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DAL though little domestic happiness, was popularly named the Witch of Endor, and was accused of injuring by magic spells those whom she hated. His eldest son, Sir John (noticed below), was deeply implicated in the massacre of Glencoe. The aged president survived the downfall of his son only a few months. He died on the 22nd of November, 1695, shortly after the publication of his work, "A Vindication of the Divine Perfections," and was buried in the High Church of Edinburgh. His character has been depicted in varying colours of praise or blame. But all his contemporaries agree in lauding not only his transcendent ability and learning, but also his mild temper and amiable disposition. "That which I admire most in him," says Sir George Mackenzie, "was that, in ten years' intimacy, I never heard him speak unkindly of those who had injured him." He was no less distinguished for his extraordinary powers of persuasion, which, according to his enemies, enabled him often to "make the worse appear the better reason," and to give a plausible aspect of legality, and even of justice, to any proposition which it suited him to maintain.

The family of Lord President Stair were remarkable for their ability and their success in life.—His second son, , was admitted an advocate in 1695, and created a baronet in 1698. He was the author of "Collections concerning Scottish History preceding the death of David I.," published in 1705.—His grandson. of Cranston, was the author of "Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland," in 2 vols. 4to.—, the third son of the lord-president, was admitted an advocate in 1677, was sometime dean of the faculty of advocates, and was created a baronet in 1698, on his appointment to the presidency of the court of session, which had remained vacant since his father's death in 1695. He held that office till his death, which took place on the 1st February, 1737, in his eighty-fifth year.—, the youngest son of the president, was created a baronet in 1700, and for many years held the office of lord-advocate of Scotland. He was the ancestor of the celebrated Sir David Dalrymple, titular Lord Hailes, and of Alexander Dalrymple the hydrographer.

, first earl of Stair, was the eldest son of the lord-president, and was born in 1644. Like his father he adopted the legal profession, and was admitted an advocate on the 28th of February, 1672. His success was rapid and great. In 1683 he was sentenced by the council to pay a fine of £500 sterling, on the pretext, that as heritable bailie of Glenluce he had exacted too small fines from his own and his father's tenants for frequenting conventicles, and had thus prevented his rapacious accuser, Claverhouse, from amercing them in larger sums. He was afterwards without any colour of law or justice committed to prison, where he was detained for three months, and not released until he gave security to the amount of £5000. His great abilities and legal knowledge, however, made his assistance peculiarly valuable, and in 1686 he was appointed lord-advocate, an office which he held for about twelve months. He was then nominated a lord of session and lord-justice clerk. At the Revolution Sir John was nominated by the convention one of three commissioners who were sent to London to offer the crown to William and Mary. He was shortly after reappointed lord-advocate. He rendered important services to William in the settlement of the government and the church, and amid the keen discussions which took place on these subjects, showed himself the ablest politician and debater in the Scottish parliament. In 1691 he was advanced to be one of the principal secretaries of state, and virtual prime minister of Scotland; and while holding that office, was deeply implicated in the barbarous massacre of Glencoe. Injustice has been done to him, however, by the recent attempt of Lord Macaulay to vindicate the king, by throwing the whole odium of this infamous transaction upon the secretary. In 1695, after the parliamentary inquiry into the massacre. Stair was dismissed from office; but there is good reason to believe that even this most inadequate punishment was inflicted quite as much on account of the part the secretary took in support of the Darien scheme, as from the displeasure of William at the barbarous murder of the ill-fated Macdonalds. John Dalrymple shortly after succeeded to his father's title and estates. In 1703 he was advanced to the dignity of Earl of Stair, and died suddenly on the 28th of January, 1707, after an exciting debate on the twenty-second article of the Treaty of Union.

, second son of the preceding, and second earl of Stair, was a distinguished military officer. He was born at Edinburgh on the 20th of July, 1673. In early youth he had the misfortune to kill his elder brother by the accidental discharge of a pistol; and as his parents found that his presence in the household kept alive the painful recollections connected with this unhappy incident, he was placed for some years under the tuition of a clergyman in Ayrshire, who trained him with great care, and ultimately procured his restoration to the bosom of his family. His education was completed at Leyden, and at the university of Edinburgh, where he bore a high reputation for scholarship. In 1692 he entered the army as a volunteer under the young earl of Angus, colonel of the famous Cameronian regiment (see ). His family, however, wished Dalrymple to follow the profession of his father and grandfather, and for that purpose sent him to Leyden, where he studied law for several years; but on his return home in 1701 he accepted a commission as lieutenant-colonel of the Scots regiment of foot-guards. In 1702 he served as aid-de-camp to the duke of Marlborough at the capture of Venlo and Liege, and the assault on Peer; and in the course of the year 1706 he was successively appointed to the command of the Cameronian regiment and of the Scots Greys. On the death of his father in 1707, young Dalrymple succeeded to the family titles and estates, and was immediately after chosen one of the Scottish representative peers in the first united parliament. He held high command, and acquired great distinction in the important victories of Oudenarde, Malplaquet, and Ramilies; but on the accession of Harley's ministry in 1711, when the victorious career of Marlborough was basely stopped. Lord Stair retired from the army. On the accession of George I. the earl was appointed a privy councillor and a lord of the bedchamber, and was nominated commander-in-chief of the forces in Scotland, in the absence of the duke of Argyll. The next year he was sent ambassador to France, and discharged his mission with great diplomatic skill, as well as with remarkable splendour and magnificence. But he was recalled in consequence of the hostility of Law, the author of the ruinous Mississippi scheme, who was at that time comptroller-general of the French finances. Lord Stair returned to his native country in 1720, and spent the succeeding twenty-two years of his life in retirement, at his beautiful seat of Newliston, near Edinburgh, occupying himself with planting and agricultural pursuits. He was the first person in Scotland who planted turnips and cabbages in the open field. On the downfall of Walpole in 1742, the earl was recalled to public life, and sent as ambassador to Holland. A few months later he was appointed commander-in-chief of the British army in Flanders. But the king himself soon after assumed the command of his troops, and, by his open preference for the Hanoverian officers, so disgusted Lord Stair, that, "finding himself reduced to the condition of a statue with a truncheon in his hand," he resigned his office. On the threat of a French invasion, however, the earl at once forgot his ill-treatment, and tendered his services, and was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in Great Britain. He was subsequently replaced in the colonelcy of the Scots Greys, of which he had been deprived thirty-one years before by Queen Anne. His lordship died on the 9th of May, 1747.—J. T.  , better known as Lord Hailes, eldest son of Sir James Dalrymple, was born in Scotland in the year 1726, and sent to Eton for his education, where he seems to have imbibed a strong predilection for English manners and habits. After leaving school he studied law at Utrecht till 1746. Returning to his native country, he was called to the bar in 1748. But he never shone as a pleader, his thoughtful placid nature always inclining him to study and writing. He was made a judge of the court of session in 1776, and soon after, one of the lords commissioners of justiciary, when he took the title of Lord Hailes. He was reputed an upright and able judge, with a leaning ever to the side of mercy. Of his numerous writings the most important are—"The Annals of Scotland," which he submitted sheet by sheet to the revision of Dr. Johnson; and "An Inquiry into the Secondary Causes assigned by Gibbon for the Rise and Diffusion of Christianity." Dr. Johnson truly says of "the Annals," while praising their "stability of dates, certainty of facts, and punctuality of citation," that after all, "they contain mere dry particulars; and are to be considered as a dictionary." Lord Hailes died in 1792.—T. A.  , the hydrographer, brother of the preceding, was born on the 24th July, 1737. When scarcely 