume of " Divine poems," which have gone through two editions, and enjoyed 
 at one time a considerable reputation. In 1732, when settled in Edinburgh, he 
 published " Sermons" in three volumes, 8vo, chiefly on the principal heads of 
 Christianity. He died at Edinburgh in 1744, aged sixty two. 
 
 CRAIG, JOHN, an eminent preacher of the Reformation, was born about the 
 year 1512, and had the misfortune to lose his father next year at the battle of 
 Flodden. Notwithstanding the hardships to which this subjected him, he ob- 
 tained a good education, and removing into England, became tutor to the chil- 
 dren of lord Dacre. Wars arising soon after between England and Scotland, he 
 returned to his native country, and became a monk of the Dominican order. 
 Having given some grounds for a suspicion of heresy, he was cast into prison, 
 but having cleared himself, he was restored to liberty, and returning to England, 
 endeavoured by the influence of lord Dacre to procure a place at Cambridge, in 
 which he was disappointed. He then travelled to France, and thence to Rome, 
 where he was in such favour with cardinal Pole, that he obtained a place among 
 the Dominicans of Bologna, and was appointed to instruct the novices of the 
 cloister. Being advanced to the rectorate, in consequence of his merit, he had 
 access to the library, where happening to read Calvin's Institutes, he became a 
 convert to the Protestant doctrines. A conscientious regard to the text in which 
 Christ forbids his disciples to deny him before men, induced Craig to make no 
 secret of this change in his sentiments, and he was consequently sent to Rome, 
 thrown into a prison, tried and condemned to be burnt, from which fate he was 
 only saved hy an accident. Pope Paul IV. having died the day before his in- 
 tended execution, the people rose tumultuously, dragged the statue of his late 
 holiness through the streets, and, breaking open all the prisons, set the prisoners 
 at liberty. Craig immediately left the city ; and, as he was walking through 
 the suburbs, he met a company of banditti. One of these men, taking him aside, 
 asked if he had ever been in Bologna. On his answering in the affirmative, 
 the man inquired if he recollected, as he was one day walking there in the fields 
 with some young noblemen, having administered relief to a poor maimed sol- 
 dier, who asked him for alms. Craig replied that he had no recollection of 
 such an event ; but in this case the obliged party had the better memory : the 
 bandit told him that he could never forget the kindness he had received on that 
 occasion, which he would now beg to repay by administering to the present ne- 
 cessities of his benefactor. In short, this man gave Craig a sufficient sum to 
 carry him to Bologna. 
 
 The fugitive soon found reason to fear that some of his former acquaintances 
 at this place might denounce him to the inquisition, and accordingly he slipped 
 away as privately as possible to Milan, avoiding all the principal roads, for fear 
 of meeting any enemy. One day, when his money and strength were alike ex- 
 hausted by the journey, he came to a desert place, where, throwing himself 
 down upon the ground, he almost resigned all hope of life. At this moment, 
 a dog came fawning up to him with a bag of money in its mouth, which it laid 
 down at his feet. The forlorn traveller instantly recognised this as " a special 
 token of God's favour," an'd picking up fresh energy, proceeded on his way till
 
