quences. This was a bitter disappointment to Mr. Elphinstone, after the great preparations that had been made for the embassy, and the important results which were expected to flow from it. "From the embassy of General Gardanne to Persia," he writes, "and other circumstances, it appeared as if the French intended to carry the war into Asia, and it was thought expedient by the British government in India to send a mission to the King of Cabul; and I was ordered on that duty." This otherwise fruitless mission, however, sufficed to reveal the disappointed diplomatist in a new character. During his stay in that country, hitherto unknown to the British, he had noted everything with an observant eye; and on his return to Calcutta he wrote his work entitled Account of the Kingdom of Cabul. This production, by which he stood out to the world as an author, gives a minute and valuable account of the country, in its geography, natural history, &c.; as well as a history of the embassy; and as such it was a valuable boon to our Indian government, who, on this occasion, had a terra incognita laid open to their view, with all its capabilities and resources. It was intended originally as an official report, but Sir J. Macintosh, at that time in the civil employment of the East India Company, happened to read the work in manuscript, and recommended its publication. It was not committed to the press, however, until 1815. The travels of Sir Alexander Burnes, and the national disasters which befell our arms in Cabul, recalled the attention of the British public to the work, and in consequence of the growing demand, a third edition of it was published, thirty years after it was written, by which the literary fame of its author enjoyed a reduplicated existence. | war. petrators of this enormity has led to imputations, not to be thought of, against your highness' government. Nobody is more convinced of the falsehood of such insinuations than I am; but I think it my duty to state them, that your highness may see the necessity of refuting calumnies so injurious to your reputation. I beg you also to observe, that while Trimbukjee remains at large, his situation enables him to commit further acts of rashness, which he may undertake on purpose to embroil your highness with the British government." The remonstrance was closed with a threat that communications would be closed between the British government and the court of Poona, unless Trimbukjee was brought to trial. After much demur on the part of the peshwa, the offender was delivered to the British government, and placed in close custody. But now came the British part of the difficulty. A trial that revealed the guilt of Trimbukjee might also betray the complicity of the peshwa, and to proceed against the latter might involve the wholesale evils of a Mahratta Satisfied also with having reduced the peshwa to submission, and compelled him to surrender his prime minister to justice, they here stopped short, and allowed Trimbukjee to escape from prison. It was a dangerous case of lenity, the effects of which were to recoil upon their own heads. The fugitive fled to his old master, and plans were concerted secretly between them to throw off their connection with the British, and tempt the hazards of a new Mahratta war. Into these plots Elphinstone pene trated, although the peshwa declared that Trimbukjee had not returned to Poona; nay, he even provided large sums to assist in his capture. Under these and other such devices, the conspiracy was so secretly In 1810 Mountstuart Elphinstone was appointed matured, that even when it broke out into open resident at the court of Poona. Although the warfare, the British in Poona were unaware of the country had considerably improved during his ab- danger. It was well, therefore, that Elphinstone sence, the government was still unsettled; and al- from the beginning had suspected the mischief and though Bajee Rao had been replaced in the office of prepared the remedy. Under his own responsibility peshwa by British influence, and retained in it by he had drawn several bodies of British troops to the British bayonets, he was restless under the ascend- neighbourhood of the capital, and was thus prepared ency of his benefactors, and plotting for rule in- to repel violence by force. Hostilities were comdependent of their aid. Then, too, he had a min-menced by a sudden attack on the British residency; ister and confidant, one Trimbukjee Danglia, whose but Elphinstone, whose military eye detected the character for energy and cunning resembled his own, difficulty of defending it, had previously withdrawn and who was ready to second the views of his master, the troops to a well-chosen position about four miles however unreasonable or unjust. It was this danger- distant from the city, so that all which the insurous pair whom Elphinstone had to watch, to soothe, gents could do was to seize and destroy the buildand to coerce at the court of Poona, while they ing. The military commander of the small British hated his presence, and cared not by what means force was Colonel Barr, a brave old officer, but now they might be rid of him. A peaceful agreement be- half-crippled by paralysis, who intended to stand tween such parties could not be lasting, and an act of merely on the defensive; but