Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/75

 likely to become any more numerous, and that the ancient gentry of Scotland esteemed such a whimsical dignity to be a disparagement, rather than any addition to their former honour; he bethought himself of a course more profitable to himself and the future establishment of his own state; in prosecuting whereof without the advice of his knights, who represented both houses of parliament, clergy and all, like an absolute king indeed, he disposed heritably to the French for a matter of five or six thousand pounds English money, both the dominion and property of the whole country of that kingdom of Nova Scotia; leaving the new baronets to search for land amongst the Seleites in the moon, or turn knights of the suri; so dearly have they bought their orange ribband, which, all things considered, is, and will be, more honourable to them, or their posterity, than it is or hath been profitable to either." It thus appears that Alexander's Nova Scotian scheme, whatever might have been originally contemplated, degenerated at last into a mere means of raising money by the sale of titles; a System too much practised in the English reign of James VI., and which gained, as it deserved, the contempt of all honourable minds. The territory of Nova Scotia afterwards fell into the hands of the French, who affected to believe that they had acquired a right to it by a treaty entered into with the king of Groat Britain, in 1632, in which the country of Acadia was ceded to them. In the treaty of peace transacted between the two countries, in 1763, it was successfully asserted by the British government that Nova Scotia was totally distinct from Acadia, and accordingly the territory reverted to Britain, along with Canada. The country, however, having become the property of other individuals during the usurpation of the French, it appears that the Nova Scotia baronets have very slight prospects of ever regaining the lands to which their titles were originally attached.

In 1626, Sir William Alexander, was, by the favour of Charles I., made secretary of state for Scotland; an office to which the salary of 100 a-year, being that of a good mercantile clerk in the present day, was then attached. In 1630, by the further favour of his sovereign, he was raised to the peerage under the title of viscount Stirling; and in 1633, at the coronation of king Charles in Holyrood chapel, he was promoted to the rank of an earl under the same title. He held the office of secretary during fifteen years, and gained the credit of being a moderate statesman in the midst of many violent political scenes. It does not appear, however, that he was a popular character. Such esteem as he might have gained by his poetry, seems to have been lost in consequence of the arts by which his sovereign endeavoured to give him riches. A permission which he acquired, probably in his character of lieutenant of Nova Scotia, to coin base money, became a grievance to the community, and procured him much obloquy. He had erected a splendid mansion at Stirling out of his ill-acquired gains, and affixed upon its front his armorial bearings, with the motto "Per Mare, per Terras." This was parodied, as we are informed by the sarcastic Scott of Scotstarvet. into "Per metre, per turners," in allusion to the sources of his wealth, the people believing that the royal favour had a reference to his lordship's poetry, while turners, or black farthings, as they were otherwise called, had been one of the shapes in which this favour was expressed. The house still remains, a monument of the taste of the poet.

The earl of Stirling, in 1637, published a complete edition of his poetical works, under the general title of "Recreations with the Muses." The work contained his four "Monarchick Tragedies," his "Doomsday," the "Parænesis to Prince Henry," and "Jonathan, an Heroick Poem Intended, the first book," the whole revised and very much improved by the author. He died in 1640, leaving three sons and two daughters, whose posterity was supposed to have been com-