JOHNSTONE, JAMES (d. 1798), Scandinavian antiquary, was a master of arts, though of what university is not stated, and a clergyman of the established church. For several years he was chaplain to the English envoy extraordinary in Denmark. Afterwards he became rector of Magheracross, cos. Tyrone and Fermanagh, Ireland, and seems to have been appointed prebendary of Clogher in 1794 (Cotton, Fasti Eccl. Hib. iii. 101). He died in 1798, and his library was sold by auction in 1810.
His works are: 1. ‘Anecdotes of Olave the Black, King of Man, and the Hebridian Princes of the Somerled Family. To which are added Eighteen Eulogies on Haco, King of Norway; by Snorro Sturlson, poet to that Monarch: now first published in the original Islandic, from the Flateyan and other Manuscripts; with a literal Version and Notes,’ [Copenhagen], 1780, 8vo. 2. ‘Lodbrokar-Quida; or, the Death-Song of Lodbrok: now first correctly printed from various Manuscripts, with a free English Translation: to which are added the various Readings, a literal Latin Version, an Islando-Latino Glossary, and Explanatory Notes,’ London, 1782, 16mo; Copenhagen, 1813, 16mo. 3. ‘The Norwegian Account of Haco's Expedition against Scotland in 1263. In the original Islandic, from the Flateyan and Frisian MS.; with a literal English Version and Notes,’ Copenhagen, 1782, 4to; reprinted, Edinburgh, 1882, 8vo. 4. ‘Antiquitates Celto-Scandicæ, sive Series Rerum Gestarum inter Nationes Britannicarum Insularum et Gentes Septentrionales,’ 1784, 4to. 5. ‘The Robbing of the Nunnery, or the Abbess outwitted. A Danish Ballad, translated into English in the style of the Sixteenth Century,’ Copenhagen, 1786, 24mo: printed as a compliment to Louisa Augusta, daughter of Frederick VI of Denmark, on her marriage with the Duke of Holstein-Augustenberg. 6. ‘Antiquitates Celto-Normannicæ; containing the Chronicle of Man and the Isles, abridged by Camden, and now first published complete from the original MS. in the British Museum; with an English Translation and Notes,’ Copenhagen, 1786, 4to. This work was attacked by Richard Gough in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for December 1786, p. 1061, and defended in the same periodical for July 1787, p. 565.
[Cat. of Five Hundred Living Authors; Literary Memoirs, i. 321; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), p. 1223; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. vi. 504, vii. 157, 751; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. iii. 107; Pinkerton's Literary Correspondence, i. 118; Reuss's Register of Authors, 1791; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]
JOHNSTONE, JAMES, Chevalier de Johnstone (1719–1800?), Jacobite, was son of James Johnston or Johnstone, a merchant at Edinburgh, where he was born in 1719. In 1738 he visited his uncles, Hewitt and General Douglas, in Russia, but his father objected to his idea of entering the Russian service. In 1745, against the will of his father, though the latter was a Jacobite, he joined the Young Pretender at Perth, was aide-de-camp to Lord George Murray, and acted also in that capacity to the prince, with whom he remained till the defeat at Culloden. A dream that he was at Edinburgh, and was relating his adventures to Lady Jean Douglas (who was distantly related to his mother, and had always been kind to him), induced him to change his purpose of concealing himself in the mountains. He accordingly made his way, not without hairbreadth escapes, to Edinburgh, had secret interviews with his father, was concealed for two months in Lady Jean's house, ultimately reached London, stayed there some time, and eventually embarked at Harwich for Holland, in the guise of servant to Lady Jean. Hearing that Charles Edward had got safely to Paris, Johnstone went thither at the end of 1746, in the hope of joining a second expedition. In 1749 he received 2,200 livres out of the forty thousand livres assigned by the French court to Jacobite refugees. In the following year he became ensign in the French marines, and after a narrow escape from shipwreck reached Louisbourg. In 1751 he returned to France, went back to Louisbourg in 1752, and was promoted lieutenant in 1754. On the capture of Louisbourg by the English he escaped to Canada, was aide-de-camp to Lévis, superintended the entrenchments at Quebec, and on Lévis's departure for Montreal became aide-de-camp to Montcalm. On the capitulation of Quebec and the evacuation of Canada by the French he went back to France, General Murray, the English commander, generously ignoring his real nationality. Disgust at juniors being promoted over his head seems to have deterred Johnstone from seeking further employment. He obtained a pension, ultimately fixed at 1,485 livres, seems to have resigned himself to an inactive life, and apparently held no communication with his family. His parents, moreover, and his sister Cicely, wife of the sixth Lord Rollo, had died. His pension was cut down by Terray's financial expedients, and the revolution led to its being suspended or annulled. In 1791 he petitioned the assembly, which voted him five hundred livres, on the ground of his age and of his having ‘lost all his property in Scotland;’
