MACLAURIN, John, Lord Dreghorn, an able lawyer, son of Colin, was born at Edinburgh, December 15, 1734, old style.  He received the rudiments of his education at the High school, and subsequently went through the usual academical course at the university of that city.  On 3d August 1756 he was admitted a member of the faculty of advocates at Edinburgh, and after practising at the bar for many years with much reputation, he was, on 17th January 1788, raised to the bench, when he took the title of Lord Dreghorn.  He died December 24, 1796.  "A Dissertation to prove that Troy was not taken by the Greeks," read by him before the Royal Society of Edinburgh , of which he was one of the original members, was inserted in the Transactions of that Society in 1788.  He kept a journal of the various important events that happened in Europe from 1785 to 1792, from which, shortly before his death, he made a selection, with the view of publication.  His works, in a collected form, were published at Edinburgh in 2 vols. in 1798.  At a very early period, as we learn from the Life prefixed, he displayed a natural turn for poetical composition, and among his school-fellows was distinguished by the name of "the poet".  His poems, however, do not rank very high.  Most of them were thrown off from a private printing press of his own for circulating among his friends.

He was the author of the following works: 

Observations on some Points of Law; with a System of the Judicial Law of Moses. Edin. 1759, 12mo.

Considerations on the Nature and Origin of Literary Property.  Edin. 1767, 8vo.

Information for Mungo Campbell, late Officer of Excise at Saltcoats, in a Criminal Prosecution before the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland, for the alleged Murder of the late Alexander Earl of Eglinton.  London, 1770, 8vo.

Arguments and Decisions in Remarkable Cases before the High Court of Justiciary, and other Supreme Courts in Scotland.  Edin. 1774, 4to.

A Dissertation to prove that Troy was not taken by the Greeks.  Trans.  Edin.  Soc.  i, 43.  1788.

Works.  Edin.  1798, 2 vols.  8vo.

He also wrote three dramas of no great merit, entitled "Hampden," "The Public," and "The Philosopher's Opera".  Several of his pieces will be found in Donaldson's Collection, printed at Edinburgh in 1760.