The Keiths

IT was said by Lord Marischal, of great men, “They are too soon forgotten, and they are not praised enough ; ” and this is certainly true regarding himself and his not less admirable brother.

These two men, — George Keith, born (probably) in 1693, and known as Lord Marischal because of his holding the hereditary dignity of grand-marshal of Scotland ; and James Keith, born in 1696, who rose to be a field-marshal of Frederick the Great, — these men were conspicuous by high character and ability ; and yet it is chiefly only by scattered notices, by paragraphs and pages here and there, that the general reader learns something of them, and gathers but an imperfect knowledge of their natures and achievements. The fullest sources of information about them are the Eloge of the elder, pronounced before the French Academy, the year after his death, by D’Alembert; and the Life of the younger, written forty or fifty years ago by Varnhagen von Ense. Their share, however, in the most stirring events of their time and their connection with the most important men have led to frequent mention of them by historians, from their day to our own. Carlyle, especially, with the keen appreciation of a fellow-countryman, justly admiring the large qualities of their natures, has illuminated their lives with his electric light whenever occasion offered ; and the readers of Rousseau receive, from his personal history, a vivid impression of his kind old friend, the elder brother.

The field-marshal,, who, Rousseau truly said, “ lived gloriously and died in the lap of honor,” was perhaps the stronger man of the two, but the Earl Marischal had a heart so upright, pure, tender, and brave that he wins as long remembrance ; and through their devoted affection for one another their memories blend as the light of a double star, and their stories combine into one narrative.

Public life began for both in 1715, when (their father already some years dead) they were counted among the chief adherents of the Pretender, and were among the guiding spirits of the Jacobite rising under the Earl of Mar, a cousin of their mother. Four years later, they took the principal part in carrying out the abortive expedition to Scotland arranged by Cardinal Alberoni and the Duke of Ormond in the Stuart interests. Thus the period of their youth and early manhood was spent in struggles of fruitless loyalty, in hidings in their native country and wanderings over the Continent, the Earl Marischal under sentence of death from the English government.

In 1726, when war broke out between Spain and England, the younger brother, eager for real and permanent military employment, sought a position as officer in the Spanish service. This being refused him on account of his Protestant faith, he joined the army as a volunteer, and remained with it five months before Gibraltar. But finding his Protestantism an invincible obstacle to his advancement in Spain, and too loyal to his faith to change it for the sake of worldly advantages, he decided to cut himself aloof from the political associations of his youth. He therefore asked of the Spanish government recommendations to the Russian government, then in the habit of giving to foreigners high rank in its armies, and he was at once made major-general in the Russian service.

It was thus he openly began the career of a soldier of fortune that he followed through his life; taking the position of a man not impassioned for the cause for which he fought, but who, having chosen war as his profession, attained to a very high place in that profession by the most honorable means. A soldier of fortune who never sought material fortune ; of whom Lord Marischal could proudly write (to Madame Geoffrin), shortly after his death: “ My brother has left me a noble legacy : he has just had all Bohemia under contribution, and I find him in possession of seventy ducats.”And in the same spirit he announced his death to their common friend Maupertuis with the four words, “ Probus vixit, fortis obiit.” A soldier of fortune

Marshal Keith — no man ever more — exercised that high power of human nature (of which Wordsworth speaks) to control the bad influences of his circumstances, to subdue them and to transmute them into good. As a commander, his care, not only of his own men, but of any enemy’s country through which he might be passing or over which he had authority, and of its inhabitants, and of his prisoners, was constantly to the highest degree humane. In the words of Varnhagen von Ense, “ He did all in his power to diminish to the utmost the sufferings arising from war.” A different conduct excited his wrathful indignation. Witnessing the devastations and cruelties committed by the troops during the first campaign of the Seven Years’ War, ”I1 faut avouer, Sire,” he exclaimed to Frederick,— “il faut avouer que ces Chrétiens sont une grande canaille ! ”

In spite of these admirable qualities, perhaps because of them, he never won the hearts of his soldiers. He always remained a ” foreigner ” to them, and neither in Russia, nor afterwards in his more conspicuous years in Prussia, did he become sufficiently at ease in the native languages to hold familiar intercourse with his men. His bravery, too, was not of a nature to excite their enthusiasm. It was unquestionable, but it was the bravery of endurance, of bull-dog tenacity, rather than of brilliant and inspiring audacity ; and he perhaps a little too coldly expected every man to do his duty in the same resolute and disinterested fashion as himself. There could not be a more characteristic story than that of his answer when summoned (in 1757) to surrender Leipsic : " Let the Prince von Hildburghausen know that I am by birth a Scotchman, by affection and duty a Prussian, and that I shall so defend the city that neither Scotchmen nor Prussians may be ashamed of me. The king, my master, has committed to me the place to hold, and I shall hold it.”

