a younger son of an ancient Scottish family settled in Lincolnshire. He was some time a student of Lincoln College, Oxford, and removed from thence to the Inner Temple, where he applied himself diligently to the study of the law, and became a barrister. In 1582 he was made lord chief-justice of the common pleas, and in the year following was knighted. He held his office to the end of his life in 1605. His works are, 1. Reports of many principal Cases argued and adjudged in the time of Queen Elizabeth in the Common Bench, Lond. 1644, fol.; 2. Resolutions and Judgments on the cases and matter agitated in all courts of Westminster in the latter end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Lond. 1655, 4to.

Anderson, James, LL.D., was born at the village of Hermiston, in the county of Edinburgh, in the year 1739. His parents were in humble life, and had possessed a farm for some generations, which he was destined to inherit and to cultivate. At an early age he lost his parents; his education, however, was uninterrupted; and conceiving that an acquaintance with chemistry would promote his professional success, he attended a course of lectures on that science, then delivered by Dr Cullen.

Enlarging the sphere of his employments, Anderson forsook his first possession, and rented in Aberdeenshire a farm of 1300 acres, which was then nearly in a state of nature. But previous to this he became known to men of letters, by some essays on planting, which, under the signature "Agricola," he ventured to commit to the world through the medium of the Edinburgh Weekly Magazine, in 1771.

After withdrawing from his northern farm, where he resided above 20 years, he settled in the vicinity of Edinburgh. His agricultural speculations were still continued; and when a parliamentary grant was about to be proposed to Mr Elkington for a particular mode of draining land, he reclaimed the discovery as having been made by himself many years anterior. In 1791 Dr Anderson projected a periodical publication called The Bee, consisting of miscellaneous original matter, which attained the extent of 18 volumes in octavo. It was published weekly, and a large proportion of it came from his own pen. From this period till 1803 he gave to the world a number of publications chiefly on agricultural subjects, which had no small influence in advancing national improvements. He has the great merit of being the first who satisfactorily unfolded the true theory of rent. He showed by an original and able analysis that rent is not the recompense of the work of nature, nor a consequence of land being made private property, but that it depends on the various degrees of fertility of land, and on the circumstance of its being impossible to apply capital indefinitely to any quality of land, without receiving from it a diminished return.

Dr Anderson remained in his retreat, enjoying the cultivation of his garden; and after a gradual decline, partly occasioned by the over-exertion of the mental energies, he died in the year 1808, aged 69. He was twice married; first, to Miss Seton of Mounie; secondly, to an English lady. By his first marriage he had thirteen children, six of whom survived him. During a period of overstrained political fervour, certain papers formed part of the periodical works already referred to, which were thought to contain a libel on the government. Although Dr Anderson's principles were noted for attachment to the existing administration, he was called upon to give up the author of the obnoxious compositions, which he steadily refused, and, even in the face of the civil magistrates, charged his printers not to violate their fidelity to him and the author in betraying his name. The business terminated here, until a factious individual insinuated to the same magistrates that the compositions had proceeded from one of the supreme judges, whose party politics were avowedly hostile to those of government. Dr Anderson having learned the reproach, hastened to relieve the object of it by divulging the name of the real author, who, to the universal surprise of the public, proved to be none other than the traducer himself.

Anderson, James, W.S. This learned and indefatigable antiquary was the son of the Rev. Patrick Anderson, one of the many victims whom the tyranny of the government of his country condemned in 1678 to imprisonment on the Bass Rock, for attending a conventicle. This son was born at Edinburgh in August 5, 1662, and was educated to the legal profession, in which he became Writer to the Royal Signet, a station in Scotland which may be considered as equivalent to an Attorney and Notary Public.