Elphinstone, who was violence perpetrated by the peshwa and his minister well acquainted with the nature of Mahratta warhastened the inevitable rupture. An ambassador, fare, which he had learned under Wellington, and who was also a Brahmin, and therefore protected both who, as British resident, had a superior voice in the by political and religious sanctions, had been sent direction of the troops, ordered an advance to meet by the government of Baroda to the court of Poona; the enemy mid-way. This boldness daunted the but having mortally offended the peshwa, he was Mahrattas, so that they fought with only half their assassinated in open day and the public street, by usual spirit, and after a short fight their huge masses hired murderers in the employ of Trimbukjee Dang-recoiled in broken and tumultuary heaps. To Collia. The deed was an insult to every nation, and as such could not be passed over; the British government in India was the only authority that had the power as well as the right to vindicate the universal law of nations; and Elphinstone, as its commissioned resident, insisted upon the apprehension of Trimbukjee and his agents, and if found guilty, that they should be punished. "A foreign ambassador," he said to the peshwa, "has been murdered in the midst of your highness' court. A Brahmin has been massacred almost in the temple during one of the highest solemnities of your religion; and I must not conceal from your highness, the impunity of the per onel Barr, as military commander, this victory was officially ascribed; but the plan, and the excellent movements of the troops, by which the battle was won, were generally and justly attributed to the civilian Elphinstone. The campaign which followed lasted only a few months, and the desultory resistance of the Mahrattas was finally closed by their utter defeat at Ashtee. Much of this success was owing to Elphinstone's counsel, who advised that the troops should be employed in the capturing and occupation of forts, instead of a useless pursuit after a flying enemy, who was too nimble to be reached. The greater part of the conquered territory was an nexed to the dominions of the East India Company, and the rest placed under the rule of the descendants of a former sovereign. As for the defeated and now deposed Bajee Rao, he surrendered to the British, and passed the rest of his days in obscurity in the neighbourhood of Cawnpore. But insignificant though he personally was, he left behind him a fearful inheritance both to the British and his own countrymen, by means of his adopted son, Nana Sahib, and the wealth with which he endowed him. Strange that such a man as this imbecile and forgotten peshwa should have been the remote source of such a terrible tragedy as the Indian mutiny of 1857! In a parliamentary speech of Mr. Canning, descriptive of the state of India at the close of the Pindaree war, the following attestation to the worth of Mountstuart Elphinstone was as honourable as it was justly merited:-"In the midst of this unsuspecting tranquillity, at a moment now known to have been concerted with other Mahratta chieftains, the peshwa manifested his real intentions by an unprovoked attack upon the residency (the house of the British resident) at Poona. Mr. Elphinstone (a name distinguished in the literature as well as the politics of the East) exhibited, on that trying occasion, military courage and skill which, though valuable accessories to diplomatic talents, we are not entitled to require as necessary qualifications for civil employment. On that, and not on that occasion only, but on many others in the course of this singular campaign, Mr. Elphinstone displayed talents and resources which would have rendered him no mean general, in a country where generals are of no mean excellence and reputation." Mr. Elphinstone was now elevated to the responsible office of governor and administrator of the conquered territories of the deposed peshwa, which had been annexed to the British rule. But when the difficulties of conquest had ended, those of government only began. The first of these arose from the predominance of a religious order. The late peshwa being a Brahmin, had largely favoured those of his own caste; and although the new governor endeavoured to conciliate them, they attributed all his concessions to fear and pusillanimity. They accordingly formed an infamous conspiracy, which had for its object the murder of all the Europeans at Poona and Suttara, and the restoration of the Mahratta dominion. Nothing, however, could escape the penetrating eye of Elphinstone; and having detected the conspiracy, he caused the ringleaders to be blown from the mouths of cannon-remarking that while this was the most terrible of punishments in the sight of the beholders, it was the quickest and least painful to the criminals. This terrible instance of justice, which he undertook upon his own responsibility, and which was then an innovation in British India, so completely dismayed the Brahmins that they abandoned all such intrigues for the future. His friend, the governor of Bombay, astounded at this daring proceeding, and fearful of the consequences to Elphinstone himself, advised him to provide himself with an act of indemnity, which the other proudly refused. "If I have done wrong," he