GLEIG, gleg, GEORGE (1753-1840). A Scottish divine, Bishop of Brechin, and primus of the Episcopal Church of Scotland. He was born on a farm at Boghall, Kincardineshire, and was edu cated at King's College, Aberdeen, where he took honors in mathematics and physical science'. He was ordained in the Scotch Episcopal Church in 1773, and took charge of a congregation at Pit tenweem, Fifeshire, removing thence to Stirling in 1787. He became a frequent contributor to the Monthly Review, the Gentleman's Magazine, and other publications, and wrote extensively for the third edition of the Encyclopwdia Britannica, of which, after the death of Colin Macfarquhar, the editor, in 1793, he edited the last six volumes. He was thrice elected Bishop of Dunkeld, but through the opposition of Bishop Skinner, the primus of the Scotch Church, whose hostility he had aroused by criticism of one of his sermons in the Gentleman's Magazine, his elections were rendered ineffectual. In 1808, however, having acceded to the tests imposed by Bishop Skinner, he was chosen successor to Bishop Strohan in the Bishopric of Brechin, succeeding in 1810. He
bent his efforts toward securing a strict ad herence to the English litutgy, with the single exception of the communion, and in this he was eminently successful. In 1816 he was elected primus of the Church of Scotland, and set him self to extending the reforms begun in his own episcopate, and cementing the alliance with the English Church. In this he was not altogether successful, owing to his persistent interference in diocesan elections, by which he alienated some of his strongest supporters. He resigned the pri macy in 1837. In addition to several vol umes of sermons, he published The Life and Writings of 1Villiam Robertson (1812), and Directions for the Study of Theology (1837). He edited Stackhouse's History of the Bible (1817). Consult Walker, Life of the Right Reverend John Gleig, Bishop of Brechin (Edinburgh, 1878).