444 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
The death of Mr. Hagart occurred on the 11th May 1816. He had been
on a visit to his estate in Strathardle, and, on his way returning, betwixt Rlairgowrie
and Ruffel, was seized with apoplexy, when he became insensible, and in
that state remained from the Tuesday till the Saturday evening following, when
he expired. Though for several years in bad odour with the Court, he was not
without friends, among whom he was prized as ‘‘ an active and strenuous supporter
of those political measures and opinions to which he was so zealously attached, ”
In the private circle, adds a notice of his demise, “his social qualities were
perhaps unrivalled. His cheerfulness, wit, and good humour, never failed to
enliven all around him. But he has yet left behind him a more valuable
memorial; he was a father to the poor, a friend to the friendless, and the
protector of the oppressed. His professional labours were often bestowed without
fee or reward ; and the man who had none to help him ever found in Mr.
Hagart a patron ready and willing to defend him, and even to afford him
pecuniary aid. In a very recent case, he obtained, at his own sole expense,
from the court of last resort, that justice for some poor client which could not,
be obtained elsewhere.”
IX.-THE HON. HENRY ERSKINE-described in the First Volume.
X.-ALEXANDER MACONOCHIE, LORDM EADOWBANKof, whom a
portrait and memoir have already been given.
XI.-DUNCAN NACFARLANE was the youngest of three sons, and born
in 1772. His father, Dougald Macfarlane, was a merchant in Glasgow, and
engaged in the North American trade at the time the disturbances between this
country and that colony broke out; in consequence of which, on his death in
1778, leaving a widow and four young children, the family realised but a small
part of the debts due to them there. Mr. Dougald Macfarlane was married to
a daughter of George Macfarlane of Glensalloch, who, if he had lived, would
have become the chief of the clan; but his fate was singular. He became a
lieutenant in the Argyleshire Fencibles, under the command of a Colonel
Campbell, who was particularly obnoxious to the adherents of the Stuart family.
When the regiment was at Inverness in 1745, the Colonel, wishing to walk out,
but desirous of not being recognised by the rebels, asked young Glensalloch, his
lieutenant, to change plaids with him, which the young man readily did ; and
they had not gone far, when being mistaken by his plaid for the Colonel, he
was shot from a thicket, and almost instantly expired, leaving no male issue.
hlr. Duncan Macfarlane, the subject of this article, was brought up to the
profession of the law in Glasgow ; and, under the auspices of John Orr, Esq..
of Barrowfield, advocate, Dean of the Faculty of Procurators in Glasgow, was
admitted a member of that body, though contrary to the regulations of the
faculty, when only about twenty, in place of twenty-one years of age. Mr.
Macfarlane practised there for several years, but entertaining the ambition of