said, "I ought to be punished; if I have done right, I don't want any act of indemnity." The military chiefs were next to be restored to obedience. As they were numerically powerful, and held possession of the hill-forts, their hostility to a foreign dominion was only natural, and their rebellion a danger to be apprehended. In this state of things the policy of Elphinstone was wise and conciliatory. He did not attempt to overlay the people with European systems of law and justice, which they neither could understand nor tolerate. He did not depose these powerful feudal chiefs, and with a stroke of the pen convert them into dangerous rebels. Such had been too much the policy of our Indian government, and was productive of disappointment and failure. Instead of this, the changes he introduced were gradual and easy to be borne; and the people were insensibly assimilated, as far as their nationality would permit, to the simple principles of law and order which prevail in every civilized country, and felt themselves happier and better by the change. It would not suit our limits to enter into a detail of Elphinstone's administration of the affairs of the province, but its effects we may briefly state. The example introduced a beneficial change in the government of the conquered provinces of India. With new conquests and annexations, a more simple form of administration, with less disturbance of native institutions, a more liberal employment of natives, larger powers given to British officers, combined with a more careful selection of them, were now introduced into the rule of India. With regard to his own province, Grant Duff, in his history, states, "More was done for the tranquillity of the Deccan in eighteen months than had ever followed a revolution in that disturbed country after a period of many years. The name of Elphinstone was deservedly associated with the acts of the British government, and the memory of benefits conferred by him on the inhabitants of Maharashtra will probably survive future revolutions, and will do much in the meantime to preserve the existence of British India." Nor was this an empty or merely oratorical eulogy. Its truth was tested to the letter in the terrible trial of the Indian revolt in 1857, when the name of Elphinstone was cherished by the Mahrattas, and when it acted like a conciliatory spell long after he had left the country. Even when he died, his kinsman and successor in the government of Bombay could point to a whole pile of letters which he had received from the Mahratta chiefs, eulogizing the virtues and bewailing the decease of their neverforgotten benefactor. After the administration of Mountstuart at Poona had lasted from 1817 to 1819, he was called to occupy a still more elevated sphere. The govern ment of the presidency of Bombay was vacant; and, departing from the usual routine of promotion, Mr. Canning, then president of the Board of Control, recommended that some person distinguished by superior talents and services, irrespective of leanings to rank or seniority, should be elected to the office. He then mentioned the names of Malcolm, Munro, and Elphinstone; and the last, although the youngest of the three, was preferred to be governor of Bombay. Although Elphinstone held this new office during eight years-an unwonted period of arrest in his career of many changes-the events were not of that particular character which occupy a limited biogra phy. The period was one of profound peace, and his course was that of a wise, just, and benevolent ruler, whose administration resembles the dew of heaven, rather than the whirlwind or the thundershower; and the influence of which is seen upon the aspect of a rich happy country, although its descent is so silent and unnoticed. And yet his incessant activity, his watchfulness, his temperate wisdom in the administration of the government of Bombay, and the zeal with which he furthered every attempt to elevate and improve the millions of native subjects over which he ruled, have made every one acknowledge that this was the brightest and best portion of his history. The numerous sketches of his manifold qualities given by his friends during this period, show how well they were adapted to make his people happy, and how effectually such a sequel followed. Of these, however, we can only quote from the amiable, accomplished, and apostolic Bishop Heber, who thus describes him: "Mr. Elphinstone is, in every respect, an extraordinary man, possessing great activity of body and mind, remarkable talent for, and application to, public business, a love of literature, and a degree of almost universal information, such as I have met with in no other person similarly situated, and manners and conversation of the most amiable and interesting character. While he has seen more of India and the adjoining countries than any man now living, and has been engaged in active political, and sometimes military, duties since the age of eighteen, he has found time not only to cultivate the languages of Hindostan and Persia, but to preserve and extend his acquaintance with the Greek and Latin classics, with the French and Italian, with all the elder and more distinguished English writers, and with the current and popular history of the day, both in poetry, history, politics, and