Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/135

 distinguished him during his life. His person, like his mind and manners, was elegant. He was possessed of a handsome figure with a pleasing and expressive countenance; of a graceful elocution; and, by his natural disposition, as well as his long intercourse with the higher ranks in society, of a most courteous and polite demeanour. A print of him was executed at Paris; but no copy is known to exist.

His library and museum were the anxious result of fourteen years of travelling, and between twenty and thirty more of correspondence. For their accommodation, he had built an addition to his house when he had nearly arrived at his fortieth year; but after the building was completed, he found himself so infirm as to be unable to place them in that order which he intended. After his death, his library, consisting of about three thousand volumes, besides manuscripts, was sold, we suppose, by public auction. There is a printed catalogue still extant. His museum was deposited in the hall which was, till 1829, occupied as the university library. There it remained many years, useless and neglected; some parts of it falling to inevitable decay, and other parts being abstracted. "Yet, even after 1750," says Dr Walker, "it still continued a considerable collection, which I have good reason to remember, as it was the sight of it, about that time, that first inspired me with an attachment to natural history. Soon after that period," to pursue a narrative so deeply disgraceful to the age and the institution referred to, "it was dislodged from the hall where it had been long kept; was thrown aside, and exposed as lumber; was further and further dilapidated, and at length almost completely demolished. In the year 1782, out of its ruins and rubbish I extracted many pieces still valuable and useful, and placed them here in the best order I could. These, I hope, may remain long, and be considered as so many precious relics of one of the best and greatest men this country has produced."

From the account that has been given of Sir Andrew Balfour, every person conversant in natural history or medicine must regret that he never appeared as an author. To his friend, Mr Murray of Livingston, he addressed a series of familiar letters, for the direction of his researches while abroad. These letters, forming the only literary relics of Balfour, were subsequently published by his son, in the year 1700.  BALFOUR, (Sir), an eminent lawyer and public character of the sixteenth century, was a son of Balfour of Monquhanny, in Fife, a very ancient family. In youth, being designed for the church, he made considerable proficiency, not only in ordinary literature, but in the study of divinity and law; which were all alike necessary in those times for an ecclesiastic, on account of the mixed character which the age admitted to be assumed by such individuals. Balfour, while still a young man, was so unfortunate as to join with the conspirators who, after assassinating Cardinal Beaton, held out the castle of St. Andrews against the governor Arran. He seems, however, not to have been a very cordial partizan of the conspirators. John Knox, in his own vigorous and plain-spoken manner, styled him the Blasphemous Balfour, on account of his having refused to communicate along with his reforming associates. Balfour shared the fate of his companions in being sent to the French galleys and was confined in the same vessel along with Knox, from which he escaped in 1550, along with the rest, by the tacit permission of the French government. 