of this union, Henry interested himself in the affairs of Sotland, and the young prince was a frequent visitor at the court of his father-in-law. The English monarch, taking advantage of Alexander's youth and other circumstances, endeavoured to prevail upon him to do homage for his crown and kingdom of Scotland; but the young king, with a fortitude and prudence beyond his years, and which gave promise of his future decision, resisted the requisition, saying that he could not treat of affairs of state without the advice of his parliament. During Alexander's minority, the country was divided into factions, and various struggles for ascendancy took place; but the administration was latterly committed to fifteen of the leading chiefs or barons. Alexander had reached the twenty-second year of his age, when his kingdom was invaded by one of the most formidable armaments that had ever sailed from Norway. Haco, king of that country, with a fleet of one hundred and sixty ships, freighted with many thousand northern warriors, who carried terror to almost all the shores of Europe, sailed towards Scotland in the summer of 1263, and after making himself master of the islands of Arran and Bute, arrived in the bay of Largs, near the mouth of the Clyde, and endeavoured to effect a landing. Here a Scottish army, under Alexander, assembled to resist the invasion; and here, on the 2d of October, after a fierce and bloody contest, the Norwegians were repulsed with great loss. A storm arising, completed the dissipation or destruction of their fleet. Haco escaped with difficulty through the strait between Sky and the mainland, since called Kyle Hacken, and reaching the Orkneys, died there, as is said, of a broken heart. By this defeat, all the islands of the western sea, including that of Man, but excepting those of Orkney and Shetland, submitted to Alexander.

From this period to the death of Alexander, Scotland enjoyed tranquillity, only disturbed by the pretensions of the pope and the encroachments of the clergy, both of which Alexander was successful in resisting. Religious crusades were at this time the rage over Europe, and Scotland did not escape the infection, as many of her bravest barons perished in Palestine. In 1274, Alexander attended the coronation of his brother-in-law, Edward I., at Westminster, and after the custom of the times did homage for the lands which he held of him in England. Six months after this, Margaret queen of Scotland died, leaving one daughter and two sons- -Margaret, Alexander, and David. David died unmarried in 1281. Margaret was married in 1282, to Eric king of Norway, and died in the following year, after giving birth to an infant daughter, who received her own name. Alexander was married in 1283 to the daughter of Guy earl of Flanders, and died in the following year without issue. Thus, in the course of a few years, was the unhappy king of Scotland deprived of his wife and all his children-the only remaining descendant of his body being the Maiden of Norway, as she is called in Scottish history, an infant grandchild residing in a foreign land. In 1285, Alexander, to provide against the evils of a disputed succession, at the request of his nobility, married Joletta, daughter of the Count de Dreux; but shortly after his marriage, in riding along a precipitous road between Bruntisland and Kinghorn, his horse fell over a rock, and the unfortunate monarch was killed. This event took place on the 16th of March, 1286, in the 45th year of his age and 37th of his reign.

Few

With Alexander III. terminated a race of kings, who, from the accession of Malcolm Cean-Mohr, had distinguished themselves by their activity in the administration of justice, and their courage in maintaining the rights and independence of their country against a powerful and too often an insidious foe. annals of a rude people, indeed, can present a more gratifying series of patriotic monarchs than those with whom Scotland was blessed from the middle of the eleventh to the close of the thirteenth century, whether we consider their wisdom

and impartiality as legislators, their prudence as politicians, or their bravery as warriors, for Malcolm the Maiden and the terms upon which William the Lion effected his release from captivity must only be considered as exceptions to the general excellence of their conduct. But with the death of Alexander III., the peace and prosperity of the country was broken up; and much as he was lamented by the people, and gloomy as were their forebodings on his decease, no anticipation could exceed the real calamities in which the country was involved by his unhappy and untimely end.