political economy. With these remarkable accomplishments, and notwithstanding a temperance amounting to rigid abstinence, he is fond of society, and it is a common subject of surprise, in what hours of the day or night he finds time for the acquisition of knowledge." Such were the accomplishments of the frolicsome school-boy, who arrived in India with "small Latin and less Greek," and who, at a period when the education of others is ended, was obliged to commence his almost from the beginning. Let us now see the bishop's account of the public character of Governor Elphinstone:-"His policy, so far as India is concerned, appeared to me peculiarly wise and liberal, and he is evidently attached to and thinks well of the country and its inhabitants. His public measures, in their general tendency, evince a steady wish to improve their present condition. No government in India pays so much attention to schools and public institutions for education. In none are the taxes lighter; and in the administration of justice to the natives in their own languages, in the establishment of punchayets, in the degree in which he employs the natives in official situations, and the countenance and familiarity which he extends to all the natives of rank who approach him, he seems to have reduced to practice almost all the reforms which had struck me as most required in the system of government pursued in those provinces of our Eastern empire which I had previously visited. His popularity (though to such a feeling there may be individual exceptions) appears little less remarkable than his talents and acquirements, and I was struck by the remark I once heard, that 'all other public men had their enemies and their friends, their admirers and their aspersors, but that of Mr. Elphinstone everybody spoke highly.' Of his munificence, for his liberality amounts to this, I had heard much, and knew some instances myself." We shall venture from Heber's description of a perfect governor realized only one extract more. It is upon Elphinstone's religious character and sentiments, upon which the authority of the worthy prelate may be considered as conclusive. "A charge has been brought against Mr. Elphinstone by the indiscreet zeal of an amiable but not well-judging man-the 'field officer of cavalry,' who published his Indian travels-that he is 'devoid of religion, and blinded to all spiritual truth.' I can only say that I saw no reason to think so. On the contrary, after this character which I had read of him, I was most agreeably surprised to find that his conduct and con | versation, so far as I could learn, had always been moral and decorous, that he was regular in his attendance on public worship, and not only well-informed on religious topics, but well-pleased and forward to discuss them; that his views appeared to me, on all essential subjects, doctrinally correct, and his feelings serious and reverential; and that he was not only inclined to do, but actually did, more for the encouragement of Christianity, and the suppression or diminution of suttees, than any other Indian governor has ventured on. That he may have differed in some respects from the peculiar views of the author in question I can easily believe, though he could hardly know himself in what this difference consisted, since I am assured that he had taken his opinion at second-hand, and not from anything which Mr. Elphinstone had either said or done. But I have been unable to refrain from giving this slight and imperfect account of the character of Mr. Elphinstone as it appeared to me, since I should be sorry to have it thought that one of the ablest and most amiable men I ever met with were either a profligate or an unbeliever." After having thus lived and laboured in India for a long course of thirty-two years, during which he applied for no leave of absence, and scarcely enjoyed even a partial intermission, his stay in the country was terminated in 1827, when he resigned the governorship of Bombay. Although only in his fortyeighth year, and of temperate habits and a strong constitution, even a bow of steel will be relaxed by long and constant tension, and his health was so broken that he could no longer act with his former vigour. It was doubtful if even a return to Europe and a long sojourn there would string his energies anew, and again fit him for the trials of public life either in India or elsewhere. The tidings that he had resigned his government spread sorrow and consternation over Bombay, and an address expressive of their deep regret, headed by the signatures of the princes, chiefs, and native inhabitants, testified the keenness of their feelings. "Until you became commissioner in the Deccan and governor of Bombay," they said in the opening paragraph of the address, "never had we been enabled to appreciate correctly the invaluable benefit which the British dominion is calculated to diffuse throughout the whole of India;" and after detailing the advantages they had enjoyed under his administration, they concluded with the following touching assurance: "The name of Elphinstone shall be the first our children shall learn to lisp, and it will be our proudest duty to preserve indelibly unto the latest posterity the name of so pre-eminent a benefactor to our country. "To gratify their request, a