1831.] 



Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persons. 



Ill 



the Scottish honours of his family, at the 

 decease of his father, on the 5th of Novem- 

 ber, 1774 ; he obtained the English earl- 

 dom of Strange, and Barony of Murray, of 

 Stanley, by creation on the 18th of Au- 

 gusr, 1780; and he inherited the Barony 

 of Strange, at the decease of his mother, 

 who was Baroness of Strange in her own 

 right, in 1805. His mother was the Lady 

 Charlotte Murray, only daughter of James, 

 second Duke of Athol. His Grace mar- 

 ried, on the 26th of December, 1774, Jane, 

 eldest daughter of Charles, ninth Lord 

 Cathcart, by whom he had two sons and 

 three daughters. His eldest son, John, 

 born in 1778, has for some years been an 

 inmate of a lunatic asylum, at Kilbourne, 

 a circumstance which proved a source of 

 deep and permanent affliction to his father. 

 His malady is said to have originated in a 

 brain fever, consequent on imprudent bath- 

 ing. From the unhappy state of his intel- 

 lect, his brother, James, born in 1782, 

 supersedes him, by virtue of an act of par- 

 liament, and succeeds to the family honours 

 and estates, as fifth Duke of Athol, &c. 

 This nobleman married, in 1810, the Lady 

 Emily Frances Percy, sister of the present 

 Duke of Northumberland ; and, in 1821, 

 he was created Baron Glenlyon,of Glenlyon, 

 in the county of Perth. The Duke's eldest 

 daughter, Charlotte, was married, first, to 

 the late Sir John Menzies, Bart. ; secondly, 

 to Rear-Admiral Adam Drummond, of 

 Meginch : his second daughter, Amelia 

 Sophia, is married to Viscount Strathallan ; 

 and his third, Elizabeth, to Sir Evan John 

 Macgregor Murray, Bart. His Grace's 

 first wife dying in 1790, he married in 

 1704, Margery, eldest daughter of James, 

 sixteenth Lord Forbes, and relict of 

 Macleod, by whom he had several children, 

 all now deceased. 



For thirty-six years the Duke of Athol 

 had enjoyed the office of Lord Lieutenant 

 of his county ; in which, too, the greater 

 part of his life had been spent. As a 

 spirited and enterprising landed proprietor, 

 his loss there will be deeply felt. His 

 Grace died at his seat, Athol House, Dun- 

 keld, Perthshire, on the 29th of September. 

 His funeral took place on the 18th of Octo- 

 ber, in a manner strictly private, and void 

 of ostentatious ceremony. According to his 

 express wish, his body was deposited hi a 

 coffin made of one of his own larch trees, 

 without any covering, but highly polished 

 and varnished, that thus another trial might 

 be given of the durability of his favourite 

 timber. The funeral service was read by 

 the Bishop of Rochester ; and a mournful 

 procession, consisting of the members of 

 the family, and the immediate relations and 

 friends of the deceased, conveyed his re- 

 mains to the burial-place of his fathers. 



ADMIRAL SIR JOHN NICHOLLS, K.C.B. 



This officer, born in 1758, died early in 

 September, at his residence in Somerset- 

 shire. According to the custom formerly 

 prevalent with those who had interest, he 

 entered the service in his childhood ; and, 

 after passing through all the respective gra- 

 dations of rank, he was made Post-Captain 

 in 1788. In the war that broke out after 

 the commencement of the French Revolu- 

 tion, he, in 1793, commanded the Royal 

 Sovereign, of 100 guns, at that time bear- 

 ing the flag of Admiral Lord Graves ; in 

 1807, he commanded the Marlborough, of 

 74 guns ; in 1810 he was made Rear- 

 Admiral; in 1820, K.C.B. ; in 1825, Vice- 

 Admiral of the Blue ; and in 1830, Ad- 

 miral of the White. He was some time 

 Comptroller of the Navy. 



MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



AT this season of the year, our Correspondents have little to communicate on 

 the ordinary occupations of husbandry ; their letters at the present turbulent 

 crisis, are filled with very different, indeed, disheartening subjects, with the con- 

 solation, however, that a stop has at length been put to the horrible devastations 

 which have prevailed almost throughout" the country, and that great numbers of 

 misguided and revengeful delinquents have been apprehended. In those fortunate 

 districts which escaped the dreadful visitations, among which Herts, as in other 

 respects, formerly adverted to, stands most memorably and creditably prominent, 

 the arrears of cultivation have been completed in a style considerably superior to 

 expectation for times like the present ; in those most subjected to the recent 

 calamities, so much cannot be expected, and great interruption must have there 

 been experienced to the completion of the year's business, as well as derangement 

 and deterioration of the prospects of the year ensuing. The wheats in the southern 

 and forward counties, are generally above ground, and upon dry and wholesome 

 soils, have as fine and promising an appearance as could possibly be expected, upon 

 lands in their notoriously neglected state. Our late letters make no further men- 

 tion of the slug, the forwardest wheats probably getting beyond its powers, and a 

 frost of some length will prove the only radical remedy. It was stated in our 

 last, that the kindliness of the season had induced many farmers to extend their 

 breadth of wheat. We have since been informed, in fact, several instances have 

 come under our own observation, that many others have been deterred from risk- 

 ing a wheat crop on part of their lands, both from the unfortunate experience of 

 their two last crops, and the deplorably foul and exhausted state of the soil, much 



