Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/421

 all abuses and exorbitancies or exactions practised in prejudice of their majesties lieges in any offices of judicature.’ This report formed a basis of the Act for the Regulation of the Judicatures, which received the royal sanction on 29 April 1695. On 25 Nov. 1695, Stair, who had been for some time in failing health, died in Edinburgh, and was buried in the church of St. Giles. In the same year there was published in London a small octavo entitled ‘A Vindication of the Divine Perfections, illustrating the Glory of God in them by Reason and Revelation, methodically digested into several heads. By a Person of Honour, with a preface by William Bates and John Howe,’ two nonconformist ministers. This work has always been ascribed to Stair, who had probably made the acquaintance of Howe when an exile like himself in Holland. It bears evidence of his authorship in the admirable distinctness of conception and lucid order of treatment, and it had probably been a portion of the inquiry concerning natural theology which he contemplated when he made his contract with the printer in 1681. But though interesting as showing the serious bent of his thoughts and the piety of his character, which his implacable adversaries deemed hypocrisy, it has no other value. Stair was not a theologian any more than he was a natural philosopher, yet one thought from this forgotten treatise deserves to be preserved. ‘The discovery of the Natures of the Creatures and all experimental knowledge hath proceeded from the beginning, and shall to the end increase, that there might never be wanting a suitable exercise, diversion, and delight, to the more ingenious and inquiring men,’ and he cites this as one of the proofs of the goodness of God.

Stair left four sons, of whom John, first earl Stair, Sir Hew, his successor as president in the court of session, and Sir James Dalrymple of Borthwick, antiquary, are the subjects of separate articles. His fourth son, Thomas, became physician to Queen Anne. He was survived by three daughters, Elizabeth, wife of Lord Cathcart, Sarah, who married Lord Crichton, eldest son of the Earl of Dumfries, and Margaret, wife of Sir David Cunningham of Milncraig. The best and perhaps only authentic portrait of him, by Sir John Medina, in the house of New Hailes, the property of his descendant, Mr. Charles Dalrymple, has been frequently engraved. Another, which Mr. D. Laing conjectured to be the work of Paton, a Scottish painter, is in Walpole's ‘Royal and Noble Authors,’ Park's ed. v. 126. A third lately sold in London, and bought by the present Earl of Stair, is probably a copy of Medina's somewhat altered by a later artist, or possibly by Medina himself.

[For fuller details see Mackay's Memoir of Sir James Dalrymple, first Viscount Stair, Edinburgh, 1873.]  DALRYMPLE, JAMES (fl. 1714), Scottish antiquary, was the second son of Sir James Dalrymple, bart., of Stair, afterwards first Viscount Stair [q. v.], by Margaret, daughter of James Ross of Balniel. He was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates 25 June 1675 and was appointed one of the commissaries of Edinburgh. Afterwards he became one of the principal clerks of the court of session. He was created a baronet of Nova Scotia 28 April 1698. He was thrice married, and had a numerous family.

Dalrymple was a man of great learning, and one of the best antiquaries of his time. He published: 1. ‘Apology for himself, 1690,’ Edinburgh, 1825, 4to, only seventy-two copies printed (, Bibl. Man. ed. Bohn, p. 583). 2. ‘Collections concerning the Scottish History preceding the death of King David the First in 1153. Wherein the sovereignty of the Crown and independency of the Church are cleared, and an account given of the antiquity of the Scottish British Church and the noveltie of Popery in this Kingdom,’ Edinburgh, 1705, 8vo. William Atwood [q. v.], barrister-at-law, published ‘Remarks’ on these ‘Collections,’ which were also adversely criticised by John Gillane in his ‘Life of John Sage,’ 1714. 3. ‘A Vindication of the Ecclesiastical Part of Sir John Dalrymple's Historical Collections: in answer to a pamphlet entitled “The Life of Mr. John Sage,”’ Edinburgh, 1714, 8vo.

[Douglas's Peerage of Scotland (Wood), ii. 522; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Anderson's Scottish Nation, ii. 5; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.; Foster's Baronetage (1882), 173; Foster's Peerage (1882), 628.]  DALRYMPLE, JOHN, first  (1648–1707), eldest son of Sir James Dalrymple, first viscount Stair [q. v.], lord president of the court of session, by his wife Margaret Ross, coheiress of the estate of Balniel, Wigtownshire, was born in 1648. While travelling in England in 1667, in company with his friend Sir Andrew Ramsay of Abbotshall, he is said to have arrived at Chatham when the Dutch fleet sailed up the Medway, and to have assisted in preventing an English man-of-war from being blown up (Impartial Account; and in Somers Tracts, xi. 552). Either for this service, or merely as a mark of respect to his father, he received in the same year the honour of knight-