 JOHN CRAIG. 573 
 
 he came to a little village, where he obtained some refreshment. He now bent 
 his steps to Vienna, where, professing himself of the Dominican order, he was 
 brought to preach before the emperor Maximilian II, and soon became a fa- 
 vourite at the court of that sovereign. His fame reverting to Rome, Pope Pius 
 III., sent a letter to the emperor, desiring him to be sent back as one that had 
 been condemned for heresy. The emperor adopted the more humane course of 
 giving him a safe conduct out of Germany. Reaching England about the year 
 1560, Craig heard of the Reformation which had taken place in his native 
 country, and, returning thither, offered his services to the church. He found, 
 however, that the long period of his absence from the country (twentyfour years,) 
 had unfitted him to preach in the vernacular tongue, and he was therefore ob- 
 liged for some time to hold forth to the learned in Latin. 1 Next year, having 
 partly recovered his native language, he was appointed to be the colleague of 
 Knox in the parish church of Edinburgh, which office he held for nine years. 
 During this period, he had an opportunity of manifesting his conscientious 
 regard to the duties of his calling, by refusing to proclaim the banns for the 
 marriage of the queen to Bothwell, which he thought contrary to the laws, to 
 reason, and to the word of God. For this he was reproved at the time by the 
 council ; but his conduct was declared by the General Assembly two years af- 
 ter to have been consistent with his duty as a faithful minister. About the year 
 1572, he was sent by the General Assembly to preach at Montrose, "for the 
 illuminating the north ; and when he had remained two years there, he was sent 
 to Aberdeen, to illuminate these dark places in Mar, Buchan, and Aberdeen, 
 and to teach the youth in the college there." In 1579, Mr Craig being ap- 
 pointed minister to the king, (James VI.) returned to Edinburgh, where he took 
 a leading hand in the general assemblies of the church, being the compiler of 
 part of the second book of Discipline, and, what gives his name its chief histori- 
 cal lustre, the writer of the NATIONAL COVENANT, signed in 1580, by the king and 
 his household, and which was destined in a future age to exercise so mighty an 
 influence over the destinies of the country. 
 
 John Craig was a very different man from the royal chaplains of subsequent 
 times. He boldly opposed the proceedings of the court, when he thought them 
 inconsistent with the interests of religion, and did not scruple on some occasions 
 to utter the most poignant and severe truths respecting the king, even in his 
 majesty's own presence. In 1595, being quite worn out with the infirmities of 
 age, he resigned his place in the royal household, and retired from public life. 
 He died on the 4th of December, 1600, aged eighty-eight, his life having ex- 
 tended through the reigns of four sovereigns. 
 
 CRAIG, JOHN, an eminent mathematician, flourished at the end of the 17th 
 and the beginning of the 18th centuries. The only circumstance known res- 
 pecting his life is, that he was vicar of Gillingham in Dorsetshire. The follow- 
 ing list of his ^Tilings is given in Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica. " Methodus 
 figurarum, lineis rectis et curvis comprehensarum : quadraturas determinandi. 
 London, 1685, 4to. Iraetatus Mathematicus, de figurarum curvilinearum, &c. et 
 locis geometricis. London, 1692, 1693, 4to. Theologiae Christianas Principia 
 Mathematica. London, 1699, 4to. Reprinted, Leipsic, 1755. De Calculo 
 fluentium, lib. ii. et de optica analytica, lib. ii. London, 1718, 4to. The quan- 
 tity of the Logarithmic Curve ; translated from the Latin, PhiL Trans. Abr. iv. 
 318. 1698. Quantity of Figures geometrically Irrational. Ib. 202. 1697. 
 Letter containing solutions of two Problems : 1, on the solid of Least Resis- 
 
 1 His Latin discourses were delivered in Magdalen's Chapel, in the Cowgate, Edinburgh ; 
 a curious old place of worship, which still exists, and even retains in its Tiudows, part of the 
 stained glass which adorned it in Catholic times.
 
 571 THOMAS CRAIG. 
 
 lance; "2. the Curve of Quickest Descent Ib. 542, 170] Specimen of de- 
 termining the Quadrature of Figures. Ib. r. 24, 1703. Solution of Hernouilli's 
 
 Problem, Ib. 90, 1704 Of the length of Curve Lines. Ib. 40G, 1708 3Ie- 
 
 thod of making Logarithms. Ib. 609, 1710. Description of the head of a mon- 
 strous Calf. Ib. 663, 1712." 
 
