541
Logan was appointed moderator of the General
Assembly. During the occupation of Edinburgh by
the Highlanders, in 1745, Logan, in common with
most of the other ministers of Edinburgh, thought it
prudent to secure his personal safety by quitting the
town. His house being near the weigh-house, where
the Highlanders had a guard to prevent communica-
tion between the city and castle, was occupied by
them as a guard-house. After their retirement he
inserted in the newspapers an advertisement for the
recovery of some articles abstracted by his late guests,
a document containing more satire upon the Tory
party than his political pamphlets. His controversy
with Ruddiman originated in the edition of Buchanan's
works edited by that eminent scholar in 1715. He
had become a member of a society of critics, whose
ostensible purpose was to rescue the memory of
Buchanan from the prejudicial opinions of his editor,
but whose labours, though they appear to have
reached a considerable extent of matter, were never
published. In 1746 Logan published "A Treatise
on Government; showing that the Right of the Kings
of Scotland to the Crown was not strictly and abso-
lutely Hereditary;" and in 1747 he subjoined "A
Second Treatise on Government; showing that the
Right to the Crown of Scotland was not Hereditary
in the sense of Jacobites." The first answer he
received was in an anonymous letter, written in a
spirit of airy ridicule, and in July, 1747, appeared
the graver discussion of the grounds of his opinions
by Ruddiman. Logan, in company with many
men who have supported liberal and enlightened
political sentiments, had the misfortune to be more
anxious to establish them on historical precedent
than on their native merits, and the history of Scot-
land was peculiarly barren in ascertained facts for
such a purpose. His principles appear to have
been somewhat akin to those of Grotius, which ad-
mitted nothing in hereditary right but a continuation
to the descendants of the permission given to their
ancestor to govern. To show that the crown of
Scotland did not descend though the Stewarts in a
pure legitimate stream, he discussed the well-known
subject of the legitimacy of Robert III., and the
question, certainly at one time debatable, whether
the Pretender was or was not the son of James II.
The former of these points has now been pretty
satisfactorily established by the labours of Innes, Hay,
Stewart, and Ruddiman, and the latter is no longer
a matter of doubt. But Logan is accused of having
gone to other and more frail sources; a fabulous list
of kings had been added to the number of the tenants
of the Scottish throne by Boece and the other early
chroniclers. Buchanan, if he did not know the list
to be fabricated, knew the circumstances of the lives
of these persons to rest on so unstable a foundation,
that he found himself enabled to twist their characters
to his theories. On the events connected with the
reigns of these persons, Logan likewise comments;
but after having done so, turning to the writings of
Innes and Stillingfleet, he remarked—"But I shall
be so good as to yield it to Lloyd, Stillingfleet, and
Innes; but then let our Scottish Jacobites and the
young Chevalier give over their boasting of heredi-
tary succession by a longer race of kings in Scotland
than in any kingdom in the known world."1 Ruddi-
man employed his usual labour in clearing the ques-
tions about Robert III. and the birth of the Pretender;
but in another point—the wish to prove that Robert
the Bruce was a nearer heir to the Scottish crown
by feudal usages than John Baliol—he failed.
Chalmers, who can see neither talent nor honesty
1 First Treatise, 50.
in Logan, and no defect in Ruddiman, observes,
that "it required not, indeed, the vigour of Ruddi-
man to overthrow the weakness of Logan, who laid
the foundations of the government which he affected
either on the wild fables of Boece, or on the more
despicable fallacies of Buchanan;" but the fables,
which were satirically noticed by Logan, were sub-
jects of serious consideration to the grave critic.
Ruddiman brings against his opponent the charge,
frequently made on such occasions, of "despising
dominions, speaking evil of dignities, and throwing
out railing accusations against kings, though the
archangel Michael durst not bring one against the
devil himself, whom our author, I hope, will allow
to be worse than the worst of our kings."2 This
was, at least, in some degree complimentary to Logan,
and the critic, proceeding, tries to preserve for the
ancestors of Charles II. both their length of line
and their virtues, and is anxious to show that, at
least, such as cannot be easily saved from the censures
of Buchanan and Logan, were not lineal ancestors
of the great Charles II. In point of philosophy,
Ruddiman's work cannot well be compared with the
several pamphlets of Logan, although even the argu-
ments of the latter against divine right would now
be considered too serious and uncalled for by any
power of defence. The different pamphlets will be
found accurately enumerated in Chalmers' Life of
Ruddiman. Logan was the more restless and deter-
mined of the two, and continued his attacks until
1749, when both had reached a period of life fitted
for more peaceful pursuits. Logan died at Edinburgh
on the I3th of October, 1755, in the seventy-seventh
year of his age.
LOGAN, JOHN, a poet and sermon writer of no
mean eminence, was born in the year 1748, at Soutra,
in the parish of Fala, in the county of Mid-Lothian,
being the son of George Logan, a small farmer at
that place of the Dissenting persuasion. He received
the elements of learning at the school of Gosford, in
East-Lothian, to which parish his father removed
during his childhood. Being the younger of two sons,
he was early destined to the clerical profession, ac-
cording to a custom not yet abrogated in families of
the humbler rank in Scotland. At the university of
Edinburgh he formed an acquaintance with the un-
fortunate Michael Bruce, and also with Dr. Robert-
son, afterwards minister of Dalmeny, and known as
author of a life of Mary Queen of Scots. In the
society of the former individual he cultivated poeti-
cal reading and composition, being fondest, as might
be supposed from the character of his own efforts,
of the writings of Spenser, Collins, Akenside, and
Gray, the three last of whom bear so honourable
a distinction from the cold and epigrammatic man-
ner of their contemporaries. During one of the re-
cesses of the college, while residing in the country,
he became known to Patrick Lord Elibank, who,
with his usual enthusiasm in favour of genius of
every kind, warmly patronized him.
On completing his education Logan was received
as tutor into the house of Mr. Sinclair of Ulbster,
and thus became preceptor of Sir John Sinclair,
author of the Code of Agriculture. He did not long
retain this situation, in which he was succeeded by
his friend Robertson. In 1770 he superintended
the publication of the first edition of the poems of
Bruce, who had died three years before. The vol-
ume professedly contained a few supplementary
pieces by other writers, and of these Logan was
himself the principal author. The best of his con-
2 Ruddiman's Answer, 27.