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In 1809 he edited Bolingbroke's works, in eight
volumes octavo. During this year, and the intervals
of several that followed, he contributed many of the
lives contained in that splendid work, the British
Gallery of Contemporary Portraits.
In 1810 he revised an enlarged edition of The
Works of the English Poets from Chaucer to Cowper,
and prefixed to it several biographical notices omitted
in the first collection. During the same year he
published A History of the Colleges, Halls, and Public
Buildings attacked to the University of Oxford. This
work he intended to continue, but did not com-
plete it.
In 1811 he revised Bishop Hurd's edition of
Addison's works, in six volumes octavo, and an
edition of Pope's works, in eight volumes octavo.
During the same year he published, with many
alterations, The Projector, in three volumes octavo,
a collection of original articles which he had con-
tributed to the Gentleman's Magazine from the year
1802 to 1809.
In 1812 he prefixed a "Life of Alexander Cruden"
to a new edition of Cruden's Concordance.
During the last-mentioned year, also, Chalmers
commenced the largest and most voluminous of all
his literary labours, and the work upon which his
reputation chiefly rests. This was " The General
Biographical Dictionary, containing an historical and
critical account of the lives and writings of the most
eminent men in every nation, particularly the British
and Irish; from the earliest accounts to the present
times." The original work, published in 1798, had
consisted of fifteen volumes. Large though it was,
Chalmers found it incomplete, and resolved to ex-
pand it into a full and perfect work. He therefore
commenced this gigantic labour in May, 1812, and
continued to publish a volume every alternate month
for four years and ten months, until thirty-two
volumes were successively laid before the public.
The amount of toil undergone during this period
may be surmised from the fact, that of the nine thou-
sand and odd articles which the Dictionary contains,
3934 were entirely his own production, 2176 were
re-written by him, and the rest revised and corrected.
After these toils, it might have been supposed that
the veteran editor and author would have left the
field to younger men. He had now reached the age
of fifty-seven, and had crowded that period with an
amount of literary exertion such as might well indi-
cate the full occupation of every day, and every hour
of the day. But no sooner was the last volume of
the Biographical Dictionary ended, than he was
again at work, as if he had entered freshly into
action; and from 1816 to 1823 a series of publica-
tions was issued from the press that had passed under
his editorial pen, chiefly consisting of biographies.
But at last the "pitcher was broken at the fountain,
and the wheel broken at the cistern." During the
latter years of his life, he had been employed by the
booksellers to revise and enlarge his Biographical
Dictionary, and upon this he had continued to em-
ploy himself until about a third of the work was
finished, when the breaking up of his constitution
obliged him to lay aside his well-worn pen. His
last years were years of suffering, arising chiefly from
diseases incident to such a sedentary life, until he
sank under an attack of bronchial inflammation.
His death occurred in Throgmorton Street, London,
on the loth of December, 1834, in his seventy-sixth
year. His wife had died eighteen years previous,
and his remains were interred in the same vault with
hers, in the church of St. Bartholomew, near the
Royal Exchange.
In the foregoing summary we have omitted the
mention of not a few of Chalmers' less essential
literary performances, conceiving the list to be al-
ready long enough to give an idea of his character
and well-spent life. We can only add, that his char-
acter was such as to endear him to the literary
society with whom he largely mingled, and by whom
his acquaintance was eagerly sought. He was what
Dr. Johnson would have termed "a good clubbable
man," and was a member of many learned societies
during half a century, as well as the affectionate
biographer of many of his companions who had been
wont to assemble there. He was charitable almost
to a fault�a rare excess with those in whom a con-
tinued life of toil is too often accompanied with an
undue love of money, and unwillingness to part with
it. He was also in his private life an illustration of
that Christian faith and those Christian virtues which
his literary exertions had never failed to recommend.
CHALMERS, GEORGE, an eminent antiquary
and general writer, was born in the latter part of
the year 1742, at Fochabers, in Banffshire, being
a younger son of the family of Pittensear, in that
county. He was educated, first at the grammar-
school of Fochabers, and afterwards at King's
College, Aberdeen, where he had for his preceptor
the celebrated Dr. Reid, author of the Inquiry into
the Human Mind. Having studied law at Edin-
burgh, Mr. Chalmers removed, in his twenty-first
year (1763) to America, as companion to his uncle,
who was proceeding thither for the purpose of re-
covering some property in Maryland. Being induced
to settle as a lawyer in Baltimore, he soon acquired
considerable practice, and, when the celebrated ques-
tion arose respecting the payment of tithes to the
church, he appeared on behalf of the clergy, and
argued their cause with great ability against Mr.
Patrick Hendry, who subsequently became so con-
spicuous in the war of independence. He was not
only defeated in this cause, but was obliged, as a
marked royalist, to withdraw from the country. In
England, to which he repaired in 1775, his sufferings
as a loyalist at last recommended him to the govern-
ment, and he was in 1786 appointed to the respectable
situation of clerk to the Board of Trade. The duties
of this office he continued to execute with diligence
and ability for the remainder of his life, a period of
thirty-nine years.
Before and after his appointment, he distinguished
himself by the composition of various elaborate and
useful works, of which, as well as of all his subse-
quent writings, the following is a correct chrono-
logical list:�I. The Political Annals of the Present
United Colonies, from their Settlement to the Peace
of 1763, of which the first volume appeared in
quarto, in 1780: the second was never published.
2. Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great
Britain, during the present and four preceding reigns,
1782. 3. Opinions on interesting subjects of Public
Law and Commercial Policy; arising from American
Independence, 1784, 8vo. 4. Life of Daniel Defoe,
prefixed to an edition of the History of the Union,
London, 1786; and of Robinson Crusoe, 1790.
5. Life of Sir John Davies, prefixed to his Historical
Tracts regarding Ireland, 1786, 8vo. 6. Collection
of Treaties between Great Britain and other powers,
1790, 2 vols. 8vo. 7. Life of Thomas Paine, 1793,
8vo. 8. Life of Thomas Ruddiman, A.M., 1794,
8vo. 9. Prefatory Introduction to Dr. Johnson's
Debates in Parliament, 1794, 8vo. 10. Vindication
of the Privilege of the People in respect to the con-
stitutional right of free discussion; with a retrospect
of various proceedings relative to the Violation of
that right, 1796, 8vo. (An Anonymous Pamphlet.)