284 THE EDINBURGH PROFESSORS 



Botanist was a Household Appointment and only during 

 pleasure. Were I merely to tell of incidents in the history 

 of Botany in Edinburgh I would here introduce the story 

 of Dr William Arthur, Sutherland's successor at the Royal 

 Garden. Arthur has no botanical claims, but had influential 

 political friends whose zeal on his behalf he ill requited by 

 becoming one of the leaders in the Jacobite plot to capture the 

 Castle of Edinburgh in 1715. Having failed in the attempt he 

 escaped to Italy, where in 1716 he died from a surfeit of figs! 

 Ignoble fate for a King's Botanist ! 



A man of real distinction now comes into our botanical 

 history in Charles Alston a clear observer and experimenter. 



Charles Alston, born 24th October, 1685, was the third son 

 of Thomas Alston, M.A. of Edinburgh and M.D. of Caen, 

 one of an old Lanarkshire family settled at Thrinacre Milne 

 and connected with the house of Hamilton. After boyhood 

 at Hamilton, Alston went to the University of Glasgow, 

 but before the period for graduation his father died leaving 

 a widow and large family poorly provided for and young 

 Alston's University career was stopped. Through the interven- 

 tion of the Duchess of Hamilton Alston was then apprenticed 

 in 1703 to a lawyer with a view to his entering the Estates 

 Office of the Hamilton family. But " anatomy and the shops 

 were more agreeable to him than Style Books or the Parliament 

 House" and his "genius inclined more to Medicine," and in 

 1709 when the Duchess took him into her service as her 

 " Principal Servant," in which position " he had aboundance of 

 spare time," " he ply'd close the Mathematics and whatever else 

 he thought of use to a student of Medicine, particularly Botany." 

 With this training Alston, through the influence of the Hamilton 

 family, was made King's Botanist, Professor of Botany, and 

 Keeper of the Royal Physick Garden in 1716 after the disap- 

 pearance of Dr Arthur. 



He adopted a wise course on succession. Having put the 

 Garden in such order as he could he hied himself to Leyden in 



1718 to study under Boerhaave, and returning thence in August 



1719 he graduated in Medicine at the University of Glasgow, 

 became Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and in June 



