ALEXANDER GORDON, THE ANTIQUARY. 141 



those attached to the lives of the Borgias. In 1741, James Glen- 

 son, it may be, or other relative of the old Provost, and laird of Long- 

 ^i-oft,— set out for the New World to fill the office of Governor of 

 South Carolina ; and in his Excellency's company, probably as his 

 private secretary, there went Alexander Gordon, with a son and 

 daughter. He was already, I presume, a widower. It is, at any 

 rate, apparent from the terms of his will that his wife predeceased 

 Jiim. The step seemed at best a dubious one. The antecedents of 

 the Antiquary did not furnish great promise of fitness for colonial 

 life. The deciphering of Roman altars or of Egyptian mummy 

 inscriptions was in equally little request there. But he was a man 

 of varied acquirements — a good draughtsman, a surveyor, a musician, 

 a portrait painter, and master alike of ancient and modern languages. 

 He had, moreover, a friend in the new Governor ; and so we learn 

 from a record in one of the public offices at Charleston that he obtained 

 a transfer of the office of Registrar of the Province ; and, as his pre- 

 decessor Registrar Hamerton's attorney, was appointed to transact 

 all the business and receive the fees of the office. 



Here then, after a desultory and wayward career, we find the poor 

 Scholar and Antiquaiy entering on brighter prospects ; and all that 

 we know of his subsequent history shows that he neither lacked the 

 prudence nor judgment requisite to enable him to profit by the 

 opportunities of a young colony. He acquired houses and lands ; 

 found leisure to indulge in his early love of art; and, not only painted 

 his friends in oil, but left behind him a portrait of himself, which, it 

 is to be hoped, may yet be identified. For thirteen years he con- 

 tinued to Sourish in South Carolina, cherishing his old tastss, and 

 looking forward hopefully for the time when he should be able to give 

 the world at large the benefit of his matured views on the history 

 and mysteries of Ancient Egypt. 



So early as 1737, Gordon announced that his History of the Egyp- 

 tians was nearly ready for the press ; and in Bowyer's " Literary 

 Anecdotes," this work is said to have been left by him in MS., under 

 the title of "An Essay towards illustrating the History, Chronolgy, 

 and Mythology of the Ancient Egyptians, from the Earliest Ages on 

 Record, till the Dissolution of their Empire, near the time of Alex- 

 ander," with the date London, July 6, 1741. This date probably 

 marks the last finishing touch put to his manuscript on the eve of 

 his departure for his new-world home beyond the Atlantic. But we 



