Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/235

Rh strange overthrow, and Chambers, unable to protect himself from the wrath of the ascendant party, found it necessary to take refuge in Spain.

He here experienced a beneficent protection from king Philip, to whom he must have been strongly recommended by his faith, and probably also the transactions in which he had lately been engaged. Subsequently retiring to France, he published in 1572, " Histoire Abregee de tous les Roys de France, Angleterre, et Ecosse," which he dedicated to Henry III. His chief authority in this work was the fabulous narrative of Boecc. In 1579, he published other two works in the French language, "La Recherche des singular! tes les plus remarkables concernant l'Estait d' Ecosse," and " Discours de la legitime succession des femmes aux possessions des leurs parens, et du gouvernement des princesses aux empires et royaume." The first is a panegyric upon the laws, religion, and valour of his native country all of which, a modern may he inclined to think, he had already rendered the reverse of illustrious by his own conduct. The second work is a vindication of the right of succession of females, being in reality a compliment to his now imprisoned mistress, to whom it was dedicated. In France, Chambers was a popular and respected character; and he testified his own predilection for the people by selecting their language for his compositions against the fashion of the age, which would have dictated an adherence to the classic language of ancient Rome. Dempster gives his literary character in a few words "vir multse et variae lectionis, nee inamceni ingenii," a man of much and varied reading, and of not unkindly genius." He was, to use the quaint phrase of Mackenzie, who gives a laborious dissection of his writings, "well seen in the Greek, Latin, English, French, Italian, and Spanish languages."

On the return of quieter times, this strange mixture of learning and political and moral guilt returned to his native country, where, so far from being called to account by the easy James for his concern in the murder of his father, he was, in the year 1586, restored to the bench, in which situation he continued till his death in November 1592.

Another literary character, of the same name and the same faith, lived in the immediately following age. He was the author of a work intitled "Davidis Camerarii Scoti, de Scotorum Fortitudine, Doctrina, et Pietate Libri Quatuor," which appeared at Paris, in small quarto, in 1631, and is addressed by the author in a flattering dedication to Charles I. The volume contains a complete calendar of the saints connected with Scotland, the multitude of whom is apt to astonish a modern protestant.

CHALMERS,, an eminent antiquary and general writer, was born in the latter part of the year 1742, at Fochabers, in Banffshire, being a younger son of the family of Pittensear, in that county. He was educated, first at the grammar-school of Fochabers, and afterwards at king's college, Aberdeen, where he had for his preceptor the celebrated Dr Reid, author of the Enquiry into the Human Mind. Having studied law at Edinburgh, Mr Chalmers removed, in his twenty-first year (1763), to America, as companion to his uncle, who was proceeding thither for the purpose of recovering some property in Maryl.ind. Being induced to settle as a lawyer in Baltimore, he soon acquired considerable practice, and, when the celebrated question arose respecting the payment of tithes to the church, he appeared on behalf of the clergy, and argued their cause with great ability, against Mr Patrick Henry, who subsequently became so conspicuous in the war of independence. He was not only defeated in this cause, but was obliged, as a marked royalist, to withdraw' from the country. In England, to which he repaired in 1755, his sufferings as a loyalist at last recommended him to the government, and he was, in 1786, appointed to the respectable situation of