lence. It was characteristic of the excess of the iniquity of the period; for, in
the whole course of national discord which preceded, an action of political assassination, without the colour of any human law, does not stand on record. A few of the more zealous and uncompromising presbyterians, wandering on Magus Moor, near St Andrews, on the 3rd of May, 1679, in search of the
sheriff of Fife, whose activity as a servant to the archbishop, had roused them
to violent intentions, fell in with the master, instead of the servant; and their
passions dictating to them that they had what was termed a call from God to
put him to death, they followed the suggestion with circumstances of considerable barbarity. Having cut the traces of his carriage, they, in the most cool and deliberate manner, commanded him to come out of his coach, or they would do harm to his daughter, who was along with him; and that his days were now
numbered, as they were to take vengeance upon him for a betrayed church, and
for so many of their murdered brethren, particularly for the life of Mr James
Mitchel, to whom he had sworn so perfidiously, and for keeping up the king's
pardon after Pentland. After repeatedly assuring him of their purpose, and
exhorting him to repentance and prayer, in which he could not be persuaded
to engage, they fired upon him, and afterwards slashed his head with their
swords, leaving him a lifeless corpse on the king's highway. A particular account of this affair, exaggerated probably in its details, was speedily published, and large rewards offered for the perpetrators; not one of whom was ever brought-*** trial, Hackston, of Haithelet, excepted, who was one of the party, but who had refused to have any hand in the work of death, from the circum-
stance of his having had some personal quarrel with the bishop. Sharp was buried with great pomp, and a splendid monument erected over him, at St Andrews, which, though it attracts little respect, is still to be seen as one of the curiosities of that city.
SHORT, James, an eminent optician and constructor of reflecting telescopes, was the son of William Short, a joiner iu Edinburgh, where he was born on the 10th of June, 1710. The Christian name, James, was conferred upon him, in consequence of his having thus been ushered into the world on the birth-day of the Pretender. Having lost his parents in early life, he was entered, at the age of ten, on the foundation of George Heriot, where he rendered himself a favourite among his companions, by his talent for fabricating little articles in joinery. At twelve years old, he began to attend the High School for classical literature, in which he distinguished himself so greatly, that a pious grandmother determined to devote him to the church. He actually commenced a course of attendance at the university for this purpose, in 1726, took his degree of master of arts, attended the divinity hall, and in 1731 passed the usual trials preparatory to his being licensed as a preacher of the gospel; when his natural taste for mechanics, receiving excitement from an attendance at Mr Maclaurin's mathematical class, induced him to turn back from the very threshold of the church, and apply himself to a different profession. He very quickly attracted the favourable attention of the illustrious expositor of Newton, who invited him frequently to his house, in order to observe his capacity more narrowly, and encouraged him to proceed in the new line of life which he had embraced. In 1732, Maclaurin permitted Short to use his rooms in the college for his apparatus, and kindly superintended all his proceedings. Two years after, in a letter to Dr Turin, he takes notice of the proficiency of Mr Short, in the casting and polishing of the metallic specula of reflecting telescopes. The young mathematician had already improved greatly upon the construction of the Gregorian telescope. The figure which he gave to his great specula was parabolic; not, however, by any rule or canon, but by practice and mechanical devices,
