Some additional particulars regarding Gordon and his works may be got from a communication to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland by Professor Daniel Wilson, LL.D., Toronto, printed in the Proceedings, with Additional Notes and an Appendix of Original Letters by the late Dr David Laing (Proc. Soc. of Anliq. of Scot., vol. X. pp. 363-382).

GORDON, LordGeorge, (1751-1793), third and youngest son of Cosmo George, duke of Gordon, was born in London 26th December 1751. After completing his education at Eton, he entered the navy, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant; but on account of a disagreement regarding promotion with Lord Sandwith, then at the head of the admiralty, he resigned his commission shortly before the commencement of the American war. In 1774 he entered parliament as member for the small borough of Luggershall, and possessing some wit, great ease of address, and the confidence arising from sincere conviction, he advocated his individual notions on any subject with great volubility and with something of the eagerness of monomania. After supporting the ministry for some time, he began to attack both ministry and opposition with such ceaseless pertinacity that it became a common saying that “there were three parties in parliament, the miuistry, the opposition, and Lord George Gordon.” He vehemently opposed the passing of the Acts for the removal of the Roman Catholic disabilities, and took a leading part in organizing the Protestant associations of Scotland and England. Of both associations he was chosen president, and on June 2d 1780 he headed the mob which marched in procession from St George’s Fields to the Houses of Parliament in order to present the monster petition against the Acts. After the mob reached Westminster a terrific riot ensued, which continued several days, during which the city was virtually at their mercy. At first indeed they dispersed after threatening to make a forcible entry into the House of Commons, but reassembled soon afterwards and destroyed several Roman Catholic chapels, pillaged the private dwellings of many Roman Catholics, set fire to Newgate and broke open all the other prisons, attacked the Bank of England and several other public buildings, and continued the work of violence and conflagration until the interference of the military, by whom no fewer than 450 persons were killed and wounded before the riots were quelled. For his share in instigating the riots Lord Gordon was apprehended on a charge of high treason; but, mainly through the skilful and eloquent defence of Erskine, lie was acquitted on the ground that he had no treasonable intentions. In 1786 he was excommunicated by the archbishop of Canterbury for refusing to bear witness in an ecclesiastical suit; and in 1787 he was convicted of libelling the queen of France, the French ambassador, and the administration of justice in England. Ho was, however, permitted to withdraw from the court without bail, and made his escape to Holland; but on account of representations from the court of Versailles he was commanded to quit that country, and, returning to England, was apprehended, and in January 1788 was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in Newgate, where, after refusing to grant the guarantees required as a condition of his obtaining his liberty at the conclusion of his original term of imprisonment, he died of delirious fever November 1, 1793. Some time before his apprehension he had become a convert to Judaism, and had undergone the initiatory rite. A serious defence of most of his eccentricities is undertaken in The Life of Lord George Gordon, with a Philosophical Iievieιv of his Political Conduct, by Robert Watson, M.D., London, 1795.

GORDON, Sir John Watson (1788-1864), Scottish painter, was the eldest son of Captain Watson, R.N., a cadet of the family of Watson of Overmains, in the county of Berwick. He was born in Edinburgh in 1788, and, it being his father’s desire that he should enter the army, was educated specially with a view to his joining the Royal Engineers. As drawing was even at that period considered a not inappropriate accomplishment for the scientific service, he was, while waiting for his commission, entered as a student in the Government school of design, then as now under the management of the Board of Manufactures. With the opportunity, his natural taste for art quickly developed itself, and his industry and progress were such that his father was persuaded to allow him to adopt it as his profession. Captain Watson was himself a skilful draughtsman, and his brother George Watson, afterwards president of the Scottish Academy, stood high as a portrait painter, second only to Sir Henry Raeburn, who also was a friend of the family. Between the studios of his uncle and his friend, John Watson seems to have thought he had every necessary assistance a young artist required, and neither then nor at a future period showed any desire for foreign study; his art consequently is more purely of native growth than that of any of his contemporaries. In the year 1808 he sent to the exhibition of the Lyceum in Nicolson Street a subject from the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and continued for some years to exhibit fancy subjects; but, although freely and sweetly painted, they were altogether without the force and character which in his own proper walk stamped his portrait pictures as the works of a master. After the death of Sir Henry Raeburn in 1823, he succeeded to much of his practice; and as there were at that time in Edinburgh four artists of the name of Watson, all of them portrait painters, he assumed in 1826 the name of Gordon, by which lie is best known. Mixing a good deal in literary and scientific society, he painted most of the notabilities who lived in or visited the northern metropolis during his career; one of the earliest of his famous sitters was Sir Walter Scott, who sat for a first portrait in 1820. Then came J. G. Lockhart in 1821; Professor Wilson, 1822 and 1850, two portraits; Sir Archibald Alison, 1839; Dr Chalmers, 1844; a little later De Quincey; and Sir David Brewster, 1864, being the last picture he painted. Among his most important works may be mentioned the earl of Dalhousie, 1833, now in the Archers’ Hall, Edinburgh; Sir Alexander Hope, 1835, in the county buildings, Linlithgow; Lord President Hope, in the Parliament House; and Dr Chalmers, 1844. These are all full lengths, and were exhibited in London, where they attracted great attention (the Chalmers portrait was purchased some years later by Sir Robert Peel, and is now in the Peel Gallery); they belong to his middle period, and are distinguished by great sweetness in execution, and, unlike his later works, are generally rich in colour. The full length of Dr Brunton, 1844, and Dr Lee, the principal of the university, 184G, both in the staircase of the College Library, mark a modification of his style, which ultimately resolved itself into extreme simplicity, both of colour and treatment.

