the houses of his friends. Nor was it till after a long course of disagreeable contentions with the court that he was received back into one of the parochial pulpits of Edinburgh. This was but the beginning of a series of troubles which descended upon the latter half of Bruce's life. In August, 1600, the king met with the strange adventure known by the name of the Gowrie conspiracy. When he afterwards requested the ministers of Edinburgh to give an account of this affair to their congregations, and offer up thanks for his deliverance, Bruce happened to be one of a considerable party who could not bring themselves to believe that James had been conspired against by the two young Ruthvens, but rather were of opinion that the whole affair was a conspiracy of his own to rid himself of two men whom he had reason to hate. To King James, who wished to impress the nation with a sense of his wonderful deliverance, this scepticism was exceedingly annoying, for more reasons than one; and accordingly it was not surprising that he should have been disposed to take the sharpest measures with a recusant of so much popular influence as Bruce. "Ye have heard me, ye have heard my minister, ye have heard my council, ye have heard the Earl of Mar," exclaimed the enraged monarch; yet all would not do. The chancellor then pronounced a sentence dictated by the council, prohibiting Bruce and three of his brethren to preach in the kingdom under pain of death. found himself very painfully situated on account of the comparatively dissolute manners of the neighbouring clergy, who are said to have persecuted him in return for the freedom he used in censuring their behaviour. He obtained leave from the privy council to retire to a more sequestered house at Monkland, near Bothwell, where, however, he soon attracted the notice of the Bishop of Glasgow on account of the crowds which flocked to hear him. He was obliged to return to Kinnaird. In 1621 the Scottish parliament was about to pass the famed articles of Perth, in order to bring back something like uniformity with England in the national system of worship. Bruce could not restrain his curiosity to witness this awful infliction upon the church; he took advantage of some pressing piece of private business to come to Edinburgh. The bishops watched the motions of their powerful enemy with vigilance, and he was soon observed. They entered a petition and complaint before the council, and he was committed to Edinburgh Castle for several months, after which he was again banished to Inverness. Some of the lords of the council who were his friends wrote to court, in order to have the place of confinement fixed at his family seat; but James had heard of the effect of his preachings at that place, and returned for answer "It is not for the love of him that ye have written, but to entertain a schism in the kirk; we will have no more popish pilgrimages to Kinnaird (in allusion to the frequent intercourse between Bruce and the pious Bruce was not the man to be daunted or driven people of the surrounding country); he shall go to from his purpose when the liberties of his church Inverness." The king never forgave his scepticism and the maintenance of a good conscience were con- of the Gowrie conspiracy, although this was the cerned. He had made up his mind to withstand, at occasion rather than the cause of the persecution all hazards, the now undisguised machinations of his which tracked him in his latter years. He remained infatuated monarch to crush the Presbyterian cause. at Inverness till the death of James, in 1625, when he In 1596, when the privy council was prosecuting obtained permission once more to reside at his own David Black, minister of St. Andrew's, for certain house. He was even allowed, for some time after expressions he had uttered in the pulpit, Bruce this, to preach in several of the parish churches headed a deputation of ministers to the king, to around Edinburgh, whither large crowds flocked to endeavour to bring about an accommodation. He hear him. At length, in 1629, Charles wrote to the declared with solemn earnestness, on behalf of him- council, requesting that he might again be confined self and his associates, "that if the matter concerned to Kinnaird, or the space of two miles around it. only the life of Mr. Black, or that of a dozen others, The church of Larbert having been neglected by the they would have thought it of comparatively trifling bishops, and left in ruins without either minister or importance; but as it was the liberty of the gospel, stipend, he had repaired it at his own expense; and and the spiritual sovereignty of the Lord Jesus, that now finding it within the limits of his confinement, was assailed, they could not submit, but must oppose he preached there every Sunday to a numerous and all such proceedings, to the extreme hazard of their eager audience. At one of his sermons, either in lives." This declaration moved the king at the time, that church or in the neighbourhood, he gained a and wrung tears from his