Another characteristic moment of his life was that, twenty years earlier, when (in the Russian service) he was with the army under General Münnich, besieging Oczakow. Carlyle thus pictures it: " In the centre of Münnich’s line is one General Keith, a deliberate, stalwart Scotch gentleman. . . ' Advance within musket shot, General Keith !' orders Münnich’s aid-de-camp, cantering up. ‘ I have been this good while within it,’pointing to his dead men. Aid-de-camp canters up a second time : ‘ Advance within half musket shot, General Keith, and quit any covert you have ! ’ Keith does so ; sends, with his respects, to Feldmarschall Münnich his remonstrance against such a waste of human life. Aid-de-camp canters up a third time : ' Feldmarschall Münnich is for trying a scalade; hopes General Keith will do his best to coöperate ! ’ ' Forward, then !' answers Keith; advances close to the glacis; finds a wet ditch twelve feet broad, and has not a stick of engineer furniture. Keith waits there two hours, his men, under fire all the while, trying this and that to get across ; Münnich’s scalade going off ineffectual in like manner : till at length Keith’s men and all men tire of such a business, and roll back in great confusion out of shot range.” But at last, almost by chance, in consequence of an explosion, Oczakow was taken. “ A very blazing, semi-absurd event, to be read of in Prussian military circles, where General Keith will be better known one day.”

When he had become known there, the king wrote of him in the first chapter of his history of the Seven Years’ War : " The king made a good acquisition in attracting Marshal Keith from Russia to his service. He was a man gentle in personal intercourse, possessed of virtues and morals, able in his profession, and who, in connection with the highest polish of manners, had heroic valor in a day of battle.”

Keith’s appearance was in harmony with his qualities. He was of medium stature, dark complexion, with a determined expression, and in demeanor at once noble and kindly. He was sixtytwo when he died (in battle), and the phrase Varnhagen von Ense uses, speaking of him as he was then, — a phrase in striking contrast with the external tenor of his life and death, — is that all who knew him depict him as " einen sanften, liebenswürdigen Greis " (a gentle, amiable old man). Varnhagen says well that his proud, free courtesy and his strong self-reliance, surrounded as he was by intrigues of ambition and paltry jealousies, make him a very individual figure among Frederick’s generals.

His domestic life was moulded by the age. He never married, but when fortysix years old he became attached to a young woman, who from that time was at the head of his household, and his wife in all but name. Varnhagen von Ense says he would have married her if the difference of rank had not been too great. It may be so, but she was of a respectable bourgeois family, and his brother, apparently, did not lay much weight on such considerations. He had children, whom he loved much, and for whose education he cared in the best manner, but nothing is now known of them. Their mother — Eva Merthens by name — was handsome and well educated, and is said to have been a very charming person, and held in universal esteem from her large-mindedness and spirited high - feeling. In peace time, Keith usually spent his evenings with her, in company with other friends; and she sometimes accompanied him on his campaigns, especially when he was ill, and took tender care of him. For other women he cared little, and did not enjoy their society, and in return was not thought much of by them. Eva, after his death, married a certain Schlosshauptmann, but always held Keith’s memory in highest honor, and could not be induced by the king to part with a portrait of Keith which she possessed, for which Frederick offered a large sum. It is to be regretted that she ungenerously kept possession also of personal mementos of Keith, which his brother was so desirous to have that he unavailingly went to law with her about them.

When Keith went to Russia, in 1728, Lord Marischal seems to have been residing at Avignon. That at this time, and for many years afterward, he was in some manner in the service of Spain is in different notices of him everywhere implied, and even stated, but nowhere is any explanation to be found of the fact that he remained in his service when Keith felt obliged to leave it. Nor is it at all clear what his occupations were; but that in some form or other they were excellent in character his after-life leaves no doubt of. He was at least unconsciously making of himself a singularly simple and attractive personage, remarkable for strong individuality and quick sympathies. He had a great love of southern climates, and a special liking for Avignon ; he used to say that there were more “ originals ” in the Comtat than anywhere else, and maintained that a large degree of civil liberty was needed to produce original characters.

