(אָדָם), the word by which the Bible designates the first human being.

The meaning of the primary word is, most probably, any kind of reddish tint, as a beautiful human complexion; but its various derivatives are applied to different objects of a red or brown hue, or approaching to such. The word Adam, therefore, is an appellative noun converted into a proper one.

That men and other animals have existed from eternity, has been asserted by some; whether they really believed their own assertion may well be doubted. Others have maintained that the first man and his female mate, or a number of such, came into existence by some spontaneous action of the earth or the elements, a chance combination of matter and properties, without an intellectual designing cause. We hold these notions to be unworthy of a serious refutation. An upright mind, upon a little serious reflection, must perceive their absurdity, self-contradiction, and impossibility.

It is among the clearest deductions of reason, that men and all dependent beings have been created, that is, produced or brought into their first existence by an intelligent and adequately powerful being. A question, however, arises, of great interest and importance. Did the Almighty Creator produce only one man and one woman, from whom all other human beings have descended?—or did he create several parental pairs, from whom distinct stocks of men have been derived? The affirmative of the latter position has been maintained by some, and, it must be confessed, not without apparent reason.

But the admission of the possibility is not a concession of the reality. So great is the evidence in favour of the derivation of the entire mass of human beings from one pair of ancestors, that it has obtained the suffrage of the men most competent to judge upon a question of comparative anatomy and physiology. The late illustrious Cuvier and Blumenbach, and our countryman Lawrence, are examples of the highest order. But no writer has a claim to deference upon this subject superior to that of Dr J. C. Prichard.

It is evident upon a little reflection, and the closest investigation confirms the conclusion, that the first human pair must have been created in a state equivalent to that which all subsequent human beings have had to reach by slow degrees, in growth, experience, observation, imitation, and the instruction of others: that is, a state of prime maturity, and with an infusion, concretion, or whatever we may call it, of knowledge and habits, both physical and intellectual, suitable to the place which man had to occupy in the system of creation, and adequate to his necessities in that place. Had it been otherwise, the new beings could not have preserved their animal existence, nor have held rational converse with each other, nor have paid to their Creator the homage of knowledge and love, adoration and obedience; and reason clearly tells us that the last was the noblest end of existence. Those whom unhappy prejudices lead to reject revelation must either admit this, or must resort to suppositions of palpable absurdity and impossibility. If they will not admit a direct action of divine power in creation and adaptation to the designed mode of existence, they must admit something far beyond the miraculous, an infinite succession of finite beings, or a spontaneous production of order, organization, and systematic action, from some unintelligent origin. The Bible coincides with this dictate of honest reason, expressing these facts in simple and artless language, suited to the circumstances of the men to whom revelation was first granted. That this production in a mature state was the fact with regard to the vegetable part of the creation, is declared in Gen. ii. 4, 5: "In the day of Jehovah God's making the earth and the heavens, and every shrub of the field before it should be in the earth, and every herb of the field before it should bud." The reader sees that we have translated the verbs (which stand in the Hebrew future form) by our potential mood, as the nearest in correspondence with the idiom called by Dr. Nordheimer the "Dependent Use of the Future." (Critical Grammar of the Heb. Lang., vol. ii. p. 186; New York, 1841.) The two terms, shrubs and herbage, are put, by the common synecdoche, to designate the whole vegetable kingdom. The reason of the case comprehends the other division of organized nature; and this is applied to man and all other animals, in the words, "Out of the ground—dust out of the ground—Jehovah God formed them."

It is to be observed that there are two narratives at the beginning of the Mosaic records, different in style and manner, distinct and independent; at first sight somewhat discrepant, but when strictly examined, perfectly compatible, and each one illustrating and completing the other. The first is contained in Gen. i. 1, to ii. 3.; and the other, ii. 4. to iv. 26. As is the case with the Scripture history generally, they consist of a few principal facts, detached anecdotes, leaving much of necessary implication which the good sense of the reader is called upon to supply; and passing over large spaces of the history of life, upon which all conjecture would be fruitless.

In the second of these narratives we read, "And Jehovah God formed the man [Heb. the Adam], dust from the ground [הָאָדָם, haadamah], and blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living animal" (Gen. ii. 7). Here are two objects of attention, the organic mechanism of the human body, and the vitality with which it was endowed.

