Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/69

Rh and the next year, Row was chosen his successor. He seems to have filled the principal's chair with much credit; he maintained strict discipline, and added to the buildings of the college, while his own learning extended the reputation of the university. On the 8th October, 1656, being a day appointed for a public thanksgiving, he preached in Westminster abbey before the parliament, and his sermon was afterwards printed by their orders, under the title of "Man's Duty in magnifying God's Work." On the Restoration, principal Row lost no time in paying his court to the new authorities. In 1660, he published at Aberdeen, "Εύχαρίστια Βασιλιχή, ad Carolum II. Carmen:" a work which was laudatory of the king, and abusive of Cromwell, who is styled "Trux vilis vermes," being the anagram of "O vile cruel worm" (Oliver Cromwell) latinized. This panegyric, however, availed him little. Some of his works, which contained reflections on the royal family, were taken from the college, and burned at the cross of Aberdeen by the hands of the hangman : and in 1661, Row resigned his office of principal. He soon after established a school at Aberdeen, and lived for some years on the scanty emoluments derived from this source, eked out by charitable donations. Thereafter he retired to the family of a son-in-law and daughter in the parish of Kinellar, about eight miles from Aberdeen, where he spent the remainder of his days. He was interred in the churchyard of the parish, but no monument marks his grave. Besides the works we have mentioned, and some others which seem to be lost, principal Row wrote a continuation of his father's History of the Church, which is extant in the Advocates' library, under the title of "Supplement to the Historic of the Kirk of Scot land, from August, anno 1637, and thenceforward to July, 1639; orane Handful of Goates Haire for the furthering of the Building of the Tabernacle: a Short Table of Principall Things for the promoving of the most excellent Historic of this late blessed Work of Reformation, in the hands of such as are employed therein by the General Assemblie; written by Mr John Row, Minister at Aberdene." Mr James Row, minister of Monivaird and Strowan, a younger brother of principal Row, is well known to the curious in Scottish literature, as the author of the celebrated " Pockmanty Sermon," preached in Saint Giles's, in 1638, and which has been lately reprinted under the titles of "The Red-Shanke's Sermon;" and "A Cupp of Bon-Accord."

ROXBURGH,, a physician and eminent botanist, was born at Underwood in the parish of Craigie, on the 29th June, 1759. His family was not in affluent circumstances, but they nevertheless contrived to give him a liberal education. On acquiring all the learning which the place of his nativity afforded, he was sent to Edinburgh to complete his studies, which were exclusively directed to the medical profession. After attending for some time the various classes at the university necessary to qualify him for this pursuit, he received, while yet but seventeen years of age, the appointment of surgeon's mate on board of an East Indiaman, and completed two voyages to the East in that capacity before he had attained his twenty-first year. An offer having been now made to him of an advantageous settlement at Madras, he accepted of it, and accordingly established himself there. Shortly after taking up his residence at Madras, Mr Roxburgh turned his attention to botany, and particularly to the study of the indigenous plants, and other vegetable productions of the East, and in this he made such progress, and acquired so much reputation that he was in a short time invited by the government of Bengal, to take charge of the Botanical gardens established there. In this situation he rapidly extended his fame as a botanist, and introduced to notice, and directed to useful purposes many previously unknown and neglected vegetable productions of the country. Mr Roxburgh now also became a member of the Asiatic Society, to whose Transactions