He was in Spain at the time of the siege of Oczakow, already alluded to. Hearing that his brother was dangerously wounded, he rushed over the three thousand miles between them to his aid. He found him discussing with the surgeons the amputation of his leg at the thigh, saved him by the firmness of his own hopeful resolution from this misfortune, carried him to Paris to obtain the best advice, persisted in hope shared by no one else, and at length had the joy of seeing Keith once more with a completely serviceable leg of his own. Then he returned to his dear Spain, where, as he was wont to say, he “ had many friends, the greatest of them the sun.”Afterward, when he joined his brother in Prussia, “ My brother has come from his snows,” he said, “ that we may be together ; it is only fair that I should leave my sun for the same reason.” But he used to accuse Frederick of sorcery ; “ for,” he would say, “ if I were not enchanted, should I live in a country where one sees only the image of the sun, when I might live at Valencia ? ”

In 1740, when the brothers were together at Paris, during Keith’s convalescence from his wound, they were allowed by George the Second to pay a visit to England, in the character of foreigners. Keith was regarded as belonging to Russia, the Lord Marischal to Spain; and Keith was even presented to the king. At his farewell audience, a month later, it is reported (by his brother) that the Marquis of Argyle, who had just received his dismissal from the king, said to him (aside) in Highland phrase, “ Mr. Keith, fall flat, fall edge, we must get rid of these people ; ” and two years afterward. Lord Marischal was in Scotland, plotting again, it is believed, to “get rid of these people,” but living in Edinburgh, in a style befitting his rank, entirely unmolested. This is proved by an account of his daily expenses in his lodgings, communicated by one of his kindred to the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland in 1818.¹

All that need now be told of Keith’s twenty years’ service in Russia may be put into few words. His brother said, in dismissing a proposal from Rousseau to write Marshal Keith’s life, “ The career of a man in a subordinate position (though often he does more and better than his chief) does not furnish matter for history ; ” and this is especially true of his Russian years. He was high in military rank, constantly employed, and frequently rewarded with honors, but the general conditions of his life were never satisfactory or agreeable to him. The revolutionary changes of rulers that occurred in quick succession occasioned constant alterations in the purposes of the government, and rendered the political conditions alarmingly unstable and deplorably dangerous to those whose fortunes were involved in them. Keith suffered in silence much ill usage, but the moment came when he both spoke and acted in vigorous self-assertion. The spark that fired the mine of his discontent was struck almost accidentally on the occasion of a proposed visit to him by his brother in 1746. The government, on hearing of the Earl Marisehal’s approach, refused, as the ally of England, to allow him permission to enter Russia, on account of his share in the rebellion of 1745. Keith immediately decided to leave Russia himself, and he did so the following year. With some difficulty, owing to rather rash quarrels at the last moment with military officials, he got clear of the Russian dominions, and reached Holland in September, 1747; and thence wrote, offering his services to the king of Prussia. Frederick answered him at once: “ Sir, I have received with all possible satisfaction the letter you have just sent me. Feeling the value of all the sentiments you give me proof of, I shall have nothing more at heart than to show you my gratitude for them, as well as my esteem for you personally.” Keith was made field-marshal on the instant ; and thenceforth the relations between him and the king were of the highest mutual regard.

In an immensely long letter to his brother, written at this time, he tells him : “ I have now the honor and, which is still more, the pleasure of being with the king at Potsdam, where he ordered me to come two days after he declared me field-marshal; where I have the honor to dine and sup with him almost every day. He has more wit than I have wit to tell you ; speaks solidly and knowingly on all kinds of subjects ; and I am much mistaken if, with the experience of four campaigns, he is not the best officer of his army. He has several persons with whom he lives in almost the familiarity of a friend, but no favorite [this would strike Keith, who had had much hard experience of the irresponsible power of the “favorites” of the Russian sovereigns], and has a natural politeness for every one who is about him. For one who has been four days about his person, you will say I pretend to know a great deal of his character : but what I tell you, you may depend upon. With more time I shall know as much of him as he will let me know ; and all his ministry knows no more. Adieu, my dearest brother. Every week you shall have a letter from me, but not so long as this.”

Two years after Keith’s coming to Prussia, Frederick appointed him governor of Berlin ; and he held that office when, the next year, Frederick’s sister, the Margravine of Baireuth.² made a visit to the king, who commanded in her honor magnificent fêtes. One in especial, which is on full record, and known as the Berlin Carrousel, was by all accounts a really splendid spectacle ; and it was the only great show Frederick ever presented to his court and people. It was all under Keith’s management, and it gave him the opportunity, in Varnhagen’s phrase, “ to show himself nobly a courtier.” Voltaire was present on this occasion, and complimented it with one of his flattering epigrams.

As soon as Keith was established, his brother, who had been living at Treviso, near Venice, almost in poverty, joined him, on his urgent invitation. He wrote in the long letter from which we have just quoted : “I find I have really more than for one ; therefore consider what a pleasure it would be to me to share it with my dearest brother. I know it would not be the least disagreeable to the king, and even quite the contrary.”

