The son of Andrew MacFarlane, Bishop of Ross; he was a Snell Exhibitioner who took his M.A. from Balliol College in 1814, and apparently was a clergyman in the Church of England who died young.

REFERENCES TO Robert MacFarlane:

John Gibson Lockhart to an anonymous correspondent, 20 February 1820 in The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897)