 CRAIG, THOMAS, author of the Treatise on the Feudal Law, and of other 
 learned works, was probably born in the year 1538. It is uncertain whether 
 he was the son of Robert Craig, a merchant in Edinburgh, or of William Craig 
 of Craigfintry, afterwards Craigston, in the county of Aberdeen. In 1552, he 
 was entered a student of St Leonard's college, in the university of St Andrew's, 
 but does not appear to have completed the usual course of four years, as he left 
 the college in 1555, after receiving his degree as bachelor of arts. He then 
 repaired to France, and studied the civil and canon law in some of the flourish- 
 ing universities of that country. On his return, about the year 1561, he con- 
 tinued his studies under the superintendence of his relation, John Craig, the 
 subject of a preceding memoir. After distinguishing himself in a very eminent 
 degree as a classical scholar, he was called to the bar in February 1563, and in 
 the succeeding year was placed at the head of the criminal judicature of the 
 country, as justice depute, under the hereditary officer, the justice general, an 
 honour vested in the noble family of Argyle. Among his earliest duties in this 
 capacity, was that of trying and condemning Thomas Scott, sheriff-depute of 
 Perth, and Henry Yair, a priest, for having kept the gates of Holyrood house, 
 to facilitate the assassination of Rizzio. In 1566, when James VI. was born, 
 Craig relaxed from his severer studies at the bar, hailed the birth of the royal 
 infant, and predicted the happiness which such an event promised to his unset- 
 tled country, in a Latin poem entitled, " Genethliacon Jacobi Principis Scoto- 
 rum.' This, says Mr Tytler, in his elegant work, the life of Sir Thomas 
 Craig, is a poem of considerable length, written in hexameters, and possessing 
 many passages not only highly descriptive of the state of Scotland at this time, 
 but in themselves eminently poetical : it is to be found in the Delitiae Poetarum 
 Scotorum. " Craig," says Mr Tytler, " appears to have been a man of a mo- 
 dest and retiring disposition, averse to any interference in the political intrigues 
 of the times, devoted to his profession, and fond of that relaxation from the se- 
 verer labours of the bar, which is to be found in a taste for classical literature. 
 While his contemporaries are to be found perpetually implicated in the conspi- 
 racies against their mistress the queen, and their names have come down to us 
 contaminated by crime, the character of this good and upright man shines 
 doubly pure amid the guilt with which it is surrounded. Although a convert to 
 the reformed opinions, and from this circumstance naturally connected with the 
 party which opposed the queen, his sense of religion did not confound or extin- 
 guish his principles of loyalty. His name appears only in the journal books of 
 the court in the discharge of the labours of his profession, or it is found in the 
 justiciary records under his official designation of justice-depute, or it is honour- 
 ably associated with the literature of his country ; but it is never connected with 
 the political commotions which the money and intrigues of England had kindled 
 in the heart of our nation." Craig pursued an extensive practice at the bar for 
 a period of upwards of forty years, and during all that time, his name is 
 scarcely ever found mingling with the political movements of the times. Dur- 
 ing the later part of his career, he devoted much of his time to the composition 
 of his learned treatise on the Feudal Law, upon which his reputation principally 
 rests. To describe the law of our country, as he found it established by the 
 practice of the courts in his own age ; to compare it with the written books on 
 the feudal law ; and to impart to it somewhat of the form and arrangement of
 
 THOMAS CRAIG. 575 
 
 a science, demonstrating, at the same time, its congruity in its fundamental prin- 
 ciples with the feudal law of England, such were the objects of Sir Thomas 
 Craig in this work, which he completed in 1603, a period when it might have 
 been of signal service, if published, in removing some of the prejudices which 
 stood in the way of a union between the two countries. The treatise, which was 
 written in a vigorous Latin style, was not, however, put forth to the world till forty 
 seven years after the death of the learned author. The enlarged and liberal 
 mind of Sir Thomas Craig rendered him a zealous promoter of every object 
 which tended to preserve the mutual peace, or facilitate the union of England. 
 In January, 1 6 03, he finished a Treatise on the Succession, to further the views 
 of his sovereign, upon the throne about to be vacated by Elizabeth. This work 
 was more immediately occasioned by the celebrated " Conference on the Suc- 
 cession," written by the Jesuit Parsons, under the assumed name of Doleman, in 
 which the right of James VI. was contested in a manner equally able and viru- 
 lent. The treatise of Craig, probably on account of the quiet succession of 
 James a few months after, was never sent to the press ; but an English transla- 
 tion of it was published in 1703 by Dr Gatherer. How much of his time Craig 
 was in the habit of dedicating to the Muses does not appear ; but the Delitias 
 Poetarum Scotorum contains another poem written by him on the departure of 
 his native monarch from Edinburgh, to take possession of his new kingdom of 
 England. It is entitled, " Ad Serenissimum et Potentissimum Principem Ja- 
 cobum VI. e sua Scotia discedentem, Paraeneticon." " This poem," says Mr 
 Tytler, " is highly characteristic of the simple and upright character of its au- 
 thor. While other and more venal bards exhausted their imagination in the 
 composition of those encomiastic addresses, the incense commonly offered up 
 to kings, the Paraeneticon of Craig is grave, dignified, and even admonitory. 
 He is loyal, indeed, but his loyalty has the stamp of truth and sincerity ; his 
 praises are neither abject nor excessive ; and in the advices which he has not 
 scrupled to give to his sovereign, it is difficult which most to admire, the excel- 
 lent sense of the precepts, or the energetic latinity in which they are conveyed." 
 Craig also addressed a similar poem to prince Henry, who accompanied his 
 father to England. 
 