The mechanical material, formed (moulded, or arranged, as an artificer models clay or wax) into the human and all other animal bodies, is called "dust from the ground." This would be a natural and easy expression to men in the early ages, before chemistry was known or minute philosophical distinctions were thought of, to convey, in a general form, the idea of earthly matter, the constituent substance of the ground on which we tread. To say, that of this the human and every other animal body was formed, is a position which would be at once the most easily apprehensible to an uncultivated mind, and which yet is the most exactly true upon the highest philosophical grounds. We now know, from chemical analysis, that the animal body is composed, in the inscrutable manner called organization, of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, lime, iron, sulphur, and phosphorus. Now all these are mineral substances, which in their various combinations form a very large part of the solid ground.

In the Scripture narrative, we are told, "God created man in his own image: in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (Gen. i. 27.) The image (תֵּלֶם, tselim, resemblance, such as a shadow bears to the object which casts it) of God is an expression which breathes at once archaic simplicity and the most recondite wisdom: for what term could the most cultivated and copious language bring forth more suitable to the purpose? It presents to us man as made in a resemblance to the author of his being, a true resemblance, but faint and shadowy; an outline, faithful according to its capacity, yet infinitely remote from the reality: a distant form of the intelligence, wisdom, power, rectitude, goodness, and dominion of the Adorable Supreme.

On man was also conferred the shadow of the divine dominion and authority over the inferior creation. The attribute of power was given to him, in his being made able to convert the inanimate objects and those possessing only the vegetable life, into the instruments and the materials for supplying his wants, and continually enlarging his sphere of command.

In such a state of things knowledge and wisdom are implied; above all, moral excellence must have been comprised in this "image of God;" and not only forming a part of it, but being its crown of beauty and glory.

In this perfection of the faculties, and with these high prerogatives of moral existence, did human nature, in its first subject, rise up from the creating hand. The whole Scripture-narrative implies that this state of existence was one of correspondent activity and enjoyment. It plainly represents the Deity himself as condescending to assume a human form and to employ human speech, in order to instruct and exercise the happy beings whom God created for immortality in the image of his own nature.

The noble and sublime idea that man thus had his Maker for his teacher and guide, precludes a thousand difficulties. It shows us the simple, direct, and effectual method by which the newly-formed creature would have communicated to him all the intellectual knowledge, and all the practical arts and manipulations, which were needful and beneficial for him. The universal management of the "garden in Eden, eastward" (Gen. ii. 8), the treatment of the soil, the use of water, the various training of the plants and trees, the operations for insuring future produce, the necessary implements and the way of using them—all these must have been included in the words "to dress it and to keep it" (ver. 15).

Religious knowledge and its appropriate habits also required an immediate infusion; and these are pre-eminently comprehended "in the image of God." It is not to be supposed that the newly-created man and his female companion were inspired with a very ample share of the doctrinal knowledge which was communicated to their posterity by the successive and accumulating revolutions of more than four thousand years; and it is impossible that they could be left in gross ignorance of the existence and excellencies of the Being who had made them, their obligations to him, and the way in which they might continue to receive the greatest blessings from him.

The next important article in this primeval history is the creation of the human female. The narrative is given in the more summary manner in the former of the two documents—"Male and female created he them." (Gen. i. 27.) It stands a little more at length in a third document, which begins the fifth chapter, and has the characteristic heading or title by which the Hebrews designated a separate work. "This, the book of the generations of Adam." In the day God created Adam, he made him in the likeness [בְּאוֹרְכוֹ, b'orcho, a different word from that already treated upon, and which merely signifies resemblance] of God, male and female he created them; and he blessed them, and he called their name Adam, in the day of their being created" (ver. 1, 2.) The reader will observe that, in this passage, we have translated the word for man as the proper name, because it is taken up in the next following sentence.

The second of the narratives is more circumstantial: "And Jehovah God said, it is not good the man's being alone: I will make for him a help suitable for him." Then follows the passage concerning the review and the naming of the inferior animals; and it continues—"but for Adam he found not a help suitable for him. And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man [the Adam], and he slept: and he took one out of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place: and Jehovah God built up the rib which he had taken from the man into a woman, and he brought her to the man: and the man said, this is the hit; bone out of my bones, and flesh out of my flesh; Adam. this shall be called woman (isha), for this was taken from out of man (ish)" (Gen. ii. 18-23).

This peculiar manner of the creation of the woman has, by some, been treated as merely a childish fable; by others, as an allegorical fiction intended to represent the close relation of the female sex to the male, and the tender claims which women have to sympathy and love. That such was the intention we do not doubt; but why should that intention be founded upon any mythic allegory? Is it not taught much better, and impressed much more forcibly, by its standing not on a fiction, but on a fact?

