203 



ANDERSON, SIR. EDMUND. 



ANDERSON, JAMES, M.D., A.M. 



209 



tree, as cultivated at St. Vincent's. For these papers the gold medal 

 of the Society of Arts was awarded in 1802. Anderson died about 

 the year 1813. (Trans. Soc. of Arts, xvi. xx. ; Phil. Trans., 1789; 

 Callisen, Mediciniiches Schriftsteller Lexicon.) 



ANDERSON, SIR EDMUND, an eminent lawyer of the 16th 

 century, in the early part of which he was born at Broughton, or, as 

 other authorities state, at Hixborough, in Lincolnshire. His father, 

 Thomas Anderson, Esq., was a gentleman of good estate, and the 

 family was of Scotch descent Edmund, who was a younger son, 

 was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, after leaving which he 

 entered of the Inner Temple, and, having in due course been called to 

 the bar, passed through the usual promotions, until, in 1582, he was 

 made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. This high office he held 

 till his death, on the 1st of August, 1605. Chief Justice Anderson 

 was one of the ablest and most learned of Queen Elizabeth's judges; 

 but he was also one of the most rigid of the high prerogative lawyers 

 of that time. He particularly distinguished himself by the zeal 

 which he showed in favour of the Established Church, and the 

 unwise harshness with which he endeavoured to put down dissent. 

 He seems, by his severity, to have made himself unpopular and 

 odious with all parties. His printed works are, 'Reports of Cases 

 argued and adjudged in the time of Queen Elizabeth, in the Common 

 Bench,' folio, London, 1644 ; and ' Resolutions and Judgments on the 

 Cases and Matters agitated in all the Courts of Westminster, in the 

 latter end of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth,' 4to, London, 1653. Both 

 books are reckoned of great authority. Three families, descended 

 from this chief justice through two of his sons, received baronetcies 

 in the reigns of Charles I. and II.; and by his four daughters, who 

 lived to be married, he became the ancestor of the earls of Pontefract, 

 the Sheffields, dukes of Buckinghamshire, the earls of Warringtoi), 

 and the lords Monson. (Jiiugraphia B>~itannica.) 



ANDERSON, JAMES, was born at Edinburgh on the 5th of 

 August, 1662; his father, the Rev. Patrick Anderson, was one of the 

 ministers of that city. Having been educated for the law, he was 

 admitted a writer to the signet in 1690. In 1705 he made his first 

 appearance as an author by the publication of ' An Essay showing 

 that the Crown of Scotland is Imperial and Independent,' being an 

 un.-iwer to W. Atwood's tract, entitled the 'Superiority and direct 

 Dotniuion of the Imperial Crown and Kingdom of England over the 

 Crown and Kingdom of Scotland,' which had appeared the preceding 

 year. As the subject discussed was one in which the people of 

 Scotland at that moment took a warm interest, the parliament, 

 besides bestowing upon Anderson a pecuniary reward for his perform- 

 ance, ordered its thanks to be publicly returned to him by the lord 

 chancellor, in the presence of Her Majesty's high commissioner and 

 the estates; Atwood's book being at the same time ordered to be 

 burnt by the common hangman. Anderson was further honoured 

 by the commands of the parliament to collect and publish such 

 ancient documents as he might deem to be illustrative of the national 

 independence ; and an assurance was given that the coat of the under- 

 taking would be defrayed from the public treasury. He therefore 

 relinquished his profession. Soon after the Union, Anderson removed 

 to London, where for many years his time was divided between the 

 labours of completing his project, and a series of unsuccessful efforts 

 to get his claims attended to by government. In Lockhart's 'Memoirs,' 

 i. 371, the following curious illustration is given of the disappointments 

 he was subject to : " This gentleman, by hia application to the sub- 

 ject of antiquities, having neglected his other affairs, and having in 

 search after ancient records come to London, almost all the Scots 

 nobility and gentry of note recommended him as a person that highlie 

 deserved to have some beneficial! post bestowed upon him ; nay, the 

 queen herself (to whom he had been introduced, and who took great 

 pleasure in viewing the fine sealls and charters of the ancient records 

 he had collected), told my Lord Oxford she desired something might 

 be done for him, to all which his lordship's usuall answer was, that 

 ther was uo need of pressing him to take care of that gentleman, for 

 he was thte man he designed, out of regard to his great knowledge, to 

 distinguish in a particular manner. Mr. Anderson being thus put off 

 from time to time for fourteen or fifteen months, his lordship at 

 length told him that no doubt he had heard that in his fine library he 

 had a collection of the pictures of the learned, both ancient and 

 modern, and as he knew none who better deserved a place there than 

 Mr. Anderson he begged the favour of his picture. As Mr. Anderson 

 took this for a high mark of the treasurer's esteem and a sure presage 

 of his future favours, away he went and got his picture drawn by one 

 ot the best hands in London, which being presented was graciously 

 received (and perhaps got its place in the library), but nothing ever 

 more appeared of his lordship's favour to this gentleman, who, having 

 thus hung on and depended for a long time, at length gave himself no 

 furder trouble in trusting to or expecting any favour from him ; from 

 whence when any one was asked what place such and such a person 

 was to get, the common reply was, a place in the treasurer's library." 