portrait of him, painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, was sent to adorn the chief room of the Native Education Society; and his statue, by Chantrey, placed in the town - hall. But a more useful and enduring monument to his fame was the foundation of the Elphinstone College by the natives themselves, for the purpose of carrying out his plan of education for India, and the announcement of which he prized so highly, that he exclaimed on hearing of it, Hoc potius mille signis! For this institution 272,000 rupees were collected for the foundation of professorships for the instruction of the natives in the English language, and the arts, sciences, and literature of Europe; the chairs to be held in the first instance by learned men invited from Great Britain, until natives should be found competent to fill them. On quitting India, Mr. Elphinstone, instead of returning directly home, spent eighteen months in travelling through Egypt, Syria and Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, so that he did not arrive spent, and which had become to him a second nature in England until May, 1829. Although so far ad- he felt that it was a very different matter to comvanced in years, the proficiency he had already made mit himself to the press and the inspection of the in scholarship by self-education had only increased world at large, more especially in old age, and with his desire for further acquirements, so that he now the confirmed habits of another life than that of settled down as a student in earnest. Seeking to authorship. There were also public claims upon his perfect himself in classical knowledge, he resided in time and attention, and the visits of friends to interLondon, and occasionally visited Italy; but his more rupt his working hours; as well as the state of his common practice was to retire with a collection of health, which required his abandonment of labour, books to some quiet watering-place, where he could and a migration to milder climates. Beyond the study some months of each year undisturbed. On Hindu and Mahometan periods he was unable to his first return to London, he had been so pain- advance, and in 1842 he was obliged to give up the fully struck, in consequence of associating with the attempt. But notwithstanding these drawbacks, the great scholars of the age, with his still defective unfinished history, which was published by instalknowledge of the Greek tongue, that he took up ments, was appreciated as a most valuable addition his abode for many months at a roadside inn, and to our knowledge of India. "If it fail," adds his biolaboured over the grammars and dictionaries of the grapher, "to be a popular work, this springs mainly language, while the political world marvelled as to from the nature of the subject with which it deals. where he had hid himself, and how he was em- The history of a race so deficient in historical records ployed. As public events went onward, the compli- as the Hindus, resolves itself into a series of historication of affairs in our Indian government became so cal disquisitions that cannot interest the many; while difficult, that the want of such a master intellect as that of the Mahometan period, important as it is that of Elphinstone to disentangle them was felt by in its bearing on modern history, becomes insipid our leading statesmen. Accordingly, in 1836, the from the sameness of the revelations that it records. governor-generalship of India was offered to him by Mr. Elphinstone's narrative introduces as much of Lord Ellenborough, on the part of Sir Robert Peel's philosophical reflection as the subject admits of, and administration, and renewed by the government his remarks have a direct bearing on the important which succeeded; but each offer he felt himself com- events with which the European reader is interested, pelled to decline. The general regret in consequence and to which the early narrative is only regarded as of these refusals was expressed by Lord Ellenborough, an introduction. Nothing, too, can be more graphic when he declared at a public meeting, that had Mr. and masterly than the account of the manners and Elphinstone accepted the office of governor-general character of the different races of India, to which there would have been no Afghan war, an event with some interesting chapters are devoted." A still which the subsequent disasters of India were more higher praise than this was accorded, when Elphinor less nearly connected. But the health of the ex- stone was termed by the literary world the "Tacitus governor of Bombay had been too rudely shaken to of Indian historians." recover its former soundness, and his modesty may have been conscious that he had no longer the endurance and active energy that were needed for such a trying position. He was now also living in that studious peaceful atmosphere which was more congenial to the condition of an invalid. It was not, however, as a mere literary epicure that he settled down into such a mode of life. The knowledge which his active mind acquired he must reproduce, and that, too, not in conversation or correspondence, but in the laborious form of a book. This being certain, it was easy to guess what direction his authorship would assume. With India his life had been identified. It was there