498 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE LATE REV. DR CHALMERS. 



English, on the distinction between legal charity for the relief of indigence, and 

 legal charity for the relief of disease. At the annual commemoration of Oxford, 

 1st July 1835, he received the honorary degree of LL.D. In that ancient and 

 Episcopal seat of learning this degree was conferred upon the Presbyterian Pro- 

 fessor amidst enthusiastic acclamations, without one dissenting voice. His death 

 took place, 31st May 1847, at the age of G7 : He was buried, 4th June 1847. 



Of a life so long extended, and embracing so many subjects of active exertion, 

 it is evident such a paper as the present can include only a very abridged and 

 limited notice. It is not intended to embrace those points which belong to mere 

 personal and private biography, or to details of questions on which there existed 

 special and peculiar relation to his own religious communion. There is, I believe, 

 in preparation a fuD Life of Dr Chalmers, which wUl include a publication of his 

 ])rivate memoirs, of his correspondence, and other personal biographical expositions. 

 We have now to consider Dr Chaljieks as he came before the world, as he occu- 

 pied a distinguished place in the observation of mankind ; for his reputation was 

 not merely Scottish, or merely British, — it was European. In this view, then, I 

 think we may at once, for the sake of preserving something like method and order 

 in our remarks, consider his pubUc character under three heads : 



1. As an Author. 



2. As a Political Economist. 



3. As a Speaker. 



First, One thing strikes us at first approaching the subject of Dr Chalmers' 

 writings, and that is, the great industry which must have marked his literary la- 

 bours. When we look at the array of volvimes published during his lifetime ; when 

 we consider the manuscripts which he left behind ; and, in addition to all this, take 

 into account that these volumes were not written in the retired cloisters of a college, 

 or the quiet of a country parsonage, but that he wrote in the bustle of numerous en- 

 gagements, of meetings to be attended, of lectures and examinations for his classes, 

 of correspondence to be maintained, and perhaps, above all, amidst lavish encroach- 

 ments made upon his time by strangers ; we must be struck with his economy of 

 time, and with the perseverance of his mental efforts. How many might say of 

 him, as the Younger Pliny wrote of his uncle, the Elder Pliny, " Erat incredibile 

 studium summa vigilantia. Itaque soleo ridere, cum me quidam studiosum vocant ; 

 qui si comparer illi sum desidiosissimus."* Dr Chalmers was far fi-om being, in the 

 classical or scholastic sense of the term, a learned man, or a great scholar. His early 

 education, his habits, and pursuits through life, prevented it.f But it is a pleasing 



* Plin. Epist. iii. 5. 



t In his Lectures on the Romans, he makes no reference to an exegetical or critical view of the 

 passages, though in that Epistle there is a great temptation to do so. He takes the statements of 

 the Apostle in their broadest and most general acceptation. His mind did not rest on the niceties of 

 philological distinctions. 