Another inquiry presents itself. How long did the state of paradisiac innocence and happiness continue? Some have regarded the period as very brief, not more than even a single day; but this manifestly falls very short of the time which a reasonable probability requires. The first man was brought into existence in the region called Eden; then he was introduced into a particular part of it, the garden, replenished with the richest productions of the Creator's bounty for the delight of the eye and the other senses; the most agreeable labour was required "to dress and to keep it," implying some arts of culture, preservation from injury, training flowers and fruits, and knowing the various uses and enjoyments of the produce; making observation upon the works of God, of which an investigation and designating of animals is expressly specified; nor can we suppose that there was no contemplation of the magnificent sky and the heavenly bodies; above all, the wondrous communion with the condescending Deity, and probably with created spirits of superior orders, by which the mind would be excited, its capacity enlarged, and its holy felicity continually increased. It is also to be remarked, that the narrative (Gen. ii. 19, 20) conveys the implication that some time was allowed to elapse, that Adam might discover and feel his want of a companion of his own species, "a help correspondent to him."

These considerations impress us with a sense of probability, amounting to a conviction, that a period not very short was requisite for the exercise of man's faculties, the disclosures of his happiness, and the service of adoration which he could pay to his Creator. But all these considerations are strengthened by the recollection that they attach to man's solitary state; and that they all require new and enlarged application when the addition of conjugal life is brought into the account. The conclusion appears irresistible that a duration of many days, or rather weeks or months, would be requisite for so many and important purposes.

Thus divinely honoured and happy were the progenitors of mankind in the state of their creation.

The next scene which the sacred history brings before us is a dark reverse. Another agent comes into the field and successfully employs his arts for seducing Eve, and by her means Adam, from their original state of rectitude, dignity, and happiness.

Among the provisions of Divine wisdom and goodness were two vegetable productions of wondrous qualities and mysterious significance; "the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil." (Gen. ii. 9.)

We see no sufficient reason to understand, as some do, "the tree of life" collectively, as implying a species, and that there were many trees of that species.

The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" might be any tree whatever; it might be of any species even yet remaining, though, if it were so, we could not determine its species, for the plain reason that no name, description, or information whatever is given that could possibly lead to the ascertainment. One cannot but lament the vulgar practice of painters representing it as an apple-tree, and thus giving occasion to profane and silly whimsies.

Yet we cannot but think the more reasonable probability to be, that it was a tree having poisonous properties, stimulating and intoxicating, such as are found in some existing species, especially in hot climates. On this ground the prohibition to eat or even touch the tree was a beneficent provision against the danger of pain and death.

But the revealed object of this "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" was that which would require no particular properties beyond some degree of external beauty, and fruit of an immediately pleasant taste. That object was to be a test of obedience. For such a purpose, it is evident, that to select an indifferent act to be the object prohibited, was necessary; as the obligation to refrain should be only that which arises simply, so far as the subject of the law can know, from the sacred will of the lawgiver. There was no difficulty in the observance of their Creator's precept. They were surrounded with a paradise of delights, and they had no reason to imagine that any good whatever would accrue to them from their seizing upon anything prohibited. If perplexity or doubt arose, they had ready access to their Divine benefactor for obtaining information and direction. But they allowed the thought of disobedience to form itself into a disposition, and then a purpose.

Thus was the seal broken,—the integrity of the heart was gone,—the sin was generated,—and the outward act was the consummation of the entire process. Eve, less informed, less cautious, less endowed with strength of mind, became the more ready victim. "The woman, being deceived, was in the transgression;" but "Adam was not deceived" (1 Tim. ii. 14.) He rushed knowingly and deliberately to ruin. The offence had grievous aggravations. It was the preference of a trifling gratification to the approbation of the Supreme Lord of the universe; it implied a denial of the wisdom, holiness, goodness, veracity, and power of God; it was marked with extreme ingratitude; and it involved a contemptuous disregard of consequences, awfully impious as it referred to their immediate connection with the moral government of God, and cruelly selfish as it respected their posterity.

The instrument of the temptation was a serpent; whether any one of the existing kinds, it is evidently impossible for us to know. Of that numerous order many species are of brilliant colours, and playful in their attitudes and manners; so that one may well conceive of such an object attracting and fascinating the first woman. Whether it spoke in an articulate voice, like the human, or expressed the sentiments attributed to it by a succession of remarkable and significant actions, may be a subject of reasonable question.

This part of the narrative begins with the words, "And the serpent was crafty above every animal of the field" (Gen. iii. 1.) It is to be observed that this is not said of the order of serpents, as if it were a general property of them, but of that particular serpent. Had the noun been intended generically, as is often the case, it would have required to be without the substantive verb; for such is the usual Hebrew method of expressing universal propositions: of this the Hebrew scholar may see constant examples in the Book of Proverbs.

