remarkable men of his age. He was the second son of William Gibson, Esq. His mother was Mary-Cecilia, daughter of James Balfour, Esq., of Pilrig; and his father's mother, Helen Carmichael, was the sister of John, fourth earl of Hyndford. At a a very early age he was admitted a member of the Society of Writers to the Signet, and commenced business on his own account; and in that department of law he speedily rose to distinction, and attained an eminence which certainly was not surpassed by any of his professional brethren, and which he maintained to the very end of his lengthened life. His professional career was indeed one of remarkable success—the well-earned result of great talents, applied with indefatigable industry, and guided by undeviating integrity.
But it is as a politician that the character of Sir James Gibson Craig belongs to the history of his country. He was one of the very few persons in Scotland who, prior to the French revolution, had the courage to avow, on the subject of political rights, opinions at variance with those of the ruling powers. While yet a young man he stood forward as the fearless champion of those whig principles from which he never swerved one inch, and which, after an arduous struggle of forty-five years, he lived to see triumphant in the passing of the reform bill in 1832. When the reform agitation arose in 1830, he had attained his sixty-fifth year; but his amazing energy, which was still unimpaired, enabled him, during the stormy period that followed, to discharge with equal boldness and skill the duties of that leadership to which his character and his services entitled him, and which was accorded to him by the universal consent of his party. It cannot be doubted that to his tact, and sagacity, and firmness, it was mainly owing that Scotland was saved from a serious convulsion during the two years that the reform agitation lasted. On all matters connected with the political affairs of Scotland he was consulted and trusted by the whig government from their first accession to power; and in 1831 he was created a baronet of the United Kingdom. This was the only acknowledgment of his services that he could ever be prevailed on to accept either for himself or his family, though it is well known that very high honours and very substantial rewards were pressed on his acceptance. His patriotism was untainted by aught that could be called selfish or sordid. Although the great object to which his political life had been devoted was achieved in 1832, he still continued to take an active interest in every important movement, whether public or local. Scarcely had the political storm subsided in Scotland, when an ecclesiastical controversy sprang up which agitated that country for ten years, and resulted in 1843 in the great secession from the established church, which is generally called "the Disruption." To this movement, which was countenanced by many of his political friends and associates, Sir James was from the first opposed; not because he was hostile to the principle of nonintrusion in the abstract, and so far as it professed to place a check on the abuse of patronage, but because he believed that the legislation of the church courts on the subject was ultra vires and illegal.
The more obvious characteristics of Sir James' mind—those which manifested themselves most prominently in all his acts—were energy, and firmness, and power. But the moral sentiment which exercised a controlling influence over all these, was truthfulness. It was the operation of this ever-present principle which mainly produced that remarkable consistency, which will always be admired as an honourable distinction of his lengthened career. It was his perfect truthfulness, no less than his great practical wisdom, that inspired the confidence of those (and they were not a few, even from among those most opposed to him in politics) who had recourse to him for advice in matters of delicacy or difficulty; they knew that the counsel which wisdom dictated would be truthfully tendered. Sir James was by nature essentially and eminently benevolent; his enjoyment of society was proved by his liberal and extensive hospitality; and his domestic life was one of uninterrupted purity, and harmony, and happiness. The name of Craig was assumed by him on his succession as heir of entail to the estate of Riccarton. He was born in Edinburgh on the 11th October, 1765, and died at Riccarton on the 6th March, 1850. He was survived by two sons and seven daughters, and was succeeded in the baronetcy and in the estate of Riccarton by his eldest son, Sir William Gibson Craig.—T. B., C.
CRAIG, John, one of the most eminent of the Scottish preachers at the period of the Reformation, was born in 1511, and educated at St. Andrews. His great abilities recommended him to the favour of Cardinal Pole, and by his advice Craig joined the dominicans at Bologna, where he was made rector of one of their schools, and intrusted with various ecclesiastical commissions. The perusal of Calvin's Institutes, however, having converted him to protestantism, Craig was arrested and sent to Rome, where he was tried by the inquisition, and condemned to be burnt. His life was saved, however, by the death of Pope Paul IV., on the day before his intended execution. He returned to his native country about 1560. The Reformation had shortly before been established in Scotland, and Craig was at once nominated one of the preachers. He was appointed the colleague of John Knox in the parish church of Edinburgh, and in 1579 one of the ministers of the royal household. In the following year he drew up the famous National Covenant. He also compiled part of the Second Book of Discipline, and wrote "Craig's Catechism," and an answer to an attack on the Confession of Faith. He died 12th December, 1600, at the age of eighty-eight.—(M'Crie's Life of Melville.)—J. T.
CRAIG, John, a Scottish mathematician, who lived in the latter half of the seventeenth century. He is principally known by his "Theologiæ Christianæ Principia Mathematica," a very short treatise, published in 1699, in which he attempts to prove by mathematical calculations, that the christian religion will cease to exist in one thousand four hundred and fifty-four years from the date of his book. This absurd theory was refuted by Diton and Houtteville. It is said that Hume and other sceptical writers have been indebted to Craig's pamphlet.—R. M., A.
CRAIG, Sir Thomas, of Riccarton, an eminent Scottish lawyer, was one of that number of learned and accomplished men who distinguished Scotland at the time of the Reformation. Tytler, in his valuable life of him, renders it probable that he belonged to the family of Craigs of Craigfintry in Buchan, and that 1538 was the year of his birth. We know that in 1552 he entered St. Leonard's college at St. Andrews, where he remained three years. He probably left in 1555, after taking the degree of B.A. From St. Andrews he proceeded to study law at the university of Paris. Craig returned to Scotland in 1561, stored with all the legal and general learning that the schools could afford. He was admitted advocate in 1563, and in the following year he was appointed to the first office he held, that of justice-depute, under the earl of Argyle, then justice-general and supreme criminal judge in Scotland. Craig held this office till 1573, when he was promoted to that of sheriff-depute of Edinburgh. These offices did not preclude his practising at the bar of the court of session. In this court Craig attained a practice which was equalled only by that of the other leader at the bar, Mr. John Sharp. His son. Sir Lewis Craig, was raised to the bench and the old man was frequently wont to plead before him. The last office which we hear of Sir Thomas occupying was that of advocate for the church in 1606.
Craig took little or almost no part in the political events of his time. In the intervals allowed by his profession he devoted himself to the production of many valuable works in law, and to what used to be called the cultivation of the muses. His poems are all in Latin, and the best of them will be found in the Deliciæ Poetarum Scotorum. The first of his legal works, and the only one now of any consequence, was his great treatise "De Jure Feudali." Although the immediate object of its production was to prove that there was no fundamental difference between the laws of his own country and those of England, it forms independently a very valuable systematic exposition of the law of Scotland. The work, although produced before 1605, was not printed till long after Craig's death. The first edition was produced at Edinburgh by Lord Crimond (Burnet) in 1655; the second by Menekenius at Leipzig in 1716; and the third and best edition, to which a sketch of the author's life is prefixed, by James Baillie, an advocate at Edinburgh, in 1732. This edition was from the press of the Ruddimans. The second of Craig's works was written about the same time as the "De Jure Fendali." It treats "De Jure Successionis Regni Angliæ" and was composed for the purpose of defending James' right against the attacks of Parsons (Doleman). A manuscript of the original is preserved in the advocates' library at Edinburgh, but it has never been published. A translation by a clergyman of the name of Gatherer appeared in 1703. When Craig composed the treatise "De Unione Regnorum Britanniæ,"
