at Edinburgh composed a letter to King James, whom they called 'the darling of heaven.' When the bishops had been expelled and the General Assembly restored, all had been done that was necessary for the re-establishment of Presbyterianism, and in June, 1690, an Act was passed ratifying the Confessions of Faith, and vesting the Church government in the hands of the ministers who had been ousted in 1661. In October the General Assembly met, and Commissions were appointed to go through the country and purge out obnoxious ministers. The King wrote to the General Assembly that he expected them to act in such a manner that there should be no occasion to repent of what had been done. We never could be of the mind that violence was suited to the advancing of true religion; nor do we intend that our authority shall ever be a tool to the irregular passions of any party.' The Assembly, though many of its members would have preferred more thorough-going measures, answered respectfully that they had suffered too much from oppression ever to be oppressors. But the Commissions they appointed certainly did not always show the moderation that had been promised1.

Alexander Arbuthnott was among the clergy who would not conform to the Presbyterian system, and accordingly, on the 29th of September, 1689, he was deposed from his living by his patron, Viscount Arbuthnott. The minister and his sons were strong partisans of the Stuarts, and the second son, Robert, a youth of twenty, had taken part in the battle of Killiecrankie, in the preceding July, when the Highlanders achieved a victory for James, which, however, they were not able to pursue. Alexander Arbuthnott retired to a small property he had inherited, called Kinghornie, which still gives its name

The Church History of Scotland, by John Cunningham, 1882; Wodrow's History of the Sufferings, &c.; Macaulay's History of England, chaps.

xiii and xvi; Lecture on the Revolution Settlement, delivered in St. Giles's Cathedral by the Rev. R. H. Story.

to a farm in the parish of Kinneff1. In this quiet spot, near Hallgreen Castle, and on rising ground by the sea, about three miles south-east of Arbuthnott, he spent the few remaining months of his life. He died on the 27th of February, 1691, but the religious strife in which he had been involved was not closed over his grave. When deprived of his charge he had, it seems, carried away with him the Session record, and in November, 1690, soon after his successor, Francis Melvill, had been ordained, certain persons were appointed to see the late incumbent on the matter. But their visit appears to have been without result, and immediately after his death the question of the return of the book was again raised in the Kirk Session in the manner described in the following minute:

March 4, 1691. Wednesday. The which day the Session met. Sederunt, Robert Viscount of Arbuthnott, Alex. Arbuthnott of Pitcarles', &c., Elders, and William Leper, Alex. Jeffray, &c., Deacons. They considering that Mr. Alex. Arbuthnott late incumbent departed this life on Friday last, the twentieth and seventh of February, and that the Session book is not given up, it is thought fit that Thomas Allardes should go and speak to his sons and desire them to give up the said book, or if they will not to assure them that the ground in order to the said Mr. Alexander's burial would not be opened; which message the said Thomas undertook to deliver and to return their answer on Thursday before ten of the clock in the forenoon, which was that Mr. John Arbuthnott his eldest lawful son had given his bond to the Viscount of Arbuthnott for the

1 Statistical Account of Scotland (1845), vol. xi. p. 158, by the Rev. James Mylne, of Arbuthnott. vol. xi. p. 313.

Ib.

2 The third son of Robert, third laird of that name, was called Alexander, and his father gave him in patrimony a piece of land adjacent to the manor house of Arbuthnott, called Pitcarles, which had formerly been possessed by Andrew, son of Robert (the second) and grandson of Robert (the third).

This Andrew was father of the Alexander Arbuthnott who was Principal of Aberdeen University. The fourth son of Robert (the third), named Robert, was presented by his father to the living of Arbuthnott, and there spent the remainder of an exemplary life. He resided with his brother in Pitcarles, there being, as the Rev. Alexander Arbuthnott tells us in his family notes, no manse at that time for the incumbent.

delivery of the said book under the failzie [forfeiture] of one hundred merks.

The burial was accordingly permitted, and took place, as we learn from the register, on the 6th of March. The question of a monument was then raised, and on the 8th of April 'The Viscount of Arbuthnott informed the Session that Mr. John Arbuthnott had spoke to him and desired to have the liberty of making ane tomb or monument above the grave of his deceased father, Mr. Alex. Arbuthnott late incumbent of this congregation, to which the said Viscount replied that it would neither be done without the answer of the heritours nor without the will and consent of the Session, neither without ane bill presented to the Session desiring the same, as is formal in all judicatories, as also the inscription of the said tomb must be seen and known, that there be nothing found therein which may be derogatory to the present Government, or reflecting on the present minister at the place. Perhaps Arbuthnot refused to comply with these conditions; at all events, no monument to his father is now extant.

