produced on behalf of the Crown, and to take notes." He was unanimously found guilty, and left the bar, bidding their Lordships an everlasting farewell. About a fortnight afterwards he was led out to execution. Without affectation of indifference, or levity unbecoming the solemnity of death, he went through the last scene with a Roman fortitude and with a Horatian sentiment in his mouth. And thus died the most powerful of the Highland chieftains a man who, with the name of virtue continually on his lips, cared not a rush for all the virtue in the world, though he would have given much to have been able to secure a good character.

WE have now to deal with a man, the opposite of Lovat, in all but intellectual capacity; in reading whose history we become prouder of our country, because it was his. A portrait of Duncan Forbes, with all his fund of overflowing affection, sketched in the way Dickens has drawn fictitious characters, would be a delightful study. Much of him is now lost-it being only from a few letters that we can obtain a faint insight into the character of one, who stood in the foremost rank, if his great abilities be regarded in combination with their useful application, and if his claim on the approbation of the world be united with that on its gratitude. Without the high talents that dazzle and astonish, he had the enduring and sterling virtues which have made immortal Rome's proudest names-her sublimest natures. His country he roused from inaction to industry-saved her by his energy and his courage, improved her by his labours, adorned her by his virtues, and ennobled her by his talents and his fame.

One hundred and twenty pages are devoted to this man's life. The space was scarcely sufficient to give half the interesting relics of him that remain, and the finer impulses of so good a heart are lost for ever, since all his writings refer to the public matters in which, against his own happiness, he was so largely mingled. Like the brilliant spots on the highest mountains, when the sun has withdrawn his beams from the rest of the hills and valleys, we may still perhaps discover, amid the obscure mass of papers on public affairs, a bit here and a bit there, illustrative of the delicacy and loftiness of principle, the gentleness of heart, of one who, though involved in the strife of insurrection and civil war, has been consigned to an envied immortality, in the praises of the men whom his courage subdued.

Duncan Forbes was the second son of a country gentleman, the proprietor of the estate of Culloden in Inverness-shire. He was born in 1685-of a family which had, by the economy of successive

heirs, risen to considerable opulence. They were of high Presbyterian principles, and partook largely of the persecutions to which that national party had been exposed. After the Revolution, the estates of Forbes' father were ravaged by the troops of Cannon and Buchan, as a punishment for his adherence to the usurper. For this he received, as compensation, the right to make whisky at a small duty, on his barony of Ferintosh, unhampered by the excise restrictions as to the nature of the still. Being thus allowed to use the small stills, which give a more highly flavoured material, the name of Ferintosh became famous, and its proprietor was in the fair way to fortune.

His

Forbes' parents were everything that was amiable and excellent. Their children were children of many a prayer; and his mother especially, even when he had arrived at manhood, preserved the same tender watchfulness over his happiness. only other near relation was a brother, with whom he lived in terms of the most endearing affection; and indeed it seems to have been impossible, for any one to come within the sphere of Forbes' influence, without being hurried into liking him.

At the age of 19 he was sent to Edinburgh to college, and thereafter he went to Leyden, as was the manner of the Scottish lawyers of his day. He only remained a year abroad, returning in 1707 to commence life by marrying Mary Rose, a daughter of Hugh Rose of Kilravock, who only survived a short period, leaving her husband an only son, by whom he was succeeded in his estates.

He passed at the Scottish bar in 1708, and soon rose to high distinction as a judicious and eloquent pleader. In that day the patronage of lawyers was, in like manner as of literary men, not the patronage of the public, but of some great man; and Forbes was lucky in securing that of the great Argyle. From the correspondence preserved, this appears to have partaken more of friendship than of the connexion of patron and vassal, though Forbes managed all the Duke's estates, for which however he would never accept payment.

ness.

He was actively engaged in the suppression of the Rebellion of the '15, and materially assisted Lovat in the reduction of InverIn his military operations equally as in his more comprehensive civil designs, he displayed a judgment that we look for in vain, amid the professed military commanders of his day. He seldom undertook any design which he did not accomplish—and when the rage of strife had passed, he was the first to sympathize with the unhappy vanquished, and his purse was ever ready to relieve them. How noble a trait is this, in civil war, when men forget that they are brethren! The strife in such a case is not ended with a triumph and a treaty. The desolation which fol

lows the victory, exceeds in intensity all the horrors of ordinary warfare, in which a prudent regard for the morrow, restrains the hands of the victors of to-day. The ferocity of opposition being stimulated by the necessity for after security, the subjugation is not complete unless there is an extinction of the last gleam of hope; and while a foreign country recovers from its disasters, on the retreat of an invading army, the effects of civil war are felt in the long misery of years the forfeitures of possessions-the trials and the brutalities of executions. It was difficult for any mind, however well balanced, to preserve its tone of justice, under the party fury of the civil wars of the last century; and it certainly is one of the rarest things, to find not only justice, but sympathy and active assistance, given by the conqueror, to the man whose broadsword erewhile had been at his throat.

