BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 299
the handsome rooms he occupied in College, as senior Fellow of King's, he
had contrived a kind of upper chamber, hollowed out in the roof, which he used
as his oratory, or place of prayer, whither he retired when he wished to be, as
he expressed it, alone with God; and where he occasionally pursued his studies
with unremitting earnestness. By a small step-ladder he could instantly get
out and walk upon the leads, between the two roofs, where he had the advantage
of ample air and exercise in unbroken privacy, without coming down into the
town at all." Such was his love of retirement; but the novelty of the contrivance
seems to have been dictated by a feeling somewhat opposite. If Mr. Simeon
aimed at distinction, however, it was the ambition to be distinguished for good ;
and charity, which " covereth a multitude of sins," was in him an unfeigned
attribute of Christianity. His kindness to Henry Hirke White is well known ;
and, among other remarkable instances of his generosity, it is stated that to
Thomas Scott (the commentator on the Bible) he sent $590 by one post.
Mr. Simeon neither obtained, and probably never desired any preferment in
the Church ; nor did he hold any prominent office in the University, although
his reputation was great, and he was held in much estimation, He expired on
the 13th November 1836, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. His remains
were interred in the Fellow's Vault of King's College. Besides his friends,
nearly two hundred gentlemen connected with the University, many of them of
the highest influence, attended the funeral.
Nu. CCLXXI.
ARCHIBALD MARTHUR,
PIPER TO THE LATE SIR REGINALD MACDONALD STEWART SETON,
OF TOUCH AND STAFFA, BART.
M'ARTHURw as a native of the island of Mull, and was allowed to be well skilled
in bagpipe music, having been taught by an excellent preceptor, Macrimmon of
Skye. In 181 0, the date of the Print, he exhibited at the annual competition
of pipers in Edinburgh, but failing to carry off the first prize, he refused to accept
the second, thereby debarring himself from again appearing before the Highland
Society on any similar occasion.
When the King visited Edinburgh in 1822, M'Arthur, as a matter of course,
followed in the train of his Chief, from whom he held a cottage with a small
portion of land, in lieu of his services as piper. That part of the Staffa estate
upon which his possession was situated having been sdd some years since,
M'Arthur, though no longer employed in his former capacity, was allowed to
remain by the new proprietor. He died, we believe, in 1834.