house in Edinburgh, if the fellow were not a confirmed bachelor and a fool for being so.

"We are all well here, thank God. Our Mary has got into the very stream of Elgin gaiety, two or three parties a week with music and dancing. I have not seen them begin so early for some years past.

"I am sorry to hear of your hero's mishap (his great-grandson), "but I trust he will soon be himself again. I am greatly more concerned to hear of his father's ailments, having hoped that the bracing air of the Yorkshire hills would have blown them away. We must wait God's time, and that is best if we had but patience and trust in His mercy.

“Tell Joe since he became a Liverpool man of business I have heard nothing from him, and very little of him. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days o' langsyne."

Surely a man, who at such an age, and in spite of such an infirmity as that with which he was visited, showed a mind so active, so sympathetic, so appreciative, and so kindly towards others, may be said to have lived his life right out, long though it was; and if happiness be, as the kingdom of God is, within us, then was Mr. Forsyth a happy man in himself, as he was unquestionably the source of happiness to many

others. But he was a man of strong will, and when he took an idea into his head it was not easy to induce him to relinquish it. It was on his womenkind that this experience principally fell, and they were put at a great disadvantage, being deprived of that weapon which is their heritage, for they had to encounter that strong will and warm temperament no better furnished than with a china slate. But fortunately they had a well-balanced judgment and a thoroughly kind heart to deal with, and he was not always in the wrong even on those occasions.

His friends were hardly less warmly attached to him than his own family, and they embraced all classes of society. The Duke and Duchess of Gordon, last of the Huntly family bearing that title; James, fourth Earl of Fife; and the late Mr. Brodie, of Brodie, were his intimate friends, and there was hardly a gentleman of Moray in his day who did not know and appreciate him. There was not a respectable man in Elgin who would not have claimed him as a friend, and assuredly the most backward would not have been the poor. His personal friends and cronies are all gone. The only one left who, by any figure of speech, could be called his contemporary, is Dr. Gordon of Birnie, mentioned in the note quoted at the beginning of

this chapter, who is a geologist of well-known reputation, and now a very old man. Still there are a few of a younger generation left in Elgin who knew and loved him, and who will endorse all that I have said of him in this memoir. His dearest and most intimate friend was his cousin, Mr. John Jack. The two were inseparable, and sometimes reminded one of Dickens' Cheeryble Brothers. They had been intimate in 1791 as we have seen, and when Mr. Jack settled in Elgin in 1792, they lived in far more than cousinly friendship up to the time of Mr. Jack's death, which took place in 1858 to the great grief of his aged cousin and friend. Another friend who survived him but is now gone, the late Mr. Robert Young, who was for many years his legal adviser and is the author of the "Annals of Elgin and Spynie," thus sums up his char

acter:

"He was energetic and persevering, kind, benevolent, and warm-hearted, a lover of his country and his native place, and anxious for its improvement. A steady friend, abounding in hospitality to strangers, a gentleman and a Christian in every sense of the word.”

APPENDIX.

A.-MEMOIR OF JOSEPH FORYSTH, AUTHOR OF

"REMARKS

DURING A TOUR IN ITALY," BY HIS BROTHER, ISAAC
FORSYTH.

JOSEPH FORSYTH was born in Elgin, county of Moray, North Britain, on the 18th February 1763. His parents were respectable and virtuous. His father, Alexander Forsyth, carried on business as a merchant in that place for fifty years with the greatest credit to himself, which has been continued in succession by his eldest and youngest sons for nearly a century.

As

Joseph, while at the Grammar School of Elgin, was distinguished both by his assiduity and genius. At twelve years of age he was pronounced by his master to be qualified for the university. Being entered as a student at King's College, Aberdeen, he soon attracted the attention and kindness of Professor Ogilvy by the superior performance of his exercises and by the gentleness of his manners. he successively passed under the care of other professors he found himself the object of their approbation and solicitude. Returning every summer to the bosom of his family, he devoted his whole time to study, and thus laid the foundation of that eminent knowledge of the Greek and Roman classics which it was then the business and chief pleasure of his life afterwards to complete. On concluding the four years usually employed in the Scotch University, his parents

left to himself the choice of a profession with a secret hope that he would prefer the Church; but his natural diffidence, and the little prospect he then saw of obtaining a patron determined him on trying to turn his classical acquirements to some account in that universal mart-London. Here he soon formed connection with the master of one of the most respectable academies about town, at Newington Butts, and, entering as assistant and successor, purchased the establishment, and conducted it for thirteen years on his own account with the highest reputation and success. The drudgery and irksomeness of this business were too much for his strength and spirits. Having a tendency to pulmonary complaints, he was, during this period, twice reduced by them to the brink of the grave. Seeing the impossibility of struggling longer with such incongruous duties as the care of his health and the conscientious superintendence of the education of nearly an hundred boarders, he resigned the charge, and retired to Devonshire in the spring of 1801 to recruit his constitution.

After restoring his health by a residence of some months in Devonshire, he came in July 1801 to Elgin to visit his aged and beloved mother, and remained until autumn. During his interval of "learned leisure" his mind was anxiously bent on enjoying the grand object of all the wishes and hopes of his life-a tour through Italy. His intimate acquaintance with the poets and historians of that classic country, both in its ancient and modern state, had already familiarised him with every scene and almost every building it contained. But at this period an insuperable barrier was interposed by Buonaparte-no Briton might tread with safety the soil over which he bore sway. Thus, in the midst of leisure, renovated health, and easy circumstances, was his ardent imagination left, almost in despair, to languish over his favourite object. It may be easily conceived with what rapture he hailed the unexpected happiness the peace of Amiens brought to every heart.