RENWICK, James, the famous preacher and martyr of the covenant, was born at Minnihive, Dumfriesshire, 15th February, 1662. His parents were in humble life, but they trained him with pious fondness and hopes, and therefore straitened themselves to give him a good school education. He attended Edinburgh university, and partly supported himself by private tuition; but as he would not take the oath of allegiance, he was denied public laureation at the close of his academic career. His sympathies went along with the extreme party of the covenant—as opposed to those who were usually called the Indulged—and even among the nonconformist section he began to see many defects and backslidings. The execution of Donald Cargill, 27th July, 1681, at which he was present, decided his adherence to those principles. He frequented the "secret societies," though he had no hand in the revolutionary declaration published by them at Lanark, 12th January, 1682; and he declared it to be "inconsiderately worded," though he was one of the bold party who proclaimed it. At the request of the societies Renwick then started for Holland, and was admitted into the university of Groningen. As the societies since Cargill's death had no minister, it was deemed expedient that he should be ordained prior to his return. After some obstacles had been overcome, the classis of Groningen ordained him, and he at once set sail for his native land—landing, however, at Dublin, and after some difficulties arriving at the west coast of Scotland. In September, 1683, he preached his first public sermon at the moss of Darmead, lifting the standard where it had fallen on the death of Cameron and Cargill. The privy council of Edinburgh took the alarm, and denounced him as a traitor. His life at once became one of incessant work and wandering through south-western Scotland. He was the organizer and soul of all the societies, preaching, debating, defending, corresponding, and publishing manifestoes. For about five years was he on the field of action—in perpetual danger and yet undaunted; with a feeble frame and yet unwearied in zeal, though often so worn out that two friends had to hold him on his horse; searched for incessantly, and yet not apprehended; soldiers many times on his track and unable to discover him, at least, to lay hold on him; travelling by the wildest paths and lying down in the poorest huts; preaching often with a fleet steed by his side that he might escape danger if it should come; frequently concealed in caves and glens, and exposed to the wintry elements, while the people were sternly forbidden by letters of intercommuning to give him a crust of bread or a cup of water, yea, to speak to him or in any way afford him shelter. The other and larger body of presbyterians stood aloof from him and denounced him, and their writings cut him to the heart; yet he preached, and baptized, and catechized in all parts—resting after a long day's journey and a long night's pastoral labour at a deserted hovel, or lying on a couch of ferns in some rocky nook, with faithful sentries around him. The persecution of the societies was very bitter, and in 1684 they published a defence—fixing it upon many crosses and church doors. The duke of York being proclaimed in February, 1685, Renwick and two hundred men went to Sanquhar in May and published a declaration disowning him as a papist, and throwing off allegiance to him. In 1687 the dark cloud grew still denser; the toleration offered by James II. was felt by Renwick to be a snare, though so many incautiously embraced it, and £100 was offered to any one who would bring him in dead or alive. He had already refused his concurrence with Argyle's expedition, and this sent, away several of his followers. Even Peden, the "prophet of the covenant," turned his back for a season on him. In less than five months during this same year, fifteen furious searches were made for him by dragoons scouring the country. He had gone to Fife to labour, and returning to Edinburgh at the end of January, 1688, lodged in the Castlehill. The house of his entertainer, John Lookup, happened to be examined on suspicion of having contraband goods concealed in it; and one of the acute searchers surmised, from hearing a strange voice in prayer, that Renwick was hidden in it. Next day the officers came, and Renwick, firing a pistol to clear an opening for himself, but so as not to hurt any one, escaped. Some one, however, had struck him with a club on the breast, and his strength was soon exhausted. As he ran, he fell several times, and had got as far as the head of the Cowgate when he was seized and carried to the guard-house, and then committed to prison. Though his youthful appearance and mild demeanour moved the judges, he was speedily condemned. He was urged by many influential persons to apply for pardon, but he steadily refused. On the 17th of February, 1688, he was led to the scaffold, where he died as he had lived—his last words to the people being drowned by the beating of drums. Death had no terrors to him. He was only twenty-four, but he was old in sad experience and care, in labour and trial, and as he said himself—"Death to me is as a bed to the weary." A heroic, patient, tender soul was he amidst all his toil and travail; the obloquy cast upon him, and the continuous misrepresentation of his views, never induced him to flinch from them, or retaliate on his traducers. With all his strictness and extremeness of opinion, he advocated free communion with all true churches. Renwick was the last who was put to death in Scotland for religious opinion; for the prince of Orange came over in the November of the year of his martyrdom, and what in spring was punished as treason was welcomed in winter as the glorious revolution. Renwick's political creed was—"Magistrates have no power but what is derived from the people."—J. E.
