A Memoir of Lady Colquhoun

When the Editor was requested to compile this Memoir, he could not forget his scanty leisure, and his limited acquaintance with Lady Colquhoun. But the invitation of her family, the belief that a near relative of his own, now no more, would have responded to it with all the eagerness of his fervent nature, and the hope that such a narrative might be blessed to the reproduction of similar characters, at length induced him to make the attempt.

In the prosecution of his undertaking, the Compiler has felt both the lack and the excess of materials. To the affectionate diligence of a family who cannot revere too devotedly the memory of such a parent, and who have kindly put at his disposal all Remains and Recollections likely to illustrate her history, he is indebted for documents which might easily expand this memorial fourfold. On the other hand, many most valuable portions of her Ladyship’s correspondence are gone beyond recal. One series of her letters perished in a conflagration; another was lost at sea; and many have disappeared as they passed into hands less careful than theirs who first received them. And, precious as is her Diary, having been kept for uses entirely personal, it contains few singular or extrinsic incidents. The difficulty of selection has been great. Many references are omitted which would have been peculiarly gratifying to relatives and friends; and many passages, in themselves so edifying, that their suppression caused a pang at the moment, and still leaves a misgiving. But, in a printed book, as in a public address, the writer well knows that the most venal fault is brevity; and his only grief will be, if, in trying to earn that pleasant censure, he has failed to do justice to one whose rare excellence merited a copious record and a more skiKul biographer.

London., Avtgiist 10, 1849.

O SATISFT tIS EAELT WITH THT MEECT; THAT WE MAT BEJOICE AND BE GLAD AXI. OUR DATS. PSAXM XC. 14.

I do remember them, their pleasant brows

So mark’d with pure affections, and the glance

Of their mild eyes, when, in the house of God,

They gather’d up

the

manna

that did fall

Like dew around.

MRS.

SIGOTJENET.

To few of her sons is Scotland more indebted than to the late Sir John Sinclair, of Ulbster. Entering into active Kfe at an early age, for sixty busy years he was constantly spending in the service of his neighbours and his country excellent talents and a good estate. Whilst yet a lad at college he gave earnest of that passion for improvement, and that dauntless enterprise, which distinguished him through life. Among its many wants, his native Caithness wanted roads, and it was in vain that Mr. Sinclair urged his brother landovraers to supply the deficiency. There was a steep hill, called Ben Cheilt, which ran right through the county, and as an objection to the turnpike, at once witty and fatal, it was always asked, “When will you show us a road over Ben Cheilt?” But one summer morning, having beforehand provided great store of implements, the young laird mustered on the spot 1200 labourers, and ere nightfall a good carriage-way was thrown over this terrible mountain.

B 2

And much of his subsequent career was the same exploit repeated. In every undertaking he knew that he must look for a Ben Cheilt, — a Hill Difficulty, on which all the timid and all the lazy would take their stand; and he always sought to surmount it by some brilhant and conclusive operation. And by dint of his ovim heroic exertions, and by the aid of those friends whom his reputation and his systematic obhgingness were perpetually acquiring, he accomplished many works of enormous labor and of more than national utility. Encouraged by the success of his schemes for improving the husbandry of his own ungenial realms, he founded that Board of Agriculture which has introduced a new era in the tdlage of the empire, whilst his untiring labors have left his name associated with the productive fisheries and thriving sheep-farms of Scotland. The hst of his publications fills thirty pages of print; and if the themes be too various, and if fresh projects succeed one another too rapidly, they show the industry of the student who could impart information on subjects so diverse, and the benevolence of the statesman whose only concern was to make other people rich and contented. His “Statistical Account of Scotland” * is a trophy of his unconquerable energy and unwearied good-humor. It was a * In twenty-one volumes, octavo.

task for which, saving the engineer of Ben Cheilt, fewwould have had faith or perseverance sufficient. In order to compile it, he required answers to one hundred and sixty queries from nearly a thousand ministers. To many of his correspondents, such topics were strange or distasteful, and all of them encountered difficulties in the shiness, and sometimes in the superstition, of. then’ natiu“al informants. Tenants would not teU the produce of their farms for fear that their rents should be raised, and Highland shepherds would not count their flocks, lest their vain curiosity should entail a judgment on the fleecy people. But, by a judicious admixture of coaxing and objurgation, the sanguine Baronet quickened the diligence of the ministers, and by patience and adroitness, the ministers ehcited the essential facts from their over-cautious parishioners. One laid aside his Cicero and another his “Poli Synopsis” tUl he should complete his census of pigs, poultry, and milch-kine. Professor Cooper grew archaeological over the “Auld Wives’ Lift” and Dr. Gibb waxed curious in acoustics:* in stately periods,

Witness the clever and well-bred echo at Mugdock Castle: “Opposite to this tower is heard a very extraordinary echo. It repeats any sentence of six syllables, in the exact tone, and with the very accent, in which it is uttered; waiting deliberately till the sentence is finished before it begins.” — Stat. Acct. xviii. 579. worthy of a Scottish Johnson, Mr. Sheriff told how many pounds of clover, and how many firlots of ryegrass were sown, in order to procme a hundred stones of hay; whilst the mellifluous cadence of Dr. Mackinlay lent new charms to printed calicoes, duffles, serges, and mancoes, and all fabrics which owed their glory to Kilmarnock and to “creelman’s composition.” When the mighty work was completed, no country possessed a survey of its internal resources so comprehensive, or local histories so minute, as were contained in its elaborate pages. It greatly helped to create the science of statistics, and to the Scottish antiquarian it is a record of ever-growing value. — When to such literary and economic toils, we add that in mellow age he could reckon two hundred of his countrymen who owed their worldly advancement to his friendly offices, and that he numbered among his friends and correspondents half the renovmed names of Europe, we shall convey some idea of his wide acquaintance with his cotemporaries, as well as a specimen of his ceaseless and kind-hearted activity.*

* For interesting memorials of Sir John Sinclair we are indebted to the filial affection of both a son and a daughter. See Miss Catherine Sinclair’s “Shetland and the Shetlanders;” and “Memoirs of the late Eight Honourable Sir John Sinclair, Bart.,” by Archdeacon Sinclair.

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