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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 exhibiting considerable power as a
poet, died in his twenty-second year, and whose reliques were afterwards
included by Dr Anderson, more perhaps through the influence of friendship,
than deliberate taste, in his edition of the British poets. Dr Anderson
first entered into practice, as surgeon to the Dispensary of Bamborough
Castle in Northumberland; he afterwards removed to Alnwick, where he
married Miss Gray, daughter of Mr John Gray, a relation of the noble
family of that name. The declining state of his wife’s health, which
rendered a change of air necessary, induced him, in 1784, to remove to
Edinburgh, where he ever afterwards resided. He had here the misfortune to
lose his amiable partner, who sank under a consumption, leaving him with
three infant daughters.
Dr Anderson having secured a small
independence, practiced no more after this period, but engaged in such
literary avocations as he felt to be agreeable to his taste, and became
the center of an agreeable coterie, in which the talents of many a youth
of genius were for the first time brought into notice. About the year
1793, he began to prepare his edition of the British Poets, which forms
thirteen volumes, large octavo, and appeared between the years 1795 to
1807. To the works of each poet is prefixed a biographical memoir by Dr.
Anderson. In 1793, he married for his second wife, Miss Dale, daughter of
Mr David Dale, schoolmaster of East Lothian. A collection of the works of
Smollett, by Dr Anderson, with a memoir prefixed, has gone through eight
editions. To the last edition is affixed a highly characteristic likeness
of the editor. The memoir has been published repeatedly in a distinct
shape, and is a very respectable production.
Dr Anderson also published a "Life of
Dr Samuel Johnson, with crucial observations on his works," which has
passed through several editions. For several years before the end of the
eighteenth century, Dr Anderson was editor of the Edinburgh Magazine, a
rival of the Scots Magazine, more varied and lively in its details, and
which afforded him an opportunity of bringing forward the productions of
his young friends. This work commenced in the year 1784, and at the end of
1803, was incorporated with the Scots Magazine; it was much indebted to
its proprietor, James Sibbald, editor of the Chronicale of Scottish
Poetry, to Lord Hailes, and other eminent literary characters. Among the
publications which Dr Anderson gave to the world, must be included his
edition of "The Works of John Moore, M.D., with Memoirs of his Life
and Writings;" Edinburgh, 1820, 7 vls. 8vo; and an edition of the
poems of Robert Blair; Edinburgh, 1826, 12 mo.
The great incident of Dr Anderson’s
literary life was his connection with the commencement of the career of
Thomas Campbell. When Campbell first visited Edinburgh in 1797, being then
in his twentieth year, he gained the friendship of Dr Anderson, who, on
being shown a copy of elegiac verses, written by him two years before,
when an obscure tutor in Mull, predicted his great success as a poet. It
was through Dr Anderson, in 1798, that Campbell was introduced to the
circle of his distinguished literary associates in Edinburgh; and he it
was who encouraged him by his friendly advice, and assisted him by his
critical acumen, in the publication of his celebrated poem, "the
Pleasures of Hope," for the high character of which he had,
previously to its appearance, pledged his word to the public. In
acknowledgement of his friendship, the grateful poet dedicated his work to
Dr. Anderson. During the later years of his life, this venerable author,
though he indulged as much as ever in literary society, gave no work to
the public.
As a literary critic, Dr Anderson was
distinguished by a warm sensibility to the beauties of poetry, and by
extreme candour. His character as a man was marked by perfect probity in
all his dealings, and unshaken constancy in friendship. His manner was
lively and bustling; and from his long-continued acquaintance with the
literary world, he possessed an unrivalled fund of that species of gossip
and anecdote which gives so much pleasure in Boswell’s Life of Johnson.
Dr Anderson died of dropsy in the chest,
February 20, 1830, in his eighty-first year.
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