finish their mutual exercise till three in the morning.1

Mr. Zachary did not long survive this incident. He died about the end of the year 1653, or the beginning of 1654, when the famous Mr. 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 with the noble examples furnished 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, without 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 doctrines of Christianity which he had so earnestly inculcated, both from the pulpit and the press, with the additional comfort and support of a long and laborious life in his Master's service. About twenty-five years before his death, he was so near the verge of the grave, that his friends had made the necessary preparation for his winding-sheet, which he afterwards found among his books. He seems to have recovered from the disease with a renewed determination to employ the remainder of his life in the cause to which he had been previously devoted: he pursued perseveringly to near its termination this happy course, and just lived to complete an extensive manuscript work, bearing for its title The Notable Places of the Scripture Expounded, at the end of which he adds, in a tremulous and indistinct handwriting, "Heere the author was neere his end, and was able to do no more, March 3d, 1653."*

Mr. Zachary had been twice married, first to Elizabeth Fleming, of whom no memorial is preserved, and secondly, to Margaret Mure, third daughter of William 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 Revelationto 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, "I'll lea' him what I canna keep frae him." He seems to have possessed

1 The accurate editor of a new edition of The Last Battell of the Soule (Glasgow, 1831), from whose memoir of Mr. Zachary most of these facts are taken, blames Mr. Baillie, in my opinion unjustly, for having fled on this occasion, while Mr. Zachary had the superior 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 individuals concerned in the bringing home of the king, and consequently in the provocation of the present

war.

Life prefixed to new edition of The Last Battell of the Soule.

an astonishing quantity of worldly goods for a Scottish clergyman of that period. He had lent 11,000 merks to Mure of Rowallan, 5000 to the Earl of Glencairn, and 6000 to the Earl of Loudon; which sums, with various others, swelled his whole property in money to £4527. 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 manuscript 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 for the munificent gift of Mr. Zachary, a bust of his figure was erected over the gateway within the court, with an appropriate 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-Zion's Flowers, or Christian Poems for Spiritual Edification, 2 vols. 4to; The English Academie, containing Precepts and Purpose for the Weal both of Soul and Body, I 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 other 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 subjects with spirit and ingenuity, and there is much which must be acknowledged as flowing from a vigorous intellect, and a fervid and poetical imagination. 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 transmitted to them by the Assembly at Westminster, 'recommended them to avail themselves of the psalter of Rowallan, and of Mr. Zachary Boyd, and 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 considered 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 and 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 commission for public 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 of pains 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's 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 these which are 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 Goliath,' &c., rendered into the dramatic 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,' form an able and judicious defence of the memory of this distinguished man. As some curiosity, however, may reasonably be entertained respecting compositions which excited so much vulgar and ridiculous misrepresentation, we shall make no apology for introducing some specimens of Mr. Boyd'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 cantering upon the mean soil of this nether world, which it sometimes did, I 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 writer:

"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 that never may

Be followed with a night. "O, of all lights the light,

The Light that is most true,
Now banish thou our night,

And still our light renew. "Thy face now to us show

Ó 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 moveThou most perfytely good, Entirely for to love.

"Us make mind things above,

Even things that most excel;
Of thine untainted love,
Give us the sacred seal,
"O that we light could see

That shineth in thy face!
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.
"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 fathoms deep.

Not so was Noah in his house of tree,

For 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 I sit still in such a straitened roome

As is most uncouth, head and feet together,
Among such grease as would a thousand smother.
I find no 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;
In all the earth like unto mee is none,
Far from all living, I heere lye alone,
Where I entombed in melancholy sink,
Choakt, suffocat," &c.

And it is strange that, immediately after this grotesque description of his situation, Pegasus again ascends, and Jonah begins a prayer to God, conceived in a fine strain of devotion.

