Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/76

  extinct, till a claimant appeared in 1830, as descended from one of the younger branches of the family, and who has assumed the titles of Stirling and Devon. Considered as a poet, Alexander is intitled to considerable praise. "His style is certainly neither pure nor correct, which may perhaps be attributed to his long familiarity with the Scottish language; but his versification is in general much superior to that of his contemporaries, and approaches nearer to the elegance of modern times than could have been expected from one who wrote so much. There are innumerable beauties scattered over the whole of his works, but particularly in his songs and sonnets; the former are a species of irregular odes, in which the sentiment, occasionally partaking of the quaintness of his age, is more frequently new and forcibly expressed. The powers of mind displayed in his Doomsday and Parænesis are very considerable, although we are frequently able to trace the allusions and imagery to the language of holy writ; and he appears to have been less inspired by the sublimity than by the awful importance of his subject to rational beings. A habit of moralizing pervades all his writings; but in the 'Doomsday' he appears deeply impressed with his subject, and more anxious to persuade the heart than to delight the imagination."—Johnson and Chalmers' English Poets, edit. 1810, vol. v.

The Earl of Stirling was employed in his latter years in the task of revising the version of the Psalms prepared by king James, which duty was imposed upon him by the royal paraphrast himself. In a letter to his friend, Drummond of Hawthornden, 28th of April, 1620, Alexander says, "Brother, I received your last letter, with the psalm you sent, which I think very well done: I had done the same long before it came; but he [king James] prefers his own to all else; though, perchance when you see it, you will think it the worst of the three. No man must meddle with that subject, and therefore I advise you to take no more pains therein." In consideration of the pains which the Earl had bestowed upon this subject, Charles I., on the 28th of December, 1627, granted a license to his lordship, to print the late king's version of the Psalms exclusively for thirty-one years. The first edition appeared at Oxford, in 1631. The king endeavoured to enforce the use of his father's version alone throughout his dominions; and, if he had been successful, the privilege would have been a source of immense profit to the Earl of Stirling. But the royal wishes were resisted by the Scottish church, and were not very respectfully obeyed any where else; and the breaking out of the civil war soon after rendered the privilege entirely useless.  ALEXANDER I., surnamed Acer, or the Fierce, king of Scots from 1106 to 1124, was the fifth son of Malcolm III. by his wife Margaret of England. Lord Hailes conjectures that his name was bestowed in honour of Pope Alexander II.; a circumstance worthy of attention, as it was the means of introducing the most common and familiar Christian name in Scotland. The date of Alexander's birth is not known; but as his four elder brothers were all under age in 1093, at the death of their father, he must have been in the bloom of life at his accession to the throne. He succeeded his brother Edgar, January 8, 1106-7, and immediately after married Sybilla, the natural daughter of Henry I. of England, who had married his sister Matilda, or Maud. Such an alliance was not then considered dishonourable. Alexander was active in enforcing obedience to his dominion, and in suppressing the bands of rebels or robbers with which the northern parts of the kingdom were infested; but the chief events of his reign relate to the efforts made by the English church to assert a supremacy over that of Scotland. These efforts were resisted by the king of Scots, with