Indeed, this "cunning craftiness, lying in wait to deceive" (Eph. iv. 14.), is the very character of that malignant creature of whose wily stratagems the serpent was a mere instrument. The existence of spirits, superior to man, and of whom some have become depraved, and are labouring to spread wickedness and misery to the utmost of their power, has been found to be the belief of all nations, ancient and modern, of whom we possess information. It has also been the general doctrine of both Jews and Christians, that one of those fallen spirits was the real agent in this first and successful temptation. Of this doctrine, the declarations of our Lord and his apostles contain abundant confirmation.

After their fearful transgression, the condescending Deity, who had held gracious and instructive communion with the parents of mankind, assuming a human form, visibly stood before them; by a searching interrogatory he drew from them the confession of their guilt, which they aggravated by evasions and insinuations against God himself: he then pronounced sentence on them and their seducer. On the woman he inflicted the pains of child-bearing, and a deeper and more humiliating dependence upon her husband. He doomed the man to hard and often fruitless toil, instead of easy and pleasant labour. On both, or rather on human nature universally, he pronounced the awful sentence of death. The denunciation of the serpent partakes more of a symbolical character, and so seems to carry a strong implication of the nature and the wickedness of the concealed agent. The human sufferings threatened are all, excepting the last, of a remedial and corrective kind.

Of a quite different character are the penal denunciations upon the serpent. If they be understood literally, and of course applied to the whole order of Ophidia (as we believe, is the common interpretation), they will be found to be flagrantly at variance with demonstrated facts in their physiology and economy.

But all difficulty is swept away when we consider the fact, that the Hebrew is חָנָנְיָה haanachash haiah, the serpent was, &c., and that it refers specifically and personally to a rational and accountable being, the spirit of lying and cruelty, the devil, the Satan, the old serpent. That God, the infinitely holy, good, and wise, should have permitted any one or more celestial spirits to apostatise from purity, and to be the successful seducers of mankind, is indeed an awful and overwhelming mystery. But it is not more so than the permitted existence of many among mankind, whose rare talents and extraordinary command of power and opportunity, combined with extreme depravity, have rendered them the plague and curse of the earth; and the whole matter into the most insoluble problem. Why has the All-perfect Deity permitted evil at all? We are firmly assured, that He will bring forth, at last, the most triumphant evidence, that "He is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works." In the meantime, our happiness lies in the implicit confidence which we cannot but feel to be due to the Being of infinite perfection.

The remaining part of the denunciation upon the false and cruel seducer sent a beam of light into the agonized hearts of our guilty first parents: "And enmity will I put between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he will attack thee (on) the head, and thou wilt attack him (at) the heel." Christian interpreters generally regard this as the Prot-evangelium, the first gospel-promise, and we think with good reason. It was a manifestation of mercy; it revealed a Deliverer, "who should be a human being, in a peculiar sense the offspring of the female, who should also, in some way not yet made known, counteract and remedy the injury inflicted, and who, though partially suffering from the malignant power, should, in the end, completely conquer it, and convert its very success into its own punishment." (J. Pye Smith, Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, vol. i. p. 226.)

The awful threatening to man was, "In the day that thou eatest of it, thou wilt die the death." The infliction is Death, in the most comprehensive sense,—that which stands opposed to Life,—the life of not only animal enjoyment, but holy happiness, the life which comported with the image of God. This was lost by the fall; and the sentence of physical death was pronounced, to be executed in due time. Divine mercy gave a long respite.

The same mercy was displayed in still more tempering the terrors of justice. The garden of delights was not to be the abode of rebellious creatures. But before they were turned out into a bleak and dreary wilderness, God was pleased to direct them to make clothing, suitable to their new and degraded condition, of the skins of animals. That those animals had been offered in sacrifice, is a conjecture supported by so much probable evidence, that we may regard it as a well-established truth.

From this time we have little recorded of the lives of Adam and Eve. Their three sons are mentioned with important circumstances connected with each of them. Cain was probably born in the year after the fall; Abel possibly some years later; Seth, certainly one hundred and thirty years from the creation of his parents. After that Adam lived eight hundred years, and had sons and daughters, doubtless by Eve, and then he died, nine hundred and thirty years old. In that prodigious period, many events, and those of great importance, must have occurred; but the wise providence of God has not seen fit to preserve to us any memorial of them, and scarcely any vestiges or hints are afforded of the occupations and mode of life of men through the antediluvian period.

