DALRYMPLE, JAMES, VISCOUNT STAIR, a lawyer and statesman, son of a small pro prietor in Ayrshire, was b. at Drummurchie, in the same county, May, 1619, educated at Glasgow university, and at an early age, entered the army raised in Scotland to repel the religious innovations of Charles I. But the bent of his mind lay towards civil and literary pursuits; and in 1641, lie was appointed professor of philosophy at Glasgow. The use which he made of philosophy, however, was rather to aid him in basing law— his favorite profound and comprehensive principles, than to add another metaphysical system to those already in existence. In short, his wish was to be a phil osophic lawyer, rather than a philosopher. In 1648, he entered as an advocate at the Scotch bar, where lie rapidly acquired great distinction; in 1649, and again in 1650, he was appointed secretary to the commissioners scut to Holland by the Scottish parlia ment to treat with Charles II.; and in 1657, was induced—but with difficulty—to become one of the "commissioners for the administration of justice" in Scotland under Cromwell's government. Dalrymple was a conscientious, but at the same time an exceedingly moderate and enlightened royalist; and although appointed one of the new Scotch judges after the restoration, lie resigned his seat in 1663, because he could not take the " declaration" oath, which denied the right of the nation to take up arms against the king. His great talents, however, induced the monarch to accept his serv ices on his own terms. Dalrymple was now created a baronet. In 1671, lie became lord president of the court of session. As a member of the privy council he was inva
riably the advocate, though not always successfully, of moderate measures. In 1631, when the infamous " test" oath was under consideration, Dalrymple, with the dexterity of a lawyer, caused John Knox's confession of faith to be introduced as a part of the test; but as this confession inculcated resistance to tyranny as a duty, the one half of the test contradicted the other. Dalrymple's private conscience, however, was more fastidious than his public one, for lie himself refused to take the very oath which, by his ingenuity, he had virtually deprived of its despotic character, and in consequence had to resign all his appointments. Before this, he had published the Institutions of the Late of Scotland, which is still the grand text-book of the Scotch lawyer. The disquisitions are both profound and luminous, characterized alike by their philosophic insight and their sound common sense. After some time spent on his estate in Wigtonshire, Dal rymple went to Holland in 1682, to escape the persecution to which he was subjected at home. During 1684-87, he published at Edinburgh—though he himself was then resid ing at Leyden—his Decisions; and in 1686, at Leyden, a philosophic work in Latin, entitled Physiologia Nora Experimentalis. He accompanied the prince of Orange on his expedition to England. When matters were prosperously settled, William re-appointed him lord president of the court of session, and elevated him to the peerage under the title of viscount Stair. He died 25th Nov., 1695.