Forbes was, at the time of the rebellion, a depute of the LordAdvocate; and holding that office, it was his duty to appear as the accuser of his countrymen. This, however, was a duty so distasteful to his feelings, that he refused. But he saw, that the mere abstinence on his part, from discharging this duty, would only throw them into hands less merciful. To sustain them, therefore, in their sorrow, and afford them the chance of a fair trial, we have the following instance of his forgetfulness of official duty:

"Edinburgh, November 16th, 1716. "DEAR BROTHER,-The design of this is to acquaint you, that a contribution is a carrying on, [which himself set agoing] for the relief of the poor prisoners at Carlisle, from their necessitous condition. It is certainly Christian, and by no means disloyal, to sustain them in their indigent estate until they are found guilty. The law has brought them to England to be tried by foreign juries; so far it is well. But no law can hinder a Scotchman to wish that his countrymen, not hitherto condemned, should not be a derision to strangers, or perish for want of necessary defence or sustenance, out of their own country. Therefore, if any contribution is carried on for the above purpose with you, it is fit you should give it all the countenance you can by exhortation and example."

It is said that in after life, he was, at the Court of George II., reproached for this humanity. He replied as became the purity of his motive; and the reply was never remembered to his advantage.

He also published a fierce pamphlet, in which he, a young barrister, presumed to lecture the powerful Sir Robert Walpole, on the impolicy of a war of extermination in the Highlands. He suggested other remedies than the coarse implements of the hangman; condemning in unsparing terms the whole conduct of the Government-their cruel rigour to some, their favouritism

Convivialities-Enters Parliament.

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to others the inequality of punishment when there was equality of crime the abuses connected with the forfeiture of possessions, and the calamities that must result from the unceasing. persecution, of whole masses of the unhappy Highlanders, "punished with want and misery, for the offences of their friends; suffered to wander about the country, sighing out their complaints to heaven, and drawing at once the compassion, and moving the indignation of every human creature."

Forbes was of a cheerful disposition, which rendered him in his younger days the life of convivial meetings. He sometimes, however, after the manner of the day, drank himself into excesses which affected his health. Lovat refers to an illness thus, in a letter to his brother; "Clarkey, (Dr. Clark,) swears if he keeps to his directions, that in two years he will be as strong and as well, and as fit for drinking as he was twenty years ago." His experience in this way was useful to him, for by treating the electors, he carried the election of the Inverness Burghs, for which he was returned to Parliament in 1722. It has been unusual for a Scottish advocate practising in Edinburgh, to enter Parliament, unless called there by official duty; but Forbes was a man never at rest, unless engaged in some public schemes, which he could only enforce on the public arena of Parliamentary debate. He found no scope for his ambition in the limited routine of professional duty in a provincial town; and, though at the head of his profession, he went to Parliament, at great pecuniary sacrifice. În London he became acquainted with men who have bound their names to the English language. He is stated in the Scots Magazine, in a contemporary sketch, to have been on intimate terms with Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot and Gay. He was certainly very intimate with Walpole, Lords Lyttleton and Hardwicke; and he addressed Lord Mansfield, as "Dear Will," being often a coadjutor with him in the appeals from Scotland to the House of Lords, in which he was almost always one of the counsel.

Of his appearances in the House of Commons, we can find as little trace as of other contemporary orators. Reporters were not then in being, to marry the orator's burning words to immortal print. He does not appear to have been a frequent speaker; but we rather think that Mr. Burton underrates the quality of his oratory, for in a contemporary memoir, the mode in which he was regarded in the House of Commons is thus stated: "The uprightness and integrity of his heart, with his pathetic and learned discourses, were soon taken notice of in the House of Commons. What flows of eloquence proceeded from his tongue let the learned say." After he became Lord-Advocate, his attendance upon Parliament was of the most unremitting descrip

tion; for in 1734, when his brother was dying, he wrote the whipper-in of Government an excuse from Edinburgh in the following terms:

"You can recollect, that since first I had the honour to serve the Crown, I never was one day absent from Parliament. I attended the first and the last, and every intermediate day of every session, whatever calls I had from my private affairs to be here; while at the same time, my friend the Solicitor-General, was permitted to stay out the whole term in this place; the attendance of one of us upon the courts, in term time, being thought necessary for his Majesty's service."

In a letter which he wrote long afterwards, when occupying the office of President of the Court of Session, he refers incidentally to the difficulty he had in inducing English statesmen to attend to Scottish affairs. After informing his correspondent, Lord Mansfield, then Solicitor-General, of the Bills he had drawn up, and which the Lord-Advocate had carried with him to London, he thus proceeds :

"Now, dear Sir, what brings you this trouble is an apprehension that my. Lord-Advocate may stand in need of assistance to rouse the attention of the men of business, who take the lead in parliament, to what may concern this remote country, unless the evil to be obviated is very mischievous to, and sensibly felt in England. What degree of acquaintance or familiarity my Lord-Advocate stands in with the leaders in Parliament, I cannot tell; but as I, who in my day had the good fortune to stand pretty well with our Government, found it extremely difficult to bring them with any great degree of attention or concern to think of Scotch matters, I greatly doubt he may find it at least as much so, at a season when their thoughts are employed in subjects rather more interesting; and therefore my earnest request to you is, that you will undertake the management of it in full conviction that the fate of Scotland, at least for this generation, depends on it." -MSS.

The Lord-Advocate appears to have been overawed by the great men of the South; and Forbes, whose disposition was as unbending as iron, when there was anything at stake affecting his country's interests, immediately denounced this complying disposition, on the ground that "nothing can be more dangerous to this country than that turn in a man of your Lordship's character and abilities, when the laws or constitution of it is in question."-MSS.

In the year 1725, Dundas of Arniston-Forbes' rival at the bar, and his successor as President of the Court-resigned the office of Lord-Advocate, in consequence of one of those changes in the politics of Scotland, the object and nature of which are now unworthy of resuscitation. Forbes was appointed his suc