“ Quite the contrary,” indeed, it proved to be. As Rousseau said, " Frederick was a judge of men, and welcomed these two as they deserved ; ” and not long after Lord Marischal’s introduction to Frederick a warm friendship existed between them, which never flagged nor failed. He was really of inestimable moral value to Frederick, who said that to know “ le bon milord ” was to find it impossible to doubt human virtue. " I am indebted to him for the sustaining belief in it.” He “ was much loved by Frederick (almost as one boy loves another).” In such pleasant phrase Carlyle describes Frederick’s side of the friendship. Rousseau, in more resounding periods, describes the feeling of Earl Marischal: “ The great soul of this worthy man, full of republican pride, could bend only under the yoke of friendship ; but it then bent so completely that, with opinions very different from those of Frederick, he was entirely in harmony with Frederick from the moment he was attached to him.”

In 1751, Frederick sent him as his ambassador to Paris, and in 1759 on a mission to Spain for two years ; while from 1754 to 1763 he was the governor (for Prussia) of Neufchâtel, “ with the delicious occupation,” Rousseau thought, “ of rendering this little people happy ; ” but in fact he found the people hindered him from doing the good he desired to do, and he was in constant disquiet and uneasiness. As he said of himself, when employed in diplomatic functions elsewhere, “ A finesse is needed for this business which I do not possess, and do not desire to have.” His brother surpassed him in political ability; he was more clear-headed, sharp-sighted, and resolute as a diplomatist, and Frederick frequently employed him on short but important affairs of this nature.

Lord Marisehal’s social solitude while in Switzerland and his dislike of the climate — “ One knows only by the almanac when it is summer there,” he said — must have rendered his chief pleasure during these years the interesting letters he exchanged with many interesting people, Hume, the Comtesse de Boufflers, Madame Geoffrin, Frederick himself, and others. Whilst there he had a three months’ visit from his old friend Maupertuis, then in his last days, and he himself paid a three days’ visit to Voltaire, who speaks of him in his letters with warm regard. It is clear that the good earl had the same impartiality, the unpartisan nature, that distinguished his royal friend.

It was in 1762, the year before Lord Marischal left Neufchâtel, that Rousseau — “ garçon singulier,” in Frederick’s phrase — came to Motiers, near by, and was kindly welcomed by the old governor. He gayly introduced himself to Rousseau, in a letter before their first meeting, as “ an old man not wholly unlike a savage, though a little spoiled, perhaps, by intercourse with civilized barbarians.” To the cordial relations that followed their meeting Rousseau owed infinite kindness and consideration both from " milord ” himself and from Frederick. Every fortnight, at least, Rousseau passed twenty-four hours with “milord” in the Tour Carrée of Colombier ; and the old man once made the little journey of six leagues to Motiers under pretext of quail - shooting, and spent two days there — without touching a gun. There are no more agreeable pages in Rousseau’s Confessions than those that are filled with admiration of the paternal kindness, the amiable virtues, the gentle philosophy, of this much-respected friend. SainteBeuve somewhere justly classes together M. de Luxembourg and Milord Maréchal as the only two men who, by force of goodness and kindness, disarmed the suspiciousness of Rousseau, and inspired him with unreserved confidence. And Mr. Morley as justly says that the expressions of warm liking and hearty good-will toward Rousseau in Lord Marischal’s letters may, if we reflect on the genuine worth, veracity, penetration, and experience of the old man who wrote them, fairly be counted the best testimony that remains to the existence of something sterling at the bottom of Rousseau’s character.”

Lord Marischal’s letters to Rousseau are always charming, and sometimes interesting and very characteristic. Writing to him of Hume, before Rousseau knew him personally, he says : “ I will tell you two actions of this philosopher which I particularly like. The first is, that meeting a certain Wallace who had written (and written well) against one of his essays, David asked him when his paper would be printed. Mr. Wallace answering that he was then so busy that he had not time to revise his work, David took upon himself this care, and executed it loyally. The other incident is, that the lamas being assembled in synod to execute this antichrist (for he is in Scotland what you are in Switzerland), David sat down among the lamas, and listened with admirable coolness to all the insults addressed to him, silently taking snuff. His coolness disconcerted the lamas ; they separated without excommunicating him.”

In another letter he refers to a member of his family in a way that must be prefaced here by a little explanation. The earl’s household in these days, as during most of his life, was an extraordinary collection of people. There was a Turk named Ibrahim and a Kalmuck named Stepan, both of whom his brother had sent him from Tartary ; the latter believed himself to be a descendant of the Grand Lama, and consequently Lord Marischal dubbed him his “chaplain.” There was an African, whom he had sent to his brother, and who, after faithful service. “ always at the crupper of his horse,” in his master’s different campaigns, returned to Lord Marischal at Marshal Keith’s death. There was an old Swiss secretary, who, later, followed him from Neufchâtel, unable to endure separation from him : an old Prussian woman, a waif and stray; and at the head of the house a Turkish woman, who, when a little child, had fallen into General Keith’s hands at the taking of Oczakow. He “ gave ” her to the earl, who had her carefully educated, and she became Mademoiselle Emetulla, or Emeté. In due time, “ Will you marry me ? ” he asked her. “ No ! ” answered the girl. “ I love you as the tenderest of fathers, but " — From that moment she was as a daughter to him. When he was entering into the Scottish rebellion of ’45, he left her by will two thousand crowns, to be paid from the property his brother would inherit at his death, but over which he himself had no actual legal right (in consequence of his attainder), sure that in his brother’s eyes this would be a sacred legacy ; and whilst at Neufchâtel he married her well to a M. de Froment. “I should be grieved,” he wrote, “ to leave so good a girl alone in a world of scoundrels. She had need of some one bound to her interests.” This is an illustration of the way in which he befriended all those in any wise dependent on him.1