BRISBANE, GENERAL SIR THOMAS MACDOUGALL, Bart., G. C. B., &c. This gallant soldier and talented astronomer was born, we believe, in 1773. His ancestors were the Brisbanes of Bishopton, a family of note in their day, whose possessions extended in the fourteenth century from Erskine Ferry, on the Clyde, to Largs; and one of them, William Brisbane, according to Lord Hailes, held in 1332 the high office of chancellor of the kingdom of Scotland. In 1789, Sir Thomas entered the army with the rank of ensign, in the 38th infantry, then stationed in Ireland, and on joining his regiment he was so fortunate as to form an intimate acquaintance with the future Duke of Wellington, at that time unknown to fame, and a young lieutenant in a regiment of cavalry. When the war broke out in 1793, Sir Thomas raised an independent company in Glasgow, with which he joined the 53d at Edinburgh, with the rank of captain; and as this regiment formed part of the army of the Duke of York, Sir Thomas shared in all the battles, reverses, and hardships of that distinguished campaign. This was especially the case at the engagement of Lille, where he was not only himself severely wounded, but had twentytwo men killed and wounded out of the thirty-three composing his company.

In the spring of 1795 Sir Thomas Brisbane returned to England with his regiment, in which he had obtained a majority by purchase, and embarked in the expedition to the West Indies under Sir Ralph Abercrombie. Among the other gallant exploits of the young major in the West India campaign of 1796, one of them is particularly commemorated. Being ordered to attack a fort which was generally supposed to be all but impregnable, he was met on his march by a brother officer, who, on learning the nature of his expedition, bewailed its rashness, and repre

sented that the fort could not be taken. "It can be taken," replied the other hopefully; "for I have the order in my pocket." However veterans might smile at this confidence and the cause that inspired it, Sir Thomas was successful, and the fort was captured. He was also at the reduction of St. Lucia, the siege of Morne-Fortune, the encounters of Chalcot, Castries, and Vigie; and in the reduction of the island of St. Vincent, and during the whole of the Caribean warfare.

His health having suffered from the West India climate, the friends of Sir Thomas purchased for him the colonelcy of the 69th regiment, which had just returned from the West Indies; but on arriving in England, in 1799, he found that the regiment had been unexpectedly sent back to its old quarters. Having recruited his health as hastily as he could, he returned to Jamaica; and, taught by his own experience, he paid there such attention to the health of his men, that on the return of the regiment to England in 1802, only one invalid was left behind. On the regiment being ordered to India, Sir Thomas, in consequence of a severe liver complaint, endeavoured to obtain an exchange into the guards or the cavalry, but being unable to effect it, he was obliged for a time to retire upon half-pay. 1810 he was appointed assistant adjutant-general to the staff at Canterbury, until he was promoted to the command of a brigade under the Duke of Wellington, whom he joined at Coimbra in 1812. He accompanied the army during the whole of the eventful war in the Peninsula, and as his brigade formed

In

a part of Picton's fighting division, Sir Thomas found no lack of military service or personal danger during the whole campaign. His gallant services, however, in its memorable engagements, were crowned with clasps of distinction and parliamentary thanks, and when the war was removed into France, he was present at the battles of Orthes and Toulouse. After the abdication of Napoleon, Sir Thomas was sent to North America, and at the unfortunate affair on Lake Champignon he was ordered to cover the retreat, which he effectually accomplished without loss, by the destruction of the bridge across the Dead Creek. The value of his services in this disastrous campaign in North America was attested by the grand cross of the Bath, which was conferred upon him by government.

The escape of Napoleon from Elba occasioned the recall of Sir Thomas and his brigade from America, and he arrived off the coast of France with twelve regiments, comprising about 10,000 men; but they were too late to participate in the glories of Waterloo. The appearance of such a powerful contingent, on being reviewed before the Duke of Wellington, drew from him the exclamation, "Had I had these regiments at Waterloo, I should not have wanted the Prussians." Sir Thomas remained in France with the army of occupation until 1818, and his scientific attainments being appreciated, he was during this sojourn in Paris unanimously elected a corresponding member of the Institute of France. On his return, he in 1819 married Anna Maria, only daughter of Sir Henry Hay Macdougall, the representative of a very ancient Scottish family, on whose death he succeeded, in right of his wife, to valuable estates, and assumed the name of Macdougall prefixed to his own surname. In 1820 he was appointed to the staff in Ireland, where he commanded the Munster district until the following year, when, by the recommendation of the Duke of Wellington, he was appointed governor of New South Wales.

