the minstrel of the Cavaliers, in his elegy "Upon the Death of the Earl of Balcarres."*

*This elegy contains some very noble lines; the following, I think, I need no apology for introducing here:

"Though God, for great and righteous ends,

Which his unerring Providence intends
Erroneous mankind should not understand,
Would not permit Balcarres' hand,
(That once, with so much industry and art,
Had closed the gaping wounds of every part,)
To perfect his distracted nation's cure,
Or stop the fatal bondage 'twas t' endure;
Yet, for his pains, he soon did him remove
From all th' oppression and the woe
Of his frail body's native soil below,
To his soul's true and peaceful country above.
So, Godlike kings, for secret causes, known,
Sometimes, but to themselves alone,

One of their ablest ministers elect,
And send abroad to treaties which they intend
Shall never take effect;

But, though the treaty wants a happy end,
The happy agent wants not the reward
For which he laboured faithfully and hard;
His just and gracious master calls him home,
And gives him, near himself, some honourable room.

Noble and great endeavours did he bring
To save his country and restore his king;
And whilst the manly half of him, (which those
Who know not love to be the whole suppose,)
Perform'd all parts of virtue's vigorous life,
The beauteous half, his lovely wife,
Did all his labours and his cares divide,
Nor was a lame nor paralytic side;
In all the turns of human state,
And all th' unjust attacks of fate,

Immediately after the Restoration, Lord Balcarres having “pawned and ruined his estate" in the royal cause,* King Charles, in the promptest and kindest manner, settled a pension of L.1000 a-year on his widow and the eldest survivor of her two sons, on the former giving up, during their minority, a patent which had been granted their father of the hereditary government of the Castle of Edinburgh.-And here I think it not only due to the memory of the unfortunate House of Stuart to bear testimony to the constant kindness and sympathy which my own family experienced at their hands, (not merely during the sunshine of their prosperity, but in the darkest hours of mutual destitution and exile,)-but indispensable also, in the present instance, to account for the feeling of personal and affectionate gratitude entertained for them by the author of the following memoirs, and which must be borne in recollection as the key, in great measure, to the whole history of his life.

For several years after the Restoration, Lady Balcarres re

She bore her share and portion still,
And would not suffer any to be ill.
Unfortunate for ever let me be

If I believe that such was he
Whom in the storms of bad success,
And all that error calls unhappiness,

His virtue and his virtuous wife did still accompany!

His wisdom, justice, and his piety,

His courage, both to suffer and to die,
His virtues-and his lady too,

Were things celestial."

Baxter.

sided in privacy in Fifeshire, devoting herself to the education of her children. Charles, the eldest, dying in 1662, her care became then concentrated on the survivor, Colin, and his sisters. Her maternal duties fulfilled, she became the second wife of Archibald, the unfortunate Earl of Argyle, beheaded in 1685, whom also she survived for many years.

In 1670, on attaining the age of sixteen, Lord Balcarres went to Court, and was presented to King Charles by his cousingerman, the Duke of Lauderdale. He was extremely handsome; the King was pleased with his countenance, said he had loved his father, and would be a father to him himself, and, as an earnest of his favour, appointed him to the command of a select troop of horse, composed of one hundred loyal gentlemen who had been reduced to poverty during the troubles. This post, however, he lost about three years afterwards, in consequence of his marriage with Lady Jean Carnegie, daughter of the Earl of Northesk, which, under the peculiar circumstances, excited the King's displeasure. He was forbid the Court, and lived for six years with his wife in the country, employing his time in acquiring languages and knowledge, and in repairing what was wanting in his education. "These years," says his son, James Earl of Balcarres, in his MS. Memoirs, "he often said, were the happiest part of his life, as he loved his wife, and lived cheerfully and in plenty with his friends." His social qualities, it may be added, were of a very high order; “ the Duke of Marlborough, with whom he had an early friendship,

often said that he was the pleasantest companion he ever knew ;' and a modern historian of the period in which he lived has combined the epithets of "elegant and learned" in the expression of his character. But though elegance may adorn, and talent dignify, the individual in whom they are united, they are insufficient to command esteem; it was to qualities of a far higher order that Lord Balcarres owed that of the hero of Blenheim, owed, indeed I may say, the prolongation of his own life, when, on a subsequent occasion, both of them having long been descending the vale of years, the goodwill which flowed from that esteem interposed to save him from the executioner.

On the death of Lady Balcarres, Colin had leave to return to Court, and was received by the King with much kindness.

On the accession of James II., who ever showed him peculiar regard, he was appointed one of the council of six, or commissioners of the treasury, in whom the Scottish administration was lodged. It is from this period that the historical memoir, to which this short notice is introductory, commences.

I need not recapitulate the steps that led to James's ruin, or detail the progress of the Revolution which overthrew his dynasty. But, as connecting the narrative of public events contained in the following memoir, with the personal history of the writer, a few extracts from the work of his son, Earl James, may not be unacceptable, more especially as, in the narrative of the former, his modesty has suppressed the principal share that he had in originating the only hopeful scheme that

seems to have been proposed for maintaining the royal interest in Scotland and the north of England.

"When the Prince of Orange's invasion became certain, Colin and his friend the Earl of Cromarty* consulted upon what could be done in Scotland to defend the King, the Chancellor, Lord Perth, having been ordered to do nothing without their advice. They were of opinion that much was in their power. There was, from unusual economy, above ninety thousand pounds in the exchequer; with this they proposed to levy ten battalions of foot, to form a body of four or five thousand men from the Highlands, to raise the Arrière Van, and to select about twelve hundred horse out of them, and with these and between three or four thousand regular troops commanded by General Douglas and Lord Dundee," (forming an army of about fifteen thousand men,) " to march to York, and keep all the northern counties in order. This plan was sent by an express to Lord Melfort, sole secretary of state, and ever at variance with Colin, who always said the King intended him to succeed Melfort, being even then convinced that men of that religion were incapable to serve him. This scheme would have been too honourable for Colin, therefore Melfort (found afterwards to have been advised by Sir James Stewart, his undersecretary, who valued himself for having done so after the Revolution) wrote to the privy council, disapproving of the scheme

* The Lord Tarbat of the Memoirs. He was created Earl of Cromarty by Queen Anne.