dence on his cure, Leighton tendered his resignation to the presbytery. At first it was declined, but in the year following they were induced to accept it; and on Feb. 3, 1653, his ministerial connexion with Newbottle was dissolved. Shortly after this affair, he was chosen Primar or Principal of the university of Edinburgh, a situation which he was prevailed upon to accept, because it was totally unconnected with the church as a body politic. It was hardly possible that, at such a period of civil dissension, his election should be unanimous; but, although it was not cordially approved by all parties, yet such was the homage paid to his uncommon merit, that it encountered no direct opposition. It appears that, upon the death of Principal Adamson in 1652, Mr. Wil liam Colville, at that time minister of the English church at Utrecht, was elected. But in consequence of" some obstructions," (as the phrase runs in the Council Register of Edinburgh,) the nature of which is not explained, the election was set aside on the 17th of January, 1653, one year's stipend being allowed to the deposed warden, to compensate his trouble and expense in coming over from Holland. As this gentleman was known for his monarchical principles, it is probable that the obstructions hinted at proceeded from Oliver Cromwell; for it is certain that, about this time, the principals of King's college, Aberdeen, of Glasgow, and of St. Andrew's, paid the forfeit of their stubborn loyalty with their academical places. The selfsame day on which the office was declared vacant, Leighton was chosen to

it. The ministers of the city, who were partial to Colville, a man of real worth and talent, assisted at the election of his successor in obedience to the charter, but refused to concur in it; at the same time expressing a wish that their attendance could have been dispensed with, since they were " content with the man, though not clear in the manner of the call*."

In this situation he was eminently useful. One of his earliest measures was to revive the obsolete practice of delivering, once in the week, a Latin lecture on some theological subject. These prelections, which are fortunately preserved, attracted such general admiration, that the public hall in which he pronounced them used to be thronged with auditors, who were all enchanted with the purity of his style and with his animated delivery. To the students under his care he was indefatigably attentive, instructing them singly as well as collectively; and to many youths of capacity and distinction his wise and affectionate exhortations were lastingly beneficial.

Of his proceedings, while he held this academical post, some particulars are extant, which bespeak him gifted with talents for active business. Two years after his appointment, he was deputed by the Provost and Council, to apply to the Protector in London for an augmentation of the revenues of the College. A minute of the Town Council Register indicates that his mission was successful.

* See Bower's Hist. of the Univ. of Edin. vol. i. pp. 261, 263, &c.

The year following, he called the attention of the magistrates to a report of some suspicious houses having been detected in the neighbourhood of the college; and effectual measures were set on foot, at his instigation, for extirpating the nuisance.

Neither was he regardless of those subordinate establishments, to which, as they were not comprehended within the immediate circle of his duties, a principal of austerer dignity, or of inferior zeal, might not have condescended. Observing that the collegians made little way in the higher branches of science and literature, he searched into the cause of their deficiency, and quickly found it in the want of a sound rudimental education. For the cure of this evil he proposed, that grammar-schools should be founded in the several presbyteries, and be suitably endowed; and he advised that Cromwell should be solicited to assign the funds requisite for this purpose, "out of the concealed revenues of the Kirk rents." He further recommended that some elementary grammar, part English and part Latin, should be compiled for the use of these seminaries; and in order to take immediate advantage of the Protector's bounty, should he graciously accede to their petition, he moved that instructions be issued forthwith to magistrates, ministers, and masters of families, enjoining them to set about obtaining a "Locality" for the proposed establishments.

In the same year he offered to preach in the college hall to the scholars, once on the sabbath of every third or fourth week, taking turns with the

professors; an offer which appears to have been accepted by the Town Council.

Bound up with the book entitled, Naphtali, is a letter from James Mitchell, the stern fanatic, who suffered for his attempt on the life of Archbishop Sharp. In this letter he vindicates himself for the part he took in the Pentland insurrection, on the ground of his having been required, at college, to subscribe the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant, which were tendered to him along with the other candidates for Laureation, A. D. 1656, by the Principal Leighton*. There seems no reason to question the veracity of this statement. It was quite consistent with Leighton's principles to submit to existing authorities; and to consider this or the other form of government, whether in church or state, a point of vastly inferior importance to concord and quietness. Against the matter of the covenants he seems not to have entertained, at that time, any strong objection; but only to their being made engines of tyrannizing over men's consciences and oppressing their persons. Assuredly he would not himself have issued an order for withholding degrees from the scholars, till they had professed their allegiance to the dominant system. Still it would be a high pitch of censoriousness, to find Leighton in fault for proposing to the students, in his official capacity, a test of their attachment to the existing order of

See Naphtali, 1761, p. 373; and Wodrow MSS.

things; it being certain, moreover, that the majority would accept it cordially, and the pain of declining it being only the suspension of an academical degree.

Leighton retained the situation of principal in the University of Edinburgh till the year 1662, when a very unexpected call obliged him to resign it; and his successor was the same Mr. Colville, into whose chair he had been preferred, when that gentleman's election was superseded by Cromwell, as related above.

The course of our history has brought us to an epoch, which may be reckoned the most important of Leighton's life;-the epoch of his inauguration to the episcopal office in Scotland. It was not to be expected, that this son of a noted confessor in the cause of ecclesiastical parity, should be allowed to transfer his allegiance to prelacy, without incurring censures of the sharpest edge. In the springtide of religious and civil bigotry, such a deed was sure to undergo the most unfavourable construction; for even in the present day, when every grudge has died away between the two national churches, presbyterian writers commonly regard this transaction as a sable spot on the character of Leighton, which it is a large stretch of charity to impute solely to a misleading judgment. Being myself satisfied, after attentive examination, that neither his understanding nor his heart was in the wrong on this occasion, I shall hope to be excused, if I attempt to set his conduct in its true light, by prefacing the