ARTICLE VII.

KIRKTON'S CHURCH HISTORY.

[From the Quarterly Review, for January, 1818: The titlepage of the work reviewed, is "The Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland, from the Restoration to the year 1678. By the Rev. Mr JAMES KIRKTON, &c. With an Account of the Murder of Archbishop Sharp. By JAMES RUSSELL, an actor therein. Edited from the MS. by CHARLes KirkpatriCK SHARPE. 4to. Edinburgh, 1817.]

THIS work may be rather considered as containing valuable materials for the history of a dark and turbulent period, than as its being itself such. It has been repeatedly quoted by Wodrow, Laing, and other historians of the period, and carries with it a degree of authenticity scarcely pretended to by other authors of the time. After remaining for more than a century in manuscript, it has been edited, as has happened in some cases, by a gentleman who, although a curious enquirer into the history of that calamitous period, and therefore interested in the facts recorded in the text, seems neither to feel nor to profess much value for the tenets, nor respect for the person, of his author. Various motives have been suggested for Mr Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe

undertaking a task which at first sight seems inconsistent with his opinions. Some have supposed that it was meant as a requital of the ruse de guerre of the artful Whig who constituted himself editor of the Jacobite Memoirs of Scotland, written by the well-known Lockhart of Carnwath, and gave them to light in order to have an opportunity to stigmatize the author and his party. This was the more readily credited in Scotland, as Mr Sharpe is allied to that family Others, discovering another concatenation, have supposed that the editor sought some opportunity, if not to vindicate the memory of his celebrated namesake the Archbishop of St Andrews, at least to throw out a few sarcasms against the enthusiasts by whom he was assassinated. On our side of the Tweed these would be deemed fanciful and whimsical motives for undertaking the very laborious and troublesome task of such a publication ; but in Scotland, it would seem the ancient bond of "kith, kin, and ally," still possesses, or is supposed to possess, considerable influ

ence.

Upon inquiry, however, we cannot learn that our ingenious editor claims any relationship to the slaughtered prelate; and we are reluctantly compelled to assign the labour which he has undertaken on the present occasion to the ordinary motives of an active and enquiring mind, which, after finding amusement in extensive and curious researches into the minute particulars relating to an obscure period of history, seeks a new source of pleasure in arranging and communicating the infor

mation it has acquired. Unlike the miser, the antiquary finds the solitary enjoyment of gazing upon and counting over his treasures deficient in interest, and willingly displays them to the eyes of congenial admirers. Perhaps we might add to this motive the malicious pleasure of a wag, who delights to present the ludicrous side of a subject, which, like Bottom's drama, forms a lamentable tragedy full of very pleasant mirth. Accordingly, when his author grows so serious as to be tedious, the notes of the editor seldom fail to be particularly diverting, and rich in all those anecdotes which illustrate character and manners, anecdotes thinly scattered through a wearisome mass of dull and dusty books and manuscripts which only the taste of an accomplished man, united with the industry of a patient antiquary, could have selected and brought together. We purpose, before concluding this Article, to say something more of the tone and spirit in which these commentaries are framed, but it is first necessary to give some account of the work itself and of the author.

The pains bestowed by Mr Sharpe have thrown some light on the obscure events of Mr James Kirkton's life, of which the following is an outline. He was a presbyterian clergyman, and as he seems to have subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant in 1648, he is conjectured to have been one of "the antediluvian ministers" of his persuasion, that is, such who "had seen the glory of the former temple, and were ordained before the Restoration.", In this capacity he was settled as minister in the

parish of Mertoun, in Berwickshire, from which he was expelled as a recusant after the Restoration. In the year 1671, we find him engaged in a controversy with the quakers, who then had some proselytes of rank in the south of Scotland. Kirkton did not avail himself of the earlier indulgence which permitted some of the presbyterian clergy to exercise their ministerial functions, and accordingly fell under the lash of power for keeping conventicles. He was trepanned into a house by one Captain Carstairs, whose view seems to have been to extort money from him, or otherwise to deliver him up to the government as a recusant preacher. In this emergency, Kirkton was delivered by the forcible interference of his brother-in-law, Mr Baillie of Jerviswood, who was afterwards subjected both to fine and imprisonment for having drawn his sword upon the occasion, and who finally suffered death for his supposed share in what is called from his name Jerviswood's conspiracy; being the Scottish branch of the Ryehouse plot. Kirkton, after his rencontre with Carstairs, was In 1687, outlawed and obliged to fly to Holland. he again returned to Scotland, and condescended to avail himself of the benefit of King James's toleration; a circumstance which probably, for a time, sullied the purity and corrupted the savour of his doctrine in the opinion of the ultra-presbyterians. After the year 1688, Kirkton, with the other ousted ministers, was restored to his church at Mertoun, which he speedily exchanged to exercise his functions in the Tolbooth church of Edin

burgh. Here he continued till his death in September, 1699. A son survived him, who fell off from his path-and a daughter, of whom her father is reported, in a ludicrous and scandalous work, to have said from the pulpit," I have been this whole year of God preaching against the vanity of women, yet I see my own daughter in the kirk even now with as high a cockup as any of you all." These cockups were a sort of hat or cap turned up before; and, whatever truth there may be in the anecdote, so far as Kirkton is concerned, were certainly subjects of great scandal to the godly of that period, as the following passage witnesseth.

"I remember about thirty years ago, when cockups were in fashion, some of them half-yard high, set with wires, a solid serious Christian gentlewoman told me she was going to a friend's wedding; her comrades constrained her to put herself in dress; she was uneasy in her mind, and thought she was not herself through the day; when she came home, before she changed her self, she went to her closet to bethink herself how she had spent the loose time, as weddings and fairs are for the most part, and few that keep a bridle-hand to their spirits at such times; after some thoughts, she went to prayer; her conscience challenged her so sharply, that she rose hastily, plucked it off, and threw it from her, saying- Thou, nor no such thing, shall ever come on my head or body, tha: I dare not pray with.' O that all gracious praying souls, who have a mind for heaven, would take good heed what their Bible says, and notice this and such like instances, and lothe, hate, and abhor the sinful, vain, fool fashions of the day, that the perishing world are ambitious of !"—Life and Death of Alexander Peden, published by Patrick Walker, 1727.—p. 145.

The same author informs us, in a passage that shows to what extent the vice of profane swearing

1 Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence.