GRAHAM, JAMES, Marquis of Montrose, a man celebrated by one party as a hero comparable to the greatest of antiquity, and branded by another as a renegade and a traitor. His name, his exploits, and his character belong properly to history (see the article BRITAIN); but he deserves notice here as one who occupied his intervals of leisure, few and far between, with the elegant and peaceful pursuits of literature. Such of his poems as have been preserved, though they possess but little merit in themselves, are remarkable as the effusions of a mind in which the most heroic and chivalrous daring seems to have been tempered by a degree of refinement beyond his age, and a capacity for pursuits less dazzling, but far more innocent
Graham and useful, than those which have shed an equivocal lustre on his name. His desertion of the covenanters may perhaps be excused, but cannot be defended; amidst the conflicts of exasperated parties and the excitement of civil commotion, it is not easy to steer a consistent and blameless course; but the laws of honour and morality are nevertheless unchangeable. Having joined the royal cause, however, he devoted himself to promote its success; and if his caution had been equal to his genius, or if he had been provided with the necessary supplies, he would in all probability have reduced the kingdom of Scotland to the necessity of acknowledging the royal authority. But, from want of means, his conquests were lost almost as soon as gained; victory produced him no solid advantage; and the first reverse he experienced proved his ruin. His second attempt, after the death of Charles I., was accordingly hopeless from the commencement; he was completely defeated by the army sent against him; and, being betrayed into the hands of the enemy by the laird of Assynt, his intimate friend, he was carried to Edinburgh, and executed with every circumstance of indignity, on the 21st of May 1650. His exploits made him a hero, and to this his enemies added the distinction of martyrdom. Considered as a commander, Montrose was merely a bold and active partisan; a sort of guerilla chief, whose services would have been invaluable to the party he had espoused, if there had been in the field a regular force with which he could have connected his operations, but who, acting independently, contributed merely to aggravate the evils of the contest, without in the slightest degree affecting its result.