Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/215

 to be extremely studious, spoke little, and what he said was uttered in half sentences, with awkward gesticulations and an uncouth tone of voice, to excite consternation and elude detection.’ Though scarcely able to read, he carefully picked up books in all languages. Gerarde's folio ‘Herbal’ might be said to be his constant companion, and was always displayed along with other books of a like portly appearance whenever he received his visitors. He made, too, a practice of haunting the ruined church of Bethelnie, ‘where it was not doubted but he held frequent converse with departed spirits, who informed him of many things that no mortal knowledge could reach.’ Thus it happened that whenever articles of dress or furniture were missed, he was consulted as a matter of course, and his answers were so general and cautiously worded that they could be shown after the event to have been wonderfully prophetic. Donald also acted as a physician. He was chiefly resorted to in cases of lingering disorders supposed to owe their origin to witchcraft, or some other supernatural agency. In such cases he invariably prescribed the application of certain unguents of his own concoction to various parts of the body, accompanied by particular ceremonies, ‘which he described with all the minuteness he could, employing the most learned terms he could pick up to denote the most common things.’ His fame spread to the distance of thirty miles around him in every direction, so that for a great many years of his life there was never a Sunday that his house was not crowded with visitors of various sorts, who came to consult him either as a necromancer or physician. His fees were very moderate, never exceeding a shilling. By such means he managed to pick up a comfortable living, and when pretty far advanced in life he prevailed on one of the good-looking damsels of the neighbourhood to marry him from a firm belief in his powers of prophecy. After his marriage he found it difficult to maintain an appearance of infallibility. ‘From motives of prudence, indeed, his wife took care to keep the secret; but his daughter contrived often to cheat him, and afterwards among her companions laughed at his credulity.’ Donald died in 1780. A whole-length portrait of him was afterwards engraved. To relieve the tedium of sitting he composed the following lines, which he desired might be put at the bottom of the picture:— Time doth all things devour, And time doth all things waste. And we waste time, And so are we at last. [The Life and Character of Dr. Adam Donald, Prophet of Bethelnie, 12mo, Peterhead (1815?), a penny chapbook of 12 pages, with rude woodcut portrait; Evans's Cat. of Portraits, ii. 125.] 

DONALDSON, JAMES (fl. 1713), miscellaneous writer, a native of Scotland, was a gentleman in straitened circumstances who sought to obtain patronage by the publication of various pieces in prose and verse. His first work, entitled ‘Husbandry Anatomized, or an Enquiry into the present manner of Tilling and Manuring the Ground in Scotland, &c.,’ 2 parts, 12mo, Edinburgh, 1697–8, has been found useful by Scotch writers on agriculture (, Agricultural Biography, 1854, p. 40). In the epistle dedicatory to Patrick, earl of Marchmont, lord chancellor of Scotland, and the lords of the privy council, Donaldson gives what he calls ‘an abridged history’ of his life.

‘I was bred in the country,’ he writes, ‘till I was upwards of twenty years of age: and my father keeping servants and cattle for labouring a part of these lands, which heritably belonged to him: I had occasion to acquire as much knowledge in husband affairs as was practised in that place of the country. Some few years before the revolution, I applyed my self to the study of traffick and merchandizing: but as soon as it pleased God to call his majestie … to relieve these kingdoms … I judged it my honour and duty to concur with such a laudible and glorious undertaking … especially in leavying a company of men for his majestie's service, and served in the Earl of Angus his regiment, till the second day of February, 1690: when that regiment was reduced from twenty to thirteen companies. I was disbanded, but through the scarcity of money in the exchequer, and great need of keeping an army on foot; hitherto I have received no reimbursement of money I depursed on that occasion, nor what I can claim of arriers.’ His business had gone to ruin in his absence, but he struggled on, seeking to recover his position, for about four years. His creditors then forced him to go abroad, but he returned ‘empty-handed.’

His next performance, a poetical tract entitled ‘A Picktooth for Swearers, or a Looking-glass for Atheists and Prophane Persons, &c.,’ 4to, Edinburgh, 1698, is chiefly an enumeration of the punishments declared in Scripture against the despisers of the divine law, and the arraignment of the wicked for their sins. This wretched attempt at versification, dedicated to the lord provost, bailies, and town council of Edinburgh, is fully analysed in Corser's ‘Collectanea’ (Chetham