Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/174

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seeing how defective his education had been, gave him lessons in Danish and in German, and even procured him two lessons a-week in Latin. A subscription was again set on foot in his behalf, and a bare subsistence was thus for a while secured him. Dependent, however, on mere charity, Andersen was constantly on the verge of destitution, and from 1819 to 1823 his life was one of hardship. At length, a tragedy he had laid before the directors of the Theatre-Royal, brought him under the notice of Councillor Collin—who proved a second father to him. Through this gentleman's influence, the royal bounty was moved in his behalf; the Bureau for Learned Schools granted him free instruction in the gymnasium of Slagelse, and Frederick VI. allowed him a yearly stipend for his maintenance during several years. His mother was still alive to hear of his good fortune. Andersen's future course was now comparatively secure, and we need only trace his farther career in his works.

His first book, "Foot Journeys to Amager," appeared in 1828, the same year in which he became a student at college. He could not at first obtain a publisher, but he had no sooner got it printed for himself, than the copyright was bought from him; for the little book, written in an original style pregnant with fantastic humour, had instantaneously become popular. A vaudeville, which was acted with success, and a volume of poems, which was equally well received, followed in rapid succession. Here, however, the tide of public favour began to turn, and some other volumes of verse and prose, which he subsequently published, met with a cool reception. In 1833 the king granted him a "reisestipendium," or sum of money for a tour, and Andersen travelled to Rome. The result of this tour was his romance of the "Improvisatore," Copenhagen, 1834, which the grateful author dedicated to Collin. The work was very favourably received by the public, less so by the critics, who still—and for long after—remained strangely hostile to Andersen. For many years the influential literary journals of Copenhagen treated his productions either with silent or with expressed contempt, while these same productions were being translated into all the languages of Europe. Andersen published his first collection of "Eventyr" soon after the Improvisatore. It is by these "Stories for Children," and the "Picture Book without Pictures," which have been read all over Europe and America with equal delight by old and young, that Hans Christian Andersen has mainly acquired his fame out of his own country; but in Copenhagen his fondness for writing "Eventyr" was regarded as childish and unworthy trifling. His other novels, besides the Improvisatore, are "O. T.," "Only a Fiddler," "The Two Baronesses," and "To Be or Not to Be." Andersen has also written a great deal for the stage, his principal drama being "The Mulatto." His "Poet's Bazaar" is a series of sketches of travel. Andersen's most ambitious work is his "Ahasuerus," which appeared in German and Danish in 1847. It is partly in verse and partly in prose, and its form varies between lyric, epic, and dramatic. "Ahasuerus" is founded on the legend of the Wandering Jew.

Hans Andersen enjoys a moderate pension from the Danish government. He is unmarried (1857). (Mit Liv Eventyr, af H. C. Andersen. Kjöbenhavn), 1855.—A. M.

ANDERSON, Adam, author of the "History of Commerce," a native of Scotland, was born about 1692. Little is known of his early life; but, when about thirty-three years of age, he obtained a situation in the South Sea House, in which he afterwards rose to be chief clerk of the Stock and New Annuities. Here he remained forty years, during which period he was employed upon his great work, published in 1762, than which very few books in the English language afford more internal evidence of laborious research. He died at Clerkenwell in 1765.—F.

ANDERSON, Alexander, an acute geometrical writer; the first editor of Vieta's tracts, "De Recognitione et Emendatione Equationum." Born at Aberdeen in 1582. Some of his works are as follow:—"Ad angularium sectionum analyticen theoremata καθολικώτερα." Paris, 1615; "Vindiciæ Archimedis, sive, Elenchus Cyclometriæ novæ a Philippo Lansbergio nuper editæ," Paris, 1616; "Exercitationum Mathematicarum Decas Prima," Paris, 1619. For an analysis of the mathematical writings of Robert Anderson, see the "Lady's Diary" for 1840.—A. M.