During the last twenty years of his life he painted many distinguished Englishmen who came to Edinburgh to sit to him. And it is significant of the position he held in the esteem of artists themselves that David Cox, the landscape painter, on being presented with his portrait, subscribed for by many friends, chose to go to Edinburgh to have it executed by Watson Gordon, although he neither knew the painter personally nor had ever before visited the country. Among tl>.e portraits painted during this period, in what may be termed his third style, are De Quincey, the opium eater, in the National Portrait Gallery, London; General Sir Thomas Macdougall Brisbane, in the Royal Society; the prince of Wales, Lord Macaulay, Sir M. Packington, Lord Murray, Lord Cockburn, Lord Rutherford, and Sir John Shaw Lefevre, in the Scottish National Gallery, and a host of others, for latterly he not only possessed great facility of brush but was industrious to a fault. These latter pictures are mostly clear and grey, sometimes showing little or no positive colour, the flesh itself being very grey, and the handling extremely masterly, though never obtruding its cleverness. He was very successful in rendering acute observant character, and there is a look of mobility of feature, in repose it is true, but suggesting that the eye could twinkle and the lips relax. As an example of his last style, showing pearly flesh painting freely handled, yet highly finished, the head of Sir John Shaw Lefevre will hold its own in any school.

John Watson Gordon was one of the earlier members of the Royal Scottish Academy, and was elected its president in 1850; he was at the same time appointed limner to her majesty for Scotland, and received the honour of knighthood. Since 1841 he had been an associate of the Royal Academy, and in 1851 he was elected a Royal Academician. Sir John continued to paint with little if any diminution of power until within a very few weeks of his death, which occurred on the 1st of June 1864.

GORDON, Patrick (1635-1699), of Auchleuchries, a Russian general, was descended from a Scotch family of Aberdeenshire, who possessed the small estate of Auchleuchries, and were connected with the house of Haddo. He was born in 1635, and after completing his education at the parish schools of Cruden and Ellon, entered, in his fifteenth year, the J esuit college at Braunsberg, Prussia; but, as “his humour could not endure such a still and strict way of living,” he soon resolved to return home. He changed his mind, however, before re-embarking, and after journeying on foot in several parts of Germany, ultimately, in 1655, enlisted at Hamburg in the Swedish service. In the course of the next five years he served alternately with the Poles and Swedes as he was taken prisoner by either. In 1661, after changing his resolution more than once, he took service in the Russian army under Alexis I,, and in 1666 he was sent on a special mission to England. After his return he distinguished himself in several wars against the Turks and Tartars in southern Russia, and in recognition of his services he in 1678 was made major-general, in 1679 was appointed to the chief command at Kieff, and in 1683 was made lieutenant-general. He visited England in 1686, and, after his return to Russia, he in 1687 and 1689 took part as quartermaster-general in the expeditions against the Crim Tartars in the Crimea. On the breaking out of the revolution in Moscow in the latter year, Gordon with the troops he commanded virtually decided events in favour of the czar Peter I., and against the czarina Sophia. He was therefore during the remainder of his life in high favour with the czar, who confided to him the command of his capital during his absence from Russia, employed him in organizing his army according to the European system, and latterly raised him to the rank of general-in-chief. He died November 29, 1699. The czar, who had visited him frequently during his illness, was with him when he died, and with his own hands closed his eyes.

General Gordon left behind him a diary of his life, written in English. Several of those parts of the diary connected with the military history of Russia were at an early period translated into German— then the literary language of St Petersburg—but never printed, although made use of for various other works. A complete German translation, by Prince Μ. A. Kolenski and Mr Μ. C. Powell, was published, the first volume at Moscow in 1849, the second at St Petersburg in 1851, and the third at St Petersburg in 1853; and Passages from ths Diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries, 1635-1699, was printed, under the editorship of Joseph Robertson, for the Spalding Club, Aberdeen, 1859.