JAMES, F.R.S. This enterprising and enlightened traveller was a descendant, by the female side, of the royal house of Bruce, and was born at the family seat, Kinnaird House, Stirlingshire, on the 14th Dec. 1730. He received the elements of his education at Harrow, where he made considerable progress in his classical studies. Returning to Scotland, he applied to the study of law; but having no relish for this pursuit, he determined to push his fortune in the East Indies, and for that purpose went to London. While in the metropolis, soliciting permission from the directors of the East India Company to go out and settle under their auspices as a free trader, he was introduced to a Miss Allan, whom he married in the beginning of the following year. He now abandoned his East India speculations, and devoted himself to commerce as a wine-merchant. His wife having fallen into a bad state of health, Bruce, in hopes that the genial climate of the south of France would benefit her, proceeded thither. But she died on the journey, within a year after her marriage.

Bruce returned to his business in London, but the bond which had connected him with it was now broken; and giving up the principal management of the concern to his partner, he applied himself to studies calculated to dispel the grief which had settled on his mind. For two years he laboured at the Spanish and Portuguese languages, which he learned to pronounce with great accuracy. He also assiduously practised several styles of drawing. His business having afforded him an opportunity of visiting the Continent, he proceeded thither, and travelled first through Portugal and afterwards through Spain. In the latter country, the traces of oriental manners still visible, the desolate pa- laces of the caliphs, and the tales of chivalry interwoven with the Moorish wars, awakened in his mind that spirit of romantic enterprise which afterwards led him to the fountains of the Nile. At Madrid he proposed to explore the collections of Arabic manuscripts which were buried in the monastery of St Lawrence, and in the library of the Escorial. Disappointed in this expectation by the jealousy of the Spaniards, he proceeded to France, and afterwards to Holland; but on receiving the news of his father's death, he returned to England.

By the demise of his father he succeeded to an inheritance which, though respectable, was inadequate to the wants of his growing ambition. From the period of his return in 1758 to the year 1761, he intently employed himself in the acquisition of the eastern languages. A circumstance had occurred which introduced him to Mr Pitt. While at Ferrol in Galicia, there was a rumour of a war between Great Britain and Spain. It immediately occurred to the fertile mind of Bruce that a descent upon Spain at this point could scarcely fail of being successful. He boldly resolved to submit his project to Mr Pitt, through his friend Mr Wood, under-secretary of state, to whom he fully explained the circumstances on which he had formed his opinion. Mr Bruce was sent for, and, after a conversation upon the subject, at Mr Pitt's suggestion he drew up a memorandum of his project. He was then informed by Mr Wood that Mr Pitt intended to employ him upon a particular service; that he might, however, go down and settle his affairs in his own country, but by all means to be ready when called upon. No time was lost on his part; but just after he received orders to return to London, that minister resigned.

Notwithstanding this disappointment, which he very sensibly felt, his hopes promised to be yet realized. The memorandum which he drew up for Mr Pitt had been laid before the king, and strongly recommended by Lord Halifax. The Earl of Egremont and Mr Greville had several meetings with Mr Bruce upon the subject; but the death of Egremont put an end to his expectations for the present. Lord Halifax, however, had appreciated Bruce's character. He proposed to him a journey to the coast of Barbary, which had as yet been but partially explored by Dr Shaw. The discovery of the source of the Nile also formed a subject of conversation; and it is unnecessary to state that the enterprising mind of Bruce eagerly caught up the idea.

At this very time the consulship of Algiers became vacant, and Mr Bruce was pressed by Lord Halifax to accept it, as it presented a very favourable opportunity for making the proposed expedition.

This event determined him. After providing a large apparatus of instruments, he set out for Italy through France. On his arrival at Rome he was ordered to proceed to Naples, there to await His Majesty's commands. From Naples he again returned to Rome, and from thence proceeded to Leghorn, where he at last embarked for Algiers, and arrived there on the 15th of March 1762.

"After a year spent at Algiers, constant conversation with the natives while abroad, and with my manuscripts within doors, had qualified me to appear in any part of the Continent without the help of an interpreter. Ludolf had assured his readers that the knowledge of any oriental language would soon enable them to acquire the Ethiopic; and I needed only the same number of books to have made my knowledge of that language go hand in hand with my attainments in the Arabic. My immediate project of setting out on my journey to the inland parts of Africa had made me double my diligence; night and day there was no relaxation from these studies, although the acquiring any single language had never been with me either an object of time or difficulty."