 It would appear that Craig either was one of those who accompanied the king 
 to England, or soon after followed him ; as he was present at the entrance ol 
 his majesty into London, and at the subsequent coronation. He celebrated these 
 events in a Latin hexameter poem entitled, 2TE<5ANO<&OPIA, which is neither 
 the chastest nor the most pleasing of his productions, although the richest in 
 metaphorical ornament and florid description. Craig was, in 1604, one of the 
 commissioners on the part of Scotland, who, by the king's desire, met others on 
 the part of England, for the purpose of considering the possibility of a union 
 between the two countries. He wrote a work on this subject, in which he 
 warmly seconded the patriotic views of the king. This treatise, written, like all 
 his other works, in Latin, has never been published ; although, in point of mat- 
 ter and style, in the importance of the subject to which it relates, the variety of 
 historical illustrations, the sagacity of the political remarks, and the insight into 
 the mutual interests of the two countries which it exhibits, it perhaps deserves 
 to rank the highest of all his works. The work upon which he appears to have 
 been last engaged, is one upon the old controversy respecting the homage 
 claimed from Scotland by the English monarch. The " De Hominio'' of Craig 
 remained in manuscript till the year 1695, when a translation of it was pub- 
 lished by Mr George Ridpath, under the title, " Scotland's Sovereignty Asserted, 
 or a Dispute concerning Homage." 
 
 Cmg was, in the latter part of his life, advocate for the church, and under
 
 576 WILLIAM CRAIG. 
 
 that character was employed at the famous trial of the six ministers in 1606, 
 on a charge of treason for keeping a general assembly at Aberdeen. He was, 
 perhaps, unfitted, by his studious and modest disposition, to come farther forward 
 in public life. King James repeatedly offered him the honour of knighthood, 
 which he as constantly refused : he is only styled " Sir Thomas Craig," in con- 
 sequence of an order from the king, that every one should give him the title. 
 He had been married, in early life, to Helen Heriot, daughter of the laird of 
 Trabrown, in East Lothian, to which family belonged the mothers of two great 
 men of that age, George Buchanan and the first earl of Haddington. By this 
 lady he had four sons and three daughters. Sir Lewis Craig, the eldest son, 
 who was born in 1569, was raised, at the age of thirty-four, to the bench, where 
 he took the designation of Lord Wrightehouses. As this was in the life-time of 
 his own father, the latter had sometimes occasion to plead before his son. A 
 pleasing tradition regarding the filial respect shown by Sir Lewis, is preserved 
 in the biographical sketch prefixed to the treatise De Feudis. The supreme 
 judges in those days sat covered, and heard the counsel who pleaded before them 
 uncovered. " Whenever," says his biographer, " his father appeared before 
 him, Sir Lewis, as became a pious son, uncovered, and listened to his parent 
 with the utmost reverence." 
 
 Another family anecdote of a very pleasing character is derived from the 
 same source. The father of Sir Thomas Craig had been educated in the Roman 
 Catholic religion. His son, whose studies, after his return from France, were, 
 as we have seen, superintended by Mr John Craig, the eminent reformer, ap- 
 pears early and eealously to have embraced the new opinions. The old man 
 continued in the faith of the church of Rome till a late period of his life ; but, 
 being at length converted by the unanswerable reasons which were incessantly, 
 though reverentially, urged by his son, he became, to the great joy of the sub- 
 ject of this memoir, a convert to the true religion. 
 