Shortly before leaving Neufchâtel, he formed a project which is touching as expressing his sense of loneliness after his brother’s death. He thus details it in a letter to Rousseau : “ I am arranging my daughter’s marriage. She once settled, I am going to Scotland, where I will give you two rooms in my house, and as many to the good and kind David [Hume]. We shall not enter one another’s apartments; there will be a parlor in which to meet. We shall have placidam sub libertate quietem : that is my motto. I should wish that each should contribute to the necessary expenses of the little republic according to his means, and should lay the tax on himself. Our provisions will be only a small expense, because trout, salmon, sea-fish, and vegetables cost me nothing. David shall pay for the sirloins, because he eats them. We shall need two carriages to gratify our desire for going about. There will be no other rules nor laws in the republic ; each will make his own regarding both spiritual and temporal things. This is my castle in the air; the foundations are already laid. I have seen since you were here that your Emile is printed by two or three London publishers ; it, and new editions of your Héloïse, is announced in the newspapers. This is a basis that I regard as sure for your share of the voluntary taxes, — a good edition of your works ; and on this basis I engage to raise money for you while awaiting the new edition. Farewell. Since your works are at public sale in London, the publishers who shall issue a correct edition of them will make a fortune.”

There is pleasant wisdom in these words from another letter, and a pretty allusion to one of his “children,” as he called his familiar foreigners, his odd " domestics : " " If you are my friend, and I flatter myself you are, I see nothing against good manners, or morals, or laws, in your saying so. It seems to me that, to be friends, what is needed is kindliness and esteem ; it would be absurd to see two friends produce their genealogies, to see if they were within permitted degrees, as must be done before entering a chapter of canons in Germany. My Turk Ibrahim (before he was spoiled by the Giaours ) used to end his letters with ' I am more your friend than ever, Ibrahim.’ I thought much better of that than of the ' very humble servant,’etc., which is commonly put, and which is only a sort, of flourish before the name. I will close, then, by saying to you, like my good Ibrahim, ' I am more your friend than ever.’ ”

These letters have taken us somewhat out of chronological order, and we must go back a little in time to follow the last years of the life of the younger brother.

At the date 1752 Carlyle reports: “ Marshal Keith has been growing gradually with the king and with everybody ever since he came to these parts, in 1747. A man of Scotch type ; the broad accent, with its sagacities, veracities, with its steadfastly fixed moderation and its sly twinkles of defensive humor, is still audible to us. . . . Sagacious, skillful, imperturbable, without fear and without noise. He had quelled, once, walking direct into the heart of it, a ferocious Russian mutiny. . . . Friedrich, the more he knows him, likes him the better. On all manner of subjects he can talk knowingly and with insight of his own. On Russian matters Friedrich likes especially to hear him, though they differ in regard to the worth of Russian troops.” — Keith ranking their military qualities much higher than Frederick was inclined to do.

From this time, in all Frederick’s fightings and counter-fightings, marchings and counter-marchings, Keith was at his right hand, doing all the work that fell to him " in a solid and quietly eminent and valiant manner.” At Olmütz, in 1758, “ Keith is captain of the siege, whom all praise for his punctual firmness of progress ; ” and on the subsequent retreat to Konigsgrätz, " Keith himself takes the rear-guard, the most ticklish part of all, and manages it well and with success, as his wont is. Under sickness at the time, but with his usual vigilance, prudence, energy. . . . At Holitz . . . Keith heard cannonading ahead, hurried up with new cavalry, new sagacity and fire of energy ; dashed out horse-charges, seized hill-tops of a vital nature, and quickly ended the affair. A man fiery enough, and prompt with his stroke when wanted, though commonly so quiet. ' Tell Monsieur,’ — some general who seemed too stupid or too languid on this occasion, — ' tell Monsieur from me,’ said Keith to his aid-de-camp, ' he may be a very pretty thing, but he is not a man (qu’il peut être une bonne chose, mais qu’il n’est pas un homme) ! ’ The excellent vernacular Keith; still a fine breadth of accent in him, one perceives ! He is now past sixty; troubled with asthma; and I doubt not may be occasionally thinking it time to end his campaigns.”