REPNIN, Nicolas-Vasilièvitsch, Prince, a Russian field-marshal and ambassador who took a conspicuous part in the partition of Poland, was the son of a Russian general, and was born in 1734. Having chosen the military profession, young Repnin served in the French army during the Seven Years' war. He was subsequently sent as envoy by Peter III. to the court of Berlin, where he received marked attention from the Prussian monarch. After the tragic death of Peter, Repnin was recalled from Berlin and sent to Warsaw in 1763, to promote the election of Stanislaus Poniatowski, the favourite of Catherine II., to the throne of Poland. In the following year he was appointed ambassador to the Polish court, and contributed greatly by his intrigues to foment the dissensions, and hasten the downfall of that unhappy country. He protected the dissidents, menaced and browbeat the patriotic nobles, and domineered over the weak and pusillanimous sovereign in the most insolent style. On one occasion when a public spectacle was performed before Stanislaus and his court, the Russian ambassador did not think proper to appear until the second act had commenced. The insolent functionary not only interrupted the performance, but caused the piece to be played over again from the beginning. The intolerable arrogance and tyranny of Repnin disgusted even the Russian party in Poland, but Catherine loaded him with honours and pecuniary rewards. He at length quitted the country, leaving its affairs in a most dreadful state of confusion, and was appointed to the command of a division of the Russian army under Count Romanzoff in the war with Turkey; but in 1773 he was defeated and taken prisoner along with a considerable corps, and led in triumph to Constantinople. In the following year a succession of reverses compelled the Turks to sue for peace, and on the 21st of July, Prince Repnin and the grand vizier signed the treaty of Kainardji, by which most humiliating and ruinous terms were exacted from the sultan. When Catherine mediated between Maria Theresa and Frederick the Great, Prince Repnin was appointed both general and ambassador, and signed in 1779, along with the Baron de Breteuil, the treaty of Teschen. In the war with Turkey in 1789, Repnin commanded the army of the Ukraine, and defeated a Turkish force near the Danube. In 1791, at the head of only forty thousand men, he routed an army of one hundred thousand commanded by the grand vizier. The peace of Yassy was the result of this brilliant success. Repnin, however, failed to obtain the reward of his services in consequence of the jealousy of Potemkin, the reigning favourite at that period. He retired to Moscow, where he incurred the displeasure of the empress in consequence of his connection with a religious society which was suspected of a political object. But though the other members were punished Repnin contrived to make his peace with Catherine, and was appointed governor-general of Livonia. After the last partition of Poland the prince was appointed governor of Lithuania. On the accession of Paul I. he was raised to the rank of field-marshal, and in 1798 was sent on a secret and important mission to the court of Berlin to induce Prussia to join the coalition against France. Prince Repnin died at Moscow in 1801.—J. T.
* REPP, Thorleif Gudmundsson, a Scandinavian scholar of much eminence, was born at Reykiadal in Iceland, on the 6th July, 1794. He studied at the university of Copenhagen, where he gained several prizes, and afterwards visited England in 1821. In 1825 he was appointed librarian to the advocates' library at Edinburgh, a situation which, however, he did not long retain.
