insurrectionary spirit.  This I believe to have been the real motive of an execution which otherwise could not have been palliated:  and, in the case of Lord Pitsligo, it is quite possible that the zeal of a partisan may have led him to take a step which would not have been approved of by the ministry.  After the lapse of so many years, and after so many scenes of judicial bloodshed, the nation would have turned in disgust from the spectacle of an old man, whose private life was not only blameless, but exemplary, dragged to the scaffold, and forced to lay down his head in expiation of a doubtful crime:  and this view derives corroboration from the fact that, shortly afterwards, Lord Pitsligo was tacitly permitted to return to the society of his friends, without further notice or persecution.

Dr. King, the Principal of St. Mary’s Hall, Oxford, has borne the following testimony to the character of Lord Pitsligo.  “Whoever is so happy, either from his natural disposition, or his good judgment, constantly to observe St. Paul’s precept, ‘to speak evil of no one’ will certainly acquire the love and esteem of the whole community of which he is a member.  But such a man is the rara avis in terris; and, among all my acquaintance, I have known only one person to whom I can with truth assign this character.  The person I mean is the present Lord Pitsligo of Scotland.  I not only never heard this gentleman speak an ill word of any man living, but I always observed him ready to defend any other person who was ill spoken of in his company.  If the person accused were of his acquaintance, my Lord Pitsligo would always find something good to say of him as a counterpoise.  If he were a stranger, and quite unknown to him, my lord would urge in his defence the general corruption of manners, and the frailties and infirmities of human nature.

“It is no wonder that such an excellent man, who, besides, is a polite scholar, and has many other great and good qualities, should be universally admired and beloved—­insomuch, that I persuade myself he has not one enemy in the world.  At least, to this general esteem and affection for his person, his preservation must be owing; for since his attainder he has never removed far from his own house, protected by men of different principles, and unsought for and unmolested by government.”  To which eulogy it might be added, by those who have the good fortune to know his representatives, that the virtues here acknowledged seem hereditary in the family of Pitsligo.

The venerable old nobleman was permitted to remain without molestation at the residence of his son, during the latter years of an existence protracted to the extreme verge of human life.  And so, says the author of his memoirs, “In this happy frame of mind,—­calm and full of hope,—­the saintly man continued to the last, with his reason unclouded, able to study his favourite volume, enjoying the comforts of friendship, and delighting in the