Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/135

Rh tasks which required leisure, and promised to give him a permanent fame. A translation of Tacitus executed by him, (the third printed in the English language,) with discourses taken from foreign commentators and translators of that historian, appeared in 1728, two volumes folio; and the subscription being patronized by Sir Robert Walpole, it proved a very lucrative speculation. Of this work, one writer speaks as follows:—if No classic was ever perhaps so miserably mangled. His (Gordon's) style is extremely vulgar, yet affected, and abounds with abrupt and inharmonious periods, totally destitute of any resemblance to the original; while the translator fancied he was giving a correct imitation." Another writer, adverts to it in very different terms. "Though it is now," says Dr Murray, "in a great degree superseded by the elegant translation of Mr Murphy, it is nevertheless a work of no inconsiderable degree of merit. Mr Gordon probably understood his author better than any who have presented him to the world in an English dress; and the only objection that has been made to the work, even by Murphy himself, is, that he foolishly attempted to accommodate the English language to the elliptical and epigrammatic style of the Roman historian." Gordon afterwards published a translation of Sallust in the same style as his version of Tacitus.

During the long period of Walpole's administration, the subject of this memoir acted as his literary supporter, enjoying in return either a regular pay, or the office of first commissioner of wine licenses. After his death, which happened on the 28th of July, 1750, two collections of his fugitive writings appeared under the respective titles of "A Cordial for Low Spirits," and "The Pillars of Priestcraft and Orthodoxy Shaken;" works which had better, both for his own fame and the welfare of society, been suppressed. Finally, a volume entitled "Sermons on Practical Subjects, addressed to different characters," appeared in 1788.

GORDON,, of Earlston, a zealous defender of the covenant, and this by inheritance as well as principle, being lineally descended from Mr Alexander Gordon, who entertained some of the followers of John Wickliffe, the first of the English reformers—reading to them, in their secret meetings in the wood of Airds, a New Testament translated into English, of which he had got possession.

As the subject of this notice, however, was—notwithstanding his zeal in the cause of the covenant, and his steady and warm friendship for those who adhered to it—himself a retired and peaceful man, little of any interest is left on record regarding him. And, excepting in one of the last acts of his life, he mingled little with the public transactions of the period in which he lived. So far, however, as his personal influence extended, he did not fail to exhibit, both fearlessly and openly, the religious sentiments which he entertained. He would give no lease of his lands to any one, whatever they might offer, but on condition of their keeping family worship; and he was in the habit of meeting his tenants at a place appointed, every Sunday, and proceeding with them to church. He had also acquired a reputation for his skill in solving cases of conscience, of which some curious enough instances are to be found in Wodrow's Analecta, a MS. work (now printed) already more than once referred to in the present publication. His first public appearance, in connexion with the faith to which he was so zealously attached, occurred in the year 1663, soon after the restoration of Charles II. An episcopal incumbent having been appointed by the bishop to the church of Dairy, to which Mr Gordon had a right of patronage, he resisted the appointment, on the twofold ground of its being contrary to the