At Algiers Mr Bruce was detained longer than he expected, in consequence of a dispute with the dey concerning Mediterranean passes. This being adjusted, he proceeded to Mahon, and from Mahon to Carthage. He next visited Tunis and Tripoli, and travelled over the interior parts of these states. At Benghazi, a small town on the Mediterranean, he suffered shipwreck, lost all his baggage, and with extreme difficulty saved his life. He afterwards sailed to the isles of Rhodes and Cyprus; and proceeding to Asia Minor, travelled through a considerable part of Syria and Palestine, visiting Hassia, Latakia, Aleppo, and Tripoli, near which last city he was again in imminent danger of perishing in a river. The ruins of Palmyra and Baalbec were next carefully surveyed and sketched by him. His drawings of these places were deposited in the royal library at Kew: "the most magnificent present in that line," to use his own words, "ever made by a subject to his sovereign." Bruce published no particular account of these various journeys; but Dr Murray, in the second edition, introduced from Bruce's MSS. some account of his travels in Tunis.

In these various travels some years were passed; and Bruce now prepared for the grand expedition, the accomplishment of which had ever been nearest his heart—the discovery of the supposed sources of the Nile. In the prosecution of that dangerous object he left Sidon on the 15th of June 1768, and arrived at Alexandria on the 20th of that month. He proceeded from thence to Cairo, where he remained till the 12th of December following, when he embarked on the Nile, and sailed up the river as far as Syene, visiting in the course of the voyage the ruins of Thebes. Leaving Kenné on the Nile on the 16th February 1769, he crossed the desert of the Thebaid to Cosseir on the Red Sea, and arrived at Jidda on the 3d of May. In Arabia Felix he remained (not without making several excursions) till the 3d of September, when he sailed from Loheïs, and arrived on the 19th at Masuah, where he was detained near two months by the treachery and avarice of the nayib of that place. It was not till the 15th of November that he was allowed to quit Arkeeko, near Masuah; and he arrived on the 15th of February 1770 at Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, where he ingratiated himself with the most considerable persons of both sexes belonging to the court. Several months were employed in attendance on the king, and in an unsuccessful expedition round the lake of Dembea. Towards the end of October he set out for the sources of the Bahr el Azrek, which he supposed to be the principal branch of the Nile, though it is now generally agreed that this rank ought to be assigned to the Bahr el Abiad. At this long-desired spot he arrived on the 14th of November; and his feelings on the accomplishment of his wishes cannot be better expressed than in his own words:

"It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at that moment, standing in that spot which had baffled the genius, industry, and inquiry of ancients and moderns for the course of near three thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the head of armies; and each expedition was distinguished from the last only by the difference of the numbers which had perished, and agreed alone in the disappointment which had uniformly and without exception followed them all. Fame, riches, and honour had been held out for a series of ages to every individual of those myriads whom princes commanded, without having produced one man capable of gratifying the curiosity of his sovereign, or wiping off this stain upon the enterprise and abilities of mankind, or adding this desideratum for the encouragement of geography. Though a mere private Briton, I triumphed here in my own mind over kings and their armies; and every comparison was leading nearer and nearer to the presumption, when the place itself where I stood, the object of my vain-glory, suggested what de- pressed my short-lived triumphs. I was but a few minutes arrived at the source of the Nile, through numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which would have overwhelmed me, but for the continual goodness and protection of Providence; I was, however, but then half through my journey, and all those dangers which I had already passed awaited me again on my return. I found a despondency gaining ground fast upon me, and blasting the crown of laurels I had too rashly woven for myself.

"I was, at that very moment, in possession of what had for many years been the principal object of my ambition and wishes; indifference, which, from the usual infirmity of human nature, follows, at least for a time, complete enjoyment, had taken place of it. The march and the fountains, upon comparison with the rise of many of our rivers, became now a trifling object in my sight. I remembered that magnificent scene in my own native country, where the Tweed, Clyde, and Annan rise in one hill; three rivers, I now thought, not inferior to the Nile in beauty, preferable to it in the cultivation of those countries through which they flow; superior, vastly superior, to it in the virtues and qualities of the inhabitants, and in the beauty of the flocks, crowding its pastures in peace, without fear of violence from man or beast. I had seen the rise of the Rhine and Rhone, and the more magnificent sources of the Saone; I began, in my sorrow, to treat the inquiry about the source of the Nile as a violent effort of a distempered fancy. Grief and despondency now rolling upon me like a torrent, relaxed, not refreshed, by unquiet and imperfect sleep, I started from my bed in the utmost agony. I went to the door of my tent. Every thing was still; the Nile, at whose head I stood, was not capable either to promote or to interrupt my slumber; but the coolness and serenity of the night braced my nerves, and chased away those phantoms that while in bed had oppressed and tormented me."

