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APPENDIX.

No. I.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES of some SCOTSMEN, eminent in Classical Literature, who flourished in the period from the end of the Sixteenth to the beginning of the Eighteenth Century.

1. ROBERT JOHNSTON was author of Historia Rerum Britannicarum, &c. ab anno 1572 ad annum 1628, Amstel. 1655, a work of great merit, whether we consider the judicious structure of the narrative, the sagacity of the reflections, the acute discernment of characters, or the classical tincture of the style. In those passages of his History where there is room for a display of eloquence, he is often singularly happy in touching those characteristic eircumstances which present the picture strongly to the mind of the reader, without a vain parade of words, or artificial refinement of sentiment. We We may cite as an example his description of the death of Mary Queen of Scots, Lib. iv. sub anno 1586; and the circumstances attending the death of Essex, with the author's reflections on that event, Lib. ix. sub anno 1601. A translation of this work, with notes, in the manner of commentary, would be a most acceptable present to the public; but it would require a writer of superior ability, and deeply read in VOL. I.

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the history of the times, to do justice to such an undertaking. Johnston was one of the executors of George Herriot, jeweller to King James VI. the founder of the magnificent Hospital for the education of orphans at Edinburgh, which bears his name: and the historian informs us that the endowment, splendid as it is, would have been greatly more so, si Reges (meaning James and Charles) et Buckingamius obligatam fidem liberássent.

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2. ROBERT BAILLIE, author of a very learned work, Opus Historicum et Chronologicum in quo Historia sacra et profana compendiosè deducitur ex ipsis fontibus, a creatione mundi ad Constant. Magn. Amstel. 1688; but better known as the author of Letters and Journals from 1637 to 1662, published at Edinburgh in 1775, which give a very curious account of the negotiations between the Scots Covenanted Presbyterians and their brethren of England in the latter part of the reign of Charles I. Baillie had been educated at Glasgow, in the time when Episcopacy was established in Scotland, and had received holy orders from Law, Archbishop of Glasgow; but in 1640, he devoted himself entirely to the party of the Covenanted Lords, who sent him to London to draw up heads of accusation against Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, on the score of the innovations which that prelate had introduced into the ritual and mode of worship in Scotland. He was a man of considerable penetration, whose active and intriguing spirit fitted him for performing a distinguished part in times of anarchy and national commotion. His talents had recommended him to the Duke of Lauderdale, by whose interest he was made Principal of the University of Glasgow in 1661. It has been already mentioned, (in the first Note upon the text), that a daughter of Robert Baillie, married to Mr Walkingshaw of Barrowfield, was the grandmother of Lord Kames.

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(9:3. ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAME, author of the History of Great Britain from the Revolution in 1688 to the Accession of George. I. in 1714, (translated from the Latin original by Dr Thomson, and published at London in 1787, in two volumes 4to). This work, which comprehends, the annals of a very interesting period, is written with judgment and candour; and being the composition of a person actively engaged in several of the public transactions which he records, contains many curious anecdotes and facts not to be found in other historians, Cunninghame, by birth a Scotsman, was educated in Holland, where he lived in intimacy with the Scottish and English refugees at the Court of the Prince of Orange; and particularly with the Earls of Argyle and Sunderland, and Mr Carstares, afterwards confidential secretary for Scottish affairs to King William. The Earl of Argyle appointed him tutor to his son Lord Lorn, a young man of uncommon talents, known, at a subsequent period, in the first rank of British statesmen, by the title of John, Duke of Argyle. Cunninghame, while abroad, carried on a regular confidential correspondence with the Ministry, and was afterwards honoured with the office of Resident from the British Court to the Republic of Venice. A coincidence of name has led to the confounding of the historian with Alexander Cunninghame, the celebrated editor and emendator of Horace, and the antagonist of Bentley; but the evidence produced by Dr Thomson, in a very elaborate preface to Cunninghame's History, leads to a strong presumption that they were different persons and a late writer, under the signature of Crito, in the Scots Magazine for October 1804,, seems to have put this fact beyond question; the editor of Horace having died at the Hague in 1730, and the historian at London in 1737. The style of the original work, as appears from the specimens given by the translator, is in general correct, and suf ficiently perspicuous; but has no pretension either to elegance or

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classical purity. It is chiefly remarkable for expressing with ease, ideas peculiar to modern life and manners. It was a difficult matter, as his translator justly remarks, "to express the humours of the people of England on the occasion of a general election, the extravagance of the Londoners at the time of Dr Sacheverell's trial; "and the temporary importance of butchers with marrow-bones and cleavers, chairmen, porters, chimney-sweeps, link-boys, and black"guards." But that a task even of this kind could be atchieved, in consistence with the purity of the Latin idiom, had been before evinced by Buchanan and Robert Johnston; not to mention the writers of other nations, Strada, Grotius, and Thuanus.

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4. PATRICK HUME, author of a most elaborate and learned Commentary on the Paradise Lost of Milton, published, London 1695, in folio, to which, (says Mr T. Warton), "some of his successors “in the same province, apprehending no danger of detection from a "work rarely inspected, and too pedantic and cumbersome to attract many readers, have been often amply indebted, without even "the most distant hint of acknowledgment," (Warton's edition of Milton's Lesser Poems, &c. Pref.). That great depredations have been frequently made on the labours of Patrick Hume is certain; but the wonder is, that the plunderers should ever have hoped for concealment; for the edition to which the commentary is usually subjoined, is one of the most splendid and beautiful that have ever been published of the Paradise Lost; and the notes display such a depth of erudition and elaborate research, as could scarcely fail to procure them the attention of all the learned readers of Milton. But it is a disgrace to his age, that their author should have met with so much neglect that not a trace is now to be discovered of his history or character.

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5. Mr JOHN SAGE, a Bishop of the Old Episcopal Church of Scotland, a man of great learning, worth and piety, and of uncommon acuteness as a controversial writer in defence of the church to which he belonged. He was profoundly skilled in all the ancient languages, which gave him an eminent advantage over his adversaries, the most distinguished of whom was Mr GILBERT RULE, Principal of the College of Edinburgh, who, with much zeal, and no mean ability, was overmatched by the superior learning and historical knowledge of his antagonist. Sage was born in 1652, the son of Captain Sage, a gentleman of Fifeshire, and an officer of merit in Lord Duffus's regiment, who fought on the side of the Royalists when Monk stormed Dundee in 1651. The chief writings of Bishop Sage are, The Fundamental Charter of Presbytery, London 1693; The Principles of the Cyprianic Age, London 1695; A Vindication of that Work, London 1701; The Life of Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, prefixed to Ruddiman's edition of The Translation of Virgil's Eneis, Edinburgh 1710; An Introduction to Drummond's History of the Five Jameses, Edinburgh 1711. The Life of Sage was well written by Mr John Gillan, a Bishop of the same church, published at London in 1714; and several interesting notices of him are given in Mr Chalmers's instructive and curious Life of Ruddiman.

I shall mention a few other writers who do honour to Scotland, and who may be ranked in the class of elegant, though not profound scholars, during the same unfavourable period, from the beginning of the reign of Charles I. till the Revolution.

1. WILLIAM DRUMMOND of Hawthornden, whose various talents, improved by a most liberal education, and polished by a long residence in foreign countries, fitted him to be the ornament of a court,

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