He

The period of his soldier-life was ended, but a new and more difficult one had commenced. was now the governor of a penal settlement containing a population of about 38,000 souls bond and free, but in which the convict population rather predominated, and where, from the nature of such a people, all the vices of an impaired state of society were to be found, with few of its redeeming virtues. To such materials our military officers were accustomed, where their regiments were chiefly composed of the dissolutely idle and the emptyings of our prisons; and government, that saw how such unpromising materials were manufactured into brave, obedient, and orderly soldiers, hoped for a similar result in their selection of military governors to rule the convict colony. But they forgot that this could only be accomplished by placing the population under martial law, and in vesting the governor with an arbitrary and irresponsible military power to reward and punish. The bond and free, though always at war with each other, were at one in hating and opposing their ruler; and from the Magna-Chartaism which was permitted to New South Wales, its governors were charged with all those evils which they had neither the means nor authority to redress. It was thus that Sir Thomas Brisbane found Australia at the close of 1821, when he entered upon his antipodean government: everything was so reversed, both physically and mentally, that to see them aright he must have stood upon his head. Of course, his administration was complained of, but this was inevitable, and he only added one name more to the list of New South Wales governors who had successively been worried, calumniated, and wearied out.

It

was much, however, that he was, upon the whole, the least unpopular of all who had held the office, and that his departure from the colony was witnessed with regret. Who at that time would have conjectured, or even have dreamed, that only forty years after the population of Australia would be increased more than fiftyfold, and that it would be one of the wealthiest, as well as most populous, of all colonies? In spite of these great impediments, the administration of Sir Thomas Brisbane during the four years of his rule in New South Wales was neither inert nor unproductive; and of his labours as governor the following brief summary is given by his biographer:"He improved the condition of the convicts, substituted useful labour for the treadmill, and above all gave them the blessing of hope by offering tickets of leave for good conduct. At his own expense he introduced into the colony good breeds of horses, as well as the cultivation of the vine, the sugar-cane, cotton, and tobacco." These industrial arts and improvements were what the colony especially needed, and as much perhaps as his limited commission could overtake in a society so constituted. But an act by which he especially distinguished himself will endear him to every lover of science. Availing himself of the bright pure sky of Australia to prosecute his favourite study of astronomy, he established a large observatory at his residence at Paramatta, which was afterwards continued by government; and there, by his careful observations, fixed the positions of, and catalogued, 7385 stars hitherto scarcely known to astronomers. For this splendid work, The Brisbane Catalogue of Stars, he was honoured with the Copley medal from the Royal Society, a reward which he preferred to all his military distinctions. The degree of D.C.L. was also conferred upon him by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

Sir Thomas Brisbane returned from Australia at the close of 1825, and established his residence chiefly at Makerstoun, the property of Lady Brisbane. Here he established both an astronomical and a magnetic observatory, and with the aid of a staff of very able observers, he compiled three large volumes of observations, which were published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Military honours still continued to flow upon him. In 1826 government conferred upon him the colonelcy of the 34th regiment; he was offered the command of the troops in Canada, and soon afterwards the chief command in India; but from the counsels of his medical advisers he was induced to decline both of these honourable appointments. In 1835 he was created a baronet; in 1837 he received the Grand Cross of the order of the Bath; and in 1841 he was made a general in the army. On the death of Sir Walter Scott he was elected president of the Royal Society, Edinburgh. He also founded two gold medals as rewards for scientific merit-one for the Royal Society, and the other for the Society of Arts. After a long life spent in distinction and usefulness, the first part as a gallant soldier, and the last as a man of science, Sir Thomas Macdougall Brisbane died at Brisbane House, on January 31, 1860, at the age of eighty-seven; and as he left no children he was succeeded by his nephew, the son of Admiral Brisbane.

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 23, 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 Constantinople, where, having naturally an aptitude for the acquisition of languages, he made himself a proficient in Turkish, modern Greek, and Italian. On his return 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 having 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, and 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 Caspian 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 £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 characterized as a person of strict integrity, unaffected piety, and exalted but unostentatious 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. In consequence of the circumstances of his parents, he 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 parents' 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. 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 recovered 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, yet so destitute of education as to be unable even to read. 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 his occupation. To screen themselves from the storm and the heat, they built a little lodge among the hills, and to this their mountain tabernacle (long after pointed out under this name by the peasants) they frequently repaired to celebrate their pastoral devotions.