The object of his wishes being now gratified, Bruce bent his steps towards his native land. He arrived at Gondar on the 19th November 1770, but found that it was by no means an easy task to obtain permission to quit Abyssinia. A civil war in the mean time breaking out, several engagements took place between the king's forces and the troops of the rebels, particularly three actions at a place called Serbraxos, on the 19th, 20th, and 23rd of May 1771. In each of these Mr Bruce acted a considerable part; and for his valiant conduct in the second, received, as a reward from the king, a chain of gold. At Gondar, after these engagements, he again preferred the most earnest entreaties to be allowed to return home; and it was only when his health at last gave way, that the king consented to his departure, but on condition of his engaging to return in the event of his recovery, with as many of his kindred as he could persuade to accompany him.

After a residence of nearly two years in that wretched country, Bruce left Gondar on the 16th of December 1771, taking the dangerous way of the desert of Nubia, instead of the more easy road of Masuah, by which he entered Abyssinia. He was induced to take this route, from his former experience of the cruel and savage temper of the nayib of Masuah. Arriving at Teawa on the 21st March 1772, he had the misfortune to find the sheikh Fidele at Atbara the counterpart of the nayib of Masuah. By his intrepidity and prudence, however, he obtained permission to depart next day, and he arrived at Sennar on the 29th of the same month.

Mr Bruce was detained upwards of four months at that miserable and inhospitable place. This delay was occasioned by the villany of those who had undertaken to supply him with money; but at last, by disposing of nearly the whole of his gold chain, the well-earned trophy of Serbraxos, he was enabled to proceed on his journey.

He left Sennar on the 5th of September, and arrived on the 3d of October at Chendi, which he quitted on the 20th, and travelled through the desert of Gooz, reaching the village of that name on the 26th of October. On the 9th of November he left Gooz, and entered upon the most dreadful and dangerous part of his journey. All his camels having perished, he was under the necessity of abandoning his baggage in the desert; and with the greatest difficulty reached Assouan upon the Nile on the 29th of November. After some days' rest, having procured fresh camels, he returned into the desert, and recovered his baggage, among which was a quadrant of three feet radius, supplied by Louis XV. from the military academy at Marseilles.

On the 10th of January 1773, after more than four years' absence, he arrived at Cairo, where, by his manly and generous behaviour, he so won the heart of Mahomet Bey, that he obtained a firman permitting the commanders of English vessels belonging to Bombay and Bengal to bring their ships and merchandise to Suez, a place far preferable in all respects to Jidda, to which they were formerly confined. Such was the conclusion of his laborious and memorable journey through the desert.

At Cairo Mr Bruce's earthly career had nearly been concluded by a disorder in his leg, occasioned by a worm in the flesh. This accident kept him five weeks in extreme agony, and long continued to affect his health. On his return to Europe he was received with all the admiration due to his enterprising character. After passing a considerable time in France, particularly at Montbard, with his friend the Comte de Buffon, he at last revisited his native country after an absence of more than twelve years.

The publication of his travels was delayed by several circumstances, among which may be mentioned the death of his second wife, his own impaired health, and a series of law-suits which resulted from his long absence from his native country. His long expected work accordingly did not appear till 1790, seventeen years after his return to Europe. It consisted of five large quarto volumes, embellished with plates and charts. It is unnecessary to enter into any criticism or analysis of this celebrated work. The very singular and extraordinary picture which it gives of Abyssinian manners startled the belief of some. He stated one fact in particular which shipwrecked his reputation; and the world of literature, from Johnson down to the author of Munchausen, ridiculed the statement as unworthy of credit. It was, that the Abyssinians were in the practice of eating raw slices cut out of a living cow. This, though believed in France and other Continental countries, was treated in England as a fable. The shafts of ridicule, envy, and malice, were levelled at his devoted head; and all that he received at the hands of his contemporaries was obloquy and contempt. Posterity, however, has done him justice. Every succeeding traveller who has visited the country bears testimony to his veracity; and his most startling statements have since been fully verified. See Abyssinia. There are indeed a few errors in dates and other circumstances, but they are of trifling importance, and in no degree detract from the general authenticity of his narrative.

The first impression was quickly disposed of, and a second edition was preparing for the press, when death removed the author from this transitory stage. The cause of his death was an accident. While attending some visitors downstairs, his foot slipped, and he fell headlong. He remained in a state of insensibility for eight or nine hours, when he expired on the 27th of April 1794, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. He married, for his second wife, Mary, eldest daughter of Thomas Dundas of Fingask, who predeceased her husband by ten years. By this marriage Mr Bruce had two sons and one daughter.

The second edition of his travels was published in 1805, in seven vols. 8vo, with a quarto volume of plates, edited by Dr Alexander Murray, who obtained access to all his papers, and illustrated the work with a learning and research which established his fame as an oriental scholar. A third edition appeared in 1813.

