difficulties of the poverty-stricken Viscount, his wife, although of small fortune, was of wonderful fecundity, and she brought him no fewer than fourteen children. For these high-born imps oatmeal porridge was the principal food which he could provide, except during the season for catching salmon, of which a fishery near his house, belonging to his estate, brought them a plentiful supply. William, the eleventh child and fourth son of this blood, destined to be Chief Justice of England, was born in the ruinous castle of Scone on the 2nd day of March, 1705. I do not read that his mother had any prophetic dream while she carried him in her boson, or that any witch or wizard with second sight foretold his coming greatness. He muled and puked like other children, and when it was time that he should be taught his letters he was sent to a school at Perth, only a mile and a half from his father's residence, where he ran about with the sons of the surrounding gentry and of the citizens and tradesmen of the town, all barefooted, and speaking a dialect which was not Gaelic, for Perth was always within the boundary which separated the Lowlands of Scotland from the Highlands, but which was a patois hardly to be called Anglo-Saxon.* Holliday, who, although he had every advantage in writing the life of Lord Mansfield, being himself a lawyer in extensive business, having often practiced before him, and having been honored with his friendship, has left us the worst specimen of biography to be found in any language,—says, “About the tender age of three years he was removed to, and educated in, London; and, consequently, he had not, when an infant, imbibed. any peculiarity in dialect." This statement has been followed by all the subsequent biographers of Lord Mansfield, and has been assumed for truth by all who have since referred to his early career. According to Boswell, "Dr. Johnson would not allow Scotland to The date is usually given 1704, but this is according to the old style. A very circumstantial account of his infancy was given by his nurse, who died in 1790, in the parish of Monimail, in Fife, at the age of 105. She usually concluded her narrative by observing that Mister Willie was a very fine laddie." See Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, j). 494. derive any credit from Lord Mansfield, as he had been reared in England; observing, Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.'" But I have ascertained from his near kinsmen, who speak from family papers, that the story of his being thus caught and tamed is pure invention. He remained at the grammar school at Perth till he was in his fourteenth year, when he went to Westminster. Afterwards, by constant pains with his pronunciation, and by never returning to visit his native country, he did almost entirely get rid of his Scotch accent; but there were some shibboleth words which he could never pronounce properly to his dying day, and which showed that his organs of speech had contracted some rigidity, or hist organs of hearing some dullness, before his expatriation. For example, he converted regiment into regment; at dinner he asked not for bread but for brid; and in calling over the bar he did not say Mr. Solicitor," but "Mr. Soleester, will you move any thing." I need hardly notice the equally unfounded story that he was at Lichfield School along with Lord Chancellor Northington, Chief Justice Willes, Chief Justice Wilmot, Chief Baron Parker, Sir Thomas Clarke, Master of the Rolls, and a herd of puisne judges, who are supposed to have there played together at taw, and afterwards simultaneously and exclusively to have presided in Westminster Hall. Instead of such amusing wonders, I am obliged to state that he spent his boyhood among companions whom he never afterwards met, or much wished to meet again. However, Latin was infinitely better taught then in the grammar schools of Scotland than at the present day; and young Willie Murray could not only translate Sallust and Horace with ease, but had learned a great part of them by heart,-could converse fluently in Latin,-could write Latin prose correctly and idiomatically, and even could have contributed Latin verses to the DELICIA POETARUM SCOTORUM, a collection of modern Latin poems which had been published not long before in Edinburgh, and which must be allowed to be much superior to the MUSE ETONENSES I have often been at a loss to understand how Latin versification, which had flourished in Scotland so much in the 16th and 17th centuries, dip or the ARUNDINES CAMI.' In Greek he made little progress beyond learning the characters and the de clensions.' But there was another foreign language which he was taught grammatically, and which he was supposed to speak and write with wonderful facility and accuracy. Pure English was laboriously attended to at Perth School, both in reading and composition; its rules and its irregularities were fully explained, and the writing of an English essay was an exercise required from the boys at the peril of the ferula. Lord Mansfield, in his old age, was often heard to declare that when at Westminster and at Oxford, and even when contending with rivals in public life, he had enjoyed an essential advantage from this discipline, as he discovered that in England, while they wasted many years on Latin and Greek prosody, they almost entirely neglected the scientific cultivation of their mother tongue; and he found eminent lawyers and statesmen who, when forced to commit their thoughts to writing, showed that they had no notion of the division of English prose into sentences, and who, though decently well acquainted with orthography, set at