Latin, both prose and verse, whatever purpose or theme concerning the common affairs of the burgh, either at home or afield, that he shall be required by any of the magistrates or clerks.’ From a passage in the ‘Diary of Alexander Jaffray’ (3rd edit. p. 42) it appears that Wedderburn continued in his place as master of the grammar school along with the professorial charge in the college. But in 1624 the town council ordered him to resign his class in the college, and to confine his attention to the grammar school. In 1628 he obtained an assistant in the grammar school, and in the following year his stipend was increased by eighty merks (Records of Burgh of Aberdeen, 1625–42, pp. 19, 20, Burgh Records Soc. edit.) On 14 Aug. 1620 he had been admitted a burgess of Aberdeen ‘in right of his father,’ but on 20 May 1632 he was made an honorary burgess of Dundee in recognition of his learning and skill ‘in erudiendo juventutem.’ In 1630 he completed a new grammar for the use of young scholars, for which he received the reward of a hundred lib. Scots from the town council of Aberdeen. He was sent specially to Edinburgh that the license of the privy council might be obtained for the printing of this work. The register of the privy council contains several entries in regard to this book in 1630–2, and the matter came before parliament in June 1633, when he presented a petition that his ‘short and facile grammar’ might be the only one taught in the schools of this country (Wedderburn Book, vol. ii.; Acts of Parl. of Scot.) The infirmities of age compelled Wedderburn to resign his office as master of the grammar school in 1640. His death took place either in February or October 1646, and he was buried ‘gratis’ in the church of St. Nicholas, Aberdeen. He was twice married: in April 1611 to Janet Johnstone, by whom he had issue one son; and in October 1614 to Bathia Mowat, by whom he had two sons and five daughters.
When James VI visited Scotland in 1617 Wedderburn was engaged by the town council of Aberdeen to write a Latin welcome, and the two poems which he composed—‘Syneuphranterion in Reditu Regis’ and ‘Propempticon Caritatum Abredonensium’—were afterwards published in Sir John Scot's ‘Delitiæ Poetarum Scotorum.’ These are usually referred to as Wedderburn's first publications; but in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, there is a copy of a Latin poem on the death of Prince Henry, also included in the ‘Delitiæ,’ which was printed by Andro Hart in 1613, under the title ‘In Obitu summæ Spei Principis Henrici, Jacobi VI Regis filii primogeniti, Lessus,’ by ‘David Wedderburnus, Scholæ Abredonensis Moderator.’ In 1625 he wrote a Latin poem on the death of James VI, which was printed by Edward Raban [q. v.] of Aberdeen, with the title ‘Abredonia atrata sub Obitum serenissimi et potentissimi Monarchæ Jacobi VI,’ a work now very scarce. One of his most esteemed friends was Arthur Johnston [q. v.], who wrote one of his finest Latin poems on Wedderburn, to which he replied in a similar strain. When Johnston died in 1641, Wedderburn published six Latin elegies upon his friend, under the title ‘Sub Obitum Viri clarissimi et carissimi D. Arturi Johnstoni, Medici regii, Davidis Wedderburni Suspiria.’ These poems were included in Lauder's ‘Poetarum Scotorum Musæ sacræ,’ published in 1731. In 1643 Wedderburn published at Aberdeen ‘Meditationum campestrium, seu Epigrammatum moralium, Centuriæ duæ;’ and in 1644 he issued a similar work, ‘Centuria tertia,’ which also was printed by Edward Raban. Another of his elegiac compositions was his contribution to the ‘Funerals,’ or memorial verses on Patrick Forbes of Corse, bishop of Aberdeen, published in 1635. The council records of Aberdeen contain many entries of payments made to Wedderburn for poems and on account of his grammar. Wedderburn was reckoned one of the foremost latinists of his day. Eight of his Latin poems are included in Scot's ‘Delitiæ Poetarum Scotorum.’ Besides those poems mentioned above, there are an elegy, epitaph, and apotheosis of Professor Duncan Liddel of Aberdeen, and an ode to Calliope.
Wedderburn's next brother, Alexander Wedderburn (1581–1650?), Latin scholar, was baptised at Aberdeen on 3 Sept. 1581. He was admitted as a bursar of Marischal College on 29 Jan. 1623, on the petition of his two brothers, William and David, ‘being presentlie in England in a pedagogie.’ Little is known regarding him, save that he prepared for publication an edition entitled ‘Persius enucleatus, sive Commentarius exactissimus et maxime perspicuus in Persium, Poetarum omnium difficillimum,’ for which his brother David had left notes. This work was published at Amsterdam in 1664, after the death of Alexander. The date of his decease is not recorded, but it was about 1650 (The Wedderburn Book, i. 477).
Another of Wedderburn's brothers, William Wedderburn (1582?–1660), Scotch divine, was born in 1582 or 1584, but the loss of the Aberdeen parish register for the period leaves the exact date unknown. He was doctor of the grammar school of Aberdeen in 1616–17, and afterwards became one
