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renown, which every year has tended only to deepen
and confirm, he passed away in the full brightness
of his fame, and left a void which will not soon be
filled. His death occurred on the 19th of April,
1854. Although of slender body, his general health
was good, and his wiry frame could endure much
fatigue without injury; and his first tokens of decay
were from repeated and severe attacks of bronchitis
during the last two years of his life, under which he
finally yielded. His remains were honoured with a
public funeral, and interred in the Warriston ceme-
tery. His chief characteristics are thus described by
the biographer from whose account we have chiefly
drawn up this memoir.
"Robert Jameson was the father of modern anatu-
ral history. His loss is deeply to be deplored; a man
of the same grasp of mind, devoted to physical science,
only at times appears to enlighten his age. He was
eminently fitted for the station which he had filled
with so much success. He had fine natural talents,
which had been carefully cultivated, and were applied
with vigour to the studies in which he delighted.
He was a careful observer, a comprehensive thinker,
and his industry was unwearied. He was never
satisfied with loose and general notions upon any
subject; his range of information was wide, and
what he knew he knew thoroughly. He was prac-
tical, and anxious to be useful, in days when science
and practice stood apart, as if they were two repellant
forces. He did much towards neutralizing these
states; and was one of the pioneers to whom we
are indebted for that union of science and practice
which is now the prevailing feature of our time."
JAMIESON, Rev. JOHN, D.D., F.R.S., F.S.A.
—This excellent national philologist was born in
Glasgow, in March, 1759. His father, the Rev. Mr.
Jamieson, was one of the early ministers of the Seces-
sion, and presided over the Antiburgher congregation
of Duke Street, Glasgow. As John was also de-
signed for the ministry, he was sent in early life to
the university of his native city, where his philologi-
cal capacities obtained for him respectable notice as
an apt and diligent scholar in Latin and Greek. But
this was by no means the field in which he was ulti.
mately destined to excel; and his bent was already
indicated, in his love of ancient ruined towers and
black-letter books. His vocation evidently was not
to master a dead, but to revive a dying language; by
far the more glorious achievement of the two. After
the usual course of logic, ethics, and physics, he be-
came a student in theology, and his proficiency ex-
cited the highest expectations of future success as a
minister. At the close of his theological course he
was taken on trials as a licentiate by the General
Associate presbytery of Glasgow, and licensed as a
preacher in 1780. Two congregations were soon de-
sirous to have him for their minister; the one in
Dundee, and the other in Forfar. In this question
of contending claims, it was for the Associate Synod
to decide; and in consequence of their preference to
the call from Forfar, Mr. Jamieson was ordained to
the pastoral charge in that town by the Secession
presbytery of Perth, in 1781.
At the early age of twenty-two Mr. Jamieson thus
entered upon the sacred office of a minister. It was
at that time one of peculiar difficulty among the
Secession body; for the ferment produced in this
country by the French revolution, and the political
suspicions which it diffused through the whole com-
munity, caused all who did not belong to the Estab-
lished church to be considered as disloyal, or at
least discontented, subjects. Mr. Jamieson of course
was regarded, at his entrance into Forfar, as one
who might become a teacher of sedition, as well as
a preacher of the gospel of peace. But he had not
been long there when his conduct disarmed the sus-
picious, and procured him general confidence and
esteem; while his able clerical labours were rewarded
with a full congregation and permanent usefulness.
He thus made trial of his ministry for sixteen years,
during which period he married the daughter of a
neighbouring proprietor, who gladdened the course
of his long life, and died only a year before his own
decease. It was in Forfar also that he commenced
his life of authorship, and his first production was of
a kind the least to be expected from a plodding, word-
sifting antiquary—it was a poem! It was published
in 1789, and entitled the "Sorrows of Slavery, a
Poem, containing a Faithful Statement of Facts re-
specting the Slave-trade," We suspect that though
most of our readers may have read the splendid lyrics
of Cowper and Montgomery on the same subject,
they have not chanced to light upon this production
of Jamieson. He made another attempt of the same
nature in 1798, when he published "Eternity, a
Poem, addressed to Free-thinkers and Philosophical
Christians." But during the interval between these
two attempts his pen had been employed in more
hopeful efforts. These were, an "Alarm to Britain;
or, an Inquiry into the Causes of the Rapid Progress
of Infidelity," which he published in 1795; and a
"'Vindication of the Doctrine of Scripture, and of the
Primitive Faith concerning the Divinity of Christ, in
reply to Dr. Priestley's History of Early Opinions"
which appeared in the same year. The last was a
work of great scholarship and research, as well as
cogent argument; and in these departments, at least,
he showed himself a full match for his formidable
antagonist. Another work which he published dur-
ing his ministry in Forfar was of a different bearing,
as may be learned from its title, which was Sermons
on the Heart.
By these labours Jamieson won for himself an
honourable name in literature, that was especially
grateful to the religious community to which he be-
longed, and they testified their feeling in a way that
was not only creditable to him, but to themselves.
A call was sent to him in 1796, from the congrega-
tion in Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, whose pastor,
the Rev. Mr. Banks, had left them for America.
The synod at the time judged his transfer from
Forfar to Edinburgh inexpedient, and decided ac-
cordingly; but the Nicolson Street congregation
thought otherwise, and renewed their call and were
successful, so that he was inducted as their minister
in June, 1797. Jamieson's clerical duties were thus
multiplied by a new and more extensive field of
labour; but he did not remit those literary exertions
which had thus far been crowned with success. In
1799 he published his Remarks on Rowland Hill's
Journal In 1802 appeared his work, in two volumes
octavo, entitled the Use of Sacred History; and in
1806, the Important Trial in the Court of Conscience.
His next work, and by far his most important, was
the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language.
The herculean attempt which he proposed to him-
self in this work, and which he has so successfully
accomplished, was the following:—I. To illustrate
the words, in their different significations, by examples
from ancient and modern writers. 2. To show their
affinity to those of other languages, and especially
the northern. 3. To explain many terms which,
though now obsolete in England, were formerly
common to both countries. 4. To elucidate national
rites, customs, and institutions, in their analogy to
those of other nations.
The history of this national production of Jamieson