Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 6.djvu/283

Rh the day before his death, he was out of bed for twelve hours. He arranged several of his papers, spoke freely, and appeared in good spirits. He alluded to his approaching dissolution, which he now himself began to apprehend; but Mrs Murray was too agitated to admit of the subject being minutely adverted to. He retired to bed at eleven o'clock ; he dozed a little ; and every moment he was awake he spent in prayer. In the true spirit of genius, he said that he had once expected to attain to old age, and that he would be enabled to per- form something of a more eminent nature, and of greater consequence to society, than he had yet accomplished ; but not a murmur escaped his lips; he was, at all times, perfectly resigned to the will of the Eternal. The following verse of the hundred and eighteenth psalm he repeated a few hours before his death:—

At the end of these lines he made a pause, and Mrs Murray having proceeded with the subsequent verse,—

he looked wistfully and tenderly in her countenance,—he put his hand on his breast,—and said it gave him relief and consolation. He now became suddenly worse; his speech failed him; and having lingered in this state for a short time, he breathed his last in the arms of his wife. This melancholy event took place at six o'clock in the morning of the 15th of April, 1813, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. The last words he was heard to utter were, 'Take clear burial-ground,' meaning no doubt, to intimate his desire that his remains might be placed in a grave which had not been previously occupied. He was interred in the Greyfriars' church-yard, at the northwest corner of the church."

So died this amiable and most accomplished scholar, after a life which might rather be described as the preparation for something great, than as having actually produced any great fruits. He had written a philological work of profound and varied learning, which appeared in 1813, under the auspices of Dr Scot of Corstorphine, entitled "History of European languages; or Researches into the Affinities of the Teutonic, Greek, Celtic, Sclavonic, and Indian Nations." He left, by his wife, whom he married while engaged in his pastoral duties at Urr, a son and a daughter, the latter of whom died of consumption in 1821.

MURRAY,, fifth lord Elibank, a nobleman distinguished by erudition and literary taste, was the eldest son of Alexander, the preceding lord, by Elizabeth, daughter of George Stirling, surgeon in Edinburgh. He was born in February, 1703. For reasons with which we are unacquainted, he studied for the Scottish bar, at which he entered in 1723, but in the same year adopted the military profession, and soon rose to a considerable rank in the army. He was, in 1740, a lieutenant-colonel under lord Cathcart, in the expedition to Carthagena, of which he wrote an account, that remains in manuscript in the library of the Board of Trade. He had now succeeded to the family title, and was distinguished for his wit and general ability. His miscellaneous reading was extensive, and we have the authority of Dr Johnson, that it was improved