The late Dr. Thomas 'Thomson. 251 



detailed report of his various labours — and it was not until I had nearly 

 completed an enumeration of his publications, comprising as they do the 

 results of fifty years of a most active literary and scientific life, that I 

 found it necessary to circumscribe the undertaking. 



To draw up a Catalogue raisonne'e of such materials would not certainly 

 have been difficult. Nor would it have been difficult to compose an Moge 

 of their author, as is frequently done in such circumstances, by pointing 

 out passages in each writing, to illustrate his industry and his talent. 

 That course would be the most grateful, as it is at first sight the most 

 becoming in one who, like myself, has for many years enjoyed frequent 

 and friendly intercourse with him; and it might also be the safest for the 

 moment with a society which has so recently been deprived of an 

 honoured head. But this would be an unphilosophical use to make of 

 such accumulated results of industry, and in adopting it we should stray 

 very widely from the example our President has left us in the graphic 

 sketches which he drew of his predecessors and their works. There wo 

 find no symptom of that distemper with which biographers are so often 

 afflicted, termed by Macaulay " the Lues Boswelliana or disease of 

 admiration." Dr. Thomson was himself in little danger of yielding to the 

 temptation, in such cases, to exaggerate, and would have despised the weak- 

 ness which could lead into such a snare. 



Before speaking more particularly of his works, I think it right on this 

 occasion to give the Society a sketch of the personal history of Dr. 

 Thomson ; and along with what I myself know of his private life, I 

 shall make use of the chronological and other statements, and even of the 

 Sentences when they suit me, which appeared in the Literary Gazette, and 

 were thence copied into the Glasgow newspapers soon after his death. 

 They are evidently from the pen of Dr. R. D. Thomson. 



The subject of this memoir was the seventh child and the youngest 

 son of John Thomson and Elizabeth Ewan, and was born at Crieff on the 

 12th of April, 1773. His education commenced at the parish school of 

 Crieff, and in 1785 he was sent, for two years, to the borough school of 

 Stirling, presided over at that time by Dr. Doig. Here he acquired a 

 thorough classical education, and wrote a Latin Horatian poem, which 

 attracted fur him the attention of Professor M'Cormack of St. Andrews, 

 as well as of his uncle the Eev. John Ewan, minister of Whittingham 

 in East Lotbian. By their advice he went to St. Andrews in 1787, and 

 stood an examination in that University for a bursary which was open to 

 public competition. He carried the scholarship, and was thereby 

 entitled to board and lodging in the University for three years. 



In 1791 lie became tutor in the family of Mr. Kerr of Blackshicls. 

 At the end of 1795, being desirous of studying medicine, he went to 

 reside in Edinburgh with his elder brother, now the Kev. Dr. James 

 Thomson of the parish of Eccles, who had succeeded the late Bishop 

 Walker as colleague to Dr. Gleig in the editorship of the Encyelopa'dia 

 Brilannica. In the session 1795-9G he attended the chemistry class in 



