Robert, a well-known ecclesiastical historian, was born at Glasgow in the year 1679. He entered the University of Glasgow in 1691; and after passing through the usual academical course, with the view of qualifying himself for the sacred ministry, he became a student of divinity under his father, who was professor in that university. In 1698 he was chosen librarian to the university, an office which he held for four years. On leaving the university, he resided for a short time in the family of Sir John Maxwell of Nether Pollock, one of the senators of the College of Justice; and having offered himself as a probationer to the presbytery of Paisley, he was licensed to preach the gospel in March 1703. He was ordained minister of the parish of Eastwood on the 28th of October 1703. Soon after his settlement at Eastwood, we find him busy collecting memorials which are treasured up in his MS. volumes of Analecta. He likewise availed himself of his periodical visits to Edinburgh during the meetings of the General Assembly to prosecute his historical researches. As might have been expected from a person of his habits, pursuits, and education, he took a lively interest in all ecclesiastical proceedings; and in questions involving matters either of sound doctrine or discipline and church government, he was invariably found on the popular side.

The work by which Wodrow is best known is The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, from the Restoration to the Revolution, Edinb. 1721-22, 2 vols. fol. It was the labour of many years. In 1717, having prepared the first portion of it, the manuscript was submitted to George Ridpath and other literary friends, and he profited by their suggestions. Two years later, the plan was laid before the General Assembly, when it was cordially approved of, and an act was passed recommending the members of assembly and the several ministers of the church to subscribe for copies, and "to deal" with such in their bounds as were well disposed to encourage the work, "now ready for the press." He obtained by those means a most respectable list of subscribers; and on its publication, the work being dedicated to George I., copies of it were presented, through Dr Fraser, to the king, the queen, the prince and princess of Wales, by all of whom it was most graciously received. In fact, the reception of the work by the public must have been gratifying to the author; and he appears from his correspondence to have received with comparative indifference some scurrilous attempts to depreciate his labours by the nonjuring Episcopalian, or rather by one of his adherents, Alexander Bruce, advocate, first in an anonymous tract, "The Scottish Behemoth dissected, in a Letter to Mr Robert Wodrow, &c," Edinb. 1722, folio; and then in the preface to a Life of Archbishop Sharp, 1723, 8vo. Bruce next announced, in 1724, a great work, an Impartial History of the Affairs in Church and State in Scotland, from the Reformation to the Revolution, in 2 vols. fol. He did not survive long enough to make much progress in this work, which was taken up by Bishop Keith, who published only the first volume in 1734, bringing the history down to the year 1568. Keith's history is only important as a collection of materials, for the author was equally destitute of acuteness and liberality. To what extent he may have profited by Bruce's labours is nowhere stated.

It does not appear in what manner Wodrow's History was again brought under the notice of George the First; but his majesty, "to certify our esteem of the said author and his works, by bestowing on him some mark of our bounty," ordered the sum of one hundred guineas to be paid to the Rev. Robert Wodrow by the Treasury. This grant is dated the 26th of April 1725; and such a mark of royal favour, wholly unexpected on Wodrow's part, was well bestowed on one whose labours served by contrast to exhibit in lively colours the advantages which were secured to Great Britain by the Hanoverian succession. In more recent times public attention was directed to the work by the high eulogium of Mr Fox on its fidelity and impartiality; and the demand having increased its price beyond the means of ordinary purchasers, a new edition in a more commodious form was published at Glasgow in 1830, 4 vols. 8vo, with a memoir of the author prefixed, by Robert Burns, D.D., one of the ministers of Paisley.

The original publication of this work had not the effect of relaxing Wodrow's literary ardour. It had always been with him a cherished plan to form a series of biographical memoirs of the more eminent ministers in the Church of Scotland; and he took every opportunity of collecting materials for that design. Before proceeding with this task, he, in 1724, wrote a Life of James Wodrow, A.M., Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow, which was not published till 1828. The series of lives, chiefly compiled between 1726 and 1733, forms ten volumes in folio, with four quarto volumes of appendix. These volumes are preserved in the library of the University of Glasgow; and a selection was commenced in 1834 for the members of the Maitland Club, under the title of Collections upon the Lives of the Reformers and most eminent Ministers of the Church of Scotland. This work is certainly not the most important of Wodrow's labours. The lives are compiled and filled with extracts from works now much better known and more accessible than in his days, and being in most instances only first draughts hastily put together, the style is remarkably careless and slovenly.

Wodrow's studious habits appear to have injured his health; and during the latter years of his life his usual pursuits were often interrupted by sickness, and he at length sank under a gradual decline on the 21st of March 1734, in the 55th year of his age. In the year 1708 he was married to Margaret, daughter of Patrick Warner, minister of Irvine, and grand-daughter of William Guthrie, minister of Fenwick, author of a well known practical treatise, The Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ. Of a family of sixteen children, nine, with their mother, survived him.

In the course of his researches Mr Wodrow had industriously formed an extensive and important collection of manuscripts, chiefly relating to ecclesiastical affairs in Scotland. Some years after his death, the collection was offered for sale by his family. In May 1742, a portion of the MSS. was purchased by direction of the General Assembly, and this portion now remains the property of the Church. Fifty years later (in 1792) the great mass of his other MSS. and printed tracts was sold to the Faculty of Advocates, with the exception of his Biographical Collections (already mentioned), which were obtained about the same time by the University of Glasgow. In June 1828, the Faculty of Advocates likewise secured, what cannot fail to be esteemed an important accession to the Wodrow Manuscripts, 1st, his Analecta, in six volumes, closely written, being a kind of note-book or diary, in which he has preserved a valuable and amusing record of literary intelli-

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