eyes; but the relentings of proselyte who vindicated his cause, and that of Preshis better nature were soon overcome by his courtiers.byterians in general, a few years after. This was He was but too anxious to get so formidable an the celebrated Alexander Henderson, minister at opponent as Bruce out of the way, and the present Leuchars, in Fife, whom he was the means of conoccasion afforded him a favourable opportunity.verting, by preaching from the first verse of the Bruce, after spending some time as a prisoner in Airth, his paternal seat, embarked at Queensferry on the 5th of November, 1600, for Dieppe, in Normandy, which he reached in five days. Next year he was allowed to return to his native country, although not to reside in Edinburgh. He had two interviews with James, one of them at the very moment when his majesty mounted horse on his journey to England. But the minions of the court and friends of the Episcopal religion contrived to prevent his offers of submission from having their due weight. He was formally deposed in 1605, and sent to Inverness, which was then a frequent place of banishment for obnoxious clergymen. There he remained for eight years, only exercising his gifts in a private way, but still with the best effect upon the rude people who heard him. In 1613 his son procured permission for his return to Kinnaird, upon the condition that he would confine himself to that place. There, however, he soon | | tenth chapter of St. John's Gospel. Bruce had now lived to see the Scottish Presbyterian church altered for an imperfect Episcopacy, and as he prepared for the fate which threescore and ten years had long marked out for him, he must have felt convinced that what remained of his favourite system could not long survive him. The revival of the Presbyterian polity, in all its pristine glory, was reserved in its proper time for his pupil Henderson. Exhausted with the infirmities of age, he was for some time almost confined to his chamber; yet, as he laboured under no active disease, his end advanced slowly. On the 13th of August, 1631, having breakfasted with his family in the usual manner, he felt_death_approaching, and warned his children that his Master called him. With these words he desired a Bible to be brought, and finding that his sight was gone, he requested his daughter to place his hand on the two last verses of chap. viii. of the REV. ROBERT BRUCE Romans. These were highly expressive of his life, his resolution, and his hopes. When his hand was fixed on the words, he remained for a few moments satisfied and silent. He had only strength to add, "Now God be with you, my children; I have breakfasted with you, and shall sup to-night with the Lord Jesus Christ." He then closed his eyes and peacefully expired. Such was the end of the long and varied life of Robert Bruce. His bold and comprehensive mind, his stern independence, and stainless integrity, are qualities which, under every disadvantage, procure the respect of mankind, and indicate superior character. Less violent than Melville, more enlightened than Knox, he viewed with a brighter and milder eye the united interests of the church and nation. Had he chosen to accommodate himself to the temporizing spirit of the age, he might have stood high in royal favour, and become, in point of political influence, the first man of the age. But the true greatness of his character as a Christian minister and a patriot, which shone brightest in adversity, would never have appeared; nor would the services have been rendered to his church and country which contributed to secure to them those blessings of national freedom and liberty of conscience which have descended to our own times, and which it should be our study to preserve and transmit to future generations. James VI. found in men like Bruce, and in the church of which he was an ornament, formidable obstacles to the civil and spiritual despotism which he had destined for his Scottish subjects; hence his fear of both was equal to his dislike. Impartial history indorses not the later but the earlier judgment of the king, who was so sensible of the valuable services of the church in preserving public tranquillity during his absence in Denmark on the occasion of his marriage, that in his letters to Bruce he declared that he was "worth the quarter of his kingdom." | latter part of his life. People assembled from all quarters to attend his funeral; and, according to Calderwood, between four and five thousand persons followed his corpse to the grave. It is impossible to conclude this narrative of his life, without remarking how much of his person and character revived in the Abyssinian Bruce, his descendant in the sixth degree, whose person was also majestic, and whose mind, while diminished a little in utility by hasty passion and a want of accommodation to circumstances, was also of the most powerful cast, and calculated to produce a great impression upon those around it. BRUNTON, MRS. MARY, an eminent moral novelist of the present century, was born in the