Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/216

562 9th March, 1770, aged sixty-two, representative of the ancient family of Guthrie of Halkerton, in the county of Angus, North Britain: eminent for knowledge in all branches of literature, and of the British constitution, which his many works, historical, geographical, classical, critical, and political, do testify; to whom this monument was erected, by order of his brother, Henry Guthrie, esq., in the year 1777."

Guthrie was one of those individuals who live by making themselves useful to others, and his talents and habits dictated the most profitable occupation for his time to be composition: he seems to have exulted in the self-imposed term of "an author by profession;" and we find him three years before his death complacently styling himself, in a letter to the earl of Buchan, "the oldest author by profession in Britain:" like many who have maintained a purer fame; and filled a higher station, his political principles were guided by emolument, which, in his instance, seems to have assumed the aspect of pecuniary necessity. Had not his engagements with the booksellers prompted him to aim at uniting the various qualities of a Hume, a Robertson, a Johnson, a Camden, and a Cowley, attention to one particular branch of his studies might have made his name illustrious. Johnson considered him a person of sufficient eminence to regret that his life had not been written, and uttered to Boswell the following sententious opinion of his merits:—"Sir, he is a man of parts. He has no regular fund of knowledge, but by reading so long, and writing so long, he no doubt has picked up a good deal." Boswell elsewhere states in a note "How much poetry he wrote, I know not, but he informed me, that he was the author of the beautiful little piece, 'the Eagle and Robin Red-breast,' in the collection of poems entitled 'The Union,' though it is there said to be written by Archibald Scott, before the year 1600."

HACKSTON,, of Rathillet, is a name of considerable celebrity in the annals of Scotland, from its connexion with the events of 1679-80, and from its pre-eminence in some of the most remarkable transactions of that stormy period. Hackston, though indebted for his celebrity to the zeal and courage which he displayed in the cause of the covenanters, is said to have led an exceedingly irreligious life during his earlier years, from which he was reclaimed by attending some of the field preachings of the period, when he became a sincere and devoted convert. The first remarkable transaction in which he was engaged in connexion with the party with which he had now associated himself, was the murder of archbishop Sharpe. Hackston of Rathillet formed a conspicuous figure in the group of that prelate's assassins, although in reality he had no immediate hand in the murder. He seems, however, even previous to this to have gained a considerable ascendency over his more immediate companions, and to have been already looked up to by his party, as a man whose daring courage and enthusiasm promised to be of essential service to their cause. When the archbishop's carriage came in sight of the conspirators, of whom there were eight besides Hackston, they unanimously chose him their leader, pledging themselves to obey him in every thing in the conduct of the proposed attack on the prelate. This distinction, however, Hackston declined, on the ground that he had a private quarrel with the archbishop, and that, therefore, if he should take an active part in his destruction, the world would allege that he had done it to