 This great man died on the 26th of February, 1608, when, if we are right 
 as to the date of his birth, he must have attained his seventieth year. 
 
 CRAIG, WILLIAM, a distinguished senator of the college of Justice, and a 
 large contributor to the literary paper styled " the Mirror," was the son of Dr 
 William Craig, one of the ministers of Glasgow ; a man of so much eminence, 
 that the editors of the Biographia Britannica thought proper to admit an ac- 
 count of him, drawn up by professor Richardson, into their very select collec- 
 tion. 1 The subject of the present memoir was born in 1745, and received his 
 education at Glasgow college, where he attended the classes of Smith in moral 
 philosophy and political economy, and those of Millar in jurisprudence and 
 ci>il law. His acquirements were at an early period very great, especially in 
 the belles lettros, and to a less degree in history and metaphysics. He entered 
 at the bar in 1768, and was the contemporary and intimate friend of some of 
 the most distinguished men of the last age. Robert Blair, afterwards lord president, 
 Alexander Abercromby, afterwards lord Abercromby, along with Craig and some 
 others, held for some years a private meeting once every week, for mutual im- 
 provement in their legal studies. It is remarkable that, at the commencement of 
 Mr Pitt's administration in 1784, Blair, Abercromby, and Craig were appointed 
 together to be depute advocates under Sir Ilay Campbell, who was at the same 
 time nominated lord advocate. Mr Craig held this office till 1787, when he 
 was nominated sheriff of A yrshire. On the death of lord Hailes in 1792, Mr 
 Craig was appointed to succeed him on the bench, on which occasion he assumed 
 
 1 Dr Craig was author of an Essay on the Life of Christ, and of Twenty Discourses on 
 various subjects.
 
 WILLIAM CRAIG. 577 
 
 the designation of lord Craig. In 1795, he succeeded lord Henderland as a 
 judge of the court of justiciary. 
 
 In the concluding number of " the Mirror," which appeared on the 17th of 
 May 1780, it is mentioned that " the idea of publishing a periodical paper in 
 Edinburgh took its rise in a company of gentlemen, whom particular circum- 
 stances of connection brought frequently together. Their discourse often turned 
 upon subjects of manners, of taste, and of literature. By one of those accidental 
 resolutions of which the origin cannot easily be traced, it was determined to put 
 their thoughts in writing, and to read them for the entertainment of each other. 
 Their essays assumed the form, and, soon after, some one gave them the name 
 of a periodical publication. The writers of it were naturally associated ; and 
 their meetings increased the importance, as well as the number of their produc- 
 tions. Cultivating letters in the midst of business, composition was to them an 
 amusement only ; that amusement was heightened by the audience which this 
 society afforded ; the idea of publication suggested itself as productive of still 
 higher entertainment It was not, however, without diffidence that such a re- 
 solution was taken. From that and several circumstances, it was thought proper 
 to observe the strictest secrecy with regard to the authors ; a purpose in which 
 they have been so successful, that at this moment, the very publisher of the work 
 knows only one of their number, to whom the conduct of it was intrusted." 
 
