Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/78

214 few have sufficient taste or knowledge of the art to discern, far less to appreciate.

John Runciman, a brother of the above, was also a painter of some note, and produced, among other pieces, Judith with the Head of Holofernes; Christ with his Disciples going to Emmaus; King Lear and Attendants in the Storm; and the Pulling down of the Netherbow Port, usually attributed to Alexander, and which has the honour to be placed in the gallery of the duke of Sutherland. Of most of the pictures of both artists, engravings and etchings have been executed, some of the latter by themselves.

RUSSELL,, author of the History of Aleppo, was born in Edinburgh, and reared for the medical profession. After finishing his studies in the university of that city, about the year 1734, he proceeded to London, and soon after went to Aleppo, where he settled as physician to the English factory in 1740. The influence of a noble and sagacious character was here soon felt, and Mr Russell became in time the most influential character in the place: even the pasha hardly entered upon any proceeding of importance without consulting him. After residing there for a considerable time, during which he wrote his History of Aleppo, he returned to his native country, and, settling in London, soon acquired an extensive and lucrative practice. His work was published there in 1755. He also contributed several valuable papers to the Royal and Medical societies. This excellent individual died in London, November 25, 1768.

Dr Russell was one of a family of seven sons, all of whom acquired the respect of the world. His younger brother, Patrick, succeeded him as physician to the factory at Aleppo, and was the author of a Treatise on the Plague, published in 1791, and Descriptions of Two Hundred Fishes collected on the coast of Coromandel, which appeared in 1803, in two volumes folio. Dr Patrick Russell died July 2, 1805, in his 79th year.

RUSSELL,, a historical and miscellaneous writer, was the elder son of Alexander Russell and Christian Ballantyne, residing at Windydoors, in the county of Selkirk, where he was born in the year 1741. At the neighbouring school of Innerleithen, he acquired a slender knowledge of Latin and Greek, and, having removed in 1756, to Edinburgh, he there studied writing and arithmetic for about ten months. This completed the amount of his school education. He now commenced an apprenticeship of five years, under Messrs Martin and Wotherspoon, booksellers and printers, during which period he added considerably to his stock of knowledge by private study. At the end of his apprenticeship, he published a selection of modern poetry, which was thought judicious, and helped to extend the reputation of Gray and Shenstone in his native country. In 1763, while working as a journeyman printer, he became a member of a literary association styled the Miscellaneous Society, of which Mr Andrew Dalzell, afterwards professor of Greek in the Edinburgh university, and Mr Robert Listen, afterwards Sir Robert, and ambassador at Constantinople, were also members. To these two gentlemen he submitted a translation of Crebillon's Rhadamisthe et Zenobie," which, after their revisal, was presented to Garrick, but rejected. Not long after he seems to have formed an intimacy with Patrick lord Elibank, who invited him to spend some time at his seat in East Lothian, and encouraged him in the prosecution of a literary career. He therefore relinquished his labours as a printer; and after spending a considerable time in study at his father's house in the country, set out, in May 1767, for London. Here he was disappointed in his best hopes, and found it necessary to seek subsistence as corrector of the press to Mr Strachan, the celebrated printer. While prosecuting this employment,