Adam of Bremen was a canon of the cathedral of Bremen, and lived in the latter part of the eleventh century. He wrote a church history, in four books, treating of the propagation of the Christian faith in the north, entitled Historia ecclesiastica ecclesiarum Hamburgensis et Bremensis, ab anno 788 ad an. 1072; and also another work particularly interesting to geographers, called Chronographia Scandinavie, or, De Situ Daniae et reliquarum trans Adam. Daniam regionum natura. The time of his death is not known.

Adam Alexander, Rector of the High School, Edinburgh, and author of several valuable works connected with Roman literature, was born on the 24th of June 1741, on a small farm which his father rented, not far from Forres, in Morayshire. He does not appear to have received any powerful direction to literary pursuits, either from the attainments of his parents or the ability of the parochial schoolmaster; but is referable to a class of men, of which Scotland can produce a very honourable list, whom the secret workings of a naturally active mind have raised above the level of their associates, and urged on to distinction and usefulness under the severest pressure of difficulties. The gentle treatment of an old schoolmistress first taught him to like his book; and this propensity induced his parents to consent that he should learn Latin. To the imperfect instruction which he received at the parish school, he joined indefatigable study at home, notwithstanding the scanty means and poor accommodation of his father's house. Before he was sixteen he had read the whole of Livy, in a copy of the small Elzevir edition, which he had borrowed from a neighbouring clergyman, omitting for the present all such passages as his own sagacity and Cole's Dictionary did not enable him to construe. It was before day-break, during the mornings of winter, and by the light of splinters of bog-wood dug out of an adjoining moss, that he prosecuted the perusal of this difficult classic; for, as the whole family were collected round the only fire in the evening, he was prevented by the noise from reading with any advantage; and the day-light was spent at school.

In the autumn of 1757 he was a competitor for one of those bursaries, or small exhibitions, which are given by the university of Aberdeen to young men who distinguish themselves for their classical attainments; but as the prize was awarded to the best written exercises, and as Adam, with all his reading, had not yet been accustomed to write, he was foiled by some youth who had been more fortunate in his means of instruction. About the same time Mr Watson, a relation of his mother's, and one of the ministers of the Canongate, sent him a tardy invitation to come to Edinburgh, "provided he was prepared to endure every hardship for a season,"—a condition not likely to appeal one who knew nothing of life but its hardships. The interest of Mr Watson procured him free admission to the lectures of the different professors; and as he had now also access to books in the College Library, his literary ardour made him submit with cheerfulness to the greatest personal privations. Eighteen months of assiduous application enabled him to repair the defects of his early tuition, and to obtain, after a comparative trial of candidates, the head mastership of the foundation known by the name of Watson's Hospital. At this period he was only nineteen, on which account the governors of the institution limited the appointment to half a year; but his steadiness and ability speedily removed their scruples. After holding the situation for three years, he was induced, by the prospect of having more leisure for the prosecution of his studies, to resign it, and become private tutor to the son of Mr Kincaid, a wealthy citizen, and afterwards Lord Provost of Edinburgh; and it was in consequence of this connection that he was afterwards raised to the office for which he was so eminently qualified. He taught in the High School, for the first time, in April 1765, as substitute for Mr Matheson, the rector; in consequence of whose growing infirmities, an arrangement was made, by which he retired on a small annuity, to be paid from the profits of the class; and Mr Adam was confirmed in the rectorship on the 8th of June 1768.

From this period the history of his life is little more than Adam, the history of his professional labours and of his literary productions. No sooner was he invested with the office, than he gave himself up with entire devotion to the business of his class, and the pursuits connected with it. For forty years his day was divided with singular regularity between the public duties of teaching and that unrevealed research and industry in private which enabled him, amidst the incessant occupation of a High School master's life, to give to the world such a number of accurate and laborious compilations. So entirely did these objects of public utility engross his mind, that he mixed but little with society, and considered every moment as lost that was not dedicated in some way or other to the improvement of youth. Few men certainly could adopt, with more truth and propriety, the language of Horace, both with regard to his own feelings and the objects on which he was occupied.

The rector's class, which in the High School is the most advanced of five, consisted of no more than between thirty and forty boys when Dr Adam was appointed. His celebrity as a classical teacher, joined to the progress of the country in wealth and population, continued to increase this number up to the year of his death. His class-list for that year contained 167 names,—the largest number that had ever been collected in one class, and what is remarkable, equal to the amount of the whole five classes during the year when he first taught in the school.