The end came, with fatal abruptness, six months later. He fell at Hochkirch. The position of the Prussians when they encamped there was so dangerous that Keith said, " The Austrians deserve to be hanged if they don’t attack us here.” “We must hope that they are more afraid of us than even of the gallows.” answered Frederick. Spite of this colloquy the Prussians were surprised. The army was in its blankets, fast asleep, when it was attacked early in the morning. Keith " came to understand that his big battery was taken. . . . He springs on horseback, . . . recaptures the big battery, but is set upon by overwhelming multitudes bent to have it back ; is passionate for new assistance in this vital point, but can get none ; had been ' disarted by both his aid-de-camps,’ says poor John Tebay, a wandering English horse-soldier who attends him as mounted groom ; ' asked twenty times and twenty more, “ Where are ray aid-de-camps ? ” ’ but could get no response or reinforcement: and at length, quite surrounded and overwhelmed, had to retire; opening his way by the bayonet; and, before long, suddenly stopping short,—falling dead into Tebay’s arms, shot through the heart. Two shots on the right side he had not regarded, but this on the left side was final. Keith’s fightings are suddenly all done. Tebay, in distraction, tided much to bring away the body, but could by no present means ; distractedly ‘ rid for a coach ; ’ found, on return, that the Austrians had the ground and the body of his master.”It was plundered and stripped, and,’covered only with a Croat’s cloak, was carried into the neighboring church. Some of the Austrian generals entering there, one of them, lifting the cloak, cried out mournfully, “It is Keith,— my father’s best friend ! ” He was buried by the enemy with all the honors of war.

A few years later, a simple monument to Keith was set up in this church at Hochkirch by one of his family, with an inscription, Carlyle thought, “ not easily surpassable in the lapidary way. . . . The words go through you like the clang of steel.”

“ Viro antiquis moribus et militari virtute claro, qui, dum in prælio non procul hinc inclinatam suorum aciem mente, manu, voce et exemplo restituebat, pugnans ut heroas decet, occubuit d. xiv. Octobris, anno MDCCLVIII.”

Lord Marischal was at Colombier at the time of his brother’s death, and the king wrote to him instantly of the irreparable loss they had both met with, expressing his deep sympathy and the manifold grief that he himself felt as the friend of both brothers, and from the loss of his beloved sister at the same moment.

Lord Marischal was already what might be called an old man, but he was to live still twenty years, — " an excellent, cheery old soul,”as Carlyle says; always “ honest as the sunlight, with a fine small vein of gayety and pleasant wit in him.” Different as were the conditions of life of the two brothers, the one was as moderate, simple, frank, as the other, and both were of those men who know more than they have learned. In these later years of Lord Marischal’s life, his delightful goodness became more and more visible, flowering and ripening to the last, like his favorite orange-trees ; the sweet odoroushess of the sanctities of a man of the world exhaled from his days. “ He was virtuous,” wrote one of his friends after his death, “ in the full meaning of the word. I have known no man but he who could search his conscience and find no remorse in it; and though he possessed and exercised all the virtues, he was rigid only toward himself, and had extreme indulgence for human weaknesses. ”

His talk was charming from its variety and vivacity. “ I1 aimait à conter,” says D’Alembert, but with singular directness and point; his contes were of the nature of repartees; it was his fashion of jesting ; but he often repeated a saying of Fontenelle’s, which had evidently inspired him with great respect: “I am a hundred years old, I am a Frenchman, yet I shall die with the comfort of never having cast the least ridicule on the smallest virtue.”He spoke slowly, even in his native language, and still more hesitatingly in French; but “even this hesitation and slowness had something agreeable from the originality of his phrase and the unusual expressions he made use of.” He laughed so heartily that it was a pleasure to see him, and “ I have surprised him,” says a friend, “ laughing aloud when he was quite alone.”

He is described by every one as having a noble and distinguished appearance. Rousseau speaks of his charm of manner and of his “ piercing and delicate glance.” He was thin in face and figure ; according to Rousseau, more than thin, almost emaciated. His personal neatness was exquisite, and he spent a considerable time at his toilet, especially in the refreshments connected with bathing, having himself as thoroughly rubbed down by his valet as if he were a valuable horse. He liked Spanish cookery better than any other, and always had one or more Spanish dishes on the table, though, being the simplest and soberest of eaters and drinkers, his own principal diet was of vegetables.

