CAR 



558 



CAR 



Carstarcs. exhibited so much profound erudition, so much ac- 

 "* f ""~V~""' / quaintance with classical learning, and such an accu- 

 rate knowledge of the Latin tongue, that his hear- 

 ers were delighted : and the celebrated Dr Pitcairn 

 declared, that when Mr Carstarcs began his address, 

 he could not help fancying himself in the forum of 

 ancient Rome. As Principal of the university, he 

 was very attentive to its interests and prosperity. 

 The salaries of the professors being extremely small, 

 he procured an augmentation to them out of the bi- 

 shops' rents, in consequence of an application to the 

 Quoen and her ministers, with whom his influence 

 was still very considerable. The same boon was, 

 through his means, extended to all the other univer- 

 sities of Scotland ; and, to shew the generous spirit 

 by which he was actuated on this occasion, he re- 

 fused to appropriate any part of the gift which had 

 been obtained, to the increase of his own profession- 

 al emoluments. 



The first General Assembly which met after Mr 

 Carstares became a minister of the church, chose 

 him for their moderator ; and this honour he enjoy- 

 ed no less than four several times in the course of 

 eleven years, a fact which shews clearly the ac- 

 knowledged superiority of his talent?, and the great 

 extent or his influence. This influence, indeed, en- 

 abled him to preserve his interest with the court, be- 

 cause it enabled him to secure the acquiescence of 

 the clergy when it was of real importance to possess 

 it, and when it could not otherwise have been ob- 

 tained. One striking instance of this occurred in 

 the case of the union, which could not have been 

 accomplished if the clergy had opposed it, and a- 

 gainst which they were actually disposed and pre- 

 pared to remonstrate. Mr Carstares prevented them 

 from carrying their design into effect ; and for this 

 eminent service the Queen took the opportunity of 

 his being in London in the year following, to thank 

 him in person, and at the same time to bestow upon 

 him one of those few silver medals in commemora- 

 tion of the union, which she had ordered to be struck 

 off for her particular friends. 



Though the union took away from the church of 

 Scotland much of that importance which it had hi- 

 therto possessed in the eye of administration, and 

 though, since it was no longer formidable to them, 

 they no longer felt any great deference for its claims, 

 yet Mr Carstares, by his personal exertions, con- 

 trived to uphold its respectability, and to preserve 

 to it some portion of weight in the government of 

 the country. His views, however, were much ob- 

 structed by the violent spirit and intemperate con- 

 duct of many of his Presbyterian brethren ; and he 

 had the double and painful task of first exposing 

 himself to their censure by resisting their prejudices, 

 and then of vindicating to the Queen and her minis- 

 ters those very proceedings which he had formally 

 condemned before they were adopted. When the 

 bills for the restoration of patronage^ and the tolera- 

 tioa of the Episcopal clergy in Scotland, were 

 brought into Parliament, he was one of the repre- 

 sentatives sent up to oppose them. The opposition, 

 which he seems to have carried on with sincerity, was 

 unsuccessful. It was f.rtunate, however, that he 

 had gone to London on this occasion, as it afforded 



Cartesian. 



him an opportunity of preventing measures which Carstar 

 went directly to the material injury, if not the com- 

 plete destruction, of our Presbyterian church. It 

 was actually proposed, by some members of admini- 

 stration, to discontinue the annual meetings of As- 

 sembly, or, if they should be convened, to prorogue 

 them as soon as they were constituted : and it was 

 even in contemplation to bring a bill into Parliament 

 for the purpose of taking away the only pretext of 

 holding them in future. Mr Carstares prevailed on 

 the government to refrain from these unjust and op- 

 pressive measures, on condition of his undertaking 

 to use all his endeavours to allay those ferments which 

 the late acts of the legislature had excited. In these 

 endeavours he succeeded so well, that the Queen and 

 her ministers were perfectly satisfied ; and so high 

 did he stand in their regard, in consequence of his 

 prudent management, that they required him to 

 name the person who should be appointed commis- 

 sioner, and to dictate those instructions which he 

 should think seasonable in the existing circumstances 

 of the country. 



Mr Carstares was extremely zealous for the Pro- 

 testant succession in the House of Hanover ; and 

 said and did every thing in his power to forward that 

 object. Of so much importance were his services 

 deemed, that George I., two years before his arri- 

 val in England, signified, by a letter from his secre- 

 tary, his acknowledgments to Mr Carstares for the 

 part he had acted, and continued him his chaplain 

 for Scotland ; an office, however, which he did not 

 live long to enjoy. In the month of August 1715, 

 he was seized with an apoplectic fit, which earned 

 him off about the end of December following, in 

 the 67th year of his age. His body was interred in 

 the Greyfriar's church yard, Edinburgh, where a 

 monument was afterwards erected to his memory, 

 with a suitable inscription in Latin. By the univer- 

 sity, the church, and the country at large, his death 

 was sincerely lamented. They had good reason ; for 

 he had been to all of them a useful servant, and a dis- 

 tinguished ornament. King William declared, in pre- 

 sence of several of his courtiers, *' that he had known 

 MrCarstares long j that he knew him well ; and knew 

 him to be an honest man." See M'Cormick's Life of 

 Carstares, prefxed to Carst ares' State Papers, (T) 



CART. See AGRICULTURE, chap. vi. sect. iv. 



CARTES. See DESCARTES. 



CARTESIAN TEMPERAMENTS OF THE Musi- 

 CAL SCALE. That the versatile genius of M. Des- 

 cartes early led him to the consideration of the mu- 

 sical scale, is well known ; but that his speculations 

 on this subject proved not less abortive and inappli- 

 cable to the art, than his vortices and other parts of 

 his philosophy were to the phenomena of Nature, 

 has not, we believe, been any where bhewn. 



According to the " xMiimadversions" of Lord 

 Brouncker " on the Musical Compendium" of Des- 

 cartes, it appears, that two different systems, ot mu- 

 sical intervals, but constructed on similar principles, 

 were recommended by that author to the adoption of 

 musicians, viz. one wherein a ratio, whose con.mon lo- 

 garithm is .9754-132, (a semitone, the smahVr of Des- 

 cartes, or interval =49-9771 Si, +f+5m>) ^ 10 tunes 

 added to itself, leaving a differeuce, or wolf, flat, or 



