A portrait of Braxfield by Sir Henry Raeburn was exhibited at the Raeburn Exhibition at Edinburgh in 1876, a delightful description of which is given by R. L. Stevenson in his essay, “Some Portraits by Raeburn” (“Virginibus Puerisque,” 1881, pp. 219-236). Braxfield was, as every one knows, the prototype of Stevenson’s “Weir of Hermiston,” originally intended to be named “The Justice-Clerk,” and of which the author wrote to Mr. Charles Baxter, on 1st December, 1892, “Mind you, I expect ‘The Justice-Clerk’ to be my masterpiece. My Braxfield is already a thing of beauty and a joy for ever, and, so far as he has gone, _far_ my best character” (“Letters to his Family and Friends,” 1899, vol. ii. p. 273)--a judgment which the literary world has unanimously sustained. There is preserved in the Advocates’ Library a copy of the “Latin Thesis on a Title of the Pandects” (“De Cadaveribus Damnatorum”), written by Sir Walter Scott on his admission to the Faculty of Advocates, 11th July, 1792, with the following dedication:-- Viro nobili | Roberto Macqueen | de Braxfield, | inter quaesitores de rebus capitalibus | primario, | inter judices de rebus civilibus, | senatori dignissimo, | perito haud minus quam fideli juris interpreti; | adeoque, | in utroque munere fungendo, | scelera sive debita severitate puniendo, | sive suum cuique tribuendo et tuendo, |prudentia pariter atque justitia, | insigni; | hasce theses juridicas, |summa cum observantia, | sacras esse voluit | Gualterus Scott. SIR DAVID DALRYMPLE, Baronet, Lord Hailes (1726-1792), was the eldest son of Sir James Dalrymple, Bart., of Hailes, in the county of Haddington, Auditor of the Exchequer of Scotland, and Lady Christian Hamilton. He was born at Edinburgh on 28th October, 1726, and was descended on both sides from the nobility of the Scottish bar. His grandfather, Sir David Dalrymple, was the youngest son of the first Viscount Stair, Lord President of the Court of Session, and held the office of Lord Advocate for nineteen years. His mother was a daughter of Thomas, sixth Earl of Haddington, the lineal descendant of the first earl, who was Secretary for Scotland from 1612 to 1616, and President of the Court of Session from 1616 till his death in 1637. Dalrymple entered upon his studies at Eton, where he acquired a considerable knowledge of the classics and earned a high character for diligence and good conduct. He next re-visited his native city, and attended the University. From thence he went to Utrecht to study the civil law, returning to Edinburgh at the close of the Rising in 1746. He became a member of the Faculty of Advocates on 23rd February, 1748.