He took part in the trials for sedition at Edinburgh in 1793 (see Howell, State Trials, 1817, xxiii. 11 et seq.), and died of cholera at Murrayfield on 16 March 1795.
He married, on 15 March 1773, Katherine, daughter of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick, Perthshire, bart., by whom he had, with other issue, Sir John Archibald Murray, lord Murray [q. v.] Henderland was joint clerk of the pipe in the court of exchequer, an office which, through the influence of Lord Melville, was subsequently conferred on his two sons. His 'Disputatio Juridica . . . de Divortiis et Repudiis,' &c., was published in 1758 (Edinburgh, 4to).
There is a small etching of Henderland in Kay's ' Original Portraits,' vol. i. (No. 99).
[Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice, 1832, p. 537; Kay's Original Portraits and Caricature Etchings, 1877, i. 243-4, 302, 307, 418, ii. 90, 346; Grant's Old and New Edinburgh, ii. 81, 255, 270, iii. 103-4; Foster's Members of Parliament, Scotland, 1882, p. 262; Burke's Landed Gentry; Scots Mag. xxiii. 224, xxvii. 448, xxxv. 222, lvii. 206.]
MURRAY, ALEXANDER, D.D. (1775–1813), linguist, was born on 22 Oct. 1775 at Dunkitterick, Kirkcudbrightshire, where his father was a shepherd. Up to 1792 he had little more than thirteen months of school education, but he had learnt the alphabet in a crude way from his father, and by his own efforts he had mastered English and the rudiments of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, knew something of French and German, and had begun the study of Abyssinian. Meanwhile he had been engaged, partly as a shepherd and partly as a tutor to children remote from school like himself, and the small funds accruing from these sources helped his literary needs. He translated Drackenburg's German lectures on Roman authors, and when he visited Dumfries with his version in 1794, after unsuccessfully offering it to two separate publishers, he met Burns, who gave him wise advice (autobiographical sketch prefixed to History of European Languages). The father of Robert Heron (1764-1807) [q. v.] lent him useful books, and James M'Harg, a literary pedlar from Edinburgh, proposed that Murray should visit the university authorities. His parish minister, J. G. Maitland of Minnigaff, gave him an introductory letter to Principal Baird, which led to an examination, in which Murray agreeably surprised his examiners by his knowledge of Homer, Horace, the Hebrew psalms, and French. Admitted to Edinburgh University as a deserving student, he won his way by class distinctions and the help of private teaching. Lord Cockburn remembered him as a fellow-student, 'a little shivering creature, gentle, studious, timid, and reserved' (Memorials of his Time, p. 276). He completed a brilliant career by becoming a licentiate of the church of Scotland.
Murray early formed the acquaintance of John Leyden (Leyden, Poetical Remains, p. xvii), and among his friends were Dr. Anderson, editor of The British Poets,' Brougham, Jeffrey, Thomas Brown, Campbell, and others. Through Leyden he became a contributor to the 'Scots Magazine,' and he edited the seven numbers of that periodical from February 1802, inserting verses of his own under one of the signatures 'B,' 'X,' or 'Z.' He was meanwhile diligently studying languages. From the spoken tongues of Europe he advanced about this time to those of Western Asia and North-east Africa. His latter studies led him to contribute to three successive numbers of the 'Scots Magazine' a biography of Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, which he afterwards expanded into a volume (1808). Constable the publisher, struck with his knowledge and thoroughness, engaged him in September 1802 to prepare a new edition of 'Bruce's Travels' (7 vols. 1805, new edit. 1813), to which he did ample justice, despite hindrances due to the stupid jealousy of the traveller's son, James Bruce, and his family (Archibald Constable and his Literary Correspondents, i. 222). At the same time (1802-5) he worked for the 'Edinburgh Review,' and his letters to Constable mark a writer with an easy, humorous, incisive style, and keenly alive to the importance of literary excellence and a wide and generous culture. Almost from the outset, as De Quincey says, he had before him 'a theory, and distinct purpose' (De Quincey, Works, x. 34, ed. Masson).
In 1806 Murray was appointed assistant to Dr. Muirhead, James (1742-1808) [q. v.], parish minister of Urr, Kirkcudbrightshire, whom he fully succeeded at his death in 1808. He married, 9 Dec. 1808, Henrietta Affleck, daughter of a parishioner. He soon became popular both as a man and a preacher. His interesting, frank, and sometimes sprightly letters to Constable mark steady social development, patriotic spirit, and literary and philosophical earnestness. He hailed with enthusiasm Chalmers's 'Caledonia,' and Scott's 'Minstrel' and 'Marmion.' Among his own literary projects for a time were, an edition of the classics, suggested by Constable, and a history of Galloway, which he seriously contemplated, and about which he had some correspondence with Scott (Constable and his Literary Correspondents, i.
