(James, D.D.) so well known to ferious readers by his sermons to young women and other specimens of pulpit eloquence, was born at Aberdeen in the year 1720. His father was a man much esteemed, and held, more than once, the office of chief magistrate in his native city; and his mother was a woman of good sense, amiable temper, and exemplary piety. This respectable pair had the singular felicity of transmitting superior talents to almost every individual of a numerous family; of one of which, viz. David Fordyce, the reader will find some account in the Encyclopedia.

The subject of this memoir, who was their fourth son, acquired, as well as his brother, the rudiments of classical learning at the grammar school of Aberdeen, whence he was removed to the Marischal college and university in the same city. Having completed a regular course of study both in philosophy and theology, he was licensed, when very young, according to the forms of the church of Scotland, to be a preacher of the gospel; and was soon afterwards preferred to the place of second minister in the collegiate church of Brechin in the county of Angus. After remaining there for some years, he received a presentation to the church of Alloa near Stirling; and though the inhabitants of that parish were prepossessed in favour of another minister whom they knew, and prejudiced against Mr Fordyce whom they did not know; to narrow minded and totally destitute of taste was his colleague in Brechin, that he judged it expedient to hazard the consequences of a removal. He was aware that he entered on his new charge under a considerable degree of popular odium; but he thought it more probable that he should be able to overcome that odium, than Fordyce conciliate the affections of a four fanatic. In this expectation he was not deceived. The prejudices of the good people in Alloa were very quickly removed, not more by the able and impressive manner in which he conducted the public services of the Lord's day, than by the amiable and condescending spirit with which he performed the more private duties of visiting and catechising in the different districts of his parish; duties which, as they were wont to be performed by the Scotch clergy, contributed much more than preaching to the religious instruction of the lower classes of the people.

It was during his residence at Alloa that Mr Fordyce first distinguished himself as an author by the succulency publication of the three following sermons. The first, upon the eloquence of the pulpit, was annexed to "the Art of Preaching" by his brother David; the second, upon the methods of promoting edification by public institutions, was preached at the ordination of the Rev. Mr Gibson minister of St Ninian's, a neighbouring parish, in the year 1754, and published, with the charge and notes, in 1755; and the third, upon the delective and perfecting spirit of poetry, was preached the same year before the synod of Stirling and Perth; and being published, came very quickly to a second edition. But the sermon which most strongly arrested the attention, both of the audience before which it was delivered, and of the public to which, in 1760, it was given from the press, was that on the folly, infamy, and misery of unlawful pleasure, preached before the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The choice of such a subject, on such an occasion, excited the surprize of all his hearers, and tempted the younger part of them to smile at the very reading of the text; but this unseasonable mirth was soon converted into seriousness. The picture exhibited in this sermon is the work of a master; and we have been assured by a friend who heard it preached, that the spirit and elegance of the composition was so seconded by the solemnity and animation with which it was delivered, that it made a very striking impression, not only upon the more respectable part of the audience, but upon minds of noted levity: It raised indeed its writer's fame as a pulpit-orator to an unrivalled eminence among his brethren in Scotland.

About this time, and we believe in consequence of this sermon, Mr Fordyce received from the university of Glasgow a diploma, creating him Doctor in Divinity; and if there is yet anything honourable in academical degrees, prostituted as they have long been by an undistinguishing distribution, the honour could not have been conferred with greater propriety on any man in the church to which he then belonged.

In that church he did not long remain. Soon after the publication of this singular sermon, and his consequent acquisition of academical honours, he accepted of an invitation from a society of Protestant dissenters, who had their place of meeting in Monkwell-street, London, to become colleague and successor to their pastor, who was then old and infirm, and who died indeed in the space of a few months. This gave occasion to the Doctor to display his oratory once more both from the pulpit and the press in a sermon on the death of Dr Lawrence. He was now sole pastor to the When a preacher obtains, with or without merit, an uncommon share of popularity, a considerable proportion of his hearers will ever consist of those who are guided in their choice rather by curiosity and fashion, than by sound judgment. The attachments of such people are as capricious and variable as their minds; and they change their preacher as they change their dress, not from their own taste, for in general they have none; but from the desire of being where others are, of doing what others do, and of admiring what others admire.