island of Burra, in Orkney, November 1, 1778. Her father was Colonel Thomas Balfour of Elwick, a cadet of one of the most respectable families in the county of Orkney. Her mother was Frances Ligonier, only daughter of Colonel Ligonier of the 13th dragoons, and niece of the Earl of Ligonier, under whose care she was educated. Previous to her sixteenth year, Mary Balfour had received some instructions in music, and in French and Italian, from her mother, and her education was completed by a short residence at a boarding-school in Edinburgh. At the early age mentioned, she had to undertake the charge of her father's household, from which she was removed in her twentieth year, to be the wife of the Rev. Alex. Brunton, minister of the parish of Bolton in East Lothian. In the retirement and mo. derate elegance of a Scottish manse, Mrs. Brunton was only at first conspicuous for her attention to her household duties. Afterwards, however, the tastes of her husband led her gradually into habits of study, and she went, with his direction and assistance, through a course of reading in history, philosophy, criticism, and the belles lettres. The promotion of her husband to a ministerial charge at Edinburgh, which took place six years after her marriage, was The person of Robert Bruce was tall and dignified. favourable to the expansion and improvement of His countenance was majestic, and his appearance her intellect, by introducing her into a circle of in the pulpit grave, and expressive of much authority. society more enlightened than any in which she had His manner of delivery was, in the words of a Pres- hitherto moved. The native powers of her mind byterian historian, "an earthquake to his hearers, were slowly developed; she ripened from the simple and he rarely preached but to a weeping auditory." housewife into the clear-minded and intelligent It is told, as an instance of the effect of his sermons, savante. Yet for many years she was only known that a poor Highlander one day came to him after he as a well-informed but perfectly unpretending female. had concluded, and offered to him his whole wealth So far from displaying any disposition to active (two cows), on condition that he would make God literature, she felt the composition of a letter to be his friend. Accustomed to continual prayer and burdensome. A trivial circumstance is said to have intense meditation on religious subjects, his ardent operated, with several other causes, in inducing her imagination at times appears to have lost itself in to attempt a regular work. She had often urged visions of the divine favour; a specious but natural her husband to undertake some literary production, illusion, by which the most virtuous minds have and once she appealed to an intimate friend, who been deceived and supported when reason and was present, whether he would not publish it. This philosophy have been summoned in vain. His third party expressed a ready consent, but said he knowledge of the Scriptures was extensive, and would at least as willingly publish a book of her own accurate beyond the attainment of his age. His writing. This seemed at the time to strike her with skill in the languages, and the sciences of those a sense of her powers hitherto not entertained, and times, not to mention his acquaintance with the she asked more than once whether he was in earnest. laws and constitution of the kingdom, a branch of She then appears to have commenced her novel enknowledge possessed by few of his brethren, was titled Self-Control, of which she had finished a conequal, if not superior, to that of any of the Scottish siderable part of the first volume before making even reformers. His sermons, of which sixteen were her husband privy to her design. In 1811 the work printed in his lifetime, display a boldness of expres- was published at Edinburgh, in two volumes, and sion, regularity of style, and force of argument, the impression which it made upon the public was seldom to be found in the Scottish writers of the immediate and decisive. It was acknowledged that sixteenth century. A translation of their rich idiom- there were faults of a radical and most unfortunate atic Scottish into the English tongue was printed in kind—such as the perpetual danger to which the 1617, and is that which is now most common in honour of the heroine was exposed (an intolerable Scotland. subject of fictitious writing), but every one appreciated the beauty and correctness of the style, and the acuteness of observation and loftiness of senti This great man was buried within the church of Larbert, in which he had often preached during the | ment which pervaded the whole. The modesty of| Mrs. Brunton, which was almost fantastic, induced her to give this composition to the world without her name. Four years afterwards she published a second novel in three volumes, entitled Discipline, which was only admired in a degree inferior to the first. She afterwards commenced a third tale under the title Emmeline, which she did not live to finish. Mrs. Brunton