Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/63

Rh made him appear unburdened with difficulties, and a flow of language which, whether treating of familiar or of serious subjects, was always copious than by the studied art of forensic oratory. His political principles were always on the side of the people, and so far as may be gathered from his remarks, he would have practically wished that every man should enjoy every freedom and privilege which it might be consonant with the order of society to allow, or which might with any safety be conceded to those who had been long accustomed to the restraints and opinions of an unequal government From all that can be gathered from his life and character, it is to be regretted that lord Gardenstone, like many other eminent persons of his profession in Scotland, should have left behind him no permanent work to save his memory from oblivion. His "Travelling Memorandums" display the powers of a strongly thinking mind, carelessly strewed about on unworthy objects; the ideas and information are given with taste and true feeling; but they are so destitute of organization or settled purpose, that they can give little pleasure to a thinking mind, searching for digested and useful information, and are only fit for those desultory readers, who cannot, or, like the author himself, will not devote their minds to any particular end. The author's criticisms, scattered here and there through his memorandums, his letters to his friends in the Edinburgh Magazine, and numberless pencil marks on the margins of his books, are always just and searching, and strikingly untrammelled by the prejudices of the day, a quality well exhibited in his praises of Shakspeare, then by no means fashionable, and of the satellites of the great bard, Shirley, Maiiow, Massinger, and Beaumont and Fletcher, who were almost forgotten.

GARDINER,, a distinguished military officer, and Christian hero, was born at Carriden in Liniithgowshire, January 11, 1688. Of this remarkable person we shall abridge the pleasing and popular memoir, written by Dr Doddridge, adding such additional particulars as have fallen under our observation in other sources of intelligence.

Colonel Gardiner was the son of captain Patrick Gardiner, of the family of Torwood-head, by Mrs Mary Hodge, of the family of Gladsmuir. The captain, who was master of a handsome estate, served many years in the army of king William and queen Anne, and died abroad with the British forces in Germany, shortly after the battle of Hochstet, through the fatigues he underwent in {lie duties of that celebrated campaign. He had a company in the regiment of foot once commanded by colonel Hodge, his brother-in-law, who was slain at the head of that regiment, at the battle of Steinkirk, 1692.

Mrs Gardiner, the colonel's mother, was a lady of a very valuable character; but it pleased God to exercise her with very uncommon trials; for she not only lost her husband and her brother in the service of their country, but also her eldest son, Mr Robert Gardiner, on the day which completed the 16th year of his age, at the siege of Namur in 1695.

She took care to instruct her second son, the subject of this memoir, at a very early period of his life in the principles of Christianity. He was also trained up in human literature at the school of Linlithgow, where he made a very considerable progress in the languages. Could his mother, or a very religious aunt, of whose good instructions and exhortations he often spoke with pleasure, have prevailed, he would not have thought of a military life. But it suited his taste; and the ardour of his spirit, animated by the persuasions of a friend who greatly urged it, was not to be restrained. Nor will the reader wonder, that thus excited and supported, it easily overbore their tender remonstrances, when he knows, that this lively youth fought three duels before he attained to the stature of a man; in one of