When he left Neufchâtel, his kinsfolk urged his coming home, — to marry, at seventy! Two years previously he had been pardoned and disattainted, and permitted to inherit the earldom of Kintore : and in this matter the elder Pitt showed a readiness and cordiality that won the earl’s heart, who, in return, rendered him some not unimportant services about Spanish affairs. He acceded to the wish of his friends to see him in Scotland, though not to their desire that he should marry, and after spending a few months with Frederick he returned home in 1763. He was received by his family and friends with the utmost warmth ; and during his stay among them, one of his old estates coming into the market, he was able to purchase it for 30,000 guineas. He writes, on this occasion, to Jean Jacques, “ I had the pleasure of seeing the kindness of my fellow-countrymen : no one came forward at the auction sale, and the hall and street resounded with the clapping of hands when the property was knocked down to me.”

It was at this time that the earl settled the sum of a hundred louis on Rousseau’s companion, Theresa, and the next year gave Rousseau an annuity of fifty pounds a year, — the only gifts of money Rousseau ever accepted from any one. But it was all done with such exquisite kindness and delicacy that even his morbid sensitiveness could not shrink from this expression of friendship.

Lord Monachal had still not relinquished his dream of a philosophic hermitage, though Hume had dropped out of the plan. His letters to Rousseau frequently refer to the arrangements he is making to receive him at Keith Hall, and he closes one of them with this expression : “ I need not speak of my feelings toward you, with whom I am going to shut myself up for the rest of my days.”But he soon found that his dislike of the climate and of the modes of life and thought of his native Aberdeenshire was ingrained and increasing, and he found himself also somewhat pestered by the feeble remnant of old Jacobites who gathered about him ; and after six months of moral and physical discomfort, he had no will to resist this friendliest of invitations from Frederick:

“ I am not surprised that the Scotch fight to have you among them, and wish to have progeny of yours, and to preserve your bones. You have in your lifetime the lot of Homer after death, cities arguing which is your birthplace. I myself would dispute it with Edinburgh to possess you. If I had ships, I would make a descent on Scotland, to steal off my cher milord, and bring him hither; but our Elbe boats are scarcely suitable for such an expedition. But you give me hopes, which I seize with avidity ! I was your late brother’s friend, and had obligations to him ; I am yours with heart and soul. These are my titles, these are my rights over you. You shall live here surrounded by friendship, liberty, and philosophy. There is nothing beyond those in the world, my dear milord. . . . Come to me ! ”

On receiving this letter, Lord Marischal, with all affectionate good-will, " threw over " the always difficult Rousseau, and gladly returned to Potsdam ; and there he lived his fourteen years more of life at Sans Soucri. in a “villa cottage ” built for him. ” Ma voisine la fourmi,” Frederick called him.

One of his Prussian friends, M. Musell-Stosch, writing to D’Alembert of these years, says : “ His mode of life at this time was the most uniform possible, and the story of a day is that of a year.” He was an early riser : up at dawn in winter, and by five o’clock in summer. After breakfast he read for an hour or so ; then he received his letters and answered them, dressed, went out to walk, or to drive, or to work in his garden, — “ la ressource des vieux fainéants comme moi,” he said. On the stroke of noon he called for dinner, and was very impatient if any guest were late. He had usually four or five, for few strangers, even, passed through Potsdam without visiting him and being hospitably entertained by him. After dinner, saying to his guests, “ I am going to make the coffee,” he went, in fact, to “ make ” his twenty minutes’ siesta, returning to “ coffee.” He liked to play cards in the afternoon, and played piquet, with halfsou stakes. All his winnings were for the benefit of a member of his household,— an immense dog, Herr Snell. At the end of every month Herr Snell had a great feast of gras-double, tripe, and other delicacies.

Lord Marischal’s charities to the poor were incessant and judicious, — his liberalities in every direction. He had a delightful fashion of trifling gift-giving to his friends and visitors, whom in summer he used to receive in his garden, where he sat reading.

Books were a constant pleasure to him, and, as his friend says, “greatly contributed to the serenity of his character.” His taste in them was excellent : Rabelais, Montaigne, le baron de Fœneste (the humorous work of D’Aubigné). Voltaire (particularly “ les ouvrages où cet illusive écrivain avoit mis un peu de malice "). Molière, Cervantes, Shakespeare (he liked no French tragedies), and the Latin poets and historians were his especial familiars. His historical information was very wide and accurate.

Six years after his settling down at Sans Souci a kinsman of his visited him. staying for three days, who writes epistolarily : “ He is the most innocent of God’s creatures, and his heart is much warmer than his head. The place of his abode is the very temple of dullness. . . . yet he dawdles away his day in a manner not unpleasant to him ; and I really am persuaded he has a conscience would gild the inside of a dungeon. The feats of our bare-legged warriors in the late war, accompanied by a pibrach in his outer room, have an effect on the old don which would delight you. . . . His tastes, his ideas, his manner of living, are a mixture of Aberdeenshire and the kingdom of Valencia: and as he seeks to make no new friends, he seems to retain a strong though silent attachment for his old ones.”

