Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/68

204 years of the sixteenth, or more probably to the beginning of the seventeenth century. At a very early period of life he was appointed rector of the grammar school at Perth, and for many years discharged that office with much reputation. He was the first Hebrew scholar of that day, an accomplishment which seems to have been hereditary in the family; his father, it is reported, having "discovered some genius for Hebrew when he was only a child of four or five years old," and his grandfather having been, it is said, the first who publicly taught Hebrew in Scotland. While rector of the Perth school, Row composed his "Hebreæ Linjuæ Institutiones Compendiosissimæ et facillimæ in Discipulorum gratiam primuin concinnatæ," which was published at Glasgow in 1644. This work was dedicated to lord chancellor Hay of Kinnoul, to whom he expresses himself obliged for benefits conferred on his father, and for having procured himself the situation he held. After the fashion of the day, the book was prefaced by several commendatory verses; and of these some are from the pen of the celebrated Alexander Henderson, Samuel Rutherford, and John Adamson. The work also bore the record of the unanimous approbation of the faculty of the college of St Leonard in the university of St Andrews. Three years previous to the publication of the "Hebreæ Linguæ Institutiones," Row was by the influence of the famous Andrew Cant appointed one of the ministers of Aberdeen. In 1643, he published a Vocabulary of the Hebrew language, which he dedicated to his new patrons, the town council of Aberdeen. This mark of respect was rewarded by the following ordinance of that body: "20th September, 1643, the counsell considering the panes taken be Mr John Row in teaching the Hebrew tongue, and for setting forth ane Hebrew dictionar, and dedicating the same to the counsell, ordanes the thesaurar to delivar to the said Mr John Row for his paines four hundreth merk Scotts money." In his office of minister of Aberdeen, Row supported the principles of his coadjutor Andrew Cant, and was with him highly obnoxious to the more moderate party of the presbyterians, and to those who still favoured episcopacy. The amusing annalist Spalding, who attended his prelections, loses no opportunity of holding him up to ridicule or detestation; and language seems sometimes to fail him for the expression of his horror at Row's innovations. "One of the town's officers," he relates, "caused bring a bairn to the lecture lesson, where Mr John Row had taught, to be baptized ; but because this bairn was not brought to him when he was baptizing some other bairns, he would not give baptism; whereupon the simple man was forced to bring back this child unbaptized. The wife lying in child-bed, hearing the child was not baptized, was so angry, that she turned her face to the wall, and deceased immediately through plain displeasure, and the bairn also ere the morn; and the mother, and her bairn in her oxter, were both buried together. Lamentable to see," writes the indignant chronicler, "how the people are thus abused!* In 1644, Row was chosen moderator of the provincial assembly at Aberdeen; and the next year, on the approach of Montrose at the head of the royalist forces, he, with Cant and other "prime covenanters," sought refuge with the earl Marischal in the castle of Dunottar. In 1649, the Scottish parliament appointed a committee to remonstrate against the contemplated murder of Charles I., and Row was one of six clergymen nominated to act with the committee. In 1651, a commission, consisting of five colonels from the army of Monk, visited the king's college of Aberdeen, and, among other acts, deposed the principal, Dr Guild;