Significant Scots
William Lothian

LOTHIAN, (DR) WILLIAM F.R.S.E., author of a History of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, was born at Edinburgh in 1740, being the son of Mr George Lothian, a respectable surgeon in that city. Having passed through the various stages of his education with some éclat, he was licensed as a preacher of the gospel in 1762, and appointed, in 1764, one of the ministers of the Canongate. As a preacher his method of instruction was simple and perspicuous, his sentiments rational and manly, and his manner unaffected and persuasive. For many years before his death he was afflicted with a very painful disease; yet he not only performed his professional duties with unabated zeal, but found energy and spirit to compose the work above-mentioned, which appeared in 1780. Previously to this publication he had been honoured by the Edinburgh university with the degree of doctor of divinity. He died December 17, 1783, having only completed the forty-third year of his age. Two sermons by him are published in the Scotch Preacher, 4 vols. 12 mo, 1776. For a more copious notice of this respectable divine, reference may be made to the first volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.