that he chiefly had learned what he knew, and performed those deeds which would give him a lasting name; with that region also his affections were interwoven, so that the welfare of its people was as dear to him as if they had been his countrymen and his brethren. He would write a history of India, and enlist the sympathies of Europe in its behalf. What remains to be told of this distinguished personage may be comprised within a few sentences. So conscious was he of the necessity of retirement, and so enamoured of his student life, that he not only once and again refused the governor-generalship of India, but also the governor-generalship of Canada, and a peerage. At the accession of her majesty he was also offered the order of the Bath, and a seat in the privy-council, but these tempting offers he also respectfully declined. His last years were spent in Hookwood, Kent, which was recommended to him by its healthiness and the beauty of its scenery; but here about the same time (1847) he was attacked by a malady the most trying to a lover of books; this was a weakness of eye-sight, which prevented him from reading, so that for this he was obliged to use the assistance of others. But his resignation and cheerfulness of spirit were still unbroken, and the last twelve years of his protracted life were like the close of a summer's day. This blessing he could also appreciate and enjoy to the full, and writing to a valued friend a few days before his death, he thus expressed himself:-"It is wonderful how my health improves as I advance in years, and I have much to thank God for in being in so much better health of late than I have been for years." A few months before he died he was conscious of the decline of his faculties, and occasionally haunted by the dread of outliving them, but from this melancholy termination he was mercifully spared. On Friday, the 18th of November, 1859, he had passed his evening as Having resolved upon this feat, Mr. Elphinstone, in 1834, commenced the work in earnest. As the history of India necessarily divides itself into separate portions, in consequence of the successive conquests it has undergone, and the different nations by whom it has been ruled, he commenced with the Hindu period, when the original natives lived under the institutes of their great lawgiver, Menu. Both the Hindu and Mahometan portions were finished in 1839, after which he advanced to the history of India under the domination of the European races who have succes-usual, listening to "his reader," and retired to rest sively prevailed there until the country became a portion of the British empire. It was a very complex subject, but this was not his only difficulty. Admirable as he had always been in conversation, in letterwriting, and the drawing up of official reports-proceedings in which his whole life had hitherto been about eleven o'clock. Early on the following morning, in consequence of hearing an unusual sound in his room, the servants went in, and found him suffering under a stroke of paralysis. On rallying, he dressed himself, and sat in a chair until his medical attendant came, who advised him to return to bed. During Saturday he seemed at times to be conscious, but could not speak distinctly; and on the following day he expired, apparently without pain. as to have the success of the embassy wholly attributed to him. As the reward of such an important service, he was on his return, in 1479, made archdeacon of Argyle; and as this was not considered as ELPHINSTON, WILLIAM, a celebrated Scottish at all adequate to his merits, the bishopric of Ross prelate, and founder of the university of Aberdeen, was shortly after added. The election of the chapter was born in the city of Glasgow in the year 1431. of Ross being speedily confirmed by the king's lettersHis father, William Elphinston, was a younger brother patent under the great seal, Elphinston took his seat of the noble family of Elphinston, who took up his in parliament, under the title of electus et confirmatus, residence in Glasgow during the reign of James I., and in the year 1482. It does not appear, however, was the first of its citizens who became eminent and that he was ever anything more than bishop elect of acquired a fortune as a general merchant. His mother Ross; and in the following year, 1483, Robert was Margaret Douglas, a daughter of the laird of Blackadder, Bishop of Aberdeen, being promoted to Drumlanrick. His earliest youth was marked by a the see of Glasgow, Elphinston was removed to that decided turn for the exercises of devotion, and he seems of Aberdeen. He was next year nominated, along to have been by his parents, at a very early period of with Colin Earl of Argyle, John Lord Drummond, his life, devoted to the church, which was in these days Lord Oliphant, Robert Lord Lyle, Archibald Whitethe only road to preferment. In the seventh year of law, archdeacon of Loudon, and Duncan Dundas, his age he was sent to the grammar-school, and having lord lyon king-at-arms, to meet with commissioners gone through the prescribed course, afterwards studied from Richard III. of England for settling all disphilosophy in the university of his native city, then putes between the two countries. The commissioners newly founded by Bishop Turnbull, and obtained the met at Nottingham