255
heritage and warldlie commoditie, he had  proponit
to sit down in St. Andrews, and had served at his
awin charges ane haill yeir, and culd not haif any
equall condition of leving, na not the least provision."
He accordingly returned to his charge at the West
Church. In 1584, when James struck a blow at the
church, by rendering it criminal to decline the juris-
diction of the privy-council, and to hold assemblies
without the royal permission, Pont added his name
to the list of the gallant defenders of the church, by
solemnly protesting against the acts as they were
published at the cross of Edinburgh, on the ground
that they had been passed without the knowledge or
consent of the church. Two days before (23d May,
1584) he had been deprived of his seat in the College
of Justice, by an act prohibiting ecclesiastics to
hold civil appointments, and he now, with many of
the clergy who were alarmed at so bold an inroad,
fled to England. He returned to Scotland with the
Earl of Angus and his party a few months after-
wards, and resumed his ministerial duties. In 1587
he was nominated to the bishopric of Caithness; but
the assembly refused to ratify the appointment. In
1591 the assembly appointed him to write against
sacrilege; his three sermons on that subject were
approved of, and ordered to be printed by the pres-
bytery of Edinburgh, November 12, 1594 (see Re-
cords), but from some unknown cause were not
published till 1599. In 1594 he published A New
Treatise on the Right Reckoning of Yeares and Ages of
the World, for the purpose of showing that the year
1600 was not, as his countrymen supposed, the pro-
per year of the jubilee. In 1601 he was appointed
by the General Assembly to revise the Psalms. In
1596 and 1602 he was chosen commissioner of Ork-
ney, and his name was first in the list of those who
were intended for the qualified prelacies. In 1604
he published a tract on the union of the kingdoms,
"De Unione Britanniĉ, seu de Regnorum Angliĉ et
Scotiĉ omniumque adjacentium Insularum in unam
Monarchiam consolidatione, deque multiplici ejus
Unionis utilitate, Dialogus." Mr. Eraser Tytler, who
appears to have perused it, says,1 "This political
treatise, which is written in Latin in the form of a
dialogue between three fictitious speakers, Irenĉus,
Polyhistor, and Hospes, is chiefly valuable from its
furnishing us with some curious pictures of the poli-
tical state of the country, and the rude manners of
the times. . . . The picture he presents of the in-
tolerable tyranny of the nobles in their strong and
remote fortresses, of the impotency of the arm of
the law, and the personal terrors of the judges, who
trembled before these petty princes, very completely
proves that there was no poetical exaggeration in
the verses of Sir Richard Maitland." Pont died on
the 8th May, 1606, and was interred, it is said, in
the church of St. Cuthbert, where a monument was
erected to his memory, with an epitaph, partly in
English, partly in very questionable Latin. He had
prepared a more ample edition of his work on the
Jubilee Year, which was published in quarto, in
1619.2 Besides these works Pont wrote Chronologia
de Sabbatis, published at London in 1626. His
Aureum Seculum, his Translation of Pindar's Olym-
pic Odes, his Dissertation on the Greek Lyric Metres,
his Lexicon of Three Languages, and Collection of
1 Life of Sir Thomas Craig, 218.
2 Sibbaldi Bibliotheca Scotica (MS. Adv. Lib.), 224,225.    In
the second part of this work there is put down to the name
of Robertus Pontanus, "Parvus Catechismus quo examinari
possunt qui ad sacram ccenam admittuntur."   Andrean. 1573.
For a more full account of Pont, see History of the Church
and Parish of St. Cuthbert, Edinburgh, 1829, pp. 20-41, and
Wodrow's Biog. Coll. vol. i.
Homilies, all of which David Buchanan says he saw
in MS., are now nowhere to be found.
POET, TIMOTHY, the celebrated geographer who
prepared the "Theatrum Scotise," in Bleau's Atlas,
was the eldest son of the preceding, apparently by
his first wife, Catharine Masterton, daughter of
Masterton of Grange. Scarcely anything of his
personal history appears to be known. He seems to
have become a minister of the Scottish church, and
is mentioned in the Book of Assignations, 1601-8,
as "minister of Dwnet."3 Sir Robert Sibbald (De
Histor. Scot. MS. Ad. Lib. p. 2) mentions a pedes-
trian expedition undertaken by him, in 1608, to
explore the more barbarous parts of the country.
"He was," says Bishop Nicholson, "by nature and
education a complete mathematician, and the first
projector of a Scotch atlas. To that great purpose
he personally surveyed all the several counties and
isles of the kingdom; took draughts of 'em upon the
spot, and added such cursory observations on the
monuments of antiquity and other curiosities as
were proper for the furnishing out of future descrip-
tions. He was unhappily surpris'd by death, to the
inestimable loss of his countrey, when he had well
nigh finish'd his papers, most of which were fortu-
nately retrieved by Sir John Scott, and disposed of
in such a manner as has been already reported.
There are some other remains of this learned and
good man, on the 'History of Agricola's Vallum,
or Graham's Dike,' as are well worth the preserv-
ing."4 The originals of the maps so drawn up are
preserved in good order in the Advocates' Library.
They are minutely and elegantly penned, and have
the air of such laborious correctness, as the science
of the period enabled the geographer to attain.
Pont appears to have penetrated to those wild and
remote portions of the island, the surfaces of which
have scarcely yet been accurately delineated. Sir
Robert Sibbald mentions (De Histor. Scot, ut supra),
that after Font's death his maps were so carelessly
kept by his heirs, that they were in great danger of
destruction from moths and vermin. King James
ordered that they should be purchased and given to
the world; but amidst the cares of government they
were again consigned for a season to oblivion. At
length Sir John Scott of  Scotstarvet, to whose
enlightened patronage we owe much of what is
preserved of the literature of his times, prevailed
with Sir Robert Gordon of  Straloch to revise and
correct them for the press. The task was continued
by Sir Robert's son, Mr. James Gordon, parson of
Rothemay, and with his amendments they appeared
in Bleau's celebrated Atlas.
PRINGLE, SIR JOHN, a distinguished physician
and cultivator of science, was born at  Stitchel House,
in Roxburghshire, April 10, 1707. He was the
youngest son of Sir John Pringle of  Stitchel, Bart.,
by Magdalen Elliot, sister of Sir Gilbert Elliot of
Stobs. His education was commenced at home
under a private tutor, and advanced at the university
of St. Andrews, where he had the advantage of living
with his relation, Mr. Francis  Pringle, professor of
Greek. Having determined on physic as a profes-
sion, he spent the winter of 1727-8 at the medical
classes in Edinburgh, and afterwards proceeded to
Leyden, where in 1730 he received his diploma,
which was signed by the distinguished names of
Boerhaave, Albums, and Gravesande, under whom
he had studied. He then settled as a physician in
3 M'Crie's Melville, 2d edition, ii. 428.
4 Scottish Historical Library, 24.