culated at Leipzig in the summer of 1613. Returning to England he was associated with Patrick Young in the translation into Latin of James I's English writings, and in 1618 was appointed Latin secretary to the king, an office which he retained until his death in 1624. He lived in habits of intimacy with the most distinguished men of his age, and ‘had hardly his match for largeness of knowledge of foreign courts.’ In 1620 he was, with his brother Alexander [q. v.], incorporated M.A. Oxon. Several of his poems appear in the ‘Delitiæ Poetarum Scotorum’ (Amsterdam, 1637).
It is, however, neither as a poet, nor as a diplomatist, nor as a metaphysician, that Reid is now remembered, but as the founder of the first public reference library in Scotland. By his will he bequeathed to the town and new college of Aberdeen his collection of books, and six thousand merks to endow a librarian who ‘sall hold the door of the librarie patent and oppin four dayes of the weeke the whole yeir.’ Reid's collection, which included ‘the fairest and largest editions of all the classics that were printed from the time of Aldus Manutius until the year 1615 … and many valuable and curious manuscripts,’ now forms an integral part of the library of the university of Aberdeen; but his endowment, which at first made the librarianship the best paid office in the college, was frittered away through the mismanagement of the town council, and now yields only about 12l. 10s. per annum. From 1733 to 1737 the librarianship was held by Reid's eminent kinsman and namesake, Thomas Reid (1710–1796) [q. v.], the philosopher.
An oil-painting of Reid, the property of the university of Aberdeen, has been reproduced in photogravure in the New Spalding Club's ‘Fasti Academiæ Mariscallanæ,’ and in stained glass in one of the windows of the Mitchell Hall, Marischal College.
Reid's chief works are:
- ‘De Accidente Proprio Theoremata Philosophica,’ Rostock, 1609.
- ‘Pervigilium Lunæ de Objecto Metaphysicæ,’ Rostock, 1609.
- ‘De Ente,’ Rostock, 1610.
- ‘De Proprietatibus Entis,’ Rostock, 1610.
- ‘De Veritate et Bonitate Entis,’ Rostock, 1610.
- ‘De Diversitate Entis,’ Rostock, 1610.
- ‘De Objecto Metaphysicæ Dissertatio Elenctica,’ Rostock, 1610.
- ‘Pervigilia Metaphysica Desideratissima,’ Rostock, 1616.
- ‘Dissertatio quod regibus et licitum et decorum sit scribere’ in Thomas Smith's ‘Vitæ,’ London, 1707.
[Aberdeen Town Council Minutes; Aberdeen University Buik of Register; Ayton's Epicedium in obitum Thomæ Rhædi; Blackwell's Account of Marischal College; Cal. State Papers (Dom.); Dempster's Historia Ecclesiastica; Devon's Issues of the Exchequer; Thomas Smith's Vitæ quorundam Eruditissimorum Virorum: William Smith's Academiæ Marischallanæ Mæcenates; Wood's Fasti Oxonienses; Franck's Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques; information kindly furnished by the librarian of the University of Rostock.]
REID, THOMAS (1710–1796), philosopher, born 26 April 1710, at Strachan, Kincardineshire, was the son of Lewis Reid (1676–1762), minister of the parish for fifty years. He was a descendant of James Reid, the first minister of Banchory Ternan after the Reformation, whose son and his son's grandson succeeded him as ministers of Banchory. Alexander and Thomas, also sons of James Reid, are separately noticed. Lewis Reid, grandson of the third minister of Banchory, married Margaret, daughter and one of twenty-nine children of David Gregory (1627–1720) [q. v.] She was niece of James Gregory (1638–1675) [q. v.] and sister of David Gregory (1661–1708) [q. v.], the Savilian professor, and of two other professors of mathematics at St. Andrews and Edinburgh. Thomas, son of Lewis and Margaret Reid, was educated at the parish school of Kincardine, and in 1722 became a student at Marischal College. He read philosophy for three years under George Turnbull, a writer upon ‘moral philosophy’ and ‘ancient painting,’ and was in the Greek class of Thomas Blackwell (1660?–1728) [q. v.]; Colin Maclaurin [q. v.] was professor of mathematics at the same time. The teaching, however, was superficial, and Reid showed industry rather than brilliance. He graduated in 1726. He then studied divinity, and was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Kincardine O'Neil on 22 Sept. 1731. He probably resided at his father's manse until, in 1733, he was appointed to the librarianship of Marischal College, endowed by his collateral ancestor, secretary Reid, and resided at the university until 1736. He formed a close friendship with John Stewart, afterwards professor of mathematics at Marischal College, which lasted till Stewart's death in 1766. In 1736 Reid resigned his librarianship, and travelled with Stewart to England. At Cambridge he saw Bentley and the blind mathematician, Saunderson, who is occasionally noticed in his writings. In 1737 he was presented by King's College, Aberdeen, to the living of New Machar, twelve miles from Aberdeen. Disputes as to patronage had made his parishioners so hostile that he is said to have
