DEMPSTER, TimmAs, a professor famous for his learning, and a miscellaneous and voluminous writer, was born at Muiresk, in Aberdeenshire, about the year 1839. What the rank or condition of his family was, is unknown; we know, however, that he studied at Cambridge. and that when he went to France, which he did while yet young, in order to perfect his education, he represented himself as a man of family, and as the possessor of an estate. At Paris, he obtained a professorship in the college of Beauvais, where tie manifested a very quarrelsome temper, engaging, it is said, almost daily in some brawl. One of these unseemly disturbances having to retreat to England. To France, however, he again returned, bringing with him a wife, whom he had married while in England, and who was very beautiful. Crossing the Alps, he obtained a see, and professorship at Pisa, drawing a handsome salary for his labors. Here, however. the infidelities of his wife marred his peace; and he removed to Bologna, where he became professor of belles-lettres, and where his wife completed her shame by eloping with "one or more" of his students. Poor D. seems to have been fond of this wanton,
for he took the trouble ofattempting the capture of the fugitives. He failed; and died at Butri, near Bologna, 6th Sept., 1625.
D. is the author of numerous treatises, among which may be mentioned the Ilistoria Eeelesiastira Gentis Seotornm—a work in which his desire to magnify the merits of his country often induced him to forge the names of persons and books that never existed. and to unscrupulously claim as Scotehmen, writers whose birthplace was doubtful, or who were known to be natives of England, Wales, Ireland, and even France and Ger many; but nevertheless, in 'spite of its defects, it is justly reckoned a valuable and erudite peformance. It was reprinted for the Batinatyne club in 1829.