our Public Walks, in all of which you took so decided an interest and with which your name is so closely associated. May I hope that this spontaneous tribute of regard will be the means of stimulating others in after generations 'to go and do likewise.' Allow me to add that it will always be pleasing to me to think that, while Chief Magistrate of Elgin, it has thus fallen to my lot to give expression to the feelings of her citizens, and to discharge so pleasant a duty towards her best and most cherished son. I remain, my dear sir, yours very sincerely, "JAMES GRANT. "ISAAC FORSYTH, Esq." To this Mr. Forsyth replied on the 21st July 1851 "MY DEAR PROVOST,-I beg to acknowledge, with that respect and gratitude which it so strongly calls forth, your presentation of the letter conveying the sentiments of yourself, the committee, and the subscribers towards me, with the portrait now so conspicuously placed in the Public Assembly Rooms of our good town. This is an honour, as you and they are well aware, unsolicited, unexpected, and, I fear, unmerited. The services, which you are pleased to notice in such elegant terms, were the spon taneous effect of an irresistible feeling for the welfare and prosperity of Elgin cultivated from my earliest youth, carrying with it a rich reward in the consciousness of its purity, and in the frequent expression of approbation by the friends and companions whom I loved. To have these services thus held forth to become a credit to those who shall succeed and are dear and near to me, not only gilds the evening of my declining day, but touches a chord in the heart of every man; for, even in our ashes live our wonted fires.' "You have most kindly alluded to the assistance which I was fortunately enabled to give to the improvement that had arisen in our town and county during the last half century; and I most gladly avail myself of this opportunity to do justice to the memory of a friend in Exchequer (Mr. Longmore), who promptly acted on the suggestion, and, through whose veneration for our glorious Cathedral and influence with the Right Honourable the Barons, we owe the foundation of those substantial repairs it has since received, as well as its thorough clearance from the vast mass of debris that so long debased and disgraced it. "I request your acceptance of my most grateful thanks for your personal kindness in this communication, and to my respected friends the Committee for all the trouble it must have occasioned you and them. and them. I remain, I remain, my dear Provost, your obliged and obedient servant, "TO JAMES GRANT, Esq., Chief Magistrate of Elgin." "ISAAC FORSYTH. It only remains to mention Mr. Forsyth's hospitality. It was simply unbounded, and, I fear, must have really impaired his means. Not only was it his greatest delight to entertain his own friends, to whom his house and his table were ever open; but, being a well-known man, when strangers visiting Elgin sought introductions from people who knew the place, it was generally to Mr. Forsyth they were given, and the hearty welcome these strangers received was well-known all over the north of Scotland. There were few visitors to Elgin who did not take back kindly remembrances of the genial old man whose greatest delight was to show them the Cathedral, and expatiate on the grandeur and dignity of the old bishops of Moray, once the lords of all these fair lands and noble buildings which adorned the Laigh. When the sons of Elgin returned from distant lands, his was among the first faces to greet and welcome them, and many, who knew nobody else, recognised and foregathered with him. He was a beacon and a landmark to all Moray men of his day both at home and abroad. CHAPTER IX. POLITICAL CHARACTER. POLITICAL CHARACTER OF MR. FORSYTH - GREAT CHANGES WHICH TOOK PLACE DURING HIS LONG LIFE-SLOW POLI- TAKEN BY MR. FORSYTH INDEPENDENCE FRENCH REVOLUTION CHARTISM REMEDIAL LEGISLATION-POSITION OF THE COUNTRY AT MR. FORSYTH'S DEATH. MR. FORSYTH always took a great interest in the political questions of the day. He was a consistent Whig, which was the name by which the party of progress then went. He was also emphatically a Liberal, not in the wretched sense of the word prevalent nowadays, when we have the dictum of one of its leaders that its principal duty is to turn out the Tories, but in the primitive and proper sense of the word, a man devoted to freedom himself in thought, word, and action, and respecting the like quality in others. Indeed, considering the progress |