Duncan,
Thomas, and Gilbert, are all noticed by Sir Thomas Middleton among the
"Learned Men and Writers of Aberdeen;" and Duncan is noted as a holy,
good, and learned man. In the stirring times of the Covenants, Sir
Thomas Burnett of Leys, Baronet, though an adherent of the Huntlys,
embraced the Covenant from conscientious motives against his political
instincts and associations. And ever afterwards we find him firm in the
principles of the Covenant, yet advising peaceful and moderate counsels;
and when Montrose, after his conversion to the royal cause, passed
through Aberdeenshire, harrying the lands of the leading Covenanters, he
supped one day at Crathes, excepted and protected Sir Thomas Burnett and
his son-in-law, Sir William Forbes of Monymusk, in the general
denunciation of the Puritans. We find Sir Thomas repeatedly a
commissioner for visiting the University of Aberdeen, and in his later
years he endowed three bursaries at King's College, his own _alma
mater_. Jamesone has painted him with a thoughtful and refined, but
earnest and manly face. The baronet's brother, James Burnett of
Craigmyle, was of the same character. No less earnest and staunch than
his brother in his adherence to his principles--he ever figures as a
peace-maker and enemy of bloodshed. He is described by the parson of
Rothiemay, an unsuspected testimony, as a "gentleman of great wisdom,
and one who favoured the King though he dwelt among the Covenanters, and
was loved and respected by all." Is it not plain that the temperance and
moderation descended in the blood of the Burnetts?

Thomas Burnett of Kemnay, grandson of Craigmyle, is known in a sphere
where few Scotsmen had entered. He was a courtier of that remarkable
little court of the Electress Sophia of Hanover, where he became the
friend of the philosopher Leibnitz, correspondent of the poet Dryden,
and his letters are full of curious gossip on the most various
subjects--theology, philosophy, literature, including poetry and the
small talk of the day. He was greatly employed and trusted by the
Electress Sophia. His son George was noted as an agriculturist, and his
grandson, Alexander Burnett of Kemnay (by a daughter of Sir Alexander
Burnett of Leys), was long British Secretary of embassy at Berlin, and
attended Frederick the Great in the campaigns of the Seven Years' War;
remaining at the Prussian Court as Charge d'Affaires after Sir Andrew
Mitchell's death.

James, third son of Craigmy