SIE WILLIAM ALKXANDER. _ 105 



degree after another in the peerage, he launched out iuto expenditure beyond his means, 

 which ultimately brought him to a state of bankruptcy. Two measures brought him into 

 disrepute with his countrymen. The one was the attempt persisted in for some time to 

 force his version of the Psalms in connection with Laud's service upon the Scottish church. 

 This connected him with all the measures of the king to introduce Episcopacy into Scot- 

 land. The other was his copper coinage. He had obtained authority from the king to 

 issue coin of small denominations. The result was that the laud was overstocked with 

 copper coin of inferior value, which was afterward cried down to half its original nominal 

 value, to the great loss of many, particularly of the common people. He died at his resid- 

 ence, Covent Garden, on the 12th February, 1640, and notwithstanding his embarrass- 

 ments, he was awarded a funeral befitting his rank. His remains were deposited in the 

 family vault at Stirling. 



Eogers thus sums up his character : " The personal character of Lord Stirling presents 

 a two-fold aspect. As a poet and private gentleman, he was admired and loved. Sir 

 Eobert Aytoun has celebrated him in an approving sonnet. In Latin verse he is lauded 

 by the poets, John Dunbar, Arthur Johnston and Andrew Ramsay. Dauiel in his ' Phi- 

 lotas;' Davies, of Hereford, in his 'Scourge of Folly;' Hayman, in his ' Quodlibets ;' 

 Habington, in his ' Gastara,' and Lithgow, in his ' Pilgrim's Farewell,' have severally 

 commended him. Drayton names him with affection, and Drummond, of Hawthornden, 

 esteemed and honoured him. As à politician he might have acquired great distinction, 

 but he sacrificed his fame by striving to maintain a rank, which he was unwise to covet, 

 and which two successive kings were sufficiently weak to bestow. That his intentions 

 respecting the colonization of Nova Scotia were sincere and upright may not be questioned ; 

 but losses iu connection with the undertakings involved him in difficulties, to escape from 

 which he had recourse to expedients, which if not wholly unwarranted, cannot be 

 approved." By his ingenious contemporary Sir Thomas Urquhart, of Cromarty, his public 

 character has been thus pungently, but not unfaithfully portrayed ; 



" The purity of this gentleman's vein was quite spoiled by the corruptness of his 

 courtiership ; and so much the greater pity, for by all appearance if he had been contented 

 with that mediocrity of fortune he was born unto, and not aspired to those grandeurs of 

 the court, which could not without pride be prosecuted, nor maintained without 

 covetousness, he might have made a far better account of himself. It did not satisfy his 

 ambition to have a laurel from the muses, and be esteemed a king among poets, but he 

 must be king of some new-found-land ; and like another Alexander, indeed, searching 

 after new worlds, have the soveraignty of Nova Scotia. He was born a poet, and aimed 

 to be a king ; therefore, would be have his royal title from King James, who was born a 

 king and aimed to be a poet. Had he stopped there it had been well ; but the flame of 

 his honour must have some oil wherewith to nourish it. Like another King Arthur he 

 must have his kinglets though nothing limited to so small a number ; for how many 

 soever that could have looked out but for one day like gentlemen, and given him but one 

 hundred and fifty pounds sterling, (without any need of a key for opening the gate to 

 enter through the temple of vertue, which iu former times was the only way to honour) 

 they had a scale from him whereby to ascend unto the platforms of vertue, which they 

 treading under foot, did slight the ordinary passages, and, to take the more sudden posses- 

 sion of the temple of honour, went upon obscure by paths of their own towards some 



Sec. II., 1892. 14. 