on the 7th of September, 1484, degree of Artium Magister in the twenty-fifth year and, after many conferences, concluded a peace beof his age. He then entered into holy orders, and twixt the two nations for the space of three years, was appointed priest of the church of St. Michael's, commencing at sunrise September 29th, 1484, and situated in St. Enoch's Gate, now the Trongate, to end at sunset on the 29th of September, 1487. where he officiated for the space of four years. Be- Anxious to secure himself from the enmity of James ing strongly attached to the study both of the civil at any future period, Richard, in addition to this and canon law, he was advised by his uncle, Lawrence treaty, proposed to marry his niece, Anne de la Pool, Elphinston, to repair to the Continent, where these daughter of the Duke of Suffolk, to the eldest son branches of knowledge were taught in perfection. of King James. This proposal met with the hearty Accordingly, in the twenty-ninth year of his age, he approbation of James; and Bishop Elphinston with went over to France, where he applied himself to the several noblemen were despatched back again to study of law for the space of three years, at the end Nottingham to conclude the affair. Circumstances, of which he was called to fill a professional chair in however, rendered all the articles that had been the university of Paris, and afterwards at Orleans, agreed upon to no purpose, and on the fatal field in both of which places he taught the science of of Bosworth Richard shortly after closed his guilty law with the highest applause. Having in this man- career. The truce concluded with Richard for ner spent nine years abroad, he was, at the request three years does not appear to have been very strictly of his friends, especially of Andrew Muirhead, his observed, and on the accession of Henry VII. principal patron (who, from being rector of Cadzow, Bishop Elphinston, with Sir John Ramsay and others, had been promoted to the bishopric of Glasgow), went again into England, where they met with compersuaded to return to his native country, where he missioners on the part of that country, and on the 3d was made parson of Glasgow, and official or com- of July, 1486, more than a year of the former truce missary of the diocese. As a mark of respect, too, being still to run, concluded a peace or rather a cesthe university of Glasgow elected him lord-rector sation of arms, which was to continue till the 3d the same year. On the death of Bishop Muirhead, of July, 1489. Several disputed points were by this which took place only two years after his return, treaty referred to the Scottish parliament, which it he was nominated by Schevez, Bishop of St. Andrews, was agreed should assemble in the month of January official of Lothian; an office which he discharged so following. A meeting of the two kings, it was also much to the satisfaction of all concerned, that James stipulated, should take place in the following summer, III. sent for him to parliament, and appointed him when they would, face to face, talk over all that reone of the lords of his privy-council. It may belated to their personal interests, and those of their noticed here, as a curious fact, that at this period men of various degrees sat and deliberated and voted in parliament without any other authority than being summoned by his majesty as wise and good men, whose advice might be useful in the management of public affairs. So little, indeed, was the privilege of sitting and voting in parliament then understood, or desired, that neither the warrant of their fellowsubjects, nor the call of the king, was sufficient to secure their attendance, and penalties for non-attendance had before that period been exacted. Elphinston was now in the way of preferment; and being a man both of talents and address, was ready to profit by every opportunity. Some differences having arisen between the French and Scottish courts, the latter, alarmed for the stability of the ancient alliance of the two countries, thought fit to send out an embassy for its preservation. This embassy consisted of the Earl of Buchan, Lord-chamberlain Livingston, Bishop of Dunkeld, and Elphinston, the subject of this memoir, who so managed matters realms. Owing to the confusion that speedily ensued this meeting never took place. Bishop Elphinston, in the debates betwixt the king and his nobles, adhered steadfastly to the king, and exerted himself to the utmost to reconcile them, though without effect. Finding the nobles nowise disposed to listen to what he considered reason, the bishop made another journey to England, to solicit in behalf of his master the assistance of Henry. In this also he was unsuccessful; yet James was so well pleased with his conduct, that on his return he constituted him lord high-chancellor of Scotland, the principal state office in the country. This the bishop held till the death of the king, which happened a little more than three months after. On that event the bishop retired to his diocese, and applied himself to the faithful discharge of his episcopal functions. He was particularly careful to reform such abuses as he found to exist among his clergy, and for their benefit composed a book of canons, taken from the canons of the primitive church. He was, however, |