II.

UPON the death of Alexander Arbuthnott his sons left their native country to seek their fortune in various directions. John went to London1, and maintained himself by teaching mathematics. He lived, it is said, at the house of Mr. William Pate, a woollen-draper, who was well known for his learning. It cannot be stated

1 In Noble's Continuation of Granger's Biographical History, 1806 (vol. iii. p. 365), it is said that on leaving Scotland, Arbuthnot went first to Dorchester, but stayed no length of

time there. This statement seems to be without confirmation.

2 Swift said Pate was both a bel esprit and a woollen-draper,' and he mentions dining with him on seve

exactly when this important step was taken, but if a little book which was published anonymously in London in 1692 is rightly attributed to Arbuthnot, it is probable that he left Scotland soon after his father's death in the spring of 1691.

The book referred to, Of the Laws of Chance, reached a fourth edition, and was afterwards reprinted in the Supplement to the second edition (1751) of the Miscellaneous Works of the late Dr. Arbuthnot. It will be necessary therefore at once to say something of the credentials of this posthumous collection of pieces attributed to Arbuthnot. In the autumn of 1750 two volumes of Miscellaneous Works appeared, with 'Glasgow' given on the title-pages as the place of publication, and a second edition, with Additions,' soon followed. In September, Arbuthnot's son, George, inserted an advertisement in the papers declaring that these volumes were 'not the Works of my late father, Dr. Arbuthnot, but an imposition on the Publick.' This repudiation, however, cannot have been intended for more than a disavowal of responsibility; for when we examine the contents we find that some of the pieces are undoubtedly Arbuthnot's, and that some are known to be by other writers; while in the case of the remainder we have little or nothing to guide us but internal evidence. It will be necessary to refer to this subject from time to time, and we shall be assisted in the enquiry by the effort that has now been made, though sometimes without success, to trace back

ral occasions (Swift to Hunter, Jan. 12, 1709; Journal to Stella, Sept. 17 and 24, Oct. 6, 1710). Pope asked Hughes (April 19, 1714) to get Pate to help in promoting the subscriptions to his 'Homer'; and Steele's anecdote of the prudent woollendraper, 'remarkable for his learning and good-nature' (Guardian, No. 141) probably refers to Pate. A note from Pate to Sir Hans Sloane about

a pattern of black cloth is preserved in the British Museum (Add. MS. 4055, f. 29). He died in December, 1746, and was buried at Lee, Kent. It is stated in Scott's 'Swift' that Pate was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and obtained the B.A. degree; but there is no mention of him in the list of Cambridge graduates, or in Cole's MSS.

each pamphlet in the collection to the form in which it originally appeared. The Miscellaneous Works were reprinted in 1770, with a short Life, the accuracy of which George Arbuthnot admitted 1.

The duodecimo volume Of the Laws of Chance was published, as we have seen, in 1692, and it was reprinted in the Miscellaneous Works with the title Huygens de Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae: Translated into English by Dr. Arbuthnot. It was, in all probability, correctly attributed to the Doctor-who was himself a great cardplayer-and if this is the case, it was his first publication. In the preface it is stated that the discourse was in great part a translation from Huygens. The whole I undertook for my own divertisement, next to the satisfaction of some friends, who would now and then be wrangling about the proportions of hazards in some cases that are here decided. . . . My design in publishing it was to make it of more general use, and perhaps persuade a raw Squire by it, to keep his money in his pocket; and if, upon this account, I should incur the clamours of the Sharpers, I do not much regard it, since they are a sort of people the world is not bound to provide for.' 'The whole art of gaming, where there is anything of hazard, is to calculate, in dubious cases, on which side there are most chances; and the principles here laid down would enable anyone, even in the midst of the game, to make a sufficiently accurate conjecture.' 'I will not debate whether one may engage another in a disadvantageous wager; if a man enters the lists he takes it for granted that his fortune and judgment are at least equal to those of his playfellows; but false dice and tricks are inexcusable, for the question in gaming is not, who is the best juggler. There are very few things of which we have any real knowledge which cannot be reduced to a mathematical reasoning, and such reasoning, when practicable, is always 1 Kippis's Biographia Britannica, 1778.