 It is now to be mentioned, upon the credit of the sole survivor of the asso- 
 ciation above alluded to, that the first idea of starting this periodical work oc- 
 curred to Mr Craig, who, next to Mr Mackenzie, was the most zealous of them 
 all in the cultivation of the belles lettres. The remaining persons concerned 
 were Mr Alexander Abercromby, of whom a memoir has been given in the pre- 
 sent dictionary, Mr Robert Cullen, afterwards lord Cullen, Mr Macleod Banna- 
 tyne, afterwards lord Bannatyne, Mr George Home, afterwards lord Wedderburn, 
 and one of the principal clerks of session, Mr William Gordon of-Newhall, and 
 Mr George Ogilvy, both also advocates, but of whom the first died, and the 
 latter fell into bad health before having made any contribution to the Mirror. 
 Mr Mackenzie was the only individual unconnected with the bar. The associa- 
 tion was at first termed the Tabernacle ; but when the resolution of publishing 
 was adopted, it assumed the name of the Mirror Club, from the title of the 
 projected paper. It was resolved to commit the business of publishing to Mr 
 Creech, the well-known bookseller, and the duty of communicating with him, 
 and of the general superintendence of the work, was devolved on Mr Macken- 
 zie. The club used to meet once a-week, sometimes in one tavern, sometimes in 
 another, in order that their proceedings might be less liable to the observation 
 of their acquaintance. A list of their haunts will tell strangely in the ears 
 of those who, thinking of the Mirror as the pink of elegance in literature, might 
 expect to find that every circumstance connected with its composition was alike 
 elegant. The club met, for instance, sometimes in Clerihugh's, in Writer's 
 court, sometimes in Somers's, opposite the Guardhouse in the High street, some- 
 times in Stewart's oyster-house in the Old Fish-market close, and fully as often, 
 perhaps, in Lucky Dunbar's, a moderate and obscure house, situated in an alley 
 leading betwixt Forrester's and Libberton's Wynd. On these occasions, any mem- 
 ber who had written a paper since the last meeting, produced it to be read and 
 considered. But, as a general invitation had been held out for contributions from 
 persons not members of the club, and a box placed at Mr Creech's shop for re- 
 ceiving them, the papers so contributed, as well as those produced by the mem- 
 bers, were read over and considered, and a selection made of those proposed to 
 be adopted. Among these occasional contributors were several individuals of 
 great respectability, of whom we may mention lord Hailes, professor Richard- 
 
 I. 4 1>
 
 578 DAVID CRAWFORD. 
 
 son of Glasgow, Dr Henry, author of the History of Great Britain, and Mr 
 David Hume, now one of the barons of exchequer. Some other papers of no 
 inconsiderable merit were supposed to be from ladies. The Mirror was com- 
 menced on the 23d of January, 1779, and finished with the 110th number on 
 the 27th of May, 1780. It appeared in one small folio sheet, which was sold 
 at three half pence, and though not above four hundred were ever sold of any 
 particular number, the public approbation was so high as to demand the imme- 
 diate republication of the whole in three volumes duodecimo. 
 
 Mr Craig's contributions to the Mirror, which were the most numerous, next 
 to those of Mr Mackenzie, are indicated in a later edition of the work: 
 
 To the Lounger, which was started some years after by the same club, he 
 also contributed many excellent papers. 
 
 Lord Craig, who possessed originally a very weak constitution, enjoyed so 
 poor a state of health in his latter years as to be obliged to resign his place on 
 the justiciary bench. He died on the 8th of July, 1813. The mental quali- 
 fications of this eminent person were of a very high order. Although his prac- 
 tice at the bar had never been very extensive, he was much esteemed in his 
 character as a judge, his decisions being remarkable for their clearness and pre- 
 cision, while his habits were of a singularly industrious order, considering the 
 state of his health. In private life he was beloved on account of his gentle, 
 unassuming manners, and his eminently benevolent and sociable disposition. 
 
 CRAWFORD, DAVID, of Drumsoy, near Glasgow, historiographer to queen 
 Anne, was born in 1665, and educated to the bar. Having abandoned profes- 
 sional pursuits in a great measure, for the sake of studying Scottish antiquities 
 and history, he was appointed historiographer royal for Scotland by queen Anne, 
 to whom he was probably recommended by his being a zealous tory and Jaco- 
 bite. His political prepossessions, which, as usual, extended to a keen zeal in 
 behalf of queen Mary, induced him in 1706 to publish, at London, his well- 
 known work, entitled " Memoirs of the affairs of Scotland, containing a full 
 and impartial account of the Revolution in that kingdom, begun in 1567, faithfully 
 compiled from an authentic MS." The avowed purpose of this publication was 
 to furnish an antidote to the pernicious tendency of Buchanan's history. The 
 substance of the work, he says he derived from an ancient MS. presented to him 
 by Sir James Baird of Saughtonhall, and which seemed to have been composed 
 by a contemporary of the events described. In executing the task which he had 
 imposed upon himself, the learned editor appears to have acted after the manner 
 of a good partizan. In order that his work might the more perfectly meet the 
 calumnies of Buchanan, he expunged from it every passage which told in behalf 
 of the views taken by that writer, and introduced others instead from the con- 
 temporary tory writers. The work was reprinted by Goodall in 1767, and still 
 continues to be a popular narrative of the events of the four Regencies. In 
 1804, Mr Malcolm Laing, author of the History of Scotland during the seven- 
 teenth century, having obtained possession of the original MS. used by Craw- 
 ford, published it, with a preface, denouncing the historiographer-royal as a 
 rank impostor, inasmuch as he had set off that as a work of authority which had 
 been vitiated for party purposes by his own hand. The same view has been 
 taken of Mr Crawford's character by Mr Thomas Thomson, in the preface to a 
 new print of the MS. for the use of the Bannatyne Club, which appeared in 
 1825, under the tide of " The History and life of king James the sext." With 
 deference to these writers, it may be suggested, in Crawford's defence, that his 
 work was never pretended to be a faithful transcript of the original MS. except on 
 the title page, where it is so stated by the bookseller ad captandum, in obvious 
 contradiction of the statement made by the editor within. The work comes
 
