Towns > Dundee > 1809-1912 - Dundee directory > 1853-1854

eminence. His grandfather was a mercliant in this town, and he, too^
was educated at our Grammar School. He represented the Forfar and
Fife Burghs in Parliament,- from 1762 to 1790, when he retired, and
devoted a useful life to the interests of his native county and the country
at large. He aided much in the establishment of the fisheries, which
have been so valuable to the country. He ranked among his acquain-
tance, William Eobertson, David Hume, Adam Ferguson, John Home,
the author of "Douglas," and Alex. Carlyle, minister of Musselburgh,
He died in 1818, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. John Willison,
D.D., flourished alsoat this time ; was an eminent minister of the Church
of Scotland ; the author of "The Afflicted Man's Companion" and several
practical and catechetical works. In the same century appeared Eobert
Small, D.D., author of "A Statistical Account of Dundee," and an Ex-
planation of the Astronomical Theories of Kepler, More recently have
appeared David Eussell, D.D., an eminent Congregationalist minister,
who has left a volume of excellent letters and sermons. Eobt. M'Cheyne
of St Peter's, an excellent young minister and Christian poet, who has
left a heavenly savour behind him, and several works of great merit ;
his " Mission to the Jews" having now gone through the thirty-fifth
thousand, and his " Familiar Letters, Eemains," &c,, the fortieth
thousand. William Gardner, the distinguished botanist, author of
" Flora of Forfarshire," and two works on Mosses. Montague Stanley,
an eminent artist, poet, and actor, who, on his mind undergoing a
serious change, abandoned the stage, and has left a volume of ex-
cellent poetry ; and Eobert Nicoll, author of a volume of " Lyrics and
Poems" of great merit, who some time resided here. To these must be
added our living eminent men, of whom, for very obvious reasons,
we must speak with greater caution. They are — James, Lord Ivory,
a native, one of the Lords of Session, raised to the bar in 1816r
and to the bench in 1840 ; John Campbell, D.D., the extensive
writer, and editor of the British Banner, a well-known London
paper, whose maternal parent is still living amongst us ; our gifted
George GilfiUan, the first critic of the age, and author of " Portrait
Galleries" in two volumes, " The Bards of the Bible," and "Martyrs,
Heroes, and Bards of the Scottish Covenants," yet in the vigour of life,
with a rich and powerful mind ; James E. M'Gavin, author of an ex-
cellent devotional work for seamen ; William Wilson, editor of" D'Foe's
History of the Church of Scotland " and of the " Free Church Pulpit;"
our worthy Provost, Patrick H. Thonis, editor of Moses Stewart of
Audover's " Letters on the Divinity of Christ," who executed his task so