ll be
found at the close of the Memoir. An appendix to the Memoir contains all
that could be gleaned from Wodrow's Analecta, as printed by the Maitland
Club.

The Memoir itself has been drawn up with considerable care, and is as
extensive as the paucity of materials for its composition would admit. It
might, indeed, have been enlarged by a more full account of the great
events which occurred during the period in which Gillespie lived; but this
would have been an unfair changing of biography into history, and would
not have been suited to the object in view.

As the parts of the Collected Edition of Gillespie's Works were issued
successively, they have been paged separately; and may be arranged in
volumes according to the taste of their purchasers. It will, however, be
found most expedient to adopt a chronological arrangement, such as is
indicated in the closing pages of the Memoir.

MEMOIR OF THE REV. GEORGE GILLESPIE.

George Gillespie was one of the most remarkable men of the period in which
he lived, singularly fertile as that period was in men of great abilities.
He seems to have been almost unknown, till the publication of his first
work, which dazzled and astonished his countrymen by the rare combination
it displayed of learning and genius of the highest order. From that time
forward, he held an undisputed position among the foremost of the
distinguished men by whose talents and energy the Church of Scotland was
delivered from prelatic despotism. Yet, although greatly admired by all
his compeers during his brilliant career, so very little has been recorded
respecting him, that we can but glean a scanty supply of materials, from a
variety of sources, out of which to construct a brief memoir of his life

We have not met with any particular reference to the family from which
George Gillespie was descended, except a very brief notice of his father,
the Rev. John Gillespie, in Livingston's "Memorable Characteristics." From
this we learn that he was minister at Kirkcaldy, and that he was, to use
Livingston's language, "a thundering preacher." In that town George
Gillespie was born; but, as the earlier volumes of the Session Register of
Births and Baptisms have been lost, the precise year of his birth cannot
be ascertained from that source. It could not, however, have been earlier
than 1612, in which year his father was chosen to the second charge in
Kirkcaldy, as appears from the town records, nor later th