as was generally thought, to remove him from the court and country by a sort
of honourable banishment. To Tangier he accordingly repaired, where his life
was soon brought to an abrupt and miserable termination. In falling down
stairs, he broke his arm, and at the next tumble the broken bone was driven
into his side, inflicting a mortal wound, of which he soon after expired. A
report had been current in Scotland, that in his better days, when he subscribed
the covenant, he had declared to the gentlemen present that this was the happiest day he had ever seen; and holding up his right arm, he wished to God
that that might be his death if ever he did anything against the blessed work
to which he had thus pledged himself. Men trembled at the recollection when
tidings of his tragic end arrived from Tangier. This event occurred in 1673.
He was succeeded in the earldom by his only son, Charles, second earl of Middleton.
MILL, James.—This talented writer, who distinguished himself as a historian, philosopher, and political economist, was born in the parish of Logic Pert, Forfarshire, on the 6th of April, 1773. Like a great majority of his countrymen who have risen to eminence, he was of humble origin, his father being a small farmer upon the estate of Sir John Stuart, Bart., of Fettercairn. After a course of preliminary education at the grammar-school of Montrose, young James, who was originally destined for the church, was sent, through the patronage of his father's landlord, to the university of Edinburgh, where he underwent the usual course of study prescribed to candidates for the ministry. His progress in general literature, although unnoticed at the time, was after- wards well attested by the character of his various writings. Of all the ancient philosophers, Plato seems chiefly to have attracted his attention a proof, by the way, that his proficiency in the classical languages was greater than that of the generality of our Scottish students; and the impression produced upon his mind by the works of this most eloquent and persuasive of all the philosophers of antiquity, he often afterwards affectionately remembered.
After the usual course of study, Mr. Mill was licensed as a preacher in the Church of Scotland, and had fair hopes, both from patronage and his attainments, to occupy that most comfortable of earthly situations the situation of a Scottish country minister. But somehow it happened that even this was insufficient to allure him. It may be that his Platonism, and the peculiarity of some of his ideas both in theology and ethics, may have disinclined him to Calvin's Institutes; or he may have felt that his intellectual aptitudes required a different field of action than that of a secluded country minister. In his capacity of tutor to the family of Sir John Stuart, he accompanied them to London in 1800; but instead of returning with them to Scotland, he resolved to devote himself to a literary life in the metropolis. London, therefore, became, thenceforth, his home, where he betook himself to authorship as a profession, and patiently endured all its precariousness, until his talents had secured for him that honourable and independent position to which he was so well entitled. The first writings of Mr. Mill, in this character, were such as to obtain admittance among the most distinguished periodicals of the day ; and among these, the "Edinburgh Review," the "British, the Eclectic, and Monthly Reviews," may particularly be mentioned. He also edited, for some time, the "Literary Journal," and was a frequent contributor to a periodical established by the Quakers, called the "Philanthropist."
All this labour, however, was but means to an end, for, at an early period of