ANDERSON, Alexander, was a well-known naturalist of last century. In his young days, he visited the Caribbean islands, and reported on their geology and botany. In 1789 he communicated to the Royal Society of London a notice of the Pitch Lake of Trinidad. He was appointed superintendent of the botanic garden of the island of St. Vincent, and in 1798 published an account of the productions of the garden. In this he gave a description of the bread-fruit tree (Artocarpus incisa), imported from Tahiti. Some botanical papers by him appear in the Transactions of the Society of Arts.—J. H. B.

* ANDERSON, Arthur, an enterprising and public-spirited London merchant, born in Shetland in 1792. His efforts to promote the improvement of the northern isles procured him the honour of representing them in the British parliament, where he supported liberal measures, and particularly exerted himself in the agitation against the corn laws.—W. B.

ANDERSON, Christopher, a well-known Baptist minister, was born in Edinburgh, Feb. 19, 1782, and died in the same city on the 18th February, 1852, after a ministry of forty-six years. Besides his labours as an honourable and very useful pastor, Mr. Anderson was the originator, and for many years the secretary, of the Edinburgh Bible Society, and of the Gaelic School Society. The urgent need of some such societies was impressed upon his mind during journeys he made through the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. In 1809 he travelled through a large part of Ireland: hence his "Memorial on behalf of the native Irish," afterwards enlarged into "Historical Sketches of the native Irish" (1828). These works originated the Achill Mission and the Irish Society, which are supported chiefly by members of the Churches of England and Ireland. For many years Mr. Anderson was one of the most efficient friends of the Serampore Mission. His great work, to which the latter years of his life were largely devoted, is his "Annals of the English Bible," 2 vols.; London, 1845. Mr. Anderson is also the author of a popular book on "The Domestic Constitution" (1826), a theme which he was eminently qualified to discuss, both by his genial nature and severe domestic trials.—(The Life and Letters of Christopher Anderson, by his Nephew, Ed. 1854.)—J. A., L.

ANDERSON, Sir Edmund, a distinguished lawyer, born at Flixborough in Lincolnshire about 1450, or, according to some authorities, 1531, of a family originally Scottish. Edmund Anderson was educated at Oxford. After practising with success at the bar, he was, in 1579, made serjeant-at-law to Queen Elizabeth, and soon after justice of assize. In politics, determined to maintain the authority of the crown, and in religion, that of the church as by law established, he distinguished himself by his severe procedure against all malcontents and sectaries, more particularly the Brownists, in the Norfolk circuit of 1581. In 1582 he was appointed lord chief justice of the Common Pleas, and the year after he was knighted. Anderson sat as presiding or assisting judge in a number of important trials; in that of Mary Queen of Scots, and in that of the secretary Davison, for alleged rashness in proceeding with her execution; in the earl of Arundel's in 1589, in that of the earl of Essex in 1600, and in Sir Walter Raleigh's in 1603. Though usually, as already mentioned, firm in his support of regal authority, more than one instance can be mentioned in which Lord Chief Justice Anderson opposed, with equal firmness, an illegal exercise of prerogative. On the queen granting letters patent to Mr. Cavendish, an agent of the earl of Leicester, "for making out writs of supersedeas upon exigents in the Court of Common Pleas," the lord chief justice and his brethren refused a first and a second time to admit Cavendish to the office, on the ground that the queen had no right to grant such letters, and that compliance with them would be contrary to their oaths. The queen found herself obliged to yield. Sir Edmund was also one of the judges who signed a remonstrance "against the arbitrary proceedings of the court, by which, at the command of a counsellor or nobleman, subjects were frequently committed to prison, and detained without good cause, and contrary to the laws of the realm."

Lord Chief Justice Anderson retained his office under James I., and up till the time of his death in 1605. He is admitted to have been an able jurist, who, though attached to precedent and the letter of the law, could nevertheless, on occasion, exercise an independent judgment; and who, if in disposition the reverse of clement, was nevertheless conscientious in his decisions. He has left "Reports of Cases adjudged in the Courts of Westminster in the latter end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth," London, 1644, folio.—(See Aikin's General Biography, and Strype's Annals.)—A. M.

ANDERSON or ANDERSEN, George, author of an "Ac-