had been married twenty years without being blessed with any offspring. In the summer of 1818, when a prospect of that blessing occurred, she became impressed with a belief that she should not survive. With a tranquillity, therefore, which could only be the result of great strength of mind, joined to the purest sentiments of religion and virtue, she made every preparation for death, exactly as if she had been about to leave her home upon a journey. The clothes in which she was to be laid in the grave were selected by herself; she herself had chosen and labelled some tokens of remembrance for her more intimate friends; and she even prepared, with her own hand, a list of the individuals to whom she wished intimations of her death to be sent. Yet these anticipations, though so deeply fixed, neither shook her fortitude nor diminished her cheerfulness. They neither altered her wish to live, nor the ardour with which she prepared to meet the duties of return. ing health, if returning health were to be her portion. To the inexpressible grief of her husband and friends, and, it may be said, of the literary world at large, the unfortunate lady's anticipations proved true. On the 7th of December she gave birth to a still-born son, and for some days recovered with a rapidity beyond the hopes of her medical attendants. A fever, however, took place, and, advancing with fatal violence, terminated her valuable life on the 19th, in the 41st year of her age. The whole mind and character of Mrs. Brunton was "one pure and perfect chrysolite" of excellence. We are so agreeably anticipated in an estimate of her worth by an obituary tribute paid to her memory by Mrs. Joanna Baillie, that we shall make no scruple for laying it before the reader:- "No more shall bed-rid pauper watch The helpless vagrant, oft relieved, From her hath his last dole received. Whose evening hours her converse brightened, On which appears the unfinish'd page, Of her whose works did oft engage Untir'd attention, interest deep, While searching, healthful thoughts would creep To leave a kindly feeling there,- The last beautiful allusion is to the unfinished tale of Emmeline, which was published by her husband, Dr. Brunton (late professor of oriental languages in the university of Edinburgh), along with a brief, but most elegant and touching memoir of her life. BRYCE, The Rev. ALEXANDER, an eminent geometrician, was born in the year 1713, at Borland in the parish of Kincardine, and received the first rudiments of learning at the school of Downe, Perthshire. He studied afterwards at the university of Edinburgh, where his proficiency in mathematics and practical astronomy early attracted the notice, and secured for him the patronage, of Professor Maclaurin. At the particular request of that celebrated man, he went to Caithness, in May, 1740, as tutor to a gentleman's son, but chiefly to construct a map of the northern coast; the number of shipwrecks rendering this, at the time, an object of considerable national importance. During a residence of three years, and in defiance of many threats from the peasantry (which made it necessary for him to go always armed), who did not relish so accurate an examination of their coast, from motives of disloyalty, or because they were afraid it would deprive them of two principal sources of income-smuggling and plunder from the shipwrecks-he accomplished, at his own expense, the geometrical survey, and furnished "A Map of the North Coast of Britain, from Raw Stoir of Assynt, to Wick, in Caithness, with the Harbours and Rocks, and an Account of the Tides in the Pentland Firth." This map was afterwards published by the Philosophical, now the Royal, Society of Edinburgh in 1744- Mr. Arrowsmith, it may be mentioned, pronounced it to be very accurate, after a minute examination, while preparing materials for his large map of Scotland. On his return to Edinburgh, in 1743, Mr. Bryce gave very efficient aid, with his friend the Rev. Mr. Wallace of Haddo's Hole church, in verifying the necessary calculations submitted to them by Dr. Webster, previous to the institution, by act of parlia ment, of the fund for a provision for the widows of the Scottish clergy; the regular increase of which since, and its present flourishing state, form the best encomium of those who laboured for its establishment. In June, 1744, he was licensed to preach by the reverend presbytery of Dunblane; and having received a presentation by James, Earl of Morton, to the church and parish of Kirknewton, within the presbytery of Edinburgh, he was ordained to serve that cure, in August, 1745. From his knowledge of the inland geography of Scotland, and line of the roads, he was enabled, this year, to furnish the quartermaster-general of the army of the Duke of Cumberland with important information regarding the march of the forces in subduing the rebellion. In the winter of 1745, and spring of 1746, he taught the mathematical classes in the university of Edinburgh, at the desire, and during the last illness, of Professor Maclaurin, who died in June following. Mr. Bryce expressed his sorrow for the loss of his friend, in verse, of which the following is a specimen: "Yon angel guards that wait his soul, Amaz'd at aught from earth so bright, "Joyful he bears glad news on high, And tells them through celestial space: To meet him with a warm embrace! 