To the last the kind old man’s warm feeling for his family connections showed itself in a constant solicitude to assist in every way, both by money and advice, his grand-nephews, especially his namesake, George Elphiustone (later) Viscount Keith, afterward the wellknown admiral. His letters to him are full of his brave, lively, and genial spirit, and of almost womanly kindness. Elphinstone, after entering the Royal Navy, left it, to serve under the flag of the East India Company, but within a few years he became anxious to return to the Navy, and the earl made use of his recently recovered influence in England to obtain his nephew’s reinstatement. While the question was still pending he wrote to him : —

“ I suppose, if this find you at home, there will be next morning, when you all meet at breakfast, a council on what I wrote : that my lady will be of opinion to continue in the service of the company as least dangerous; your father will say that in time of peace there is less danger in the Navy as well as more honor, that you will be mostly at home, and that in time of war you will be exposed to fight in the service in the company, and in a ship not fitted for fighting; the young ladies will rather incline to your returning into the Navy, since when you are not at sea you will be mostly with them, and they will to that pleasure sacrifice the silks, chintzes, fans, japan-work, china-ware, cockatoos, and monkeys they might otherwise expect if you continue going to India and China. You must decide the question yourself, as having had some trial of both services. Let me know, dear Ben [a pet name by which the earl was wont to distinguish Elphinstone], the debates of the house, and the arguments of the six counselors.”

He wrote gayly in 1770 to another relation, who had begged to be allowed to consult for him a noted English physician at Dresden about his health : " I thank you for your advice of consulting the English doctor to repair my old carcass. I have lately done so by my old coach, and it is now almost as good as new. Please, therefore, to tell the doctor that from him I shall expect a good repair, and shall state the case. First he must know that the machine is the worse for wear, being nearly eighty years old. The reparation I propose he should begin with is, one pair of new eyes, one pair of new ears, some improvement in the memory. When this is done, we shall ask new legs and some change in the stomach. For the present, this first reparation will be sufficient, and we must not trouble the doctor too much at once.”

Two years later, he writes to Elphinstone, referring, apparently, to some annoyances this nephew had suffered : " Dear Ben, I lose no time to wish you many happy new years, fair winds and good weather, and health to all aboard the Scorpion. There are more lies in London than anywhere, I know, because there are more people to lie. We do well here, considering the number’s less than in London.” In the same tone he said to Rousseau years before : “ Lying is an epidemic malady. There are only two ways to correct it: one, which would be too severe, — by a universal deluge ; the other, satisfactory, and which we will hold to, — a retreat into our Scotch hermitage.”

In a letter from Frederick to Voltaire there is this mention of Lord Marischal, three years before his death: “ Our honored and good milord is wonderfully well; his worthy soul is cheerful and happy. His genial philosophy keeps him occupied only with good things. All the English who pass through here go to see him as a pilgrimage. He dwells opposite Sans Souci, loved and esteemed by every one. There is a happy old age.” It is easy to detect in these words the contrast that was in Frederick’s mind between the man of whom and the man to whom he was writing.

The “ honored and good milord ” died in 1778, in the same month with Voltaire (and also with Chatham), and was buried by his own servants, having expressly forbidden that his funeral should cost more than twenty reichsthalers. In his old age and in his last six-weeks-long illness, he was always patient, always fearless ; once only he was heard to say that he should be better off if he were among the Esquimaux, who would kill him instead of letting him suffer. When lie was dying he sent for Mr. Elliot, the English ambassador at Berlin. " I have summoned you,” he said to him with characteristic gayety, “because there is something amusing in a minister of King George receiving the last breath of an old Jacobite. Besides, you may, perhaps, have some commissions to give me for Lord Chatham [who had died a fortnight before] ; and as I count on seeing him to-morrow or next day, I will take charge with pleasure of your dispatches.”

His feeling always about death had united a noble serenity with warm tenderness. It is said that he endured the death of his friends with the same tranquillity with which he anticipated his own ; and that at first he was less occupied with his own misfortune in losing them than with the happiness he conceived to be theirs, freed from the ills of humanity. “ But as months passed, feeling every day more and more how much his own happiness was diminished, he expressed all the strength of his regrets, recounting the good deeds of those he had lost, and celebrating their virtues.”He liked, he said, in this way to make them live for a moment again in the memory of others, almost forgotten though they already were, and still alive only in his own heart.

Two or three years before his death he wrote to Elphinstone : " I shall rejoice to see you ; but if you don’t come soon, I may chance to play you a trick, and not be at home, for I grow very weak. Don’t grumble, good Ben : I have done pretty well; eighty years are long.”

He had indeed “ done pretty well ” through all the eighty and more long years, and had honorably deserved that his pleasant memory should live.

Hope Notnor.