"A Physician's Holiday, or a Month in Switzerland," 1849; "General Index to the British and Foreign Medical Review," 1849; "Memoranda made in Ireland in the autumn of 1852," with maps and illustrations, 1853; "Sight-seeing in Germany, and the Tyrol in the autumn of 1852," with maps and illustrations, 1856; "Nature and Art in the Cure of Disease," 1857; and several lectures and pamphlets, some of which are—"Happiness in relation to Work and Knowledge," 1850; "Medical Topography of Penrith and the Land's End;" "Geology of the Land's End;" "Comparative Physiology of Plants and Animals;" "Life and Organization;" "Poetry and Fiction."—W. A. B.
FORBES, Patrick, an eminent Scottish prelate, born in 1564, was descended from Sir Patrick Forbes, third son of James, second Lord Forbes, and was by birth laird of Corse and O'Neill, in the county of Aberdeen. He received the rudiments of his education under Thomas Buchanan, schoolmaster of Stirling, and studied first philosophy, and then theology and Hebrew, under the learned Andrew Melville, at Glasgow and St. Andrews. On the death of his father he removed to Corse, where he lived for many years in retirement, occupying himself chiefly with theological studies, though not in orders, and setting an excellent example of domestic piety and local usefulness. The able and edifying manner in which he expounded the scriptures to his household and visitors, as a part of the exercises of family worship on Sundays, suggested to many the desirableness of his taking upon himself the ministerial office. It was many years, however, before he could see it to be his duty to comply with the wishes of his friends; but at length, in his forty-eighth year, he accepted episcopal ordination, and became minister of Keith. In 1618 he was consecrated bishop of Aberdeen, the duties of which office he discharged at a period of great ecclesiastical ferment and difficulty, with an exemplary degree of faithfulness, moderation, and prudence. Attached from conviction to the episcopal form of church government, he had no difficulty in falling in with those ecclesiastical measures of James' and Charles' governments which gave such serious and just offence to the great majority of the nation; and he had experience in his own diocese of the discontent and opposition which they excited, though Burnet claims for him the credit of "having greatly allayed and almost conquered" what he calls "the distempered judgments and perverse and turbulent humours of divers in his diocese." Having been appointed chancellor of King's college, he was at much pains to restore that venerable institution, which had fallen into great decay, to its former vigour and prosperity, repairing the buildings, increasing the library, and reviving the professorships of physic, canon law, and divinity. He died on the 28th of March, 1635, and was buried in the cathedral of Old Aberdeen. He published a "Commentary on the Revelation" in 1613, which was republished in Latin after his death by his son. Dr. John Forbes. Also a treatise entitled "Exercitationes de verbo Dei, et Dissertatio de versionibus vernaculis."—P. L.
FORBES, William, first bishop of Edinburgh, was born at Aberdeen in 1585, and took his degree in arts there at the age of sixteen. He taught the logic of Aristotle in King's college before he was twenty, and defended its claims in opposition to the new philosophy of Ramus. Devoting himself to the study of theology and Hebrew, he spent several years in the universities of Germany, Holland, and England, where he was highly esteemed for his abilities and learning, and returning to Scotland, was made minister of Alford, and soon after of Monymusk and Aberdeen. He was an eloquent preacher, but the duties of the pastoral office proved too severe for his feeble health; and he was relieved by being promoted to the principality of Marischal college. In this office he read theological lectures, and taught Hebrew three times a week, and exerted himself in other ways to promote the welfare of the college. He was made dean of the theological faculty and rector of the university. Not many years after he was called to Edinburgh to be one of the ministers of St. Giles, but his sentiments were thought to lean too much in the direction of popish principles; and to avoid the inconvenience and trouble which this imputation threatened, he withdrew from the capital, and returned to his former place and functions in Aberdeen, where the state of public opinion and feeling was much more favourable to the high-church way of thinking upon religious and ecclesiastical questions. When Charles was crowned in Edinburgh in 1633, Forbes was sent for to preach before the king, which he did with much acceptance; and when the king resolved to found the see of Edinburgh, he nominated him to be its first bishop. But he only enjoyed his bishopric a few months, as his death took place in 1634 He wrote little, for it was one of his favourite maxims—lege plura, dic pauca, et scribe pauciora; but in 1658 was published a posthumous work from his pen, entitled "Considerationes modestæ et pacificæ controversiarum de justificatione, purgatorio, invocatione sanctorum, Christo Mediatore, eucharistia." The title-page is sufficient to indicate that he was a theologian of the via media—a moderate divine in the Anglican sense of moderation. Indeed, it was a favourite saying of his "that if there had been more Cassanders and Wiceliuses, there would have been no occasion for a Luther or a Calvin."—P. L.
