Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/136

482 religious tenets of the congregation to admit an episcopal minister, and an invalidation of his own private right as patron. For this contumacy he was charged to appear before the council; but not obeying the summons, he was soon after charged a second time, and accused of keeping conventicles and private meetings in his house, and ordered to forbear the same in time coming. Disobeying this also, as he had done the first, he was immediately after sentenced to banishment, and ordered to quit the kingdom within a month, and bound to live peaceably during that time, under a penalty of £10,000. Still disobeying, Gordon was now subjected to all the hardships and rigours of persecution. He was turned out of his house by a military force, and compelled to wander up and down the country like many others of his persecuted brethren. In the meantime the battle of Bothwell Bridge took place, and Gordon, unaware of the defeat of his friends, was hastening to join the ranks, when he was met, not far from the field of battle, by a party of English dragoons, by whom, on refusing to surrender, he was instantly killed. The troubles of the times preventing his friends from removing his body to the burial place of his family, he was interred in the church-yard of Glassford, where a pillar was afterwards erected to his memory.

GOW,, who, as a violinist and composer, well deserves a place in any work intended to perpetuate the names of Scotsmen who have done honour or service to their country, was the youngest son of the celebrated Neil Gow. His mother's name was Margaret Wiseman, and he was born at Inver, near Dunkeld, Perthshire, on the 28th May, 1766. Nathaniel, and his three brothers, William, John, and Andrew, having all given early indications of musical talent, adopted music as a profession, and the violin, on which their father had already gained so much reputation, as the instrument to which their chief study was to be directed. All the brothers attained considerable eminence, and some of them acquired a fortune by the practice of this instrument; but viewing all the circumstances applicable to each, it will not be looked on as invidious or partial, when we say, that Nathaniel must be considered the most eminent of his family or name, not only as a performer and composer, .but as having, more than any other, advanced the cause and popularity of our national music during his time, and provided, by his publications, a permanent repository of Scottish music, the most complete of its kind hitherto given to the world.

Nathaniel was indebted to his father for his first instructions. He commenced on a small violin commonly called a kit, on which his father Neil had also made his first essay, and which is still preserved in the family. At an early age he was sent to Edinburgh, where he continued the study of the violin, first under Robert M'Intosh, or Red Rob, as he was called, until the latter, from his celebrity, was called up to London. He next took lessons from M'Glashan, better known by the appellation of king M'Glashan, which he acquired from his tall stately appearance, and the showy style in which he dressed; and who besides was in high estimation as an excellent composer of Scottish airs, and an able and spirited leader of the fashionable bands. He studied the violoncello under Joseph Reneagle, a name of some note in the musical world, who, after a long residence in Edinburgh, was appointed to the professorship of music at Oxford. With Reneagle he ever after maintained the closest intimacy and friendship. The following laconic letter from the professor in 1821, illustrates this: "Dear Gow, I write this to request the fevour of you to give me all the particulars regarding the ensuing coronation, viz. Does the crown of Scotland go? Do the trumpeters go? Do you go? Does Mrs Gow go? If so, my wife and self will go; and if you do not go, I will not go, nor my wife go." Gow's