Robert, the elder of the sons of Thomas Grahame, and father of the subject of this Memoir, inheriting the virtues of his ancestors, and imbued with their spirit, has sustained, through a long life, not yet terminated, the character of a uniform friend of liberty. His zeal in its cause rendered him, at different periods, obnoxious to the suspicions of the British government. When the ministry attempted to control the expression of public opinion by the prosecution of Horne Tooke, a secretary of state's warrant was issued against him; from the consequences of which he was saved through the acquittal of Tooke by a London jury. When Castlereagh's ascendant policy had excited the people of Scotland to a state of revolt, and several persons were prosecuted for high-treason, whose poverty prevented them from engaging the best counsel, he brought down, at his own charge, for their defence, distinguished English lawyers from London, they being deemed better acquainted than those of Scotland with the law of hightreason; and the result was the acquittal of the persons indicted. He sympathized with the Americans in their struggle for independence, and rejoiced in their success. Regarding the French Revolution as a shoot from the American stock, he hailed its progress in its early stages with satisfaction and hope. So long as its leaders restricted themselves to argument and persuasion, he was their adherent and advocate; but withdrew his countenance when they resorted to terror and violence.

By his profession as writer to the signet* he acquired fortune and eminence. Though distinguished for public and private worth and well directed talent, his political course excluded him from official power and distinction, until 1833, when, after the passing of the Reform Bill, he was unanimously chosen, at the age of seventy-four, without any canvass or solicitation on his part, at the first election under the reformed constituency, Lord Provost of Glasgow. His character is not without interest to the American people; for his son, whose respect for his talents and virtues fell little short of admiration, acknowledges that it was his father's suggestion and encourage

* An attorney.

ment which first turned his thoughts to writing the history of the United States.

Under such paternal influences, James Grahame, our historian, was early imbued with the spirit of liberty. His mind became familiarized with its principles and their limitations. Even in boyhood, his thoughts were directed towards that transatlantic people whose national existence was the work of that spirit, and whose institutions were framed with an express view to maintain and perpetuate it.

His early education was domestic. A French emigrant priest taught him the first elements of learning. He then passed through the regular course of instruction at the Grammar School of Glasgow, and afterwards attended the classes at the University in that city. In both he was distinguished by his proficiency. After pursuing a preparatory course in geometry and algebra, hearing the lectures of Professor Playfair, and reviewing his former studies under private tuition, he entered, about his twentieth year, St. John's College, Cambridge. But his connection with the University was short. In an excursion during one of the vacations, he formed an attachment to the lady whom he afterwards married; becoming, in consequence, desirous of an early establishment in life, he terminated abruptly his academical connections, and commenced a course of professional study preparatory to his admission to the Scottish bar.

At Cambridge he had the happiness to form an acquaintance, which ripened into friendship, with Mr. Herschel, now known to the world as Sir John F. W. Herschel, Bart., and by the high rank he sustains among the astronomers of Europe. Concerning this friendship Mr. Grahame thus writes in his diary:-"It has always been an ennobling tie. We have been the friends of each other's souls and of each other's virtue, as well as of each other's person and success. He was of St. John's College, as well as I. Many a day we passed in walking together, and many a night in studying together." Their intimacy continued unbroken through Mr. Grahame's life.

In June, 1812, Mr. Grahame was admitted to the Scottish bar as an advocate, and immediately entered on

the practice of his profession. It seems, however, not to have been suited to his taste; for about this time he writes:-"Until now I have been my own master, and I now resign my independence for a service I dislike." His assiduity was, nevertheless, unremitted, and was attended with satisfactory success; indicative, in the opinion of his friends, of ultimate professional eminence.

In October, 1813, he married Matilda Robley, of Stoke Newington, a pupil of Mrs. Barbauld; who, in a letter to a friend, thus wrote concerning her:- "She is by far one of the most charming women I have ever known. Young, beautiful, amiable, and accomplished; with a fine fortune. She is going to be married to a Mr. Grahame, a young Scotch barrister. I have the greatest reluctance to part with this precious treasure, and can only hope that Mr. Grahame is worthy of so much happiness."

