Quippe parens rerum cæco te corpore clemens Alme Deus, Deus alme, et non effabile numen, Ad te unum et trinum, moribundo pectore anhelo. The works of Archbishop Adamson were published in a quarto volume in London, in 1619, with his Life, by Thomas Volusenus or Wilson. Besides the contents of this volume, he wrote many things which were never published; such as six books on the Hebrew Republic, various translations of the Prophets into Latin verse, Prelections on St Paul's Epistles to Timothy, various apologetical and funeral orations, and, what deserves most to be regretted, a very candid history of his own times. His character has unfortunately been too much a matter of controversy to be capable of a proper representation by a modern writer. AIKMAN, WILLIAM. The fine arts were so lately introduced into Scotland, that it is surprising to find a general painter of considerable eminence, produced before the end of the seventeenth century. Such was William Aikman, the friend of Ramsay and Thomson, and the protegé of John Duke of Argyle, and Sir, Robert Walpole. Aikman was the son of William Aikman of Cairney, Esq., a man of eminence at the Scottish bar; he was born, October 24th, 1682. It may be easily supposed, from the low state of the arts in Scotland, that young Aikman was not destined to painting as a profession. His father designed him for the bar; and it was only the irresistible force of genius which caused him to take up the pencil. The mind of this young enthusiast had a strong leaning to poetry. He was particularly delighted with those simple pastoral strains which have arisen in his native country without either patronage or scholarship—those breathings of unsophisticated passion and feeling, derived from no known author, but which float over hill and dale like exhalations, and are an everlasting heritage of the breasts of the Scottish peasantry. He seems to have been led by this taste into habits of painting-for poetry and painting are in some respects but one art. After shaking himself free of his studies, he resolved in 1707 to complete his education as an artist by a residence at Rome. For this purpose, he sold his paternal estate, situated near Arbroath, and settled all claims which at that time stood against him in Scotland. He resided at Rome for three years, during which period he took instructions from the best masters. After a trip to Constantinople and Smyrna, he returned to Rome, and renewed his studies. 1712, he returned to his native country. There he practised for some time, applauded by the discerning few; but the public, too poor at that period to be able to purchase elaborate works of art, were unable to afford him adequate encouragement. It was at this period that he formed an intimacy with Allan Ramsay. John duke of Argyle, who equally admired the artist and esteemed the man, regretting that such talents should be lost, at length prevailed upon Mr Aikman, in the year 1723, to move with all his family to London, thinking this the only theatre in Britain where his powers could be properly displayed. There, under the auspices of his distinguished friend, he formed habits of intimacy with the In most eminent British painters of the age, particularly with Sir Godfrey Kneller, whose studies and dispositions of mind were very congenial with his own. In this society, he soon became known to people of the first rank, and was in habits of intimacy with many of them; particularly the earl of Burlington, so well known for his taste in the fine arts, especially architecture. Under these circumstances he was able to be of much service to Thomson, who came to London soon after himself, as a literary adventurer. He introduced the poet of the Seasons to the brilliant literary circle of the day-Pope, Swift, Gay, Arbuthnot, &c.— and, what was perhaps of more immediate service, to Sir Robert Walpole, who aimed at being thought a friend to men of genius. Among the more intimate friends of Aikman, was William Somerville, author of the Chase, from whom he received an elegant tribute of the muse, on his painting a full length portrait of the poet in the decline of life, carrying him back, by the assistance of another portrait, to his youthful days. This poem was never published in any edition of Somerville's works. Aikman painted, for the earl of Burlington, a large picture of the royal family of England, which was erected at the end of a particular room in his lordship's house: it came into the possession of the duke of Devonshire, by alliance with the Burlington family. In the middle compartment are all the younger branches of the royal family on a very large canvas, and on one hand, above the door, a full-length portrait of queen Caroline: the picture of the king—that king who never could endure "boetry or bainting," as he styled the two arts in his broken English—was to have graced an opposite niche, but, Aikman dying before it was completed, the space was left blank. This was perhaps the last picture brought towards a close by Aikman, and it is allowed to have been in his best style; for like Raphael, whom he also resembled in the shortness of his life, he went on continually improving to the last. Some of his earlier works are in the possession of the Argyle and Hamilton families in Scotland; his more mature and mellow productions are chiefly to be found in England; a large portion at Blickling in Norfolk, the seat of Robert earl of Buckinghamshire these are chiefly portraits of noblemen, gentlemen, and ladies, friends of the earl. He died, January 14th, 1731; his only son, John, (by his wife