There never, perhaps, existed a man better qualified than Bruce for the hazardous enterprise he undertook. His height exceeded six feet, and his size as well as his physical strength was proportionally great. He excelled in all personal accomplishments, being a practised and indefatigable swimmer, trained to exercise and fatigue of every kind, while his long residence among the Arabs had given him a more than ordinary facility in managing the horse. In the use of fire-arms he was almost unerring in his aim, and his dexterity in handling the spear and lance on horseback was very great. He was master of many languages, understood Greek perfectly, and was so well skilled in oriental literature that he revised the New Testament in Ethiopic, Samaritan, Hebrew, and Syriac, making many useful notes and remarks on difficult passages. He had applied from early youth to mathematics, drawing, and astronomy, and had acquired some knowledge of physic and surgery. His memory was astonishingly retentive, and his judgment sound and vigorous. He was dexterous in negotiation, a master of public business, animated with the warmest zeal for the glory of his king and country, a physician in the camp or city, a soldier and horseman in the field; whilst, at the same time, his breast was a stranger to fear, though he took every precaution to avoid danger. Such, at least, is his own representation of his character; and though an impartial judge would probably make some abatement for the natural bias of a man drawing his own portrait, yet it cannot be denied that in personal accomplishments Bruce equalled any of his contemporaries; that he was distinguished for vigour of understanding, as well as great literary attainments; and that in active and persevering intrepidity he has never been excelled.

Michael, the son of a weaver in a hamlet three miles south of Kinross, was born in 1746. He was destined by his family for the office of pastor in a dissenting chapel, for which purpose his parents sent him to Edinburgh in 1762. His health was never robust; and about 1765, his biographer, Dr Anderson, mentions that he began to exhibit that grave melancholy which tinges the beautiful productions of the muse of this amiable young man. In the autumn of 1766 consumption had evidently begun to mark him for its victim. He lingered through the winter, and perished in the succeeding spring, at the early age of twenty years. His poems were collected and published after his death by Logan, a kindred poetical spirit, for the benefit of Bruce's family. They were immediately brought into notice by the elegant and feeling criticism on them by Lord Craig, in the 36th number of The Mirror. Many of them breathe a fine spirit of love for the simple beauties of nature, and a deep pathos; as for example the fine elegiac stanzas on his own approaching dissolution, beginning,

Now spring returns, but not to me returns The vernal joys my better years have known; the poem entitled Lochleeven; and the lines To the Cuckoo.

Robert, king of Scotland, was born in the year 1274, and was grandson of that Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale, who was competitor for the crown with John Baliol. In his earlier life he was attached to the interest of Edward I. of England; yet his conduct was cautiously neutral, and he was therefore narrowly watched by that politic monarch. In the year 1299 he was associated with John Comyn, as one of the regents of Scotland; but, from the powerful rivalry that existed between them, the coalition did not last long. We find him shortly afterwards in favour with Edward. At this time he entered into a secret league with Comyn and the bishop of St Andrews to establish his claim to the throne. Comyn, however, revealed it to Edward; and Bruce having his suspicion excited, fled to Scotland, collected his friends and followers, and proceeded to Scone, where he was solemnly crowned on the 27th of March 1306. He proceeded to expel the English from the kingdom; but was surprised at Methven, near Perth, and completely routed. For two years after this his life may be considered as a romance. He and his band suffered the greatest hardships in sustaining life, and in making head against the numerous foes who on all sides surrounded them. From 1308 to the establishment of his kingdom by the battle which he gained at Bannockburn on 24th June 1314, over the English commanded by Edward II., in person, he and his generals were continually engaged in warfare, making incursions into England, and reducing the strongholds in Scotland which were still garrisoned for the English interest. The consolidation of his kingdom was not allowed to be made in peace; for from the period of that celebrated battle he was constantly engaged in war with England, and with such success, that Edward and his nobles were reduced to the necessity of accepting terms of peace on the condition of renouncing all their pretended superiority over Scotland, of recognising it as a free and independent kingdom, and acknowledging Bruce to be its king. He died at Cardross, on the 7th June 1329, at the age of fifty-five, and was buried at Dunfermline. On his deathbed he expressed a wish that his heart might be conveyed to the Holy Land, whither he had often meditated a pilgrimage to atone for the murder of the Red Comyn. The good Lord James of Douglas undertook to fulfil the dying prayer of his king, but landing in Spain to help the Christians against the Moors, he was slain in battle. The heart of Bruce was brought back to Scotland by the survivors, and buried before the high altar of Melrose Abbey. See SCOTLAND.