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DR. ARCHIBALD PITCAIRNE.

den for their unmanly husbands."[1] And he thus draws up a comparison betwixt these unfortunates and his favourite Goths. "The Lowlanders are acute, industrious, sensible, erect, free: the Highlanders, indolent, slavish, strangers to industry. The former, in short, have every attribute of a civilized people: the latter are absolute savages; and, like Indians and negroes, will ever continue to * * * * All we can do is to plant colonies among them, and, by this and encouraging their emigration, try to get rid of the breed."[2] Pinkerton proved, indeed, a sore visitation to the Celts. Moderate men had no objections to a conflict which might, at least, bring amusement, and might serve to humble the pride, by displaying the ignorance of a people, who seemed to take an unfortunate pride in the continuance of barbarism. Few took their side; and Pinkerton had many triumphs over their native champions, in the recurrence of that ignorance of their own history, which he maintained to be their characteristic. His knowledge of history effectually foiled any claim put in for Celtic merit. He would call on the company to name a Celt of eminence. "If one mentioned Burke," observes a late writer: "What," said he, "a descendant of De Bourg? Class that high Norman chivalry with the rif-raf of O's and Mac's? Show me a great O', and I am done." He delighted to prove that the Scottish Highlanders had never had but a few great captains, such as Montrose, Dundee, the first duke of Argyle,—and these were all Goths,—the two first Lowlanders; the last a Norman, a De Campo Bella."[3]

In 1792, Pinkerton edited "Scottish Poems, reprinted from scarce editions," in three volumes octavo. In 1796, appeared his "History of Scotland, during the Reign of the Stuarts," in two volumes quarto, one of the most unexceptionable of his historical works, and still the most laboured and accurate complete history of the period. In 1798, he married Miss Burgess of Odiham, Hants, sister to Thomas, bishop of Salisbury. The union was unhappy, and the parties separated. In 1795 and 1797, he bestowed some pains in preparing lives of Scotsmen, for the "Iconographia Scotica," two volumes octavo; but the information in the work is very meagre, and the plates are wretchedly engraved. In 1802, he published, in two volumes quarto, "Modern Geography, digested on a new Plan;" a work somewhat hastily got up, and deficient in some of its parts, but still one of the most compendious and useful geographical works of the period. A second edition was published in 1806, in three volumes, and an abridgment, in one octavo, is well known. At the commencement of the century, he visited Paris; and," in 1806, published "Recollections of Paris in the Years 1802-3-4 and 6," two volumes octavo. For some years after this period, he found employment in editing "A General Collection of Voyages and Travels," extending to nineteen volumes quarto, and a "New Modern Atlas," in parts. For a short period, he also edited the "Critical Review." His last work was on a subject foreign to his previous studies, but which appears from his correspondence to have occupied much of his attention during his old age: it was entitled, "Petralogy, or a Treatise on Rocks," two volumes octavo, 1811. In his latter years, he resided in Paris, where he died, in indigent circumstances, on the 10th March, 1825, at the age of sixty-seven. He is described to have been "a very little and very thin old man, with a very small, sharp, yellow face, thickly pitted by the smallpox, and decked with a pair of green spectacles."[4]

PITCAIRNE, (Dr) Archibald, an eminent physician of the seventeenth century, was born at Edinburgh on the 25th December, 1652. His father, who was descended of an ancient family in Fife, was an eminent merchant, and one of the magistrates of the city. His mother, whose name was Sydserf, was a mem-

  1. Ib. i. 268
  2. Ib. t. 340.
  3. Nichols' Illustrations, v. 669.
  4. Ib. 671.