Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 6.djvu/118

488 ments, if he would deliver Dunkirk and Mardyke into the hands of France; all which overtures he rejected: so that his majesty had no place to resort to preferable to Breda." After the termination of the period of excitement and energy in which he bore so active a part, little of interest remains to be told connected with the events of Lockhart's life. He was of course deprived of the government of Dunkirk, which was bestowed on Sir Edward Harley. Through the intercession of Middleton, he was suffered to return to Britain, and was introduced to Charles; he then retired to Scotland, where he buried himself in retirement, and amused himself with teaching his fellow countrymen the English methods of agriculture; but, driven away by the prevailing anarchy, he preferred a residence with the relations of his wife in Huntingdonshire. In 1665, when a renewed struggle of the commonwealth's men was expected in Scotland, the busy spirits, who had dreamed of, rather than concocted the enterprise, looked to the earl of Cassillis and Lockhart as the individuals who would probably become their leaders; but, neither countenancing the advances which were cautiously made, the project fell for a period. In 1671, he was brought to court by Lauderdale, and he showed no disinclination to be employed, "not so much," says Burnet, "out of ambition to rise, as from a desire to be safe, and to be no longer looked on as an enemy to the court." But Charles seems to have considered him as one of his "natural" enemies, "for when a foreign minister," continues Burnet, "asked the king leave to treat with him in his master's name, the king consented, but with this' severe reflection, that he believed he would be true to any body but himself." "He was sent," continues the same authority, "to the courts of Brandenburg and Lunenburg, either to draw them into the alliance, or, if that could not be done, at least to secure them from all apprehensions. But in this he had no success. And indeed when he saw into what a negotiation he was engaged, he became very uneasy. For though the blackest part of the secret was not trusted to him, as appeared to me by the instructions which I read after his death, yet he saw whither things were going; and that affected him so deeply, that it was believed to have contributed not a little to the languishing he soon fell into, which ended in his death two years after. This event took place on the 20th March, 1675, a year after the death of his father. Noble has told us that his death was attributed to the alternate causes of "a poisoned glove," and disgust at the machinations betwixt Charles and Louis, of which he had been the unconscious instrument. "I have ever looked on him," says Burnet, "as the greatest man that his country produced in this age, next to Sir Robert Murray."

LOGAN,, chiefly celebrated as the controversial opponent of Ruddiman, was born in the year 1678, and is supposed to have been the son of George Logan, a descendant of the family of Logan of Logan, in Ayrshire, who married Miss Cunningham, a daughter of the clergyman of Old Cumnock, and sister to Mr Alexander Cunningham, professor of civil law in the university of Edinburgh, towards the latter end of the 16th century. George Logan was educated at the university of Glasgow, of which he entered the Greek class in 1693, and became a master of arts in 1696. Being destined for the church, he was licensed as a preacher by the presbytery of Glasgow about the" year 1702, and on the 7th of April, 1707, he was ordained a minister by the same presbytery, in pursuance of a popular call to the parish of Lauder, the ministry of which he obtained in preference to two other candidates, Mr Stephen Oliver and Mr George Hall. He remained at Lauder until the 22nd January, 1719.