Sir GEORGE, an able lawyer, a polite scholar, and a celebrated wit, was born at Dundee in the county of Angus in Scotland in 1636, and studied at the universities of Aberdeen and St Andrew's; after which he applied himself to the civil law, travelled into France, and prosecuted his study in that faculty for about three years. At his return to his native country he became an advocate in the city of Edinburgh; and soon gained the character of an eminent pleader. He did not, however, suffer his abilities to be confined entirely to that province. He had a good taste for polite literature; and he gave the public, from time to time, incontrovertible proofs of an uncommon proficiency therein. He had practised but a few years, when he was promoted to the office of a judge in the criminal court; and, in 1674, was made king's advocate, and one of the lords of the privy council in Scotland. He was also knighted by his majesty. In these stations he met with a great deal of trouble, on account of the rebellions which happened in his time; and his office of advocate requiring him to act with severity, he did not escape being censured, as if in the deaths of some particular persons who were executed he had stretched the laws too far. But there does not seem to have been any just foundation for this clamour against him; and it is generally agreed, that he acquitted himself like an able and upright magistrate. Upon the abrogation of the penal laws by King James II., our advocate, though he had always been remarkable for his loyalty, and even censured for his zeal against traitors and fanatics, thought himself Mackarel, obliged to resign his post; being convinced, that he MacLaurin, could not discharge the duties of it in that point with a good conscience. But he was soon after restored, and held his offices till the Revolution; an event which, it seems, he could not bring himself to approve. He had hoped that the prince of Orange would have returned to his own country when matters were adjusted between the king and his subjects; and upon its proving otherwise, he quitted all his employments in Scotland, and retired into England, resolving to spend the remainder of his days in the university of Oxford. He arrived there in September 1689, and prosecuted his studies in the Bodleian library, being admitted a student there by a grace passed in the congregation, June 2, 1690. In the spring following, he went to London; where he fell into a disorder, of which he died in May 1691. His corpse was conveyed by land to Scotland, and interred there with great pomp and solemnity. "The politeness of his learning, and the sprightliness of his wit, were (says the reverend Mr Granger) conspicuous in all his pleadings, and thone in his ordinary conversation." Mr Dryden acknowledges, that he was unacquainted with what he calls the beautiful turn of words and thoughts in poetry, till they were explained and exemplified to him in a conversation with that noble wit of Scotland Sir George Mackenzie.—He wrote several pieces of history and antiquities; Institutions of the laws of Scotland; Essays upon various subjects, &c. His works were printed together at Edinburgh in 1716, in 2 vols. folio.