1808, and Thomas Brown's 'Sermons,' Glasgow, 1849.
[Hew Scott's Fasti, passim; Disruption Worthies; Free Church Mag. 1850.]
MACFARLAN, WALTER (d. 1767), antiquary, second son of John Macfarlan of Arrochar and Helen, daughter of Robert, second viscount Arbuthnot, succeeded his father in 1705. From his early years Macfarlan devoted himself to antiquarian research connected with the history of Scotland. Ecclesiastical records specially attracted him, and he employed a clerk named Tait to make copies of most of the cartularies accessible to him; the copies are notable for their accuracy and neatness. Macfarlan appears to have held strict views on etiquette. 'The late laird of Macfarlan, an eminent genealogist,' wrote Dr. Johnson in his 'Hebridean Tour,' p. 134, 'considered himself as disrespectfully treated if the common addition [i.e. Mr.] was applied to him. "Mr. Macarlan," said he, "may with equal propriety be said to many; but I, and I only, am Macfarlan." ' He died at his house in Canongate, Edinburgh, on 6 June 1767. His library was sold, and the Faculty of Advocates purchased in 1785 his manuscripts, of which there have been printed the cartularies of Aberdeen, Arbroath, Balmerino, Dryburgh, Dunfermline, Kelso, Lindores, Melrose, Moray, St. Andrews, and Scone. These were extensively used by Douglas in his 'Peerage of Scotland,' Macfarlan married in 1760 Lady Elizabeth Erskine, daughter of Alexander, sixth earl of Kelly, and left a son Walter. There is a portrait of Macfarlan in the library of the Society of Scots Antiquaries, which was engraved in 1846. Another by J. T. Seaton, in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, was engraved in mezzotint by Alexander Hay.
[Gent. Mag. 1767; Scots Magazine; Johnson's Hebridean Tour; Douglas's Baronage of Scotland; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. iv. 406, 509; Turnbull's Catalogue of Faculty of Advocates' Library; Irving's Eminent Scotsmen; Anderson's Scottish Nation.]
MACFARLANE, Mrs. (fl. 1716–1719), murderess, was daughter of Colonel Charles Straiton, a zealous Jacobite. When about nineteen she married John Macfarlane, writer to the signet and law agent of Simon Fraser, lord Lovat. At the time Macfarlane was in middle life, many years his wife's senior. Soon after the marriage Mrs. Macfarlane made the acquaintance of Captain John Cayley, a commissioner of customs, and son of Cornelius Cayley of the city of York. On 29 Sept. 1716 he called on her in her house at Edinburgh, when, for reasons known only to herself or him, she fired two shots at him with a pistol, one of which pierced his heart. Her husband asserted that she fired to save herself from outrage (letter in Swintons of that Ilk, p. 89), and she affirmed that this explanation was 'only too true' (ib. p. 91). Her husband also affirmed that she wished to send for a magistrate and tell the whole story, and that he advised her against it. Not appearing to stand her trial in the ensuing February, she was outlawed. She obtained refuge in the mansion-house of the Swinton family in a concealed apartment opening from the parlour by a sliding panel. A child of Lady Swinton, while her mother was at church, discovered Mrs. Macfarlane one day in the parlour, and this incident suggested to Scott is description of the concealment and discovery of the Countess of Derby in 'Peveril of the Peak,' Scott says 'it is certain she returned and lived and died in Edinburgh' (note to Peveril of the Peak). If, however, she returned, her life in Edinburgh was comparatively short, for her husband married again on 6 Oct. 1719 (Appendix to Fergusson's Major Fraser's Manuscript).
[Chambers's Domestic Annals of Scotland; Scott's note to Peveril of the Peak; Fergusson's Major Fraser's Manuscript, App. No. 3, ii. 170-181; A. C. Swinton's The Swintons of that Ilk.]
MACFARLANE, CHARLES (d. 1858), miscellaneous writer, a native of Scotland, was son of Robert Macfarlane, by his wife, daughter of John Howard and widow of Major Harris, who was killed at the massacre of Patna in 1763. From January 1816 to May 1827 he lived in Italy and travelled through every part of the Peninsula, acquiring complete familiarity with its language and literature. In 1827 he went to Turkey and resided for sixteen months in Constantinople and the Turkish provinces. He returned to England on 2 Feb. 1829, settling in London, and supported himself by literary work. He was for many years a valuable member of Charles Knight's staff.
Accompanied by his eldest son, a youth of sixteen, Macfarlane returned to Turkey in 1847, and on his way home, in the summer of 1848, visited Messina, and made a tour through the kingdom of Naples, the Abruzzi, the marches of Ancona, and Rome. About July 1857 he was nominated a poor brother of the Charterhouse, where he died on 9 Dec. 1858. James Robinson Planché, his collaborator in several of Knight's publications, found him 'a most amusing companion and a warm friend.'
