Chalmers, ALEXANDER

Chalmers, ALEXANDER, an industrious biographer and miscellaneous writer, was born at Aberdeen in 1759. After a course of study at his native university, he abandoned a projected medical career, and repaired to London, where he soon became an active writer for the press and the busiest of booksellers' hacks. He died in London, 10th December 1834. His editions of Burns, Beattie, Fielding, Gibbon, Bolingbroke, Shakespeare, Johnson, and Boswell's Johnson are now of no importance; but that of The British Essayists, in 45 vols., is still esteemed as accurate and handy. His prefaces to 'Walker's' Classics (45 vols.), and his enlarged edition of Johnson's Collection of the Poets (21 vols.), contain much honest work. But his reputation depends mainly on the General Biographical Dictionary (32 vols. 1812-14).