1 A few days before his friend's death, he saw him institute a calculation for ascertaining the proportion that existed between the axis of the earth and the diameter of its equator. It proceeded on data sent him by the Earl of Morton, president of the Royal Society, consisting of observations made in Peru by the French mathematicians, and communicated at London by Don Antonio, who was taken prisoner at Cape Breton. The proportion ascertained was very nearly that which Sir Isaac Newton had predicted; being as 221: 222, and afforded particular gratification. These are the news he is supposed to bear. "The list'ning choirs around them throng, "O Forbes, Foulks, loved Morton, mourn; And pray-Earth light upon him lie." Having been permitted, after recovering the standard jug, to carry it with him to Edinburgh, his first object was to ascertain precisely, by means of it, the number of cubic inches, and parts of a cubic inch, in the true Scotch pint. For this purpose the mouth of the jug was made exactly horizontal, by applying to it a spirit level; a minute silver wire of the thickness of a hair, with a plummet attached to each end, was laid across the mouth, and water poured gently in till, with a magnifying glass, it was seen just to touch the wire: the water was then carefully weighed in a balance, the beam of which would turn with a single grain Perth for yarn, Edinburgh for cloth, Linlithgow for grain, and Stirling for distilled and fermented liquors. The Stirling jug is mentioned in acts of parliament as being in the town before the reign of James II. in 1437; and the last mention made of it is in the reign of James VI., in an "act of parliament, 19 February, 1618, anent settling the measures and weights In the year 1750, having occasion to visit Stirling, of Scotland." No accurate experiments appear to and knowing that, by an act of the Scottish parlia- have been afterwards made with it for fixing the ment, this borough had the keeping of the pint jug, legal quantity of these measures and weights, till the standard, by special statute, for weight and for the following by Mr. Bryce, in 1762-3, a period of liquid and dry measure in Scotland, he requested a about 135 years! sight of it from the magistrates. Having been referred to the council house, a pewter pint jug which had been kept suspended from the roof of the apart. ment, was taken down and given to him. After minutely examining it, he was convinced that it could not be the standard. The discovery was in vain communicated to the magistrates, who were ill able to appreciate their loss. It excited very different feelings in the mind of an antiquary and a mathematician; and resolved, if possible, to recover this valuable antique, he immediately instituted a search, which, though conducted with much patient industry during part of this and the following year, proved unavailing. In the spring of 1752 it occurred to him that this standard might have been borrowed by some of the braziers or coppersmiths, for the purpose of making legal measures for the citizens; and having learned that a person of this description, called Urquhart, had joined the rebel forces in 1745; that his furniture and shop utensils had been brought to public sale on his not returning; and that various articles which had not been sold were thrown into a garret as useless, he obtained permission to inspect them; and, to his great satisfaction, discovered, under a mass of lumber, the precious object of his long research. Thus was recovered the only legal standard of weight and measure in Scotland, after it had been offered, in ignorance, for public sale, and thrown aside unsold as trash, and long after it had been considered by its constitutional guardians as irretrievably lost. The standard Stirling pint jug is made of brass, in the form of a hollow truncated cone, and weighs 14 pounds, 10 ounces, I drop, and 18 grains, Scotch troy. The mean diameter of the mouth is 4'17 inches. The mean diameter of the bottom 5:25 inches, and the mean depth 6 inches English. On the front, near the mouth, in alto-relievo, is a shield and lion rampant, the arms of Scotland; and near the bottom another shield, and an ape, passant gardant, with the letter S below, supposed to have been intended as the arms of Stirling. The arms at present are a wolf. The ape must have been put on therefore inadvertently by the maker, or the town must have changed its arms at a period subsequent to the time when the standard was ordered to be made. The handle is fixed with two brass nails; the whole is of rude workmanship, and indicates great antiquity. By an act of the Scottish parliament, Edinburgh had the keeping of the standard ell, Perth the reel, Lanark the