Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reid, Andrew
REID, ANDREW (d. 1767?), compiler, was perhaps a member of the Reid family of Fifeshire, but migrated to London, probably about 1720, and interested himself in literary and scientific subjects. In 1728 he projected ‘The Present State of the Republick of Letters,’ a periodical publication which he edited until 1736, when it ceased; two volumes appeared each year. In 1732 he published an abridgment of Newton's ‘Chronology,’ of which another edition appeared at Dublin in 1782. In 1733, in conjunction with John Gray, Reid edited an ‘Abridgment’ of the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ from 1720 to 1732; it was published in 2 vols. 8vo. In 1747 he published a ‘Letter to Dr. Hales concerning the Nature of Tar,’ &c., and in 1767 an ‘Essay on Logarithms,’ 4to, which he dedicated to his old friend, John Gray, F.R.S. In the same year he was employed by George, first baron Lyttelton [q. v.], to correct for the press the first two editions of his ‘History of the Life of Henry II,’ but he probably died in the same year, as the correction of the third edition, which appeared in 1768, was entrusted to another.
[Works in Brit. Mus. Libr.; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 482, ii. 730, iii. 507, iv. 267, 465, v. 305; Johnson's Works, viii. 492; Hill's Boswell, iii. 32, n 5.]