GARDINER, COLONEL JAMES, a Scottish soldier, remarkable alike for valour and piety, was born at Carriden in Linlithgowshire, Jan. 10, 1687. At the age of fourteen he entered a Scottish regiment in the Dutch service, and was afterwards present at the battle of Ramillies, where he was wounded. While in garrison during the intervals of his campaigns, he had distinguished himself by the recklessness with which he plunged into all the dissipation and excess incident to a military career. In 1719, however, a wonderful change came over him; and he was henceforth as remarkable for piety and Christian worth as he had formerly been for qualities the very opposite of these. The beautiful story of Colonel Gardiner's conversion, and the seemingly supernatural circumstances attending it, have been carefully detailed by his biographer, Dr. Doddridge. He fell at the battle of Prestonpans in 1745. The circumstances of his death are described in Waverley with all the minuteness of historical detail, set off by the legitimate embellishment of romance.