the public was too often the loser, that one man might be enriched. It would have been well, also, if this conscientious generosity had been reciprocated by our government towards such an upright, faithful, and useful servant. But this, we are sorry to add, was not the case. After having advanced many thousands of pounds from his own resources to expedite the works in which he was engaged for the public benefit, he received in compensation from government only £10,000, in two instalments a most inadequate return for his services, independently of his outlays. He thus might be said to have been rewarded with less than nothing. The honour of knighthood, indeed, was offered to him; but this, on account of his growing infirmities, he declined in favour of his son, the late Sir James Macadam, who prosecuted his father's profession, with the superintendence of the roads around London.
During the latter part of his life, Mr. Macadam resided chiefly in the British metropolis, where he was greatly esteemed by the literary and scientific society with which he was surrounded, on account of his conversational powers and varied accomplishments. He finally returned to Scotland, and died at Moffat, on the 26th of November, 1836, in the eighty-first year of his age. He was twice married. By his first wife he had three sons and three daughters, of whom two sons and two daughters survived. His second wife was Miss De Lancey, a lady of American extraction, and sister-in-law of Cooper, the novelist, by whom he had no children.
M'CHEYNE, Rev. Robert Murray.—This young divine, whose brief life
and labours produced such a wide and lasting impression, was born in Edinburgh, on the 21st of May, 1813. At the age of eight he entered the High
School of his native city, where he continued a pupil for six years, during the
course of which he was distinguished among his class-fellows not only by his
proficiency in the usual studies of the class, but his amiable, enthusiastic disposition and engaging manners. From the High School he passed to the university of Edinburgh, and there, besides gaining prizes in the several classes,
he distinguished himself by his proficiency in the study of modern languages,
and his taste in drawing, music, and poetry. On finishing the usual course of
a university education, it is probable that his direction in life would still have
remained to be decided, but for one of those solemnizing events which sometimes, at such a crisis, has confirmed the current and directed the course of those
who have become eminent in the church. This was the death of his eldest
brother, David, eight or nine years older than himself. In the same year (1831) he entered the divinity hall, which at this time enjoyed Dr. Chalmers for its professor in theology, and Dr. Welsh for the chair of church history. Under such teachers, it would have been difficult for a pupil of even ordinary capacity to remain inert and unaccomplished; in the case of Robert M'Cheyne, there was an ardour that not only carried him onward in the studies over which
they presided, but into that life of Christian activity and practical usefulness which they were so desirous to combine with the intellectual acquirements
of young students in training for the ministry. Many of our living clergymen can still remember how, both in Glasgow and Edinburgh, Dr. Chalmers converted the divinity halls into evangelistic seminaries of Sabbath-school
teachers and religious instructors of the poor; and with what hearty good-will they themselves, while students, enlisted in the good work, and plunged boldly into those recesses of ignorance and crime which, but for his exhortations, they
would have never thought of entering; and how they thereby acquired that