Dr Fordyce appreciated justly the value of such men's approbation, and knew it eventually by experience; but he was more than compensated for the loss of hearers of this description by the steady adherence of others, whose esteem was most desirable, because it was grounded upon the dictates of a sound understanding.

At last, about Christmas 1782, when his health, which had long been declining, rendered it necessary, in his own opinion, and in the opinion of his physicians, to discontinue his public services, he resigned his charge in Monkwell-street, and retired to a villa in Hampshire, in the neighbourhood of the Earl of Bute, who honoured him with his friendship, and to whose valuable library he had free access. Afterwards he removed to Bath, where having, with Christian patience, suffered much from an asthmatic complaint, to which he had been subject for some years, on the 1st of October 1796 he expired without a groan.

Were we to hazard an opinion of Dr Fordyce's intellectual powers from such a perusal of his works as we must acknowledge to have been hasty, we would say that he was a man of genius rather than of judgment; that his imagination was the predominant faculty of his mind; and that he was better fitted, by an address to the passions, to enforce the practice of virtue, than by the exertions of his own understanding, to vindicate speculative truth, or to detect the sophistry of error. From this remark, we cannot be suspected of a wish to lessen his character in the public esteem; for his talents, as they appear to us, are surely of more value to a preacher than those which are perhaps better adapted to literary or scientific pursuits. In none of his works indeed do we perceive any evidence either of profound science, or of various erudition; though we doubt not but those works are everything which their author intended them to be. Of his sermons to young women, which have attracted most general notice, it would be presumptuous in us to give a character; for though we sat down many years ago to read them, we could not get through; and we have never made a second attempt. As far as we can depend upon what we recollect of these far-famed discourses, the censure passed on them by Mrs Woltoncraft seems to be just. Their author, however, was certainly qualified to excel, and actually did excel as a preacher. We have already mentioned with approbation three or four of his occasional sermons; but perhaps the finest specimen of pulpit oratory which ever fell from his pen, is the charge which he delivered at the ordination of his successor in the meeting of Monkwell-street. It is indeed one of the most valuable discourses of the kind that we have seen, and should be read with attention by every clergyman of every denomination, who wishes to discharge his duty with credit to himself and with advantage to his people.

The effect of Dr Fordyce's addresses from the pulpit was much heightened, not only by an action and an elocution, which he studied with care and practised with success; but by the figure of his person, which was peculiarly dignified, and by the expression of his countenance, which was animated at all times, but animated most of all when lighted up by the ardor of his soul in the service of God. By some of his hearers, it was observed that, on many occasions, he seemed not merely to speak, but to look conviction to the heart. His eye, indeed, was particularly bright and penetrating, and he had carefully attended to the effect which an orator may often produce upon an audience by the judicious use of that little, but invaluable organ.

With respect to his theological sentiments, we are assured (a) they were in no extreme, but liberal, rational, and manly. He seems to have been untainted by that rage of innovation, which of late has so completely figured the creed, as well religious as political, of the great body of English dissenters. The consequence was, that he lived on terms of friendship with men of very opposite sentiments; with Price a republican and Arian, and with Johnson, who, though he hated a whig and a Presbyterian, respected talents and worth wherever he found them.

We shall conclude this short sketch of Dr Fordyce's life and character with the following list of his works, of which some have been translated into several languages.

1. A Sermon and Charge, at the ordination of the Rev. Mr Gibbon Minister of St Ninian's, 1754. 2. Another Ordination Sermon on the Eloquence of the Pulpit, annexed to his brother's "Art of Preaching," 1754. 3. A Sermon on the Spirit of Popery, 1754. 4. A Sermon on the Folly, Infamy, and Misery of Unlawful Pleasure, 1760. 5. A Sermon on the Death of Dr Lawrence, 1760. 6. Sermons to Young Women, 2 vols. 1765. 7. A Sermon on the Character and Conduct of the Female Sex, 1776. 8. Addresses to young men, 2 vols. 1777. 9. A Charge at the Ordination of the Rev. James Lindley, in Monkwell street, 1783. 10. Addresses to the Deity, 1785. 11. Poems, 1786. 12. A Discourse on Pain, 1791. He also re-published, with an additional character, "The Temple of Virtue, a Dream," written by his brother David.