Marion Lawson, daughter of Mr Lawson of Cairnmuir in Peeblesshire,) whose death immediately preceded his own, was buried in the same grave with him, in the Greyfriars' church-yard, Edinburgh. A monument was erected over the remains of Mr Aikman, with the following epitaph by Mallet, which was long since obliterated: Dear to the good and wise, dispraised by none, Here sleep in peace the father and the son. By virtue as by nature close allied, The painter's genius, but without the pride. Worth unambitious, wit afraid to shine, Honour's clear light, and friendship's warmth divine. The son, fair-rising, knew too short a date; But oh how more severe the parent's fate! He saw him torn untimely from his side, Felt all a father's anguish-wept, and died. The following verses, in which Thomson bewails him with all the warmth of grateful friendship, are only partially printed in that poet's works: Oh could 1 draw, my friend, thy genuine mind, Just as the living forms by thee designed! A mind in wisdom old, in lenience young, Worth above show, and goodness unsevere. Viewed round and round, as lucid diamonds show, The friend a tear, a verse the mournful muse? Yet pay we must acknowledgment to heaven, Though snatch'd so soon, that AIKMAN e'er was given. Nor leave the banquet with reluctant eyes : A friend, when dead, is but removed from sight, Sunk in the lustre of eternal light; And when the parting storms of life are o'er, May yet rejoin us on a happier shore. As those we love decay, we die in part; String after string is severed from the heart; Tiil loosened life at last-but breathing clay- Whose eyes have wept o'er every friend laid low; In his style of painting, Aikman seems to have aimed at imitating nature in her most simple forms: his lights are soft, his shades mellow, and his colouring mild and harmonious. His touches have neither the force nor harshness of Rubens; nor does he seem like Reynolds ever to have aimed at adorning his portraits with the elegance of adventitious graces. His mind, tranquil and serene, delighted rather to wander, with Thomson, in the enchanting fields of Tempe, than to burst, with Michael Angelo, into the ruder scenes of the terrible and sublime. His compositions are distinguished by a placid tranquillity and ease, rather than a striking brilliancy of effect; and his portraits may be more readily mistaken for those of Kneller than any other eminent artist; not only because of the general resemblance of the dresses, which were those of the times, they being contemporaries, but also for the manner of working, and the similarity and blandness of their tints. AITON, WILLIAM, an eminent horticulturist and botanist, was born, in 1731, at a village in the neighbourhood of Hamilton. Having been regularly bred to the profession of a gardener, as it was and still is practised by numbers of his countrymen, with a union of manual skill and scientific knowledge, he removed to England in 1754, and in the year following obtained the notice of the celebrated Philip Miller, then superintendent of the physic garden at Chelsea, who employed him for some time as an assistant. The instructions which he received from that eminent gardener, laid the foundation, it is said, of his future fortune. His industry and abilities were so conspicuous, that, in 1759 he was pointed out to the Princess-dowager of Wales as a fit person to manage the botanical garden at Kew. The encouragement of botanical studies was a distinguished feature of the reign of George III, who, soon after his accession, determined to render Kew a grand repository of all the vegetable riches of the world. Specimens were accordingly procured from every quarter of the globe, and placed under the care of Mr Aiton, who showed a surprising degree of skill in their arrangement. Under his superintendence, a variety of improvements took place in the plan and edifices of Kew-gardens, till they attained an undoubted eminence over every other scene of botanical culture. The borders in the garden were enlarged for the more free circulation of the air where it was required, and the stoves were graduated in such a way that each set of plants received exactly the degree of heat which they would have had in their native climate. The professional labours of Mr Aiton were not unnoticed by the eminent botanists of the time; he was honoured, in 1764, with the friendship of Sir Joseph Banks, which subsisted through life: Dr Solander and Dr Dryander were also among the number of his friends. In 1783, on a vacancy occurring in the superintendence of the pleasure gardens at Kew, Mr Aiton received the appointment from George III., but was, at the same time, permitted to retain his more important office. His labours proved the king's favours were not ill bestowed, for in 1789 he published an ample catalogue of the plants at Kew, under the title "Hortus Kewensis," 3 vols. 8vo. with a number of plates. No catalogue, which could compare with this in richness, had ever been made public. The number of species contained in it is between five and six thousand, of which a very considerable part had not before been described. A new and curious article in it relates to the first introduction of particular exotics into the English gardens. The whole impression of this elaborate performance was sold within two years, and a second and improved edition was published by his son, William Townsend Aiton, in 1810. Mr Aiton has emphatically been styled the Scottish Linnæus, and it is certain that from him the younger Linnæus received, when in England, no small improvement. After a