He performed an essential service to the literature of his country by introducing, in his own class, an additional hour of teaching for Greek and Geography; neither of which branches seems to have been contemplated in the original formation of the school. The introduction of Greek, which he effected a year or two after his election, was regarded by some professors of the university as a dangerous innovation, and an unwarrantable encroachment on the province of the Greek chair; and the measure was accordingly resisted (though, it is satisfactory to think, unsuccessfully) by the united efforts of the Senatus Academicus, in a petition and representation to the town-council, drawn up and proposed by the celebrated Principal of the university, Dr Robertson. This happened in 1772.

It is not possible for a man of principle and ordinary affections to be occupied in training a large portion of the youth of his country to knowledge and virtue, without feeling a deep responsibility, and a paramount interest in their progress and well-being. That such were Dr Adam's feelings is proved, not less by the whole tenor of his life, than by his mode of conducting the business of his class; by the free scope and decided support he gave to talent, particularly when the possessor of it was poor and friendless; by the tender concern with which he followed his pupils into life; and by a test not the least unequivocal, the enthusiastic attachment and veneration which they entertain for his memory. In his class-room, his manner, while it imposed respect, was kindly and conciliating. He was fond of relieving the irksomeness of continued attention by narrating curious facts and amusing anecdotes. In the latter part of his life, he was perhaps too often the hero of his own tale; but there was something amiable even in this weakness, which arose from the vanity of having done much good, and was totally unmixed with any alloy of selfishness.

Dr Adam's first publication was his Grammar, which appeared in 1772. Although it met with the approbation of some eminently good judges, particularly of Bishop Lowth, the author had no sooner adopted it in his own class, and recommended it to others, than a host of enemies rose up against him, and he was involved in much altercation and vexations hostility with the town-council and the four under masters.

His work on Roman Antiquities was published in 1791, and has contributed, more than any of his other productions, to give him a name as a classical scholar.

In 1794, he published his Summary of Geography and History, in one thick octavo volume of 900 pages, which had grown in his hands to this size from a small treatise on the same subject, printed for the use of his pupils in 1784.

His last work was his Latin Dictionary, which appeared in 1805, printed, like every other production of his pen, in the most unassuming form, and with the utmost anxiety to condense the greatest quantity of useful knowledge into the smallest bulk, and afford it to the student at the cheapest rate. It was intended chiefly for the use of schools, and to be followed by a larger work, containing copious illustrations of every word in the language. The MS. of this important work, which he did not survive to complete, is deposited in the library of the school over which he so long and so ably presided. He died on the 18th of December 1809, after an illness of five days. Amidst the wanderings of mind that accompanied it, he was constantly reverting to the business of the class, and addressing his boys; and in the last hour of his life, as he fancied himself examining on the lesson of the day, he stopped short, and said, "But it grows dark, you may go;" and almost immediately expired.

The magistrates of Edinburgh, whose predecessors had not always been alive to his merits, showed their respect for his memory by a public funeral. A short time before his death, he was solicited by some of his old pupils to sit to Mr Raeburn for his portrait, which was executed in the best style of that eminent artist, and placed, as a memorial of their gratitude and respect, in the library of the High School.

He was twice married; first in 1775, to Miss Munro, eldest daughter of the minister of Kinloss, by whom he had several children, the last of whom died within a few days of his father; and in 1789, to Miss Cosser, daughter of Mr Cosser, Comptroller of Excise, by whom he had two daughters and a son.

Adam, Melchior, lived in the seventeenth century. He was born in the territory of Grodkow in Silesia, and educated in the college of Brieg, where he became a firm Protestant, and was enabled to pursue his studies by the liberality of a person of quality, who had left several exhibitions for young students. He was appointed rector of a college at Heidelberg, where he published, in the year 1615, the first volume of his Vitas Germanorum Philosophorum, &c. This volume was followed by three others: that which treated of divines was printed in 1619; that of the lawyers came next; and, finally, that of the physicians; the last two were published in 1620. All the learned men whose lives are contained in these four volumes lived in the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century, and are either Germans or Flemings; but he published in 1618 the lives of twenty divines of other countries in a separate volume, entitled Decades duae, continentes Vitae Theologorum exteri principum. All his divines are Protestants. His industry as a biographer is commended by Bayle, who acknowledges his obligations to his labours. He died in 1622.

Adam, Robert, an eminent architect, was born at Edinburgh in the year 1728. He was the second son of William Adam, Esq., of Maryburgh, in the county of Fife, who also has left some respectable specimens of his genius and abilities as an architect in Hopetoun House and the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, which were erected from designs executed by him. And it was perhaps owing to the fortu- mate circumstance of his father's example that young Adam first directed his attention to those studies, in the prosecution of which he afterwards rose to such distinguished celebrity. He received his education at the university of Edinburgh, where he had an opportunity of improving and enlarging his mind, by the conversation and acquaintance of some of the first literary characters of the age, who were then rising into reputation, or have since established their fame as historians and philosophers. Among these were Mr Hume, Dr Robertson, Dr Smith, and Dr Ferguson, who were the friends and companions of the father, and who continued through life their friendship and attachment to the son.