utter defiance the rules of grammar. Willie Murray, according to the tradition in his family, while going through the school at Perth, displayed the sharpness of intellect, the power of application, and the regularity of conduct which distinguished him in his after-career. He was almost always Dux, or head of his class; and, albeit that, according to the custom of the age, flagellation with the taws was administered even for small faults, his hand remained without a blister." peared so completely in the 18th. When I was a boy, although the habit of composing Latin prose was well kept up, I do not believe that in all Scotland there was either a schoolboy or a schoolmaster who, to save his life, could have written in Latin an alcaic ode, or twenty hexameters and pentameters alternately. The practice of speaking Latin still prevailed. There has since been an attempt at a revival, and Latin versification is practiced at the High School of Edinburgh and other classical seminaries,but we may judge from the "Musa Edinenses," not as yet with great success. I am sorry to say that Greek has at no time been cultivated in Scotland as this noble dialect deserves, although it has been much more attended to of late years, since professors bred at Oxford and Cambridge have been elected to the Greek chairs in the Scotch Universities. ' Instead of the birch applied to another part of the person, in English Till the year 1713, Lord and Lady Stormont continuing to reside in the palace at Scone, Willie lived at home with them, and he daily walked or rode on a pony to school, thus combining, in the Scottish fashion, the advantages of public education and of domestic discipline. But, for the sake of economy, the family was then moved to a small house at Camlongan, in the county of Dumfries; and Willie and a younger brother, Charles, were boarded with Mr. Martine, the master of the grammar-school at Perth, who received for them a yearly payment in money and a certain allowance of oatmeal. The following items respecting them, which I have extracted from the accounts of Mr. Barclay, a writer to the signet, Lord Stormont's Edinburgh agent, may amuse the reader : 1715. May 25. Item.-Sent to Scone per Lady's letter for Mr. William, CÆSARIS COMMENTARIUS 1717. Aug. 8. Item.-At order bought of Mr. Freebairn for Mr. William, my Lord's son TITUS LIVIUS, in a great folio and large print for 20s. Sterlin, sent to Perth by Walker the carrier June 24. Item.—Paid to Mr. John Martine for Mr. July 13. It.-Payd to Charles Melvill, merch. in Aug. 16. It. For cutting Mr. William and Charles hair £. s. d. 11 04 00 6 00 00 60 00 00 18 00 00 00 06 00 Sept. 24. It.-To a Perth carrier for bringing over It.-Given out by the Compter for Mr. Wil 35 19 00 It. For a pair of boots for Mr. William Nov. 19. A letter from Mr. William with one in- · 00 02 00 fashion, the Scots have adopted the punishment which made good scholars at Rome," Et nos ergo ferulæ subduximus." On examining this account I was much surprised at the seeming enormously high price of books in Scotland in the beginning of the last century, till I discovered that it is kept in Scottish currency-by which the pound, which was once the same all over Europe, being a pound of silver accord When Mr. Solicitor General Murray was afterwards rising into greatness, envious libels upon him sarcastically referred to his early education, and the following graphic account was given of his schooling at Perth:- "Learning was very cheap in his country, as it might be had for a groat or a quarter, so that a lad went two or three miles of a morning to fetch it; and it is very common to see there a boy of quality lug along his books to school, and a scrip of oatmeal for his dinner, with a pair of brogues on his feet, posteriors exposed, and nothing on his legs." Willie Murray approaching his fourteenth year, the time was at hand when, according to the system of education then and still subsisting in Scotland, he was supposed to have learned all that could be acquired at school, and it was in contemplation to send him to the neighboring University of St. Andrew's, where some remains of the passion for classical learning, kindled by George Buchanan when principal of St. Leonard's College, still lingered.' Much perplexity existed in the family with respect to the choice of a profession for him. His father, although he had not joined the Earl of Mar or fought at Killiecrankie, was a decided Jacobite, and his brother James had followed the Stuarts into exile. There was, therefore, little hope of promotion for any of the family from Court favor as long as the House of Hanover should keep possession of the throne._ _The Church offered no rescource; for the Nonjuring Episcopalians were not even tolerated, and few of the Presbyterian livings reached £100 a year. The law was more hopeful; but, from its being the only civil profession in Scotland ing to the standard of Troyes, and was reduced in England to one-third of its original value,-in France to 10d.,-was reduced in Scotland to Is. 8d. of English currency;-so that the price of CAESAR'S COMMENTARIES, instead of being £1 45., was only 2s. Of course all the other items are to be lowered in proportion. Pamphlet entitled "BROADBOTTOM." Having heard a surmise that he had actually studied at St. Andrew's during the session 1717-18, I caused a search to be made through the kindness of my friend Sir David Brewster, Principal of the United College of St. Saviour's and St. Leonard's there-but the only matriculation of any of the family to be found is that of his brother Charles: "Cha: Murray fil: Vicecomitis de Stormont matriculated in Col. D. Leonardi. 1721." |