FORBES, Sir William, Bart., an eminent Scottish banker, was born in 1739. He was descended both from the ancient family of Monymusk, the head of which was created a baronet in 1626, and from the still older and more influential family of Forbes, Lord Pitsligo. He had the misfortune to lose his father when he was only four years of age; but his mother, to whom he declared on his deathbed he owed everything, though left in very straitened circumstances, bestowed upon her son an excellent education. In 1753 he was received into the banking-house of Messrs. Coutts, Edinburgh, in which he served a seven years' apprenticeship. In 1761 he was admitted as a partner, and two years later, on the death of one and the retirement of another of the Messrs. Coutts, a new firm was formed, consisting of Sir William Forbes, James Hunter (afterwards Sir James Hunter Blair), and Sir Robert Herries, which, on the retirement of Sir Robert in 1773, assumed the name of Forbes, Hunter, & Co. Sir William was the head of this well-known establishment, and its success was mainly owing to his practical sagacity, caution, and sterling integrity. He took an active interest in the various benevolent institutions of Edinburgh, in the public improvements of the city, as well as all the most important measures for the encouragement of agriculture, trade, and commerce in Scotland. Having obtained possession of the family estate of Pitsligo, which had been forfeited in 1745, he effected immense improvements on it; erected cottages, chapels, and schools; formed roads, and converted several thousand acres of barren moor into well-cultivated and fruitful fields. Sir William was fond of literary pursuits, was one of the early members of the famous literary club, and was honoured with the friendship of Johnson, Gibbon, Burke, Reynolds (who has left two portraits of him), Robertson, Adam Smith, and other eminent men of letters. He was frequently consulted by Pitt on the subject of finance, and in 1799 was offered an Irish peerage, which he had the good sense to decline. In 1805 he published his "Life of Dr. Beattie," a highly meritorious work; and a few months later, 12th November, 1806, the benevolent and affectionate biographer died after a lingering illness. Sir Walter Scott, who, in the introduction to canto iv. of Marmion, has paid a beautiful and touching tribute to the memory of Sir William Forbes, says, "he was unequalled, perhaps, in the degree of individual affection entertained for him by his friends, as well as in the general respect and esteem of Scotland at large." His eldest son. Sir William, married the only child and heiress of Sir John Stuart of Fettercairn, the lady to whom Scott was early and devotedly attached, and to whom such frequent and affecting reference is made in the great novelist's letters and diary.—(See Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. i. chap. 5 and 7; vol. vi. chap. 6; and vol. vii. chap. 2.)—J. T.
FORBIN, Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste, Comte de, was born of a noble family in the chateau de la Roque d'Antheron in Provence, August 19, 1777. His father was one of the victims of the Revolution, but his mother was permitted to live in obscurity with her children on the remnant of the family property. The young Forbin, who had learned to draw before he learned to write, now cultivated his talent for art by taking lessons of Boissieu and other masters, and at the fall of the convention he ventured to Paris, studied in the Louvre, and was admitted into the atelier of David. After winning the hand of a rich and beautiful heiress, he was made an officer of cavalry; but did not, however, cease from painting, and his landscapes, to which even Gérard was ready to contribute the figures, found a place in the Salon. Forbin now visited Rome to study the antique, and returning to Paris at the coronation of Napoleon I., he was appointed chamberlain in the newly-formed court of Pauline. He subsequently accompanied Junot into Portugal as officer of ordnance, and then served in the Austrian campaign.
