years and a half), he states the balance due to him at 4,202l. He had in the meantime made an attempt, through his friend Sir Richard Steele, to relieve his embarrassments by selling his library to George II, but the negotiation failed. He had been compelled to halt, or at all events to proceed slowly, in his great undertaking, and in 1718 he is found advertising that those who wished to patronise it ‘could see specimens at his house above the post-office in Edinburgh.’ While, however, the great object of his life remained uncompleted, he was enabled to publish ‘Collections relating to the History of Mary Queen of Scotland. Containing a great number of original papers never before printed. Also a few scarce pieces reprinted, taken from the best copies,’ 4 vols., Edinb. 1727–28, 4to. The original documents contained in this volume are invaluable to historical students. George Chalmers, it is true, insinuated that there was reason to question Anderson's honesty as a transcriber, but he failed to mention any specific instance. Such insinuations were a weakness of Chalmers when the facts of a case did not happen to agree with his own prejudices.
Anderson died very suddenly of apoplexy in London on 3 April 1728, having finished the collections for his great work only a few days previously. He had been compelled to pledge the plates of his ‘Diplomata,’ and in 1729 they were sold for 530l. Afterwards they were put into the hands of Thomas Ruddiman, and at length the long-expected work was published under the title of ‘Selectus Diplomatum & Numismatum Scotiæ Thesaurus, in duas partes distributus: Prior Syllogen complectitur veterum Diplomatum sive Chartarum Regum & Procerum Scotiæ, una cum eorum Sigillis, a Duncano II ad Jacobum I, id est ab anno 1094 ad 1412. Adjuncta sunt reliquorum Scotiæ et Magnæ Britanniæ Regum Sigilla, à prædicto Jacobo I ad nuperam duorum regnorum in unum, anno 1707, coalitionem; Item Characteres & Abbreviaturæ in antiquis codicibus MSS. instrumentisque usitatæ Posterior continet Numismata tam aurea quàm argentea singulorum Scotiæ Regum, ab Alexandro I ad supradictam regnorum coalitionem perpetuâ serie deducta; Subnexis quæ reperiri poterant eorundem Regum symbolis heroicis.’ Edinb. 1739, fol. The introduction professes to be the production of Ruddiman, but it is not known how far Anderson left the materials for it among his manuscript papers.
[A Collection made by James Maidment of printed papers and MSS. relating to Anderson, preserved in the British Museum (10854 ff.); John Hill Burton, in Biog. Dict. Soc. D. U. K. ii. 580–582; MS. Addit. 4221 f. 22; Maidment's Analecta Scotica; Chambers's Biog. Dict. of Eminent Scotsmen, ed. Thomson, i. 37; Chalmers's Life of Ruddiman, 151 seq.; The Lockhart Papers, i. 371; Anderson's Scottish Nation, i. 125; Notes and Queries, 1st ser., viii. 347, xi. 439; 2nd ser., v. 251, 272, 471, vi. 27, 107, 184, vii. 372, viii. 169, 217, 327, 457, 475; 3rd ser., i. 144, iii. 507, x. 262; Memorials of Dr. Stukeley (Surtees Soc.).]
ANDERSON, JAMES, D.D. (1680?–1739), preacher and miscellaneous writer, brother of Adam Anderson [see Anderson, Adam, (1692–1765)], was born, about 1680, at Aberdeen, where he was educated, and probably took the degrees of M.A. and D.D. In 1710 he was appointed minister of the presbyterian church in Swallow Street, London, whence he was transferred, in 1734, to a similar charge in Lisle Street, Leicester Fields. According to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ he is said to have been ‘well known among the people of that persuasion resident in London as Bishop Anderson,’ and he is described as ‘a learned but imprudent man, who lost a considerable part of his property in the fatal year 1720.’ Several of his sermons were printed. One of them, ‘No King-Killers,’ preached in 1715, on the anniversary of the execution of Charles I, was a zealous defence of the conduct of the presbyterians during the civil wars, and reached a second edition. Anderson was a freemason, and when, in 1721, on the revival of freemasonry in England, the grand lodge determined to produce an authoritative digest of the ‘Constitutions’ of the fraternity, the task was assigned to him (Entick's edition (1747) of the Constitutions, p. 194 et seq.). It was as a grand warden of the lodge that he presented to it, on completing his task, ‘The Constitutions of the Free Masons; containing the History, Charges, Regulations, &c. of that Most Ancient and Right Worshipful Fraternity. For the Use of the Lodges. London. In the year of Masonry 5723, Anno Domini 1723.’ This work, which passed through several editions, was long recognised by the English freemasons to be the standard code on its subject, and was translated into German. An American facsimile of the first edition of 1723 was issued at New York in 1855, and there are reprints of the same edition in Cox's ‘Old Constitutions belonging to the Freemasons of England and Ireland’ (1871) and in the first volume of Kenning's ‘Masonic Archæological Library’ (1878). Anderson also contributed to masonic literature ‘A Defence of Masonry, occasioned by a pamphlet called “Masonry Dissected”’ (1738?), which was translated into German,
