house to be delivered to him, and more prisoners to be brought thither." Alexander Leighton lived till 1649, but his health was much shattered by his long imprisonment. Although in controversy he was "of violent and ungoverned heat"—and his times offer much by way of explanation-in his family life he was amicable and affectionate, and it is said " was never heard to speak of his persecutors but in terms of compassion and forgiveness." He was twice married; his first wife's name is unknown, but his second wife was a daughter of Sir William Musgrave, of Cumberland, who had been twice a widow. He had four sons, James, Robert, Elisha, and Caleb, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Sapphira. We have now to do in the next chapter with his celebrated son, Robert Leighton, whose personality and career are in such strange contrast to his father's. NOTES TO CHAPTER IV. 1. In Benson's Tracts (No. 14) there is the following reference to Alexander Leighton: "Dr. Alexander Leighton was of low stature, of a fair complexion, and well known for his learning and other abilities. And he must have had an excellent constitution to have lived for so long, under such cruel treatment. But his long and close confinement (added to his other sharp utterances) had so impaired his health: that, when he was released, he could hardly walk, see, or hear " (p. 234). 2. Baillie (writing Nov. 18, 1640) says with reference to his appeal to Parliament: "Lightoun has been twyce heard and on Fryday, is hoped, sall be absolved" (vol. i. p. 273). 3. In the History of the English and Scotch Presbytery, by Isaac Basier or Basière (edition 1660)-the Scotch Covenanters are described as " impatient Libertines and haughty: they will form a Gospel according to the air of their climate" (p. 32)—" the Presby. terians laid his head (Charles I's) upon the block, and the Independents cut it off" (p. 229). In the course of this violent book against the Covenanters and as violent defence of Charles I, Dr. Alexander Leighton's Zion's Plea is severely criticized and referred to (p. 76). 1 4. Referring to the portrait of Alexander Leighton, with its evidences of suffering, Granger says: "It shows how differently authors of libels were treated in the reign of Charles I from what they have been of late years." Biographical History of England, vol. i. p. 493. 5. In the Camden Miscellany (vol. vii. old series) will be found the "Speech of Sir Robert Heath in the Case of Alexander Leighton (1-10) with preface by the late John Bruce, F.S.A., (iii.-xiii.) and notes by the Editor, Samuel Rawson Gardiner (xiv.-xxii.). 6. In the British Museum Catalogue there is an anonymous work, published September 6, 1642, attributed to Alexander Leighton as its author. The probability is great, but no certainty is possible regarding it. If it is Leighton's then it would be additional evidence to that already adduced (p. 43) that Leighton sometimes had times of liberty during his imprisonment. The title is a long one : "King James: His Judgment of a King and of a Tyrant : Extracted out of His own speech at Whitehall to the Lords and Commons in Parliament, 1609, with certain notations anent the same. Also 28 Questions, worthy due consideration and solution, in these dangerous times of England.” It bears a strong internal resemblance to Alexander Leighton's other works, and is on the same line of direction. I am disposed to think the conjecture in the Catalogue is a right one. 7. Although Leighton in his Zion's Plea incites the Members of Parliament to "smite the bishops under the fifth rib" (p. 128), he adds, "we mean of their callings not their persons." 8. R. Walker (Journal; 177) styles him "Keeper of the Prisoners for the Rebels in Lambeth House." CHAPTER V ROBERT LEIGHTON-YOUTH AND STUDENT LIFE "He at least believed in soul, was very sure of God." "You know how love is incompatible With falsehood—purifies, assimilates "What is there to frown or smile at ? And from the finite to infinity, And from man's dust to God's divinity? Take all in a word: the truth in God's breast Lies trace to trace upon ours impressed : Though He is so bright and we so dim, We are made in His image to witness Him: And were no eye in us to tell, Instructed by no inner sense, The light of heaven from the dark of hell, That light would want its evidence." ROBERT BROWNING. E now pass from the father to his distinguished and WE saintly son, Robert Leighton, and in doing so the transition is felt to be a sudden one, for there is very little in the son to suggest the father, and as far as charity and mildness are concerned, they seem as opposite poles, or as the arctic and tropical regions to each other. Robert Leighton's birthplace is unknown, although Edinburgh has not a little to be said in its favour,1 perhaps more 1 Robert Pearson's Life, p. 7. than London.1 His father's personality stands out sufficiently clear from the last chapter, but of his mother nothing is known. Robert was unquestionably the son of the first wife, whose name is unknown. One would eagerly know something regarding his mother, but search is in vain. There must have been about her an unusual sweetness of disposition, amiability and tenderness, and Robert seems to have been shaped much by her character; his refinement, delicacy of feeling, sweetness of temper, as well as his constitution, apparently not very robust, must have been inherited from her side of the family, and I cannot help thinking that Robert's eager desire for heaven, his constant communing upon it throughout life, must have been intensified by this love, early removed from the visible form and centred round her as an angel form. His mother's early death, with the chastening and reflection it brought, does much to enlighten one regarding his inner life, and to reveal the affections it created there, while Principal Tulloch thought that his father's second marriage evidently explains some features of the son's later career. Robert Leighton was born in 1611, and Burnet adds that the father "sent his eldest son Robert to be bred in Scotland." 3 He entered the University of Edinburgh in the winter of 1627 under Mr. Robert Rankin, one of the regents, and he took his degree on July 23, 1631.4 Principal Sir Alexander Grant says: "It has never been observed that whereas a century later Robertson and Hume took the greatest pains to write English correctly, and did There seemed a possibility of acquiring sound information on this point from the Baptismal Registers of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe and St. Ann, Blackfriars, London, as Alexander Leighton attended the ministry of Dr. Gouge, the rector of the period there. The present rector (the Rev. P. Clementi-Smith) favoured me by examining the Registers of the period, but the search for the name of Leighton was in vain. 2 Scottish Divines, p. 117. 3 History of His Own Times, vol. i. p. 239. • Proceedings, vol. iv. p. 460. not always succeed, because it was not the dialect in which they were accustomed to speak and think, Leighton in the middle of the seventeenth century wrote in a lucid style of English undefiled. The explanation must be that as a boy he lived in England, and the southern dialect was to him the mother-tongue, the use of which he of course improved by scholarship." 1 The College consisted of the following members at the year of Robert Leighton's enrolment as a student : Alexander Morison, Lord Prestongrange, Rector of the University. Mr. John Adamson, Principal. Mr. Henry Charteris, Professor of Divinity. Mr. Robert Rankin Mr. John Brown Mr. Andrew Stevenson Mr. William King Professors of Philosophy. Mr. Thomas Crauford, Professor of Humanity. " Principal Adamson published in 1627 a small Latin catechism for the use of students, and Leighton would use it as one of the University manuals. It was entitled ΣToixelwois Eloquiorum Dei, sive Methodus Religionis Christianae Catechetica. In usum Academiae Jacobi Regis et Scholarum Edinensium conscripta. Beyond this," Sir Alexander Grant remarks, "his Principalship did not leave much trace, except that he bequeathed George Buchanan's skull to the College." Professor Henry Charteris is described by Craufurd as certainly one of the most learned men of his time, both in the tongues, and in philosophy and divinity; but he had too low thoughts of himself, a fault (if a fault) known in few beside. He was also of an holy and unblamed life." He wrote the 1 The Story of the University of Edinburgh, vol. ii. p. 248. 3 Story, vol. ii. p. 245. • Ibid., pp. 242, 243. |