370 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Dalrymple. Edinburgh, 1786 ; gratefully and affectionately
inscribed to Richard (Hurd), Bishop of
Worcester, 4t0, pp. 213. In flve Chapters.
Sketch of the Life of John Barclay, 4t0, 1786.
Sketch of the Life of John Hamilton, a Secular Priest,
Sketch of the Life of Sir Janies Ramsay, a General
Officer in the Armies of Gustavus Adolphus, King
of Sweden, with a head.
Life of George Lesley (an eminent Capuchin Friar in
the early part of the 17th century), 4t0, pp. 24.
Sketch of the Life of Mark Alexander Boyd, 4to.
Specimen of a Life of James Marquis of Montrosa
These lives were written and published an a speeimen
of the manner in which a Biographia Scotica
might be executed. With the exception of the last,
they have been reprinted in the Appendix to the
edition of his Annals printed in 1819.
4tO.
Davidis Humei, Scoti, summl apud suo8 philosophi,
de vita sua acta, liber aingularis ; nunc primum
Latin0 redditua. [Edin.] 1787, 4to.
Adami Smith!, LL.D., ad Gulielmum Strahanum
armigerum, de rebns novissimis Davidis Hurnei,
Epistola, nunc primum Latine redditta. [Edin.]
1768, 4tO.
The Opinions of Sarah, Duchess Dowager of Marlborough,
published from her original MSS. 1788,
12mo, pp. 120 (with a few Foot Notes by Lord
Hailes, in which he corrects the splenetic partiality
of her Grace)-a singularly curious
work.
The Address of Q. Sept. Tertullian to Scapula Tertullus,
proconsul of Africa, translated by Sir
David Dalrymple. Edin. 1790, 12mo. Inscribed
to Dr. John Butler, Bishop of Hereford. Preface,
pp. 4. Translation, pp. 18. Original, pp. 13.
Notes and Illustrations, pp. 135,
No. CXLVIII.
REV. DR. DAVID JOHNSTON,
MINISTER OF NORTH LEITH.
IT may be said of this excellent man, that he inherited the virtues of the clercial
character by descent. His father was minister of Amgask, in the county of
Fife, and his maternal grandfather, the Rev. Mr. David Williamson, of the parish
of St. Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh, was a celebrated clergyman in the days of the
persecution.’
His early years were sedulously
devoted to the study of those acquirements necessary for the important office
MR. DAVIDJ OHNSwTaOs bNor n in 1733.
1 51r. Williamson was the son of a respectable glover in St. Andrews. He was ordained to the
West Kirk in 1661. The re-establishment of Episcopacy took place two years afterwards ; but, in
defiance of an order of Council, issued in 1664, he continued to preach in his church till the year
following, when he WWJ compelled to abandon his charge. Ee then retired to the west country,
preaching to the people in the fields and at conventiclas. In 1687, on the Act of Toleration being
passed, Mr. Williamson returned to Edinburgh ; and waa so well received by his old parishioners,
that they erected a meeting-house for him, where they attended on his ministrations. The prelatists
of the West Kirk soon found themselves almost totally deserted by their congregation ; but their
hands being tied np by the Toleration Act, they secretly stirred up the civil magistrate against him
by false accusations, in consequence of which he was imprisoned, but subsequently liberated ; yet
the ~amep arty continued to harass him in various ways, until, by the Revolution, he was happily
restored to the parish church in 168,!3. It is to Mr. Williamson that the “Author of Waverley ”
alludes in the following couplet of an absurd old ballad, put into the mouth of a syren of the mob
aa old Deans and his daughter Jeanie are pressing through the crowd to the trial of Effie :-
‘‘Mess David Williamson, chosen of twenty,
Ran up the pupit stairs, and sang Eilliecrankic.”
He was seven times married-a circumstance which afforded a fund of merriment to the Jacobites.
See Scottish Paspils, vol. i. Edin. 12mo.