In the year 1754, Mr Adam travelled on the Continent, with a view to extend his knowledge and improve his taste in architecture, and resided in Italy for three years. Here he surveyed and studied those noble specimens of ancient grandeur which the magnificent public edifices of the Romans, even in ruins, still exhibit. In tracing the progress of architecture and the other fine arts among the Romans, Mr Adam observed that they had visibly declined previously to the time of Diocletian; but he was also convinced that the liberal patronage and munificence of that emperor had revived, during his reign, a better taste for architecture, and had formed artists who were capable of imitating the more elegant style of a purer age. He had seen this remarkably exemplified in the public baths at Rome, which were erected by him, the most entire and the noblest of the ancient buildings. Admiring the extent and fertility of genius of the artists from whose designs such magnificent structures had been executed, he was anxious to see and study any remains that yet existed of those masters whose works were striking monuments of an elegant and improved taste, but whose names, amid the wrecks of time, have sunk into oblivion. It was with this view that he undertook a voyage to Spalatro, in Dalmatia, to visit and examine the private palace of Diocletian. Mr Adam sailed from Venice in July 1754, accompanied by M. Cierisseau, a French artist and antiquary, and two experienced draughtsmen. On their arrival at Spalatro, they found, that though the palace had suffered much from the injuries of time, yet it had sustained no less from the dilapidations of the inhabitants to procure materials for building; and even the foundations of the ancient structure were covered with modern houses. Suspecting that their object was to view and make plans of the fortifications, an immediate and peremptory order was issued by the governor, commanding them to desist. This order, however, was soon counteracted through the mediation of General Greme, the commander-in-chief of the Venetian forces. They resumed their labours with double ardour, and in five weeks finished plans and views of the fragments which remain, from which they were enabled to execute perfect designs of the entire building.

Mr Adam now returned to England, and soon rose to very considerable professional eminence. In 1762 he was appointed architect to the king; and the year following he presented to the public the fruit of his voyage to Spalatro, in a splendid work, containing engravings and descriptions of the ruins of the palace.

In the year 1768, Mr Adam obtained a seat in parliament. He was chosen to represent the county of Kinross; and about the same time he resigned his office of architect to the king. But he continued his professional career with increasing reputation; and about the year 1773, in conjunction with his brother James, who also rose to considerable eminence as an architect, he published another splendid work, consisting of plans and elevations of public and private buildings which were erected from their designs. Among these are, Lord Mansfield's house at Caenwood; Luton House in Bedfordshire, belonging to Lord Bute; the new Gateway of the Admiralty Office; the Register Office at Edinburgh, &c.; which are universally admired as striking monuments of elegant design and correct taste. The Adelphi buildings at London, which also are a very fine example of the inventive genius of the Messrs Adam, proved an unsuccessful speculation.

The buildings more lately erected from the designs of Mr Adam afford additional proofs of his invention and skill. We may mention, in particular, the Infirmary of Glasgow, as exhibiting the most perfect symmetry and useful disposition of parts, combined with great beauty and lightness.

To the last period of his life Mr Adam displayed an increasing vigour of genius and refinement of taste; for, in the space of one year preceding his death, he designed eight great public works, besides twenty-five private buildings, so various in their style and beautiful in their composition, that they have been allowed, by the best judges, as sufficient of themselves to establish his fame. The improved taste which now pretty generally prevails in our public and private edifices, undoubtedly owes much to the elegant and correct style introduced by this distinguished artist.

He died on the 3rd of March 1792, by the bursting of a blood-vessel, in the 64th year of his age, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The natural suavity of his manners, joined to the excellence of his moral character, secured to him the affectionate regard of his friends, and the esteem of all who enjoyed his acquaintance. James Adam, already mentioned as associated with his brother in many of his labours, died on the 20th October 1794.

Adam, William, nephew of the preceding, was the eldest son of John Adam, Esq., of Blair-Adam (for a short time called Maryburgh), in the county of Kinross, in Scotland. He was born in Kinross-shire on the 2d of August 1751; and, after the usual courses at the colleges of Edinburgh and Glasgow, passed advocate at the Scotch bar in 1773. But he made no serious attempt to practise there, having very soon removed to England, where he obtained a seat in the House of Commons in 1774, and in 1782 was called to the English common-law bar. He continued in parliament till 1795, when he withdrew from it till 1806. Being then chosen to represent the united shires of Kinross and Kincardine, he resumed his seat, and continued in the House, but with some interruptions, till 1811.