His character and acquirements stood so high, that just before the Union the Scottish parliament entrusted him with preparing for publication what remained of the public muniments of the kingdom; and in their last session supplied him with L1940 sterling for defraying the expenses of that great undertaking. At this work he laboured for many years with great judgment and perseverance; but it was not completed at his death in 1728. The work was published under the care of the celebrated Ruddiman; who in an excellent preface laments the death of his learned countryman, and adds, "tantumque non ad umbilicum prodixerat διάν Jacobus Anderson." This work is the great "Diplomata et Numismata Scotiae," a publication, says the sagacious but often too caustic Pinkerton, in his Enquiry, "never to be excelled in elegance, and scarcely in exactness." The labour of preparing this great national work had impaired his health and his fortune, notwithstanding the parliamentary aid; and soon after his death, the numerous plates, engraved by Sturt, were sold for L530; but these plates are now lost, and the book has become exceedingly scarce. After the union of the crowns, Anderson was appointed in 1715 Postmaster-General for Scotland, as some compensation for his valuable labours; but in the political struggles of 1717 he was ungraciously deprived of this office; and never again obtained any reward for his important services to his country.

Anderson, John, professor of natural philosophy in the University of Glasgow, was born in the parish of Rosneath in Dumbartonshire in 1728. He finished his education in that University, where he first became professor of oriental languages in 1756, but in 1760 was appointed to the chair of natural philosophy, a subject more suited to his tastes and acquirements. In this department he laboured assiduously to apply scientific knowledge to the improvement of the mechanical arts. For this purpose he studied their processes in the various workshops of the city, and thus acquired an intimate acquaintance with those operations, which fitted him in an eminent degree for the great object which seems to have been his chief aim, the scientific instruction of the operative mechanic. He is, in fact, to be considered the father of those Mechanics' Institutions which have since been so widely disseminated in this and other countries. He soon began to open classes for their instruction in the principles of their arts, in which his familiar extempore discourses were illustrated by appropriate experiments. The working mechanic received every encouragement from this eminent man to attend his courses, at which they were received in their working dresses.

His anxiety for the improvement of the humble mechanic was not confined to his personal exertions. Shortly before Anderson, his death in 1796, he bequeathed the whole of his property to 81 trustees, for the purpose of founding an institution for educational purposes in Glasgow. He had seemingly intended it as a sort of rival to the university in which he was himself a professor; for his will mentions the founding of four halls or colleges with nine professors in each, for the faculties of arts, medicine, law, and theology! But the trustees found the funds entrusted to them utterly inadequate to so gigantic a scheme; and they contented themselves with founding what is now called the Andersonian Institution, or sometimes less correctly University.

It was opened in 1797, by the appointment of Dr Thomas Garnett as professor of natural philosophy, who commenced with a popular course of lectures, which was attended by a considerable audience of both sexes. In 1798 a professor of mathematics and geography was appointed; and the institution has since had the aid of several able teachers. In 1799 Dr Garnett was succeeded by Dr Birkbeck, who had the merit of introducing in the institution a system of scientific instruction annually to 500 operative mechanics, free of all expense to the pupils. On the removal of this excellent man to the London Royal Institution, he was succeeded by Dr Andrew Ure in 1804; and Dr Ure by Dr William Gregory. This institution still flourishes; and has been of vast benefit to the humbler classes of the citizens of Glasgow. (r. s. r.)

Anderson, Robert, the fourth son of William Anderson, and of Margaret Melrose his wife, was born at Carnwath, in Lanarkshire, on the 7th of January 1750. His father was a factor, that is, a person who possessed some small parcels of real property by the tenure of a perpetual lease. His first destination was for the church; in the year 1767 he was sent to the university of Edinburgh, and in due time was enrolled among the students of divinity. His schoolfellow, James Graeme, who had entered the university at the same time, and with the same views, died of consumption in 1772, in the 23rd year of his age; and, after a short interval, his faithful friend published a collection of Poems on several occasions, by James Graeme. Edinb. 1773, 12mo. About this period he relinquished the study of divinity, and betook himself to the study of medicine. He was for a short time employed as surgeon to the dispensary at Barnborough Castle in Northumberland; and in a neighbouring town he then formed connections which had no small influence on his future destiny. On the 25th of September 1777, he married Anne, the daughter of John Gray, Esq. of Alnwick, who was related to the noble family of that name. Returning to Scotland he took the degree of M.D. at St Andrews on the 20th of May 1778, after having been duly examined by the professor of physic. He now began to practise as a physician at Alnwick; but his general habits were rather those of speculation than exercise, and a moderate provision, acquired by his marriage, had emancipated him from the necessity of professional labour. In 1784 he finally returned to Edinburgh, where he continued to reside for the period of 46 years, in a condition of life removed from affluence, but perfectly compatible with genuine independence and comfort. His amiable and affectionate wife died of consumption on the 25th of December 1785, in the 39th year of her age. In 1793, after having remained a widower for eight years, he married Margaret, the daughter of Mr David Dall, master of Yester school in the county of Haddington.

