BRIEF MEMOIR OF DR. CHALMERS.
THOMAS CHALMERS was born at Anstruther, in Fife, on the 17th of March, 1780, and was early sent to study at St. Andrew's University. From traditions still plentiful in the North, his college career must have been distinguished by some of his subsequent peculiarities-energy, good humor, companionableness, and ascendency over others. And it was then that his passion for the physical sciences was first developed. He studied mathematics, chemistry, and some branches of natural history, with more than youthful enthusiasm, and with such success, that besides assisting his own professor he made a narrow escape from the mathematical chair in Edinburgh. For these early pursuits he never lost a lingering taste, and in the summer holidays of his mellow age, it was his delight to give lectures to youthful audiences on electricity and the laws of chemical combination. His attainments in these fields of knowledge were not those of a mere amateur; but in earlier life had all the system and security of an accomplished philosopher. And though for some years they engrossed him too much, they afterwards helped him amazingly. Mathematics especially. gave him the power of severe and continuous thinking; and enabled him, unseduced by a salient fancy, to follow each recondite speculation to its curious landing-place, and each high argument to its topmost stronghold. And