ADAM, ALEXANDER, LL.D., an eminent scholar and teacher, was born in the parish of Raiford, near Forms, in 1741. His father was a small farmer, with limited means and a numerous family, so thatoung Adam had to struggle through much hardship in the pursuit of the learning forst'hich he thirsted. While studying at the university of Edin. burgh, he had to support himself by giving private lessons, for which he was paid at the rate of one guinea a quarter. He breakfasted and supped on porridge and small-beer; a penny loaf served him for dinner. Such was the stern initiation—not, indeed, a singular ease in Scotland—of the brave young scholar. His patient merits, however, soon gained recognition. A.'s first public otfice was that of classical master in Watson's hospital, Edin and not long after (1761) he succeeded to the head-mastership of the institution. In 1768 he was appointed rector of the high school; and this situation he filled for nearly forty years with distinguished ability and success, giving himself to its duties with singular devotion, and raising the reputation of the school beyond what it had ever been before. Iu some of his efforts to that end lie encountered such opposition as now seems almost fabulous. He composed a new Latin grammar (1772), in which he aimed at combining
the study of English and Latin, but the town-council prohibited him from teaching it. In 1791 he published his Roman Antiquities, the work which did most to promote his reputation, and which, though now generally superseded by more accurate and compre hensive dictionaries, was for many years the best manual of the kind in existence. His Summary of Geography and History appeared in 1794, his Classical Biography in 1800, and his Latin abridgment of a larger work unfinished at his death—in 1805. Ou the 18th of Dee., 1809, Dr. A. died of a fit of apoplexy, the effect of intense study, by which he had been seized in his class-room five days before. "Amidst the wan derings of mind that accompanied, it," says prof. Pillans, the writer of his biography in the Encyclo. Brit. (8th edit.), and his successor in his chair, "he was constantly reverting to the business of theiclass, and addressing his boys; and in the last hour of his life, as he fancied himself examining on the lesson of the day, he stopped short and said: 'But it grows dark; you may go,' and almost immediately expired."