His parliamentary life thus lasted about 30 years; during which period he took a conspicuous part in most of the proceedings of the House. But it would be idle to detail his particular share in them here. It is only in the cases of the few men who leave permanent impressions on their age, that the details of parliamentary exertion, however honourable to him who makes them, and however interesting to his friends, are cared for by general readers. It is enough, therefore, to state that Mr Adam, though a popular speaker, was not an orator, and had far too much sense to try to be thought one. But he was one of the many members who do, by judgment and attention, what eloquence would in vain attempt to accomplish. He made himself of importance by good sense, industry, popularity of manner, and a firm adherence, though not without the incidental differences that will occasionally separate the steadiest partisans, to the Whig principles and the Whig party, which he had adopted, and from which he never swerved. Some inconsiderate words which occurred in a debate in 1779, produced a hostile meeting between him and Mr Fox, when the latter was slightly wounded; but neither before nor after could there be two better friends. They were both of the small but noble band who stood out for the practical exercise of the British constitution, against the encroachments which they thought that, under a real or pretended horror of the first French Revo- Adam's devotion to his task was ardent and constant. No man ever gave himself more earnestly to the achievement of a great judicial end. He did not bring profound law to the work; one good effect of which was, that it liberated his mind from exclusive addiction to the system in which he had been trained. Unstiffened by previous habits, he was able to relieve Scotch awkwardness by English experience, and to enlarge English narrowness by Scotch reason. His skill in directing juries was not so great as his judgment in the formation of rules for ripening the system. His candour—the cheerful endurance of his patience,—his simple but dignified urbanity, and his uniform accessibility, were all perfect. He and his court were, at first, so much obstructed by prejudice, that without his protection the measure would have been defeated without ever having had a fair trial.

Personally, he was, in all practical matters an able manager;—and always kind and pleasant,—beloved by his family and a large circle of friends,—of excellent conversation, and delightful in society. His long residence in London, and his acquaintance with almost all the celebrated men of all classes of his time, supplied him with a never-failing store of well-told anecdote. His connection with his native country previously to his final return to it in 1815, had been kept up by regular visits;—as might have been expected of one who never ceased to consider the country of his birth and education as his home, and to whom Blair-Adam was Arabia Felix. It is now, through his tasteful management, adorned by judiciously placed and thriving wood. When his grandfather acquired it, the whole foliage it could boast of was supplied by a single tree. He was one of the very best depositories of all the old and fast-fading peculiarities of Scotland; the dialect of which, and when he chose, its accent, he retained thoroughly; and remembered and enjoyed all the sayings and customs of the country, its local literature, and all its curious old characters and occurrences. His combination of the social knowledge of both kingdoms, added to his natural shrewdness of observation on all passing subjects, gave him great conversational advantages, and made him a most agreeable companion.

After maintaining a gallant battle against some personal infirmities, and preserving his mental powers unimpaired, he died at Edinburgh on the 17th of February 1839, in his 89th year. He had long survived his wife, a daughter of Lord Elphinstone, and was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Admiral Sir Charles Adam, governor of Greenwich Hospital; his only other remaining child now surviving being General Sir Frederick Adam.

Adam's Apple, a name given to a species of Citrus.

Adam's Bridge, or Rama's Bridge, in Geography, a ridge of sands and rocks, extending across the north end of Manar gulf, from the island of that name on the north-west coast of Ceylon, to Ramencote or Ramisseram island, off Raman point. The extent of this chain of shoals and islands is about one degree; but some of the sand-banks are dry, while much of it has not more than three or four feet below water; and it is divided by three or four deeper cuts, that in calm weather permit the passage of native boats and small vessels through tortuous and intricate channels.

Adam's Peak, the highest mountain in Ceylon, is stated by Dr Davy, who ascended it, to rise to the height of 6680 feet in a very steep acclivity, and to terminate in a point not more than 74 feet by 24 feet. On this small plain is the supposed impression of the foot of Buddha, an object of high veneration to the Cingalese, who make frequent pilgrimages to this sacred spot, where a priest resides to receive the offerings of the devotees, and to bless them on their departure. The foot-mark is partly natural, partly artificial, and measures 5 feet 4 inches by 2 feet 6 inches. It has a margin of brass ornamented with some gems of small value, and is covered by a roof. The mountain is wooded almost to the top, and is seen at the distance of twenty leagues from sea. The view from it is very sublime. Long. 80. 39. E. Lat. 6. 55. N.