Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, Patrick
MURRAY, PATRICK, fifth Lord Elibank (1703–1778), born in 1703, was son of Patrick Murray, fourth lord Elibank (1677–1736), by his wife Elizabeth (d. 1756), daughter of George Stirling of Keir, and an eminent surgeon in Edinburgh. General James Murray (1720–1794) [q. v.] was his younger brother. Although admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates in 1722, he soon turned from legal to military pursuits, becoming an ensign in the army, and subsequently major in Ponsonby's foot and lieutenant-colonel in Wynyard's marines. With the latter regiment he served at the siege of Carthagena in 1740.
After the failure of that expedition Murray quitted the army. He had married in 1735, and had succeeded his father as Lord Elibank the next year. Returning to Scotland, he associated chiefly with the members of the legal profession, among whom he had been brought up, and seems to have been very popular; but his chief interests were literary. He was long in intimate relations with Lord Kames and David Hume, and the three were regarded in Edinburgh as a committee of taste in literary matters, from whose judgment there was no appeal. He was the early patron of Dr. Robertson the historian, and of Home the tragic poet, both of whom were at one time ministers of country parishes near his seat in East Lothian.
Upon the accession of George III Elibank, like many other Jacobites, rallied to the house of Hanover; and when Lord Bute came into power it was determined to bring him into the House of Lords. This plan was, however, foiled by a severely sarcastic article by Wilkes in the 'North Briton' on his presumed services to the Pretender. Wilkes had been an unsuccessful candidate for the governorship of Canada when that office was conferred on Elibank's brother, General James Murray.
When in Scotland in 1773 Dr. Johnson paid Elibank a visit at his house of Ballencrieff, Haddingtonshire, and is said to have told him, when taking leave, that he was 'one of the few Scotchmen whom he met with pleasure and parted from with regret.' To Elibank is ascribed the reply made to Dr. Johnson, when the latter remarked that 'oatmeal was food for horses in England and for men in Scotland:' 'And where would you see such horses and such men?' The doctor also on one occasion observed that he was never in Elibank's company without learning something. 'Lord Elibank,' he remarked to Boswell, 'has read a great deal. It is true I can find in books all that he has read; but he has a great deal of what is in books, proved by the test of real life.' Smollett in his 'Humphry Clinker' (Letter of 18 July) described him as a nobleman whom he had 'long revered for his humanity and universal intelligence, over and above the entertainment arising from the originality of his character' (cf. Alexander Carlyle's Autobiog. p. 266).
Elibank died at Ballencrieff on 3 Aug. 1778. He was married in 1735 to Maria Margaretta, daughter of Cornelius de Yonge, lord of Elmeet in Holland, receiver-general of the United Provinces, and widow of William, lord North and Grey; but there was no issue of the marriage. Lady Elibank's jointure-house was Kirtling Park, Cambridgeshire, the ancient seat of the North family, now pulled down, and there she and Elibank often resided. She died in 1762.
Elibank's works were:
- 'Thoughts on Money Circulation and Paper Currency,' Edinburgh, 1758.
- 'Queries relating to the proposed Plan of altering the Entails in Scotland,' Edinburgh, 1765.
- 'Letter to Lord Hailes on his Remarks on the History of Scotland,' Edinburgh, 1773.
- 'Considerations on the present State of the Peerage of Scotland,' Edinburgh, 1774, in which he attacked with much warmth the mode of electing Scottish peers to the House of Lords.
[Douglas's Scottish Peerage, ed. Wood; Manuscripts of John Ramsay of Ochtertyre; Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Dr. Birkbeck Hill; John Wilkes' The North Briton.]