Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/87

Rh separated from the other mental powers, and particularly from "ability," with which many have confounded it. Genius is attributed in the first process of its formation to imagination, which discovers ideas, to be afterwards subjected to the arbitration of judgment; memory, and the other intellectual powers, being considered as subsidiary aids in instigating the movements of imagination, to Gerard afterwards presented to the world two volumes of sermons, published in 1780-82. He died on his 67th birth-day, 22d February, 1795. A sermon was preached on his funeral, and afterwards published, by his friend and pupil, Dr Skene Ogilvy of Old Aberdeen, which, along with the adulation common to such performances, enumerates many traits of character which the most undisguised flatterer could not have dared to have attributed to any but a good, able, and much esteemed man. A posthumous work, entitled "Pastoral Care," was published by Dr Gerard's son and successor in 1799.

GERARD,, D. D. , a divine, son of the foregoing, was born at Aberdeen on the 12th of August, 1760, and having acquired the earlier elements of his professional education in his native city, at a period when the eminence of several great and well known names dignified its universities, he finished it in the more extended sphere of tuition furnished by the university of Edinburgh. Before he reached the age of twenty-two, a vacancy having occurred in the ministry of the Scottish church of Amsterdam, a consideration of his father's qualifications prompted the consistory to invite the young divine to preach before them, and he was in consequence waited upon by that body, with an offer of the situation, which he accepted. During his residence in Holland, he turned the leisure allowed him by his clerical duties, and his knowledge of the Dutch language and of general science, to supporting, with the assistance of two literary friends, a periodical called "De Recensent." What may have been the intrinsic merits of this publication, it would, be difficult to discover either through .the medium of personal knowledge or general report, in a nation where modern Dutch literature is unnoticed and almost unknown ; but it obtained the best suffrage of its utility in the place for which it was intended, an extensive circulation. During the same period, he likewise occupied himself in contributing to English literature; and on the establishment of the Analytical Review in 1788, he is understood to have conducted the department of that periodical referring to foreign literature, a task for which his hereditary critical acuteness, his residence on the continent, and knowledge of the classical and of several modern languages, some of which were then much neglected, or had but begun to attract the attention of educated Englishmen, must have given peculiar facilities.

During his residence at Amsterdam, he received as a token of respect from his native university, the degree of doctor of divinity. Soon after this event, his professional and literary pursuits experienced a check from a severe illness, which compelled him to seek early in life a restorative for his weakened constitution, in breathing the air of his native country. The change of climate had the desired effect, arid he returned restored in health to his duties in Holland. These he continued to perform until April, 1791, when strong family motives induced him to relinquish a situation which habit and friendship had endeared to him, and his resignation of which was followed by the regrets of those who had experienced the merits of their pastor. He soon after accepted the vacant professorship of Greek in the King's college of Aberdeen, a situation which he held for four years. Although the students of King's college are not very numerous, and the endowments connected with the institution are by no means affluent, both are very respectable, and there is every opportunity on the part of the instructor to exhibit, both to the world in general, and to his students,