life of singular activity and usefulness, distinguished, moreover, by all the domestic virtues, Mr Aiton died on the 1st of February, 1793, of a schirrus in the liver, in the 63d year of his age. The king testified his respect for his memory, by appointing his son to the whole of his places, for which he is said to have been well qualified. ALES or ALESSE, ALEXANDER, a celebrated theologian of the sixteenth century, was born at Edinburgh, April 23d, 1500. He is first found in the situation of a canon in the cathedral of St Andrews, where he distinguished himself by entering into the fashionable controversy of the day against Luther. His zeal for the Catholic religion was staggered by the martyrdom of Patrick Hamilton; but it is not probable that his doubts would have been carried further, if he had not suffered persecution for the slight degree of scepticism already manifested. Being obliged to fly from St Andrews, he retired to Germany, where he became a thorough convert to the Protestant doctrines. The Reformation, which took place in England after the marriage of Henry VIII, to Anne Boleyn, induced Ales to go to London in 1535, where he was highly esteemed by Cranmer, Latimer, and Cromwell, who were at that time in favour with the king. Henry regarded him also with favour, and used to call him "his scholar." Upon the fall of Cromwell, he was obliged to return to Germany, where the elector of Brandenburgh appointed him professor of divinity at Frankfort upon the Oder, in 1540. As a reformer, Ales did He not always maintain the most orthodox doctrines: hence he was obliged, in 1542, to fly from his chair at Frankfort, and betake himself to Leipsic. spent the remainder of his life in that city, as professor of divinity, and died in 1565. His works are:-1, "De necessitate et merito Bonorum Operum, disputatio proposita in celebri academia Leipsica, ad 29 Nov. 1560.” 2, "Conumentarii in evangelium Joannis, et in utramque epistolam ad Timotheum.” 3, "Expositio in Psalmos Davidis." 4, "De Justificatione, contra Cscandrum." 5, "De Sancta Trinitate, cum confutatione erroris Valentini." 6, "Responsio ad triginta et duos articulos theologorum Lovaniensium." The fifth in this list is the most favourable specimen of his abilities. ALEXANDER, JOHN, a painter of some eminence, during the earlier half of the eighteenth century, and a descendant of the more celebrated George Jameson, studied his art in Italy, and spent much of his time at Florence, in the court of Cosmo de Medicis. On returning to his native country he resided at Gordon Castle, and painted several subjects, consisting chiefly of poetical, allegorical, and ornamental pieces. The Duchess of Gordon, daughter of the earl of Peterborough, was a great lover of the arts, and Alexander found in her a liberal patroness. He painted portraits, history, and historical landscape. Many of the portraits of Queen Mary are by him; and it is said that he painted the escape of the captive queen from Lochleven castle, in which the scenery around the lake is introduced; but that he did not live to finish the picture. ALEXANDER, WILLIAM, an eminent nobleman, statesman, and poet, of the reign of James VI. and Charles I. The original rank of this personage was that of a small land proprietor or laird; but he was elevated by dint of his various accomplishments, and through the favour of the two sovereigns above-mentioned, to the rank of an earl. His family, which possessed the small estate of Menstrie, near Stirling, is said to have derived the name Alexander from the prenomen of their ancestor Alexander Macdonald, a highlander, who had been settled in this property by the Earl of Argyle, whose residence of Castle Campbell is in the neighbourhood. William Alexander is supposed to have first seen the light in 1580. Nature having obviously marked him for a higher destiny than that to which he was born, he received from his friends the best education which the time and place could afford, and at a very early age he accompanied the young Earl of Argyle upon his foreign travels, in the capacity of tutor. Previous to this period, when only fifteen years of age, he had been smit with the charms of some country beauty," the cynosure of neighbouring eyes;" on his return from the continent, his passion was found to have suffered no abatement. He spent some time in rural retirement, and wrote no fewer than a hundred sonnets, as a ventilation to the fervours of his breast; but all his poetry was in vain, so far as the lady was concerned. She thought of matrimony, while he thought of love; and accordingly, on being solicited by a more aged suitor, in other respects eligible, did not scruple to accept his hand. The poet took a more sensible way of consoling himself for this disappointment than might have been expected; he married another lady, the daughter and heiress of Sir William Erskine. His century of sonnets was published in London in 1604, under the title of "Aurora, containing the First Fancies of the Author's Youth, by W. Alexander, of Menstrie." From the situation of Alexander's estate near the residence of the king at Stirling, and in a vale which his majesty frequented for the pleasure of hawking, he had early been introduced to royal notice; and accordingly it appears that, when James removed to London in 1603, the poet did not remain long behind, but soon became a dependent upon the English court. It is honourable to Alexander that in this situation he did not, like most court poets of that age, employ his pen in the adulation of majesty; his works breathe a very different |