Ged, his son and former partner, engaged in the insurrection of 1745, as a captain in the duke of Perth's regiment, and being taken at Carlisle, was condemned, but, on his father's account, by Dr Smith's interest with the duke of Newcastle, was released in 1745. He afterwards went to Jamaica, where he settled, and where his brother William was already established as a printer. William Ged, the inventor of an art which has been of incalculable advantage to mankind, experienced what has been the fate of too many ingenious and useful men; he died, October 19, 1749, in very indifferent circumstances, after
his utensils had been shipped at Leith for London, where he intended to renew partnership with his son James. The Misses Ged, his daughters, lived many years after in Edinburgh, where they kept a school for young ladies, and were much patronized by the Jacobite gentry.[1] Another member of the family, by name Dougal, was a captain in the town guard, or military police, of Edinburgh, in the days of Fergusson the poet.
GEDDES, Alexander, celebrated as a poet, a critic, and miscellaneous writer, was born at Arradowl, in the parish of Ruthven, Banffshire, in the year 1737. His father, Alexander Geddes, rented a small farm on the Arradowl estate, and, in common with that class of people in Scotland at that time, was in very poor circumstances. His mother was of the Mitchells of Dellachy, in the neighbouring parish of Bellay, and both were of the Roman catholic persuasion. The parents being anxious to procure for their son the benefits of learning, he was, with a view to the service of the church, at a very tender age, put to learn his letters under a woman who kept a school in the village, of the name of Sellar. Here he learned to read the English Bible, which seems to have been the only book his parents possessed, and which, contrary to the general practice of people of their communion, they encouraged him "to read with reverence and attention." In perusing this book, young Geddes took a singular delight, and, by the time he was eleven years of age, had got the historical parts of it nearly by heart. At this period the laird of Arradowl having engaged a tutor of the name of Shearer, from Aberdeen, for his two sons, was looking about him for three boys of promising parts, whom he might educate gratuitously along with them, and who might afterwards be devoted to the service of the church. Young Geddes, already celebrated for his talents, and for his love of study, immediately attracted his notice, and, along with a cousin of his own, John Geddes, who afterwards became titular bishop of Dunkeld, and another boy, was taken into the house of Arradowl, where he enjoyed all the advantages peculiar to the laird's superior situation in life, and, we may reasonably suppose, though we have not seen it noticed, that his improvement was correspondent to his privilege. From the hospitable mansion of Arradowl, he was, by the influence of the laird himself, admitted into the Catholic free seminary of Sculan, a seminary intended solely for young men who were to be afterwards sent abroad to receive holy orders in some of the foreign universities. No situation was ever better chosen for the educating of monks than Sculan, standing in a dismal glen, overhung with mountains on all sides, so high as to preclude the sun from being seen for many months in the year. "Pray, be so kind," said Geddes, writing from that dreary spot, to one of his fellow students, who had obtained leave to visit his friends, "as to make particular inquiries after the health of the sun. Fail not to present my compliments to him, and tell him I still hope I shall one day be able to renew the honour of
- ↑ Among the curiosities preserved in Fingask castle, Perthshire, the seat of Sir Petnr Murray Threipland, Bart., is a page of the stereotypes of Ged's Sallust, which had probably been obtained from the inventor or his family by the late Sir Stewart Threipland, who was a distinguished partisan of the family of Stuart.
