328
II. Apology for the Believers in the Shakspeare
Papers, which were exhibited in Norfolk Street, 1797,
8vo. 12. A Supplemental Apology for the Believers
in the Shakspeare Papers, being a reply to Mr. Malone's
Answer, &c., 1799,8vo. 13. Appendix to the Supple-
mental Apology; being the documents for the opinion
that Hugh Boyd wrote Junius' Letters, 1800, 8vo.
14. Life of Allan Ramsay, prefixed to an edition of
his Poems, 1800, 2 vols. 8vo. 15. Life of Gregory
King, prefixed to his Observations on the State of
England in 1696, 1804, 8vo. 16. The Poetical
Works of Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, with a
Life of the Author, prefatory Dissertations, and an
appropriate Glossary, 1806, 3 vols. 8vo. 17. Cale-
donia, &c., vol. i. 1807, 4to; vol. ii. 1810; vol.
iii. 1824. 18. A Chronological Account of Com-
merce and Coinage in Great Britain, from the
Restoration till 1810; 1810, 8vo. 19. Considera-
tions on Commerce, Bullion and Coin, Circulation
and Exchanges; with a view to our present circum-
stances, 1811, 8vo. 20. An Historical View of the
Domestic Economy of Great Britain and Ireland,
from the earliest to the Present Times (a new and
extended edition of the Comparate Estimate), Edin-
burgh, 1812, 8vo. 21. Opinions of Eminent Lawyers
on various points of English Jurisprudence, chiefly
concerning the Colonies, Fisheries, and Commerce
of Great Britain, 1814, 2 vols. 8vo. 22. A Tract
(privately printed) in answer to Malone's Account of
Shakspeare's Tempest, 1815, 8vo. 23. Compara-
tive Views of the State of Great Britain before and
since the war, 1817, 8vo. 24. The Author of
Junius ascertained, from a concatenation of circum-
stances amounting to moral demonstration, 1817,
8vo. 25. Churchyard's Chips concerning Scotland;
being a Collection of his Pieces regarding that
Country, with notes and a Life of the Author, 1817,
8vo. 26. Life of Queen Mary, drawn from the
State Papers, with six subsidiary memoirs, 1818,
2 vols. 4to; reprinted in 3 vols. 8vo. 27. The
Poetical Reviews of some of the Scottish Kings, now
first collected, 1824, 8vo. 28. Robene and Makyne,
and the Testament of Cresseid, by Robert Henryson,
edited as a contribution to the Bannatyne Club, of
which Mr. Chalmers was a member; Edinburgh,
1824. 29. A Detection of the Love-letters lately
attributed in Hugh Campbell's work to Mary Queen
of Scots, 1825, 8vo. All these works, unless in the
few instances mentioned, were published in London.
The author's Caledonia astonished the world with
the vast extent of its erudition and research. It
professes to be an account, historical and topo-
graphical, of North Britain, from the most ancient
to the present times; and the original intention of
the author was, that it should be completed in four
volumes quarto, each containing nearly 1000 pages.
Former historians had not presumed to inquire any
further back into Scottish history than the reign of
Canmore, describing all before that time as obscurity
and fable, as Strabo, in his maps, represents the in-
habitants of every place which he did not know as
Ichthyophagi. But George Chalmers was not con-
tented to start from this point. He plunged fear-
lessly into the dark ages, and was able, by dint of
incredible research, to give a pretty clear account of
the inhabitants of the northern part of the island
since the Roman conquest. The pains which he
must have taken in compiling information for this
work, are almost beyond belief—although he tells
us in his preface that it had only been the amuse-
ment of his evenings. The remaining three volumes
were destined to contain a topographical and his-
torical account of each county, and the second of
these completed his task so far as the Lowlands were
concerned, when death stepped in and arrested the
busy pen of the antiquary, May 31, 1825.
As a writer, George Chalmers does not rank high
in point of elegance of style; but the solid value of
his matter is far more than sufficient to counterbalance
both that defect, and a certain number of prejudices
by which his labours are otherwise a little deformed.
Besides the works which we have mentioned, he was
the author of some of inferior note, including various
political pamphlets on the Tory side of the question.
CHALMERS, REV. THOMAS, D.D. This emi-
nent orator, philosopher, and divine, by whom the
highest interests of his country during the present
century have been so materially influenced, was born
in the once important, but now unnoticed town of
Anstruther, on the south-east coast of Fife, on the
17th March, 1780. He was the son of Mr. John
Chalmers, a prosperous dyer, ship-owner, and general
merchant in Easter Anstruther, and Elizabeth Hall,
the daughter of a wine merchant of Crail, who, in
the course of twenty-two years, were the parents of
nine sons and five daughters, of which numerous
family, Thomas, the subject of this memoir, was the
sixth. After enduring the tyranny of a severe nurse,
he passed in his third year into the hands of an
equally severe schoolmaster, a worn-out parish
teacher, whose only remaining capacity for the in-
struction of the young consisted in an incessant
application of the rod. Thus early was Thomas
Chalmers taught the evils of injustice and oppres-
sion; but who can tell the number of young minds
that may have been crushed under a process by which
his was only invigorated! After having learned to
read, and acquired as much Latin as he could glean
under such unpromising tuition, he was sent, at the
age of twelve, to the United College of St. Andrews.
Even long before this period he had studied with
keen relish Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and resolved
to be a minister. It appears that, like too many
youths at their entrance into our Scottish univer-
sities, he had scarcely any classical learning, and
was unable to write even his own language ac-
cording to the rules of orthography and grammar.
All these obstacles, however, only called forth that
indomitable perseverance by which his whole career
in life was distinguished; and in his third year's
course at college, when he had reached the age of
fifteen, he devoted himself with such ardour to the
study of mathematics, that he soon became distin-
guished by his proficiency in the science, even among
such class-fellows as Leslie, Ivory, and Duncan.
These abstract studies required some relief, and in
the case of Chalmers they were alternated with
ethics, politics, and political economy. After the
usual curriculum of four years he enrolled as a stu-
dent of theology, but with a heart so devoted to
the abstractions of geometry, that divinity occupied
little of his thoughts; even when it was afterwards
admitted, it was more in the form of sentimental
musings, than of patient laborious inquiry for the
purposes of public instruction. But he had so suc-
cessfully studied the principles of composition, and
acquired such a mastery of language, that even at
the age of sixteen, many of his college productions
exhibited that rich and glowing eloquence which
was to form his distinguished characteristic in after-
years. He had also acquired that occasional dreami-
ness of look and absence of manner which so often
characterizes deep thinkers, and especially mathe-
maticians; and of this he gave a curious illustration,
when he had finished his seventh year at college,
and was about to enter a family as private tutor.
His father's household had repaired to the door, to