pound, Linlithgow the firlot, and Stir ling the pint jug, an arrangement made by the legislature, in the view of improving the internal commerce of the country, by checking the frauds which the traffickers of a rude age may be supposed to have often attempted, and because the commodities to which these different standards referred, were known to have been supplied in greater abundance by the districts and towns to whose care they were respectively committed. Hence it may be inferred that Lanark was then the principal market for wool, when 96 ounces were in each scale. After seventeen trials with clear spring and river water, several of which were made in presence of the magistrates of Edinburgh, the content of the jug was found to weigh, at a medium of the trials, 54 ounces, 8 drops, 20 grains, or 26, 180 grains, English troy. His next object was to determine accurately how many of these grains were contained in a cubic inch of water. With this view, a cylindrical brass vessel was made with great accuracy, by a scale of Bird, the celebrated mathematical instrument-maker of London, to contain 100 cubic inches. This vessel was filled several times with the same water as in the trials with the jug, and its content was found to weigh 25,318 grains, English troy. This number, divided by 100, gives 2531 grains as the weight of a cubic inch of water: therefore, 26180 = 1031000, 253106 the exact number of cubic inches, and parts of a cubic inch, in the standard Scotch pint: 51-70 cubic inches in the chopin: 25 cubic inches in the mutchkin; and so on proportionally in the other smaller Scotch measures. 404 } 355 Mr. Bryce next applied the standard jug to fix the legal size of the different measures for grain; which he compared with some of the English dry measures. By act of parliament, February 19, 1618, formerly mentioned, it is ordained that the wheat and pease firlot shall contain 214 pints; and the bear and oat firlot 31 pints of the just Stirling jug. Therefore, since there are 103 cubic inches in the standard Scotch pint, there will be 21971 cubic inches in the wheat and pease firlot; 54910000 in the peck; and 137 in the lippie-in the bean and oat firlot, 3205100 cubic inches; 801 in the peck; and 200 in the lippie. The excess of a boll of bear above a boll of wheat was found to be precisely 5 pecks bear measure, and I mutchkin, without the difference of a single gill: or, a boll of bear is more than a boll of wheat by 7 pecks 1} lippie, wheat measure, wanting I gill. 3334 245 381 1000 The English corn bushel contains 2178 cubic inches, which is less than the Scotch wheat firlot by 19.335 inches, or three gills; so that 7 firlots of wheat will make 7 English bushels and I lippie. The English corn bushel is less than the barley firlot by I peck 34 lippies nearly. The legal English bushel, by which gaugers are ordered to make their returns of malt, contains 2150 42 cubic inches, which is less than the wheat firlot by 46 915 cubic inches, or I chopin, wanting gill; and less than the bear firlot by 1055 104 cubic inches, or 2 bear pecks, wanting 7 gills. A Scotch barley boll contains 5 bushels, 3 pecks, 2 lippies, and a little more, according to the Winchester gallon. A Scotch barley boll, according to the legal measure, contains 6 bushels, wanting a little more than lippie. A Scotch chalder (16 bolls of barley) is equal to II quarters, 6 bushels, and 3 lippies, Winchester measure. A Scotch chalder of wheat is equal to 8 quarters, 2 pecks, and I lippie, Winchester measure. A wheat firlot made according to the dimensions mentioned in the Scotch act of parliament, 1618, viz. 19 inches diameter at top and bottom, and 71 inches in height, Scotch measure, would be less than the true wheat firlot (or 214 pints of the standard jug) by a Scotch chopin: a chalder of wheat measured with this firlot would fall short of the true quantity I firlot 2 pecks, or nearly 2 per cent. A barley firlot made according to the dimensions in the said act, viz. having the same diameter at top and bottom as the wheat firlot, and 10 inches in height, Scotch measure, would be less than the true firlot (or 31 pints of the standard jug) by 5 mutchkins: and a chalder of bear, measured with such a firlot, would fall short of the just quantity 2 firlots, 2 pecks, and nearly 2 lippies, or 4 per cent. These very remarkable mistakes must have proceeded from the ignorance or inaccuracy of the persons authorized by parliament to make the calculations, and to determine the exact dimensions of the firlot measure. For, suppose a firlot were made of the following dimensions, viz. 20 inches diameter, English measure, at top and bottom, and 7 inches in depth, it would contain 21 pints (the true wheat and pease firlot) and only of a gill more. Quantity of Water a fall of Snow on the Earth's Surface is equal. His observations on the transits of Venus, 6th June, 1761, and 3d June, 1769, were considered by astronomers as important in solving the grand problem. In May, 1767, he was con sulted by the trustees for procuring surveys