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to the General Pacification in 1783. 7. The History
of England from the Beginning of the Reign of George
III to the Conclusion of the American War. In the
composition of the last of these works he was en-
gaged at the time of his death. It was to be com-
prised in three volumes 8vo, for the copyright of
which Mr. Cadell had stipulated to pay �750.
"Dr. Russell," says one who knew him,1 "with-
out exhibiting the graces of polished life, was an
agreeable companion, and possessed a considerable
fund of general knowledge, and a zeal for literature
and genius which approached to enthusiasm. In
all his undertakings he was strictly honourable, and
deserved the confidence reposed in him by his em-
ployers."
RUTHERFORD, JOHN, a learned physician of
the eighteenth century, was the son of the Rev. Mr.
Rutherford, minister of the parish of Yarrow in Sel-
kirkshire, and was born August I, 1695. After
going through a classical course at the school of
Selkirk, and studying mathematics and natural
philosophy at the Edinburgh university, he engaged
himself as apprentice to a surgeon in that city, with
whom he remained till 1716, when he went to
London. He there attended the hospitals, and the
lectures of Dr. Douglas on anatomy, Audr� on
surgery, and Strother on materia medica. He after-
wards studied at Leyden under Boerhaave, and at
Paris and Rheims; receiving from the university of
the latter city his degree of M.D. in July, 1719.
Having in 1721 settled as a physician in Edin-
burgh, Dr. Rutherford was one of that fraternity of
able and distinguished men�consisting, besides, of
Monro, Sinclair, Plummer, and Innes�who estab-
lished the medical school which still flourishes in
the Scottish capital. Monro had been lecturing on
anatomy for a few years, when, in 1725, the other
gentlemen above-mentioned began to give lectures
on the other departments of medical science. When
the professorships were finally adjusted on the death
of Dr. Innes, the chair of the practice of medicine
fell to the share of Dr. Rutherford. He continued
in that honourable station till the year 1765, deliver-
ing his lectures always in Latin, of which language
it is said he had a greater command than of his own.
About the year 1748 he began the system of clinical
lectures; a most important improvement in the
medical course of the university. After retiring, in
1765, from his professional duties, Dr. Rutherford
lived, highly respected by all the eminent physicians
who had been his pupils, till 1779, when he died in
the eighty-fourth year of his age. This venerable
person, by his daughter Anne Rutherford, was the
grandfather of that eminent ornament of modern
literature, Sir Walter Scott.
RUTHERFORD, SAMUEL, a celebrated divine,
was born about the year 1600, in the parish of
Nisbet (now annexed to Crailing), in Roxburghshire,
where his parents seem to have been engaged in
agricultural pursuits. The locality and circumstances
of his early education are unknown. He entered in
1617 as a student at the university of Edinburgh,
where he took his degree of Master of Arts in 1621.
Nothing has been recorded of the rank he held, or
the appearances he made as a student, but they must
have been at least respectable; for at the end of two
years we find him elected one of the regents of the
college. On this occasion he had three competitors;
one of them of the same standing with himself, and
1 Mr. Alexander Chalmers, in his General Biographical
Dictionary�-art. "William Russell."
two of them older. Of these, Mr. Will, a master
of the high-school, according to Crawford in his
history of the university, "pleased the judges best,
for his experience and actual knowledge; yet the
whole regents, out of their particular knowledge of
Mr. Samuel Rutherford, demonstrated to them his
eminent abilities of mind and virtuous dispositions,
wherewith the judges being satisfied, declared him
successor in the profession of humanity." How he
acted in this situation we have not been told; nor
did he continue long enough to make his qualifica-
tions generally apparent, being forced to demit his
charge, as asserted by Crawford, on account of some
scandal in his marriage, towards the end of the year
1625, only two years after he had entered upon it.
What that scandal in his marriage was has never
been explained; but it is presumed to have been
trifling, as it weighed so little in the estimation of
the town-council of Edinburgh, the patrons of the
university, that they granted him "ane honest gra-
tification at his demission;" and at a subsequent
period, in conjunction with the presbytery, warmly
solicited him to become one of the ministers of the
city, particularly with a view to bis being appointed
to the divinity chair in the university, so soon as a
vacancy should take place; and they were disap-
pointed in their views with regard to him, only by
the voice of the General Assembly of the church,
which appointed him to St. Andrews. Relieved
from the duty of teaching others, Mr. Rutherford
seems now to have devoted himself to the study of
divinity under Mr. Andrew Ramsay, whose prelec-
tions, it is not improbable, he frequented during the
time he acted as a regent in teaching humanity.
Theology, indeed, in those days, was conjoined with
every part of education. This was particularly the
case in the college of Edinburgh, where the princi-
pal, every Wednesday at three o'clock, delivered a
lecture upon a theological subject to the whole of
the students, assembled in the common hall. The
students were also regularly assembled every Sunday
morning in their several class-rooms, along with
their regents, where they were employed in reading
the Scriptures; after which they attended with their
regents the public services of religion; returned again
to the college, and gave an analysis of the sermons
they had heard, and of the portion of Scripture they
had read in the morning. By these means their
biblical knowledge kept pace with their other ac-
quirements, and they were insensibly trained to
habits of seriousness and devotion. In this manner
were all our early reformers educated; and though
they spent less time in the theological class, properly
so called, than is generally done in modern times,
judging by the effects that followed their administra-
tions, as well as by the specimens of their works
that yet remain, they were not less qualified for their
work than any of those who have succeeded them.
When, or by whom, Mr. Rutherford was licensed to
preach the gospel has not been recorded; but in the
year 1627 he was settled pastor of the parish of An-
woth, in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright. Anwoth,
before the Reformation, had been a dependency on
the monastery of St. Mary's Isle; but was united
quoad sacra to Kirkdale and Kirkmabreck, and the
three parishes were under the ministry of one clergy-
man. In consequence of "this most inconvenient
union," the people of Anwoth had sermon only
every alternate Sabbath. It was now, however,
disjoined from the other parishes, and a place of
worship had been newly built for their accommoda-
tion; which, though the parish has erected a modern
and more elegant church, is still preserved, and re-
garded, for the sake of the first occupant, the subject