ALLAN, DAVID, a painter of great merit, was born at Alloa, February 13th, 1744. He was the son of Mr David Allan, shore-master at that small port. The mother of Allan, whose maiden name was Gullan, brought him prematurely into the world, and died a few days after his birth. The young painter had so small a mouth that no nurse could be found in the place fitted to give him suck at length, one being heard of, who lived at the distance of some miles, he was packed up in a basket amidst cotton, and sent off under the charge of a man who carried him on horseback, the journey being rendered additionally dangerous by a deep snow. The horse happened to stumble, the man fell off, and the tiny wretch was ejected from the basket into the snow, receiving as he fell a severe cut upon his head. Such were the circumstances under which Mr David Allan commenced the business of existence.

Even after having experienced the tender cares of his nurse, misfortune continued to harass him. In the autumn of 1745, when he must have been about eighteen months old, a battery was erected at Alloa, to defend the passage of the Forth against the attempts of Prince Charles's army. While the men were firing the cannon for experiment, the maid entrusted with the charge of young Allan ran across the open space in front, at the moment when they were discharged, and he only escaped death by a hair-breadth,

When he was

His genius for designing was first developed by accident. Being confined at home with a burnt foot, his father one day said to him, "You idle little rogue, you are kept from school doing nothing! come, here is a bit of chalk, draw something with it upon the floor." He took the chalk, and began to delineate figures of houses, animals, and other familiar objects; in all of which he succeeded so well that the chalk was seldom afterwards out of his hand. about ten years of age, his pedagogue happened to exercise his authority over some of the boys in a rather ludicrous manner: Allan immediately drew a caricature of the transaction upon a slate, and handed it about for the amusement of his companions. The master of the ferule, an old vain conceited person, who used to strut about the school dressed in a tartan night-cap and long tartan gown, got hold of the picture, and right soon detected that he himself was the most conspicuous and the most ridiculous figure. The satire was so keen, and the laugh which it excited sunk so deep, that the object of it was not satisfied till he had made a complaint to old Allan, and had the boy taken from his school. When questioned by his father how he had the effrontery to insult his master, by representing him so ridiculously on his slate, his answer was, "I only made it like him, and it was all for fun!"

The father observed the decided genius of his son, and had the good sense to offer it no resistance. At this time, the establishment of the Messrs Foulis' academy of Arts at Glasgow was making some noise in the country. Allan, therefore, resolved to apprentice his son to those gentlemen upon the terms given out in their prospectus of the institution. On the 25th of February, 1755, when

exactly eleven years of age, the young draughtsman was bound apprentice to the Messrs Foulis for seven years, to attend their painting academy in the university of Glasgow. In Newhall house there is a sketch in oil, done by him, repre

senting the inside of the academy, with an exact portrait of Robert Foulis in the act of criticising a large picture, and giving instructions to his principal painter about it.

In the year 1764, some of his performances attracted the notice of lord Cathcart, whose seat, Shaw Park, was situated in Clackmannanshire near Alloa. Lady Cathcart introduced him to the notice of lady Frances Erskine, daughter of the insurgent earl of Mar, and mother of the gentleman to whom the peerage was restored in 1824; as also to lady Charlotte Erskine, to Mrs Abercromby of Tullibody, mother of Sir Ralph, and to some other personages of distinction in the neighbourhood of his birth-place. By the associated purses of these kind patrons, Allan was enabled to go to Italy, where he studied with unremitting application for eleven years. During his residence there, lady Cathcart used to write to him with all the care and affection of a mother. In 1773, while living at Rome, he gained the prize medal given by the academy of St Luke for the best specimen of historical composition; being the only Scotchman who had ever reached that honour, besides Mr Gavin Hamilton.

After his return in 1777, Allan resided for about two years in London; but, falling into a bad state of health, he was ordered home to Scotland for a change of air. Soon after his arrival in Edinburgh, he was appointed successor to Runciman (deceased), as master and director of the academy established by the Board of Trustees for Manufactures and Improvements, for the purpose of diffusing a knowledge of the principles of the fine arts and elegance of design, in the various manufactures and works which required to be figured and ornamented; a charge for which he was peculiarly well qualified, by the extensive knowledge he possessed of every branch of the art. He retained the situation till his death.

