FORBES, WILLIAM, Bishop of Edinburgh, was born at Aberdeen in 1580. lie studied at Idarischal College in Aberdeen, which he entered when ho waa twelve years old. Ho held for some time a chair of logic in Aberdeen ; and afterwards travelled in Germany and Poland, studying at Helmatiidt and Heidelberg. On his return to Britain be was offered a professorship of Hebrew in Oxford, but the state of his health induced him to return to his native country. In 1618 he was made principal of Marischal College. We find him in 7621 ceasing to hold this office, and soon after wards becoming one of the ministers of Edinburgh. In that capacity he preached before Charles I. on his visit to Scotland in 1633, and the eloquence ho then exhibited is said to have induced the king to resolve that he should be the first bishop of Edinburgh. That short-lived see was erected in the ensuing year, and Forbes was appointed bishop on the 2Gth of January 1634. He died on the 11th
of April of the same year. His fame is chiefly traditional. His only published work is posthumous : Conaidemtiones modestx et pacifism Controversiarum de Justification°, Pureatorio, invocations Sanctorum et Christ° Mcdiatore, Eucharistia,' published in 1658. It embodied a proposal for an accommodation between the Protestant Episcopal churches and the Church of Rome, the only result of which could be to have made episcopacy regarded with more suspicion in Scotland than it was. Some other polemical works which bad raised high expectations were lost. Burnet, characterising his eloquence, says that "he preached with ft zeal and vehemence that made him forget all the measures of time—two or three hours was no extraordinary thing for him."