While the great object of Anderson's life remained uncompleted, he 

 wai enabled to publish ' Collections relating to the History of Mary, 

 Queen of Scotland,' 4 Tola., 4to, 1724-1728 a collection of documents 

 well knov-n to those who study the history of the period. Anderson 

 did in 1728. The editing of his great work was entrusted to Thomas 

 Kuddiman, the learned grammarian ; and it at length appeared at 



Edinburgh in 1739, in the form of a magnificent folio, with the title 

 of ' Selectus Diplomatum et Numismatum Scotise Thesaurus.' An 

 elaborate preface was prefixed by Ruddiman. Anderson held the 

 situation of postmaster-general for Scotland from 1716 to 1717. 



ANDERSON, JAMES, LL.D., a writer on political economy, agri- 

 culture, and natural science, and one of the founders of the Scotch 

 system of husbandry, was born in 1739, at the village of Hermiston, 

 in the vicinity of Edinburgh. He lost his parents in early life, and at 

 the age of 15 took on himself the management of a farm which the 

 family had cultivated for several generations. At the early age at 

 which he commenced practical farming, he began to perceive the 

 utility of a knowledge of chemistry to the agriculturist, avid he some- 

 what surprised Dr. Cullen with the novel spectacle of a young farmer 

 attending the chemistry class in the University of Edinburgh, with a 

 view to the pursuit of his profession. He was a very young inau when 

 he introduced among the Mid Lothian farmers the use of the small 

 two-horse plough without wheels, now commonly known by the name 

 of the Scotch plough. The use of this instrument is perhaps the 

 most conspicuous single element in the superiority of the agriculture 

 of Scotland. In 1763 he left his native place, and settled in Aber- 

 deenshire, on a farm called Moukshill, consisting of 1300 acres of land 

 almost wholly in a wild state. It was while residing here that he 

 made his first attempt as a public writer iu a series of essays on 

 Planting, which he contributed in 1771 to the ' Edinburgh Weekly 

 Magazine,' under the signature of Agrieola. These essays he collected 

 and published in 1777. From this time both his communications to 

 periodical works and his separate publications were very frequent. In 

 1780 the degree of Doctor of Laws was bestowed upon him by the 

 University of Aberdeen. Three years after he removed to Edinburgh. 

 In 1784, in consequence of a pamphlet which he had printed on the 

 ' Encouragement of the National Fisheries," a subject which he had 

 some years before discussed at greater length in a quarto volume, he 

 was employed by government to make a survey of the western coast 

 of Scotland, with a reference especially to that object. Iu 1791 he 

 commenced the publication of the ' Bee,' a periodical which continued 

 to appear till 1794. In 1797 Dr. Anderson took up Ms residence in 

 the neighbourhood of London; and, in April 1799, established a 

 periodical under the title of ' Recreations iu Agriculture,' which was 

 continued till March, 1802. Dr. Anderson died on the 15th of 

 October, 1808, having been for some years before much broken down 

 through the effects of the intense literary labour of many years. The 

 list of his numerous publications attests the remarkable activity of his 

 mind; and most of his writings evince great fulness of thought, 

 varied information, and some of them no slight degree of ingenuity 

 and originality. The most valuable papers in the ' Recreations ' were 

 contributed by himself. The work has lately attracted considerable 

 attention from the circumstance that the doctrine as to the origin of 

 rent, afterwards promulgated by Malthus, West, and Ricardo, had 

 been there fully developed by Anderson. The exposition is contained 

 in an essay called ' A Comparative View of the Effects of Rent and of 

 Tythe in influencing the Price of Corn,' contained in the 30th num- 

 ber of the ' Recreations,' v. 401-428. In this essay, the principle that 

 the portion of the value of the produce of laud which goes to the 

 proprietor in the form of rent, consists of the difference between the 

 cost of raising produce on the more fruitful, and that of raising it on 

 the less fruitful soils brought iuto cultivation, is clearly laid down, 

 with a precision which no later political economist has surpassed. 

 Anderson had promulgated the same theory at an earlier date iu a 

 tract now very rare, published by him in 1777, called ' An Inquiry 

 into the Nature of the Corn Lawa, with a View to the Corn Bill pro- 

 posed for Scotland.' The passage containing this explanation of the 

 theory is printed by Mr. M'Culloeh in his edition of Smith. There 

 can be no question also that to the zeal and labours of Dr. Anderson 

 was greatly owing the increased attention to the subject of agricul- 

 ture which grew up after he began to write. His writings consist of 

 between twenty and thirty separate works, besides numerous con- 

 tributions to the ' Encyclopaedia Britauuica,' the ' Mouthly Review,' 

 and other periodicals, together with several tracts upon subjects of 

 temporary interest. 



ANDERSON, JAMES, M.D. and A.M., physician-general of the 

 East India Company's army at Madras. The exact date of his birth 

 and death are not known. He was distinguished for the zeal and 

 ability with which he laboured for the purpose of increasing the pro- 

 ductive resources of the British possessions in Hindustan. His first 

 published work on this subject was a series of fourteen letters to Sir 

 Joseph Banks, who was then president of the Royal Society, on the 

 subject of the cochineal insect, which Dr. Anderson had discovered at 

 Madras. These letters were published at Madras in 1787, 8vo. 



The cultivation of the mulberry-tree for the purpose of rearing 

 silk-worms, Dr. Anderson prosecuted with great diligence, and had the 

 satisfaction of seeing his suggestions acted on with great vigour in 

 various districts of the Madras presidency. In his published corre- 

 spondence he treats ou the introduction and cultivation of plants 

 which yield articles of commerce adapted to the climate and soil 

 of the various districts of Hindustan, and more particularly those of 

 the Madras presidency. Amongst the principal of these may be men- 

 tioned the sugar-cane, the coffee-plant, American cotton, and the 

 European apple. 



