BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 251
Dr. Home retained to his advanced age a taste for classical literature ; and
several of his poems, known principally to his friends, have very considerable
merit. The print represents Dr. Home in his ordinary and contemplative
mode of walking the streets of Edinburgh.
No. CII.
THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF HADDINGTON,
SIR WILLIAM FORBES OF PITSLIGO, BART.,
AND SIR JAMES HUNTER BLAIR, BART.
THOMAS, SEVENTH EARL OF HADDINGTON, who is here represented
as walking with his favourite little dog behind him, was born in 1720, and
succeeded his grandfather to the titles and estates in 1735. His father was the
amiable and accomplished Lord Binning, whose premature death was universally
regretted. The specimens of Lord Binning’s poetical talents which remain,
warrant the inference that, had he not been prematurely cut off, he would have
taken a high station among the poets of his native land. His son set out on
his travels, accompanied by his brother George, in 1740 ; and the same year
they became members of the “Common Room,” just then established at
Geneva.
His lordship was twice married ; first, in 1750, to Mary, daughter of Rowland
Holt, Esq., of Redgrave, county of Suffolk, by whom he had two sons, viz.
Charles, afterwards Eighth Earl of Haddington, and the Hon. Thomas Hamilton,
who died in 1774. On the death of the Countess at Edinburgh in 1785, the
Earl again married, in 1786, the eldest daughter of Sir Charles Gascoigne,
Knight, by whom he had one daughter, who died in infancy.
His lordship died at Ham, in Surrey, on the 19th May 1794, in his seventyfourth
year.
SIR W1I;LTkM FORBES’ will be easily recognised in the centre figure
of the group. We have, in No. LXXII., already given a sketch of the life and
In OUT former notice of Sir William, we stated that he was maternally descended from the Lords
of Pitsligo. His grandson, Sir John Stuart Forbes, became next heir of the family-the Master of
Pitsligo having died without issue. He
had been out with Mar in 1715, and for several years afterwards took refuge in France. Although
an old man (being sixty-seven years of age) when Prince Charles raised his standard in 1745,
Lord pitsligo again took the field, at the head of a party of Aberdeenshire gentlemen, forming a body
of well-equipped cavalry, about one hundred strong, with whom he joined the Pretender in Edinburgh
’after the battle of Preston. He shared in all the subsequent movements of the Jacobite army j and,
after the final overthrow at Culloden, instead of flying abroad, he found shelter in hia native country,
and among his own peasantry. His preservation was very extraordinary, and can only be attributed
to the excellence of his character, and the esteem in which he waa held by all who knew him. The
Alexander, the last Lord Pitsligo, was attainted h 1745.
