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constitution, he finally returned to his native country.
In this year he received a second gold medal, for a
communication on the growth of trees in India; and,
on the 31st of May, 1814, was presented with a third
in the presence of a large assembly which he person-
ally attended, by the Duke of Norfolk, who was
then president of the Society of Arts.
Soon after receiving this last honourable testimony
of the high respect in which his talents were held, Mr.
Roxburgh repaired to Edinburgh, where he died on
the 10th of April in the following year, in the fifty-
seventh year of his age, leaving behind him a reputa-
tion of no ordinary character for ability, and for a
laudable ambition to confer benefits on mankind, by
adding to their comforts and conveniences; which
objects he effected to no inconsiderable extent by
many original and ingenious suggestions.
ROY, MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM, a distin-
guished practical mathematician and antiquary, was
born in Carluke parish, May 4, 1726. John, the
father, who was born April 15, 1697, at Milton-head,
must have been an active and intelligent man, if we
may judge from the many references made to him
by the heritors of the parish. He is variously desig-
nated as gardener, factor, &c., to Sir William Gor-
don, and to Charles Hamilton Gordon, of Hallcraig.
John, the grandfather, seems to have been succeeded
in office by his son John. The earliest notice of the
elder John Roy is in the "Roll of Polleable Persons
in Carluke Parish, 1695," and the entry there is in
these terms:�"Jo roy, servitor to my Lord hallcraig,
00. 19. 04." The general, and his brother James,
afterwards minister of Prestonpans, were educated
partly at the school of their native parish, and partly
at the grammar-school of Lanark, the latter having
been a bursar in Glasgow College on the foundation
of the Countess of Forfar, from 1737 till 1751. A
characteristic anecdote of Roy is still current. An
old woman, a native of Carluke, who had all her
life been a servant at Lee, used to relate with pride
that, in her young days, Roy came to Lee as attend-
ant on great men; shortly afterwards he came again,
but in a higher office; after the lapse of years he
came a third time, and now he sat at the right hand
of the laird!
The birth-place of General Roy is accidentally
marked in a singular manner. The buildings of
Milton-head have long been cleared away. An old
willow that grew near the end of the steading, no
longer able to bear the weight of its own arms, bent
under the burden, and now represents an arch of
fair proportions. The tree in this position continues
to grow, and is itself an object of interest; but,
marking as it does the birth-place of an eminent
man, it is doubly worthy of notice and preservation.
No record has been discovered of the early career
of General Roy. He was first brought into notice
in 1746, when he was employed by government to
make an actual survey of Scotland. This arduous
and difficult duty he performed in a meritorious
manner, and gave the world the result in what goes
under the name of the "Duke of Cumberland's
Map." Upon this map, which is a very large sheet,
the sites of all ascertainable Roman camps or stations
were accurately and distinctly laid down. It was
afterwards reduced by the general to a smaller size,
under the title of "Mappa Britanni� Septentri-
onalis," &c.
The first geodesic survey executed in England was
undertaken with the immediate object of establishing
a trigonometrical connection between the observa-
tories of Paris and Greenwich, in order to determine
the difference of longitude. This was executed by
General Roy, who began his operations by measuring
a base of 27,404 feet on Hounslow Heath, in the
summer of 1784. Amongst the numerous and valu-
able papers contributed to the Transactions of the
Royal Society by General Roy, was an account of
these operations, which obtained for him the Copley
medal. To this paper was appended an account of
the mode proposed to be followed in determining
the relative situations of the Greenwich and Paris
observatories, which led to the author's being em-
ployed by royal command to ascertain this point by
the method thus suggested, from actual experiment.
In obedience to his majesty's mandate, the general
completed an exceedingly curious, accurate, and
elaborate set of trigonometrical experiments and
observations, to determine the true and exact latitude
and longitude of the two observatories, illustrated
by tables computed from actual measurement; to
enable him to accomplish which he was furnished
by the king with several costly trigonometrical in-
struments. General Roy presented an account of
these interesting proceedings to the Royal Society,
and was employed in superintending its publication
in the society's Transactions, when he was seized
with an illness which carried him off in two hours.
He died at his house, Argyle Street, London, July
I, 1790. General Roy's investigations laid the
groundwork of the trigonometrical survey of the
three kingdoms, which is (1869) still in progress. In
the History of the Royal Society by Weld, 1848, it is
expressly stated that this survey was commenced by
General Roy in 1784. It was subsequently con-
ducted, under the direction of the master-general of
the ordnance, by Colonel Williams and Captain
(afterwards General) Mudge, of the Royal Engineers,
and Mr. Dalby, who had previously assisted General
Roy. Three years after his death, General Roy's
elaborate antiquarian work was published at the
expense of the Antiquarian Society of London,
under the title of Military Antiquities of the Romans
in Britain. General Roy was deputy quartermas-
ter-general of his majesty's forces, surveyor of the
coasts and batteries, colonel of the 3Oth regiment of
foot, F.R.S., &c.
RUDDIMAN, THOMAS, a celebrated philologist
and Latin grammarian, was born in the month of
October, 1674, in the parish of Boyndie, county of
Banff. His father, James Ruddiman, was a respect-
able farmer, and was at the period of his son's birth
tenant of the farm of Raggel, in Banffshire. He
was esteemed by his neighbours as a man profoundly
skilled in agricultural matters, and was besides greatly
respected for the benevolence of his disposition.
He was strongly attached to monarchy�an attach-
ment which he evinced in a remarkable manner by
bursting into tears on first hearing of the death of
Charles II. This ebullition of loyal feeling made a
strong impression on his son, who witnessed it, and
although he was then only in the tenth year of his
age, it is thought to have influenced the opinions of
his after-life on similar subjects. Young Ruddiman
commenced his initiatory course of learning at the
parish grammar-school of Boyndie, which was then
taught by a Mr. George Morrison, of whose atten-
tion and skill in his profession his pupil ever after
retained a grateful and respectful recollection. In
this seminary the subject of this memoir rapidly
outstripped his fellows in classical learning. The
Metamorphoses of Ovid early struck his fancy, and
had the effect of inducing such a degree of appli-
cation to the acquisition of the language in which
they are written, as carried him far in advance of all
the other scholars in the school. His master, per-