early age shown a remarkable genius for mathematics, he was provided, through the liberality of some friends, with the means of studying at Cambridge. In 1838 he was appointed an examiner in mathematics and physics in London university. He wrote various treatises on mathematical and physical subjects for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, besides a series of papers on important questions on pure mathematics, which appeared in the Cambridge Transactions, vols. iii. to vi., and in the Philosophical Transactions for 1837.—W. J. M. R.
MURR, Christoph Gottlieb, a prolific German miscellaneous writer, was born at Nuremberg, 6th August, 1733. He studied at Altorf, held an office in the excise in his native town, and died April 8, 1811. By his "Journal zur Kunstgeschichte und allgemeinen Literatur," 17 vols., he led the way to the modern history of art. He exercised altogether a wholesome influence over German literature.—K. E.
MURRAY, Alexander, an eminent self-taught scholar, was born at Dunkitterick, parish of Minnigaff, and stewartry of Kirkcudbright, 22nd October, 1775. His parents were poor, the family being shepherds. Alexander, being rather a delicate child, did not know the alphabet till he was six years, his father drawing the figures of the letters in "written hand" on the back of an old hand wool-card with the black end of a burnt heather stump. "So," he says in his autobiography, "I became writer as well as reader, and wrought with the board and brand continually." By 1783 his reading and memory were the talk of the "whole glen." His uncle now sent him to school at New Galloway, where he remained less than a year, being obliged to return home unwell. For the next four years he had no schooling, but was obliged to follow the family occupation as a shepherd boy, spending, however, all his spare pence on ballads and little histories, of which he was exceedingly fond. In the winter of 1787 two heads of families in Kirkowan engaged him to teach their children, and he returned home in March following, with a few shillings to spend on books of a better class. On the removal of his father to another scene of labour, he was able to attend Minnigaff school for a short period. Then three neighbouring families in the moors hired him as teacher, and in his circuit he remained with each household ten weeks. Borrowing a French grammar, he was soon able to read portions of the Diable Boiteux; and getting hold of a Latin grammar, he at once beat a whole class who had been a good while studying that language and reading Ovid and Cæsar. Greek was acquired in a similar off-hand way, and Hebrew was soon in like manner added to the list; nay, also he taught himself without effort the Arabic alphabet contained in Robertson's Hebrew grammar. In 1791 he was engaged again in domestic tuition, and wrote pieces of poetry. He got a little more schooling in the following year, and then hired himself for a trifle to teach in a neighbouring family. Now he laid Anglo-Saxon and Welsh under tribute, and tried his hand on an epic poem—King Arthur being the subject. Having translated a manuscript copy of Drakenborch's lectures on some of the classics, he resolved to publish them, and the work being done he journeyed to Dumfries in 1794 to offer it to the booksellers. "He collected," he says, "four or five hundred subscriptions." During his visit to Dumfries he was introduced to Burns who treated him with "great kindness," but told him, in reference to some poems he wished to publish, that his taste was young, and not formed. Through the patronage of friends in Edinburgh he was at length enabled to attend the university, and in 1797 he received from the corporation a college bursary. During his college course he made the acquaintance of many distinguished men. Dr. Leyden being his most intimate associate. Having completed his theological curriculum, he was licensed to preach, but several years elapsed before he obtained a pastoral charge. At length in 1806 he was ordained assistant and successor in the parish of Urr—becoming sole pastor on the death of his colleague in 1808. He was a diligent minister, and still found leisure to prosecute linguistic researches. In 1812 he was chosen professor of oriental languages in the university of Edinburgh, and the university at once conferred upon him the degree of doctor in divinity. But pulmonary disease had fatally undermined his constitution, and he died on the 15th of April, 1813. In 1823 was published his "History of the European Languages," with a memoir prefixed, a large portion of which is autobiographical. Dr. Murray was certainly a prodigy, with a rare and wondrous gift of acquiring languages. He mastered a foreign tongue so as to be able to translate it, as if by intuition. In 1811 he translated a letter from the prime minister of Abyssinia to the king of Great Britain, a work which no other individual in the country was able at that time to perform. Dr. Murray, however, knew more of languages than of language, was more a linguist than a philologist, failing to detect the inner structure and affinities of various tongues. His derivation of all words from some nine or ten monosyllables as ag, bag, dag, gag, lag, &c., is now among the theories that were. True, indeed, the Sanscrit had not come into general use, for Dugald Stewart was denying its reality and calling it a Brahminical imposture, though Lord Monboddo had at an earlier period foreseen its value, and foretold the great results which must spring from its study.—J. E.