of the lines proposed for the canal between the Forth and Clyde, and received their thanks for his remarks, afterwards communicated to them in writing, on Mr. Smeaton's first printed report. About this time he was introduced to Stuart Mackenzie, lord privy-seal of Scotland, who, as a lover of the arts and sciences, highly respecting his genius and acquirements, obtained for him soon after the office of one of his majesty's chaplains in ordinary; and, during the remainder of his life, honoured him with his friendship and patronage. He planned for that gentleman the elegant observatory at Belmont Castle, where also are still to be seen an instrument contrived by him for ascertaining the magnifying powers of telescopes, and a horizontal marble dial, made with great precision, to indicate the hour, the minute, and every ten seconds. In 1770, his lordship having communicated an account of a phenomenon observed by Lord Charles Cavendish, Dr. Habberden, and himself, viz. "that a less quantity of rain (by a difference which was considerable) fell into the rain-gauges placed on the top of Westminster Abbey and an adjoining house than into those placed below," and for which they found it difficult to account, Mr. Bryce sent to his lordship, on the 14th December, an ingenious solution of the fact. In 1772 he wrote Remarks on the Barometer for Measuring Altitudes; showing the uncertainty and limited use of the instrument as then commonly used for that purpose, and the means by which it might be rendered more perfect and greater precision attained. These remarks were sent to lord privy-seal in January, 1773. In a map of the Three Lothians, engraved by Kitchen of London, and published in 1773 by Andrew and Mostyn Armstrong, "the scales of longitude and latitude are laid down agreeably to the observations of the Rev. Mr. Bryce at Kirknewton manse." In April, 1774, in consequence of certain apparently insurmountable difficulties, he was consulted by the magistrates of Stirling on the subject of supplying the town with water: these difficulties he removed by taking ac curately all the different levels; making the calculaAccording to the act of parliament in 1618, to tions for the size of the leaden pipes and the reserwhich reference has been made, the Scotch pint con- voir, and fixing the situation for its being placed. tains of the clear running water of Leith three pounds For this service he had the freedom of the town conand seven ounces, French troy weight, and this is ferred on him. In 1776 he made all the requisite ordained to be the weight of Scotland; therefore, in | calculations for an epitome of the solar system on a the Scotch pound there are 7616 troy grains; and in large scale, afterwards erected by the Earl of Buchan the Scotch ounce 476 troy grains, and so on pro- at his seat at Kirkhill. In case of disputes about portionally with regard to the other Scotch weights. the extent of fields exchanged by neighbouring proIn this way, by the recovery of the standard Stir-prietors, or the line of their marches, he was generally ling pint jug, canons of easy application resulted for determining the just quantity of the measures, liquid and dry, and also of the weights in Scotland, and therefore of great public utility, by settling disputes and preventing litigation in that part of the empire. After having obtained the above results by means of the standard jug, Mr. Bryce superintended, at the From the time of his ordination, in 1745, till his desire of the magistrates of Edinburgh, the adjust-death on the 1st January, 1786, he discharged with ment of the weights and measures kept by the Dean of Guild; and "for his good services to the city," was made a burgess and guild brother in January, 1754. A firlot of the same diameter as above, at top and bottom, and 10 inches in depth, would contain 31 pints (the true bear and oat firlot) and only 2 gills more: but if, instead of 10}, it be made 10 inches in depth, it will be less than 31 pints (the true standard measure), only of a single gill. By the greater of these firlots were to be measured bear, oats, and malt; by the less wheat, rye, beans, pease, and salt. Several detached articles by Mr. Bryce were published by the Royal Society of London, particularly An Account of a Comet observed by him in 1766; A New Method of Measuring the Velocity of the Wind; An Experiment to ascertain to what chosen sole arbiter, and from his knowledge in landsurveying, and the confidence reposed in him, had it often in his power to render them essential service. Mr. Bryce used to send various meteorological obser vations and other detached notices to Ruddiman's Weekly Magazine. great fidelity all the duties of his pastoral office, and excelled particularly in that species of didactic discourse known in Scotland under the name of lecture. His lectures, however, were never fully written, but spoken from notes; and he left no sermons for publication. In early life he composed several songs, adapted to some of the most favourite Scottish airs, and his |