ferred upon him by the university of St. Andrews. In 1826, stimulated by the example of Sir Walter Scott's novels, as well as offended with the tone of the tale of "Old Mortality," in which our Presbyterian ancestors are held up to ridicule, Dr. Duncan attempted a work in the same style, but of an opposite tendency, in which he resolved to place the characters of the Covenanters in their proper light. For this purpose he wrote "William Douglas, or the Scottish Exiles," a three-volume tale, which, however excellent in its way, was by no means a match for the powerful antagonist which it attempted to confront. But non omnia possumus omnes; and perhaps it was not altogether fitting or desirable that the minister of Ruthwell and founder of savings banks should be as able and popular a novelist as the "author of Waverly."
In a life so active and so full of incidents as that of Dr. Duncan, it would be impossible, within our narrow limits, to give even a brief detail of his many occupations and their results. We are therefore obliged to dismiss the labours of years, filled as they were with his plans for the better instruction of the lower classes—with his attempts to avert, or at least retard, the imposition of a poor's-rate in Ruthwell, and over the country at large—and the active exertions he made in favour of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, and afterwards in behalf of negro emancipation. We must even pass over his researches among the footprints of animals, which he was the first to detect in the strata of old red sandstone; by which, according to Dr. Buckland, his discovery was "one of the most curious and most important that has been ever made in geology." In all these there was abundance of literary correspondence and authorship, in which he bestirred himself with his wonted activity and success. But events were now occurring in the church of sufficient import to absorb the attention and task the utmost energies of every zealous minister, let him be of what party he might; and, under the influence of these, Dr. Duncan was summoned to abandon his favourite pursuits, and throw his whole heart into a conflict in which the very existence of the national church itself appeared to be at stake.
This controversy, which ended with the Disruption, commenced with the popular hostility towards patronage. In a mere political point of view, indeed, patronage had fully lasted its day. The people of Scotland had now become so divested of their old feudal veneration for rank and place, and withal so intelligent and inquiring, that they were no longer in the mood of implicitly submitting their spiritual guidance to any earthly patron whatever. This palpable fact, however, it was not the interest of the aristocracy to recognize, and therefore they could not see it; so that, instead of gracefully conceding a privilege which in a few years more would have been worn-out and worthless, they preferred to cling to it until it should be torn from their grasp. On the subject of patronage Dr. Duncan had meditated long and anxiously; and, being convinced that it was an evil, he joined in the great popular movement that sought its suppression. From the head-quarters of the state, also, applications were made to him for information upon the merits of the question; and this he fully transmitted successively to Lords Brougham, Melbourne, and Lansdowne. It was not, however, the entire suppression, but the modification of patronage which he sought; and, therefore, when the Veto-law was passed by the General Assembly in 1834, he hoped, in common with many of our best and wisest, that the golden mean was now attained, and a happy compromise effected between the political rights of patrons and the spiritual interests of the people.
