A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/M'Crie, Thomas

M'Crie, Thomas (1772-1835). -- Biographer and ecclesiastical historian, b. at Duns, and ed. at the Univ. of Edin., became the leading minister of one of the Dissenting churches of Scotland. His Life of Knox (1813) ranks high among biographies for the ability and learning which it displays, and was the means of vindicating the great Reformer from a cloud of prejudice and misunderstanding in which he had been enveloped. It was followed by a Life of Andrew Melville (1819), Knox's successor as the leader of the Reformers in Scotland, also a work of great merit. M'C. also pub. histories of the Reformation in Italy and Spain. He received the degree of D.D. in 1813.