MURRAY, Daniel, Roman catholic archbishop of Dublin, was born in 1768 at Sheepswalk, in the parish of Redcross, county Wicklow. At the age of sixteen he was sent to Salamanca for his education, and consecrated priest in 1790. For nearly twenty years he performed the duties of his sacred office in small and obscure curacies in various parts of England. In 1809 he was made archbishop of Hierapolis and coadjutor of Dr. Troy, archbishop of Dublin, whom he eventually succeeded in 1823. In 1810 he was in Paris soliciting the restitution of the property belonging to the religious establishments of Irish catholics in that country, and he succeeded in establishing a certain right of supervision on the part of the Irish prelates over their countrymen and coreligionists settled in France. In Ireland he supported not only the Roman catholic emancipation bill, but measures for the education and improvement of the Irish, being associated with the protestant Archbishop Whately, as a commissioner of national education in Ireland. For a short period he was visitor to one of the queen's colleges, but resigned the office on learning that the pope disapproved of the new institutions. He died on the 26th of February, 1852.—R. H.
MURRAY, Sir George, a distinguished soldier and statesman, was the second son of Sir William Murray, Baronet, of Ochtertyre, Perthshire, and was born in 1772. After completing his education at the high school and university of Edinburgh, at the age of seventeen he obtained an ensigncy in the 71st regiment of foot. His first service was in Flanders in 1791; and he served with great distinction in Flanders, Holland, the West Indies, and in Egypt under Sir Ralph Abercromby, where he performed important services in connection with the quartermaster-general's department. He accompanied the British army to Portugal as quartermaster-general, and served with distinction under Wellington throughout the whole of the Peninsular war. He attained the rank of major-general in 1812, and was appointed to the command of a regiment, and made a knight of the bath in 1813. He was next intrusted with the government of Canada; but, on the news of the escape of Bonaparte from Elba, he returned home and resumed his military duties. He remained three years in Paris with the army of occupation, holding the rank of lieutenant-general, and was honoured with no fewer than seven orders of foreign knighthood. On his return home he held in succession the offices of governor of Edinburgh castle and of the royal military college, and lieutenant-general of the ordnance; was created a D.C.L. by the university of Oxford; and chosen a fellow of the Royal Society. Sir George's military career was now terminated; but instead of retiring into private life, he entered the house of commons in 1823 as member for Perthshire, and in 1828 was appointed secretary of state for the colonies, in the duke of Wellington's ministry. He discharged the duties of this important office with ability and success, and displayed great aptitude for business, and no inconsiderable talents as a debater. He lost his seat after the passing of the reform bill, of which he was a strenuous opponent, and he afterwards unsuccessfully contested Westminster and Manchester. He held the office of master general of the ordnance, in Sir Robert Peel's short-lived administration in 1834-35, and was reappointed in 1841. Failing health compelled him to resign his office about the beginning of 1846, and he died on the 26th July following, at the age of seventy-four. Sir George edited the Duke of Marlborough's Despatches, in 5 vols. 8vo.—J. T.
MURRAY, Hugh, a Scottish geographer, historian, and miscellaneous writer, was the son of a presbyterian clergyman at North Berwick, and was born in 1779. He obtained at an early age the situation of clerk in the Edinburgh excise-office, and devoted his leisure to literary studies, which he pursued with great ardour. His first production was a tale entitled "The Swiss Emigrants;" but his taste led him to cultivate severer stu-
