that character was employed at the famous trial of the six ministers in 1606, on a charge of treason for keeping a general assembly at Aberdeen. He was, perhaps, unfitted, by his studious and modest disposition, to come farther forward
in public life. King James repeatedly offered him the honour of knighthood, which he as constantly refused: he is only styled "Sir Thomas Craig," in consequence of an order from the king, that every one should give him the title. He had been married, in early life, to Helen Heriot, daughter of the laird or Trabrown, in East Lothian, to which family belonged the mothers of two great men of that age, George Buchanan and the first earl of Haddington. By this lady he had four sons and three daughters. Sir Lewis Craig, the eldest son, who was born in 1539, was raised, at the age of thirty-four, to the bench, where lie took the designation of Lord Wrightshouses. As this was in the life-time of his own father, the latter had sometimes occasion to plead before his son. A pleasing tradition regarding the filial respect shown by Sir Lewis, is preserved in the biographical sketch prefixed to the treatise De Feudis. The supreme judges in those days sat covered, and heard the counsel who pleaded before them uncovered. "Whenever," says his biographer, " his father appeared before him, Sir Lewis, as became a pious son, uncovered, and listened to his parent with the utmost reverence."
Another family anecdote of a very pleasing character is derived from the same source. The father of Sir Thomas Craig had been educated in the Roman Catholic religion. His son, whose studies, after his return from France, were, as we have seen, superintended by Mr John Craig, the eminent reformer, appears early and zealously to have embraced the new opinions. The old man continued in the faith of the church of Rome till a late period of his life; but, being at length converted by the unanswerable reasons which were incessantly, though reverentially, urged by his son, he became, to the great joy of the subject of this memoir, a convert to the true religion.
This great man died on the 26th of February, 1008, when, if we are right as to the date of his birth, he must have attained his seventieth year.
CRAIG, William, a distinguished senator of the college of Justice, and a large contributor to the literary paper styled " the Mirror," was the son of Dr William Craig, one of the ministers of Glasgow ; a man of so much eminence, that the editors of the Biographia Britannica thought proper to admit an account of him, drawn up by professor Richardson, into their very select collection.[1] The subject of the present memoir was born in 1745, arid received his education at Glasgow college, where he attended the classes of Smith in moral philosophy and political economy, and those of Millar in jurisprudence and civil law. His acquirements were at an early period very great, especially in the belles lettres, and to a less degree in history and metaphysics. He entered at the bar in 1768, and was the contemporary and intimate friend of some of the most distinguished men of the last age. Robert Blair, afterwards lord president, Alexander Abercromby, afterwards lord Abercromby, along with Craig and some others, held for some years a private meeting once every week, for mutual improvement in their legal studies. It is remarkable that, at the commencement of Mr Pitt's administration in 1784, Blair, Abercromby, and Craig were appointed together to be depute advocates under Sir Hay Campbell, who was at the same time nominated lord advocate. Mr Craig held this office till 1787, when he was nominated sheriff of Ayrshire. On the death of lord Hailes in 1792, Mr Craig was appointed to succeed him on the bench, on which occasion he assumed
- ↑ Dr Craig was author of an Essay on the Life of Christ, and of Twenty Discourses on various subjects.
