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ROBERT ANDERSON, M.D.

of his effects, of every kind, should be devoted to the establishment of an educational institution in Glasgow, to be denominated Anderson's University, for the use of the unacademical classes; so that, even while he was consigned to the silent dust, he might still, by means of his honourably acquired wealth, prove of service to those whom he had benefited so much, during his own life, by personal exertion. His will was carried into effect on the 9th of June following, by the magistrates granting a charter of incorporation to the proposed institution. According to the design of the founder, there were to be four colleges—for arts, medicine, law, and theology besides—an initiatory school. Each college was to consist of nine professors, the senior professor being the president or dean. As the funds, however, were inadequate to the plan, it was at first commenced with only a single course of lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry, by Dr Thomas Garnett, well known for his numerous scientific and medical works, and also for his "Tour through the Highlands and part of the Western Isles of Scotland." This course was attended for the first year by nearly a thousand persons of both sexes. In 1798, a professor of mathematics and geography was appointed. The splendid apparatus and library of the founder, which were valued at L.3000, added greatly to the advantages of the infant institution. In 1799, Dr Garnett, being appointed professor in the Royal Institution at London, was succeeded by the eminent Dr Birbeck, who, in addition to the branches taught by his predecessor, introduced a familiar system of philosophical and mechanical information to five hundred operative mechanics, free of all expense, thus giving rise to Mechanics' Institutions. The Andersonian institution was placed, by the will of the founder, under the inspection and control of the Lord Provost, and many other honourable persons, as ordinary visitors, and under the more immediate superintendence of eighty-one trustees, who are elected by ballot, and remain in office for life. Since the first establishment of the University, as it may very properly be called, it has gradually been extended, nearer and nearer to the original design of the founder. There are now. [1852] fifteen professors, who deliver lectures on surgery, institutes of medicine, chemistry, practical chemistry, midwifery, practice of medicine, anatomy, materia medica, pharmacy, and dietetics, medical jurisprudence and police, mathematics, natural philosophy, botany, logic, geography, modern languages, English literature, drawing, and painting, &c. The institution now possesses handsome and commodious buildings, which belong to the corporation, and, among other additions to its means of cultivating and illustrating science, is an extensive museum of natural history and antiquities. Anderson's University must be considered a wonderful example of the amount of good which one man, of no very great material resources, may do for his kind. The private fortune of one professor in the original college of Glasgow has here been found sufficient to produce a new fount of learning, not unworthy to rank with the old, and of very great practical utility to the public.

A posthumous work of professor Anderson, entitled, "Observations on Roman Antiquities between the Forth and Clyde," appeared in 1804.

ANDERSON, Robert, M.D. the biographer of Smollett and Johnson, was born on 7th of January, 1750, the son of a feuar in the rural village of Carnwath in Lanarkshire. He received the earlier part of his education in his native place, and in the adjacent village of Libberton; was subsequently placed under the tuition of Mr Robert Thomson, master of the grammar-school of Lanark; and finally studied in the university of Edinburgh, where he commenced attendance upon the divinity class, with the view of becoming a clergyman. He took the degree of M.D. at St. Andrews in 1778. In his early years, when pursuing his studies at Carnwath, he could find but one congenial mind in the whole of that rural district; this was an unfortunate youth, named James Graeme, the son of a neighbour, who, after exhibit-