Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/327

Rh this learned, pious, and virtuous man expired, April 29th, 1648, at the immature age of fifty-five. He had, by his wife, who was a native of Middleburg, two sons, of whom one survived him, and was the heir of his learning and virtue, as well as of his estates. The friends of Dr Forbes desired that he should be buried in the cathedral beside his father; but this was forbidden by the party then in power, and the mourners were obliged to carry his body to an ordinary church-yard, where it lies without any monument It is painful to add another instance of the narrow spirit to which religious hostility was carried, in an age otherwise characterized by so much zealous piety. While professor, Forbes had purchased a house at Old Aberdeen, where King's college is situated, and made it over for the use of his successors; but having forgot to secure his life-rent in it, he was afterwards deprived of it by the prevailing party.

FORBES,, of Pitsligo, an eminent banker and citizen, was born at Edinburgh on the 5th of April, 1739. He was descended by the father's side, from a younger branch of the ancient and respectable family of Forbes of Monmu&k, the proprietors, at the close of the seventeenth century, of the noble barony of that name, on the banks of the Don, in Aberdeenshire; and by his paternal grandmother, from the still older and more dignified family of the lords Pitsligo, in the same county. His mother was also a branch of the family of Forbes of Monmusk, one of the first families in Scotland who were invested with the badge of Nova Scotia baronets, which still is worn by their descendents.

His father, who was bred to the bar, and was rising into eminence in that profession, died when he was only four years of age, leaving his mother, then a young woman, with two infant sons, and very slender means of support. She lived at first at Milne of Forgue, on the estate of Bognyin Aberdeenshire, with the proprietor of which territory she was connected through her mother, and afterwards fixed her residence at Aberdeen, with her two sons, where she remained for several years, superintending their education. While there, the younger son, who is represented as having been a most engaging boy, died, to the inexpressible grief of his mother, leaving her remaining hopes to centre on Sir William, then her only child.

Though reared in confined and straitened circumstances, Sir William had not only the benefit of an excellent education, but was under the immediate care and superintendence of the most respectable gentlemen in Aberdeenshire. His guardians were lord Forbes, his uncle lord Pitsligo, his maternal uncle Mr Morrison of Bogny, and his aunt's husband Mr Urquhart of Meldrum, who were not only most attentive to the duties of their trust, but habituated him from his earliest years to the habits and ideas of good society, and laid the foundation of that highly honourable and gentlemanlike character which so remarkably distinguished him in after life.

It has been often observed, that the source of every thing which is pure and upright in subsequent years, is to be found in the lessons of virtue and piety instilled into the infant mind by maternal love ; and of this truth the character of Sir William Forbes affords a signal example. He himself uniformly declared, and solemnly repeated on his death bed, that he owed every thing to the upright character, pious habits, and sedulous care of his mother. She belonged to a class formerly well known, but unhappily nearly extinct in this country, who, though descended from ancient and honourable families, and in-