Allan was much admired for his talents in composition, the truth with which he delineated nature, and the characteristic humour which distinguished his pictures, drawings, and etchings. There are several engravings from his pictures, as," The Origin of Painting, or the Corinthian maid drawing the shadow of her lover," and four in aqua-tinta by Paul Sandby, from drawings made by Allan when at Rome, representing the sports during the carnival. Several of the figures were portraits of persons well known to the English who visited Rome between 1770 and 1780. There is one caricature by Allan, which is well known to Scottish collectors: it represents the interior of a church or meeting-house at Dunfermline, at the moment when an imprudent couple are rebuked by the clergyman. There is a drollery about the whole of this performance that never fails to amuse. The alliance of his genius to that of our national poets, led Allan, in 1788, to publish an edition of the Gentle Shepherd, with characteristic drawings. He also published a collection of the most humorous of the old Scottish songs, each illustrated by a characteristic etching. At his death, which happened on the 6th of August, 1796, he left a series of drawings designed for the poems of Burns, in an equally graphic and humorous style. There is one property which runs through all the designs of Allan, and by which his productions may be distinguished at the most casual glance this is a peculiar elegance of form which he always gives to the limbs of his figures-elegance to such a degree, that, in many cases, it may be pronounced out of nature.

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Allan, by his wife, whom he married in 1788, left one son, bearing his own name, and who was sent out as a cadet to India, and one daughter named Barbara. In person, our Scottish Hogarth, as he was called, had nothing attractive. The misfortunes attending his entrance into the world were such as nothing in after life could repair. "His figure was a bad resemblance of his humorous precursor of the English metropolis. He was under the middle size; of a slender, feeble make; with a long, sharp, lean, white, coarse face, much pitted by the small-pox,

and fair hair. His large prominent eyes, of a light colour, were weak, nearsighted, and not very animated. His nose was long and high, his mouth wide, and both ill-shaped. His whole exterior to strangers appeared unengaging, trifling, and mean; and his deportment was timid and obsequious. The prejudices naturally excited by these disadvantages at introduction, were, however, dispelled on acquaintance; and, as he became easy and pleased, gradually yielded to agreeable sensations; till they insensibly vanished, and at last, were not only overlooked, but, from the effect of contrast, even heightened the attractions by which they were so unexpectedly followed. When in company he esteemed, and which suited his taste, as restraint wore off, his eye imperceptibly became active, bright, and penetrating; his manner and address quick, lively, and interesting—always kind, polite, and respectful; his conversation open and gay, humorous without satire, and playfully replete with benevolence, observation, and anecdote."-Brown's edition of the Gentle Shepherd, 1808.

The author who thus forcibly delineates his external appearance, gives the following character of his genius. "As a painter, at least in his own country, he neither excelled in drawing, composition, colouring, nor effect. Like Hogarth, too, beauty, grace, and grandeur, of individual outline and form, or of style, constitute no part of his merit. He was no Corregio, Raphael, or Michael Angelo. He painted portraits as well as Hogarth, below the middle size; but they are void of all charms of elegance, and of the claro-obscuro, and are recommended by nothing but a strong homely resemblance. As an artist and a man of genius, his. characteristic talent lay in expression, in the imitation of nature with truth and humour, especially in the representation of ludicrous scenes in low life. His eye was ever on the watch for every eccentric figure, every motley group, or ridiculous incident, out of which his pencil or his needle could draw innocent entertainment and mirth.”

ALSTON, CHARLES, M.D. an eminent botanist, was born in 1683, in Lanarkshire, and spent his early years at Hamilton palace, under the patronage of the duchess of Hamilton. Her grace wished him to study the law, but he preferred botany and medicine, and accordingly, in 1716, set out for Leyden, where those sciences were at that time taught by the illustrious Boerhaave. Here he found a great number of young Scotsmen engaged in the same pursuit, and all inspired with an uncommon degree of enthusiam in their studies, which they had caught from their master. Alston, after taking his degree as doctor of physic, returned to his native country, and began to practise in Edinburgh. He obtained the sinecure office of king's botanist, through the influence of the duke of Hamilton, heritable keeper of Holyrood-house, to which the garden was attached. This garden he enriched by large collections which he had made in Holland, where botanical science was then more highly cultivated than in any other country in Europe. In 1720, notwithstanding that a botanical class was taught in the college by a professor of eminence named Preston, he began a course of lectures in the king's garden. Preston, at length waxing old, Alston was, in 1738, chosen to succeed him, as professor of botany and materia medica united. He was exceedingly laborious in his duties as a professor, giving a course on botany every summer, and one on materia medica every winter; and never sparing any pains which he thought could be conducive to the progress of his pupils. The celebrated Dr Fothergill, in his character of Dr Russell, bears ample testimony to the assiduity of Dr Alston, who had been his master; and describes in glowing language the benefit which those who attended him had the means of reaping, his caution in speculation, and how laborious he was in experiment. For the assistance of his pupils, he published, about 1740, an index of the plants demonstrated to them in the Edinburgh medical garden, Of Linnæus's system, which was first