For several years his attention was occupied with his edition of The Works of the British Poets, with Prefaces Biographical and Critical, which was published at Edinburgh, and extends to 14 large octavo volumes. The earliest volume, which is now the second in the series, was printed in 1792-3; the 13th was printed in 1795, and another volume was added in 1807. He was frequently solicited to revise his Lives of the Poets, and publish them in a separate form, but after having collected some materials for such a work, he finally abandoned the design. In the mean time he had published The Miscellaneous Works of Tobias Smollett, M.D., with Memoirs of his Life and Writings. Edinb. 1796, 6 vols, 8vo. But the most able and elaborate of his productions is the third edition of his Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., with Critical Observations on his Works. Edinb. 1816, 8vo. The same service which he rendered to Dr Smollett he afterwards extended to Dr Moore, having published The Works of John Moore, M.D., with Memoirs of his Life and Writings. Edinb. 1820, 7 vols, 8vo. At an earlier period he had published The Poetical Works of Robert Blair; containing the Grave, and a Poem to the Memory of Mr Law; to which is prefixed the Life of the Author. London, 1794, 8vo. And his latest publication was The Grave and other Poems, by Robert Blair; to which are prefixed some Account of his Life, and Observations on his Writings. Edinb. 1826, 12mo.

Dr Anderson contributed his ready aid to many different publications, and was always influenced, not by the love of money but by the love of literature. With many eminent men in England, Ireland, and America, he maintained a literary correspondence; and having survived most of his lettered contemporaries, he enjoyed the esteem and consideration of a second and even of a third generation. No part of his character was more conspicuous than his uniform and unabating zeal to promote the success of young men who discovered any promise, however moderate, of literary talent; and some of the more distinguished writers of our own age and nation were not without their obligations to his disinterested friendship. Mr Campbell dedicated to him his earliest and most popular publication, The Pleasures of Hope. Thomas Brown, John Leyden, and Alexander Murray, who all died at too early an age, were among the most eminent of his young friends. For Dr Brown, who became professor of moral philosophy in the university of Edinburgh, he entertained a very cordial esteem, which suffered no abatement or interruption. Another prominent feature of his mind was his ardent regard for the civil and religious liberties of mankind. This characteristic he displayed from the first years of manhood till the last day of his earthly existence.

His bodily frame had never been robust; but the uniform temperance and regularity of his habits contributed to prolong a life which was marked by cheerfulness and benevolence. His faculties, mental and corporeal, betrayed few or no symptoms of old age. During the greater part of his last winter he was confined to his own house by what was considered as a common cold, and was attended by his friend and contemporary Dr Hamilton. Of the immediate prospect of death, he spoke, not merely with resignation, but even with cheerfulness; with the subdued but confident hope of one who had long and habitually reposed on the assurances of the Christian faith. He died on Saturday, the 20th of February 1830, after having completed the 80th year of his age; and, according to his own directions, his remains were interred in Carnwath churchyard. His eldest daughter, Anne Margaret, was married in 1810 to David Irving, LL.D., and died in 1812, leaving an only son. His second daughter, Margaret Susannah, lived to deplore the loss of a parent whose declining years she had soothed by the most exemplary attention to all his wants and wishes.

(10. i.)