All the anticipations justified by Mrs. Barbauld's exalted estimate of this lady were realized by Mr. Grahame. He found in this connection a stimulus and a reward for his professional exertions. "Love and ambition," he writes to his friend Herschel, soon after his marriage, "unite to incite my industry. My reputation and success rapidly increase, and I see clearly that only perseverance is wanting to possess me of all the bar can afford." And again, at a somewhat later period::—“You can hardly fancy the delight I felt the other day, on hearing the Lord President declare that one of my printed pleadings was most excellent. Yet, although you were more ambitious than I am, you could not taste the full enjoyment of professional success, without a wife to heighten your pleasure, by sympathizing in it."

Soon after Mr. Grahame's marriage, the religious principle took predominating possession of his mind. Its depth and influence were early indicated in his correspondence. As the impression had been sudden, his friends anticipated it would be temporary. But it proved otherwise. From the bent which his mind now received it never afterwards swerved. His general religious views coincided with those professed by the early Puritans and the Scotch Covenanters; but they were sober, elevated, expansive, and free from narrowness and bigotry. Though his tem

perament was naturally ardent and excitable, he was exempt from all tendency to extravagance or intolerance. His religious sensibilities were probably quickened by an opinion, which the feebleness of his physical constitution led him early to entertain, that his life was destined to be of short duration. In a letter to Herschel, about this period, he writes: "I have a horror of deferring labor; and also such fancies or presentiments of a short life, that I often feel I cannot afford to trust fate for a day. I know of no other mode of creating time, if the expression be allowable, than to make the most of every moment."

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Mr. Grahame's mind, naturally active and discursive, could not be circumscribed within the sphere of professional avocations. It was early engaged on topics of general literature. He began, in 1814, to write for the Reviews, and his labors in this field indicate a mind thoughtful, fixed, and comprehensive, uniting great assiduity in research with an invincible spirit of independence. In 1816, he sharply assailed Malthus, on the subject of "population, poverty, and the poor-laws," in a pamphlet which was well received by the public, and passed through two editions. In this pamphlet he evinces his knowledge of American affairs by frequently alluding to them and by quoting from the works of Dr. Franklin. Mr. Grahame was one of the few to whom Malthus condescended to reply, and a controversy ensued between them in the periodical publications of the day. In the year 1817, his religious prepossessions were manifested in an animated "Defence of the Scottish Presbyterians and Covenanters against the author of The Tales of my Landlord' " these productions being regarded by him "as an attempt to hold up to contempt and ridicule those Scotchmen, who, under a galling temporal tyranny and spiritual persecution, fled from their homes and comforts, to worship, in the secrecy of deserts and wastes, their God, according to the dictates of their conscience; the genius of the author being thus exerted to falsify history and confound moral distinctions."

Mr. Grahame also published, anonymously, several pamphlets on topics of local interest; "all," it is said, "distinguished for elegance and learning." In mature life,

when time and the habit of composition had chastened his taste and improved his judgment, his opinions, also, on some topics having changed, he was accustomed to look back on these literary productions with little complacency, and the severity with which he applied self-criticism led him to express a hope that all memory of his early writings might be obliterated. Although some of them, perhaps, are not favorable specimens of his matured powers, they are far from meriting the oblivion to which he would have consigned them.

In the course of this year (1817), Mr. Grahame's eldest daughter died, an event so deeply afflictive to him, as to induce an illness which endangered his life. In the year ensuing, he was subjected to the severest of all bereavements in the death of his wife, who had been the object of his unlimited confidence and affection. The effect produced on Mr. Grahame's mind by this succession of afflictions is thus noticed by his son-in-law, John Stewart, Esq."Hereafter the chief characteristic of his journal is deep religious feeling pervading it throughout. It is full of religious meditations, tempering the natural ardor of his disposition; presenting curious and instructive records, at the same time showing that these convictions did not prevent him from mingling as heretofore in general society. It also evidences that all he there sees, the events passing around him, the most ordinary occurrences of his own life, are subjected to another test, - are constantly referred to a religious standard, and weighed by Scripture principles. The severe application of these to himself, -to self-examination, is as remarkable as his charitable application of them in his estimate of others."

To alleviate the distress consequent on his domestic bereavements, Mr. Grahame extended the range of his intellectual pursuits. In 1819, he writes, "I have been for several weeks engaged in the study of Hebrew; and having mastered the first difficulties, the language will be my own in a few months. I am satisfied with what I have done. No exercise of the mind is wholly lost, even when not prosecuted to the end originally contemplated."

For several years succeeding the death of his wife, his