promulgated in 1736, Dr Alston, like many other philosophers of his day, was a steady opponent. He published a paper against it in the first volume of Physical and Literary Essays, a miscellany which was commenced at Edinburgh, in 1751. The truth is, though something like the sexual system of Linnæus had occurred to the minds of former botanists, it came upon the world at last in too startling a state of completeness, to be readily received by men who had taught in the former way. The amour propre of teachers, leading them to shut their ears against new ideas, rather than confess their former ones inferior or erroneous, is one of the most grievous obstacles that new systems have to encounter. Dr Alston also. contributed some articles to an Edinburgh miscellany entitled, "Medical Essays;" the most important is one on opium. In 1753, he published an introduction to Dr Patrick Blair's Index Materia Medice, a work which resembled his own index in a considerable degree. This introduction was a separate work, and was entitled, Tyrocinium Botanicum Edinburgense. Dr Alston, as the contemporary of the first Monro, and professor of a kindred branch of science, was by no means unworthy of either his time or his place. He must be considered as one of those who have contributed to the exaltation of the college of Edinburgh, as a school of medical science. He died on the 22nd of Novem

ber, 1760, in the sixty-seventh year of his age.

ALVES, ROBERT, born at Elgin, in 1745, took his degrees in philosophy at Aberdeen, where he enjoyed the friendship of Dr Beattie, and afterwards, though designed for the church, settled parish-schoolmaster of Deskford. From this place he removed in 1773 to Banff, whence he migrated, in 1779, to Edinburgh, on account of a disappointment in love. In Edinburgh, he subsisted by teaching such private persons as chose to employ him, in the Greek, Roman, French, and Italian classics; like a true poet, he was not greatly solicitous about the means of subsistence. Mr Creech, in 1782, published a volume of miscellaneous poems by Alves; in 1789, appeared another, under the title of "Edinburgh, a Poem, in two parts, and the Weeping Bard, in sixteen cantos." They are said to contain striking traits of genius, though certainly the world has but slightly appreciated their merit. In 1784, Alves commenced a laborious work entitled, "Sketches of a History of Literature," which was in the press when he died, January 1st, 1794, and was afterwards published by Dr Alexander Chapman, at whose press it was printed for the intended benefit of the author. This work is miserably inaccurate in every particular, but nevertheless discovers an extensive acquaintance with ancient and modern learning.

ANDERSON, ADAM, author of the largest British compilation upon commercial history, was a native of Scotland, born about the year 1692. Having removed to London, he was for forty years a clerk in the South Sea house, and at length was appointed chief clerk of the Stock and New Annuities in that establishment, in which situation he continued till his death, He was appointed one of the trustees for establishing the colony of Georgia, by charter dated June 9th, 5 Geo. II. He was also one of the court of assistants of the Scots Corporation in London. In 1764, he published his work, entitled, "A Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce, from the earliest accounts to the present time; containing a history of the large commercial interests of the British Empire, &c.," Lond. 2 vols. folio. The elaborate character of this work, says much for the industry of the author. It was subsequently improved in a new edition by Mr David Macpherson, 4 vols. quarto; and a manual abridgment of the work may still be considered a desideratum in our literature. Mr Anderson died soon after he had given it to the world, January 10th, 1765, at the age of seventy-three. He was twice married, and by his first wife had one daughter, who died without children. His second wife, whose third husband he had