tude, and suffered from the fatigues and anxiety to which he wa subjected, yet
he did not relinquish his station, nor shrink from tae difficult tasks imposed upon
him, until his feeble and shattered constitution sunk under them, and he fell a
martyr to the cause."
HENRY, (Dr) Robert, an eminent historian, was born in the parish of St Ninians in Stirlingshire, on the 18th of February, 1718; his father was James Henry, a respectable farmer in Muirtown of the same parish, who had married the daughter of Mr Galloway of Burrowmeadow in Stirlingshire. As a respectable farmer's son, young Henry enjoyed opportunities of instruction beyond the average of those who study for the church in Scotland, and he found little difficulty in indulging his inclination to become a member of a learned profession. He commenced his education under Mr Nicholson of the parish school of St Ninians, and having attended the grammar school of Stirling, perfected himself in his literary and philosophical studies at the university of Edinburgh. After leaving that institution, he occupied himself in teaching, the usual resource of the expectants of the Scottish church, and became master of the grammar school of Annan. The district in which he was so employed was soon afterwards erected into a separate presbytery, and Henry was admitted as its first licentiate, on the 27th of March, 1746. In 1748, he was ordained as clergyman of a congregation of presbyterians at Carlisle. Here he remained for t\velre years, when he was transferred to a similar dissenting congregation at Berwick upon Tweed. In 1763, he married Ann Balderston, daughter of Thomas Balderston, surgeon in Berwick. Little is said of this lady by Henry's biographers, except in reference to the domestic happiness she conferred on her husband. During his residence at Berwick, Dr Henry applied his active mind to the preparation of a scheme for establishing a fund to assist the widows and orphans of the dissenting clergymen in the north of England. The admirable fund which had some time previously been so firmly and successfully established for bestowing similar benefits on the families of the clergy of Scotland, formed the model of his imitation; but in assimilating the situation of a dissenting to that of an established church, he laboured under the usual difficulties of those who raise a social fabric which the laws will not recognize and protect. The funds which, in Scotland, were supplied by the annual contribution of the clergy, enforced by act of parliament, depended, in the English institution, on the social and provident spirit of its members. The perseverance of Henry overcame many of the practical difficulties thus thrown in his way : the fund was placed on a permanent footing in the year 1762, and Henry, having for some years un- dertaken its management, had afterwards the satisfaction to see it flourish, and increase in stability and usefulness as he advanced in years. The design of his elaborate history, which must have gradually developed itself in the course of his early studies, is said to have been finally formed during his residence in Berwick, and he commenced a course of inquiry and reading, which he found that the resources of a provincial town, and the assistance of his literary friends in more favoured situations, were quite incapable of supplying for a subject so vast and intricate, as that of a complete history of Britain from the invasion of Julius Cffisar. In this situation Dr Henry found a useful friend in Mr Laurie, provost of Edinburgh, who had married his sister. The interest of this gentleman procured for his brother-in-law, in the year 1768, an appointment to the ministry of the new Grey Friar's church in Edinburgh, whence, in 1776, he was removed to the collegiate charge of the Old Church.
In the extensive public libraries of Edinburgh, Dr Henry found means of prosecuting his researches with effect. The first volume of his history was published in quarto in the year 1771, the second appeared in 1774, the third in 1777,
