tle.

The mother of the young nobleman still survived: she was the Lady
Eupheme, daughter of William, eleventh Earl of Ross; and one child only,
the Earl of Kilmarnock, had been the issue of her marriage.

The youth, whose fate afterwards extorted pity from the most prejudiced
spectators of his fate, was educated in the principles of the Scottish
Church. These, as the chaplain who attended Lord Kilmarnock in the last
days of his existence observes, are far from "having the least tendency
to sedition," and a very different bias was apparent in the conduct of
the Presbyterian ministers during the whole course of the insurrections
of 1745. The young nobleman appears to have imbibed, with this
persuasion, a sincere conviction of those incontrovertible, and
all-important truths of Christianity which, happily, the contentions of
sect cannot nullify, nor the passions of mankind assail. "He always
believed," such is his own declaration, "in the great truths of God's
Being and Providence, and in a future state of rewards and punishments
for virtue and vice." He had never, he declared at that solemn moment
when nothing appeared to him of consequence save truth, "been involved
in the fashionable scepticism of the times." As he grew up, a character
more amiable than energetic, and dispositions more calculated to inspire
love than to insure respect, manifested themselves in the young
nobleman. He was singularly handsome, being tall and slender, and
possessing what was termed by an eyewitness of his trial, "an extreme
fine person;" he was mild, and well-bred, humble, and conscientious. It
is true, that in his hours of penitence he recalled, with anguish, "a
careless and dissolute life," by which, as he affirmed, he reduced
himself to great and perplexing difficulties; he repented for his "love
of vanity and addictedness to impurity and sensual pleasure," which had
"brought pollution and guilt upon his soul, and debased his reason, and,
for a time, suspended the exercise of his social affections, which were,
by nature, strong in him, and, in particular, the love of his country."
Such was his own account of that youth, which, deprived of the guidance
of a father, with high rank and great personal attractions to endanger
it, was passed, according to his own confession, in dissipation and
folly. It appears, nevertheless, that he was greatly respected by his
neighbours and tenantry, who were not, perhaps, disposed to judge very
severely