On the completion of his education, lord Cardross entered the army, but never rose higher than the rank of lieutenant Forsaking the military life, he went to London, to pursue the study of diplomacy under lord Chatham; and, while there, was elected a fellow of the royal and antiquarian societies. In the following year, 1766, his lordship was appointed secretary to the British embassy in Spain; but his father having died thirteen months afterwards, he returned to his native country, determined to devote the remainder of his life to the cultivation of literature and the encouragement of literary men.
The education of his younger brothers, Thomas, afterwards the illustrious lord-chancellor, and Henry, no less celebrated for his wit, seems to have occupied a large portion of lord Buchan's thoughts. To accomplish these objects, he for years submitted to considerable privations. The family-estate had been squandered by former lords, and it is no small credit to the earl that he paid off debts for which he was not legally responsible; a course of conduct which should lead us to overlook parsimonious habits acquired under very disadvantageous circumstances.
Lord Buchan's favourite study was the history, literature, and antiquities of his native country. It had long been regretted that no society had been formed in Scotland for the promotion of these pursuits; and with a view to supplying this desideratum, he called a meeting of the most eminent persons resident in Edinburgh, on the 14th of November, 1780. Fourteen assembled at his house in St Andrew square, and an essay, which will be found in Smellie's Account of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, p. 4—18, was read by his lordship. At a meeting, held at the same place, on the 28th, it was determined, that upon the 18th of December a society should be formed upon the proposed model; and, accordingly, on the day fixed, the earl of Bute was elected president, and the earl of Buchan first of five vice-presidents. In 1792 the first volume of their Transactions was published; and the following discourses, by the earl, appear in it:—"Memoirs of the Life of Sir James Stewart Denham;" "Account of the Parish of Uphall;" "Account of the Island of Icolmkill;" and a "Life of Mr James Short, optician." Besides these, he had printed, in conjunction with Dr Walter Minto, 1787, "An Account of the Life, Writings, and Inventions of Napier of Mercheston."
In the same year his lordship retired from Edinburgh to reside at Dryburgh abbey on account of his health. Here he pursued his favourite studies. He instituted an annual festive commemoration of Thomson, at that poet's native place; and this occasion produced from the pen of Burns the beautiful Address to the shade of the bard of Ednam. The eulogy pronounced by the illustrious earl on the first of these meetings, in 1791, is remarkable. "I think myself happy to have this day the honour of endeavouring to do honour to the memory of Thomson, which has been profanely touched by the rude hand of Samuel Johnson, whose fame and reputation indicate the decline of taste in a country that, after having produced an Alfred, a Wallace, a Bacon, a Napier, a Newton, a Buchanan, a Milton, a Hampden, a Fletcher, and a Thomson, can submit to be bullied by an overbearing pedant!" In the following year his lordship published an "Essay on the Lives and Writings of Fletcher of Saltoun and the poet Thomson, Biographical, Critical, and Political; with some pieces of Thomson's never before published," 8vo.[1]
Lord Buchan had contributed to several periodical publications. In 1784 he communicated to the Gentleman's Magazine " Remarks on the Progress of
- ↑ Biographical Notice of the Earl of Buchan in the New Scots Magazine, vol. ii. p. 49. From this article most of the facts here mentioned are extracted.
