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Memoir of Archibald Campbell Swinton of Kim,7nerghame. 

 By The Right Hon. Lord Moncreiff of Tulliebole. 



[Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 1890-91, by permission of the Author.] 



I AM desirous of placing on the records of the Royal Society, 

 in the shape of an obituary notice, a slender memorial of a very 

 early, a very constant, and a very distinguished friend who, at 

 his death, on the 27th November of last year, was one of the 

 oldest members of this Society. The subject of my Memoir is 

 the late Mr Archibald Campbell Swinton of Kimmerghame, 

 who was admitted a member in 1844, and died in his 78th year. 

 He was possessed of a character and abilities which, although 

 not conversant with much public display, were not only of solid 

 power, but of the more ethereal element, and which, had his 

 surroundings required or prompted, might have raised him to 

 great eminence. It may truly be said of him, though the 

 saying is commonplace, that he touched nothing, in his long, 

 busy, and useful life, which he did not adorn. Perhaps ease, 

 by itself, may have tended to repress the genial current of his 

 soul, as for the last five and twenty years of his life the position 

 of an active, cultured, and energetic country gentleman was 

 that which fate had prepared for him ; but he had a buoyancy 

 and vivacity of intelligence which would have lighted up the 

 most commonplace occupation, and would have asserted itself 

 in the dingiest of surroundings. 



He came of an ancient and honourable house, who were 

 territorial magnates in the south of Scotland through many 

 centuries, and are mentioned as having taken part in many 

 public events in a work substantially compiled by the subject of 

 this memoir, called The Swintons of that Ilk. In that volume 

 the family, and the history of the descent of their estates, as 

 well as of the collateral branches, are very clearly deduced, 

 and as a piece of historical reading it is interesting and even 

 amusing. It starts about the thirteenth century, and brings 

 the narrative down through more than a score of descents to 

 comparatively recent times. There were members of the family 

 to be found in all positions which the well-born Scot frequented 

 or patronised in those days. There were Swintons in the army 



