Volume 1 > Half-Volume 1

26
Kewensis, 3 vols. 8vo, with a number of plates. In
this production Mr. Aiton gave an account of no
fewer than 5600 foreign plants, which had been intro-
duced from time to time into the English gardens;
and so highly was the work esteemed, that the whole
impression was sold within two years. A second
and improved edition was published by his son,
William Townsend Aiton, in 1810. After a life of
singular activity and usefulness, distinguished more-
over by all the domestic virtues, Mr. Aiton died on
the 1st of February, 1793, of a schirrus in the liver,
in the sixty-third year of his age. He lies buried in
the churchyard at Kew, near the graves of his distin-
guished friends, Zoffany, Meyer, and Gainsborough.
He was succeeded by his son, Mr. William Town-
send Aiton, who was no less esteemed by George
III. than his father had been, and who for fifty
years ably superintended the botanical department
at Kew, besides taking charge of the extensive
pleasure-grounds, and being employed in the im-
provement of the other royal gardens. In 1841 he
retired from office, when Sir William J. Hooker
was appointed director of the botanic gardens. Mr.
Aiton died at Kew in 1849, aged eighty-four.
ALES, or ALESSE, ALEXANDER, a celebrated
theologian of the sixteenth century, was born at
Edinburgh, April 23, 1500. He is first found in the
situation of a canon in the cathedral of St. Andrews,
where he distinguished himself by entering into the
prevalent controversy of the day against Luther.
His zeal for the Roman Catholic religion was stag-
gered by the martyrdom of Patrick Hamilton; but
it is not probable that his doubts would have been
carried further, if he had not suffered persecution for
the slight degree of scepticism already manifested.
Being obliged to flee from St. Andrews, he retired
to Germany, where he became a thorough convert
to the Protestant doctrines. The reformation in
England induced Ales to go to London, in 1535,
where he was highly esteemed by Cranmer, Latimer,
and Cromwell, who were at that time in favour
with the king. Henry regarded him also with
favour, and used to call him "his scholar." Upon
the fall of Cromwell, he was obliged to return to
Germany, where the Elector of Brandenburg ap-
pointed him professor of divinity at Frankfort-upon-
the-Oder, in 1540. As a reformer Ales did not
always maintain the most orthodox doctrines; hence
he was obliged, in 1542, to flee from his chair at
Frankfort, and betake himself to Leipsic. He spent
the remainder of his life in that city, as professor of
divinity, and died in 1565. His works are:�I.
De Necessitate et Merita Bonorum Operum, Dispiitatio
Proposita in Celebri Academia Leipsica, ad 29 Nov.
1580. 2. Commentarii in Evangeliiim Joannis, et in
utramque Epistolam ad Timotheum. 3. Expositio in
Psalmos Davidis. 4. De Justificatione, contra Os-
candrum. 5. De Sancta Trinitate, cum Confutatione
Erroris Valentini. 6. Responsio ad triginta et duos
Articulos Theologorum Lovaniensium. The fifth in
this list is the most favourable specimen of his
abilities.
ALEXANDER, WILLIAM, an eminent noble-
man, statesman, and poet of the reign of James VI.
and Charles I. The original rank of this personage
was that of a small landed proprietor or laird; but he
was elevated, by dint of his various accomplishments,
and through the favour of the two sovereigns above-
mentioned, to the rank of an earl. His family,
which possessed the small estate of Menstrie, near
Stirling, is said to have derived the name Alexander
from the prenomen of their ancestor, Alexander
Macdonald, a Highlander who had been settled in
this property by the Earl of Argyle, whose resi-
dence of Castle Campbell is in the neighbourhood.
William Alexander is supposed to have first seen the
light in 1580. He received from his friends the best
education which the time and place could afford, and
at a very early age he accompanied the young Earl
of Argyle upon his foreign travels, in the capacity
of tutor. Previous to this period, when only fifteen
years of age, he had been smitten with the charms
of some country beauty, "the cynosure of neighbour-
ing eyes;" on his return from the Continent he wrote
no fewer than a hundred sonnets, as a ventilation to
the fervours of his breast; but all his poetry was
in vain, so far as the lady was concerned. She
thought of matrimony, while he thought of love, and
accordingly, on being solicited by a more aged
suitor, in other respects eligible, she did not scruple
to accept his hand. The poet took a more sensible
way of consoling himself for this disappointment
than might have been expected; he married another
lady, the daughter and heiress of Sir William Erskine.
His century of sonnets was published in London in
1604, under the title of Aurora, containing the
First Fancies of the Atithor's Youth, by W. Alex-
ander, of Menstrie. He had early been introduced
to royal notice; and when James removed to London,
in 1603, the poet did not remain long behind, but
soon became a dependant upon the English court.
In this situation, however, he did not, like most
court poets of that age, employ his pen in the adula-
tion of majesty; his works breathe a very different
strain: he descanted on the vanity of grandeur, the
value of truth, the abuse of power, and the burden
of riches; and his moralizings assumed the strange
shape of tragedies�compositions not at all designed
for the stage, but intended to embody his sentiments
upon such subjects as those we have mentioned.
His first tragedy was grounded upon the story of
Darius, and appeared at Edinburgh in 1603. He
afterwards republished it at London, in 1607, along
with similar compositions upon the stories of Alex-
ander, Croesus, and Csesar, under the title of Man-
archick Tragedies, by William Alexander, gentleman
of the Princes' Privy Chamber. It would thus ap-
pear that he had now obtained a place in the house-
hold of Prince Henry; to whom he had previously
addressed a poem or parsenesis, designed to show
how the happiness of a sovereign depends upon his
choice of worthy councillors. This poem, of which
no copy of the original edition is known to exist,
except one in the university library at Edinburgh,
was, after the death of Henry, addressed to Prince
Charles, who then became heir-apparent; an economy
in poetical, not to speak of court business which
cannot be sufficiently admired. He was, in 1613,
appointed one of the gentlemen ushers of the
presence to this unfortunate prince.
King James is said to have been a warm admirer
of the poems of Alexander, to have honoured him
with his conversation, and called him "my philo-
sophical poet." He was now aspiring to the still
more honourable character of a divine poet, for
in 1614, appeared at Edinburgh his largest and
perhaps his most meritorious production, entitled
Doomsday, or the Great Day of Judgment, which has
been several times reprinted.
Hitherto the career of Alexander had been chiefly
that of a poet: it was henceforth entirely that of a
courtier. In 1614 he was knighted by King James,
and appointed to the situation of master of requests.
In 1621 the king gave him a grant by his royal deed
of the province of Nova Scotia, which as yet had
not been colonized. Alexander designed at first to