 WILLIAM CREECH. 579 
 
 forth with the character of a special pleading avowed upon the face of it ; and 
 those who depended uj>on such a refacciamento as upon a faithful contemporary 
 chronicle, after the account given of it in the editor's preface, had only to blame 
 their own simplicity. The truth is, Crawford's Memoirs, when fully considered 
 with a regard to the ideas prevalent respecting the purity of historical narrative 
 at the beginning of the last century, will only appear an imposture to an op- 
 posite partizan. Crawford died in 1726. 
 
 CREECH, WILLIAM, an eminent bookseller, was the son of the Rev. William 
 Creech, minister of Newbattle, a most respectable clergyman, and of Miss Mary 
 Buley, an English lady, related to a family of rank in Devonshire. He was 
 born in the year 1745, and received a complete classical education at the school 
 at Dalkeith, which was taught by Mr Barclay, a preceptor of some distinction, 
 who also educated the first viscount Melville, and the lord chancellor Lough- 
 borough. He was at first designed for the medical profession, but eventually 
 was bound apprentice to Mr Kincaid, a bookseller in Edinburgh. In the year 
 1766, Mr Creech went upon a tour of the continent, in company with Lord 
 Kilmaurs, son of the Earl of Glencairn. After his return, in 1771, he was 
 received by his former master into partnership, and finally, in 1773, left in 
 full possession of the business. For forty-four years, Mr Creech carried on 
 by far the most extensive bookselling concern in Scotland, publishing the 
 writings of many of the distinguished men who adorned Scottish literature at 
 the close of the eighteenth century. His shop, which occupied a conspicuous 
 situation in the centre of the old town, and yet, by a curious chance, command- 
 ed a view thirty miles into the country, was, during all that long period, the 
 Rialto of literary commerce and intercourse, while his house in the neighbour- 
 hood also attracted its more select crowds at the breakfast hour, under the name 
 of Creech's levee. While thus busied in sending the works of his friends into 
 the world, he occasionally contributed articles to the newspapers and other 
 periodical works, generally in reference to the passing follies of the day, of 
 which he was a most acute and sarcastic observer. During his own life-time, he 
 published a volume of these trifles, under the title of " Edinburgh Fugitive 
 Pieces," which was re-published with his name, and with some additions, after 
 his death. He was one of the founders of the Speculative Society in 1764. 
 
 Mr Creech's style of composition is only worthy of being spoken of with 
 respect to its ironical humour, which was certainly its only feature of distinction. 
 This humour, though said to have been very powerful when aided by the charm 
 of his own voice and manner in conversation, is of too cold, wiry, and artificial a 
 kind, to have much effect in print. It must also be mentioned, that, although 
 very staid and rigid in style, it involves many allusions by no means of a decor- 
 ous nature. 
 
 In private life, Mr Creech shone conspicuously as a pleasant companion and 
 conversationist, being possessed of an inexhaustible fund of droll anecdote, which 
 he could narrate in a characteristic manner, and with unfailing effect He thus 
 secured general esteem, in despite, it appeared, of extraordinary fondness for 
 money, and penuriousness of habits, which acted to the preclusion, not only of 
 all benevolence of disposition, but even of the common honesty of discharging 
 his obligations when they were due. He died, unmarried, on the 1 4th of Jan- 
 uary, 1815. 
 
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