Alexander Macbean (died 1784) was a British writer and amanuensis, known as a lexicographer.
An amanuensis is a person employed to write or type what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another, and also refers to a person who signs a document on behalf of another under the latter's authority.
Macbean worked as amanuensis for Ephraim Chambers; and then was one of the six amanuenses employed Johnson's Dictionary . About 1758 he obtained, through Samuel Johnson, the post of librarian to Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll. [1]
Ephraim Chambers was an English writer and encyclopaedist, who is primarily known for producing the Cyclopaedia, or a Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.
Samuel Johnson, often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. He was a devout Anglican. Politically, he was a committed Tory. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes Johnson as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is the subject of James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, described by Walter Jackson Bate as "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature".
Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll, 1st Earl of Ilay was a Scottish nobleman, politician, lawyer, businessman, and soldier. He was known as Lord Archibald Campbell from 1703 to 1706, and as the Earl of Ilay from 1706 until 1743, when he succeeded to the dukedom. He was the dominant political leader in Scotland in his day, and was involved in many civic projects.
On the duke's death in 1761, Macbean was left with income, and he became mainly dependent on charity. In 1775, when Macbean was starving, as his former colleague Peyton had already done, Johnson who found him unworldly gave him four guineas and collected more; and in 1780, through his influence with Lord Thurlow, obtained him admission as a poor brother to the London Charterhouse. There he died on 26 June 1784. [1]
The London Charterhouse is a historic complex of buildings in Smithfield, London, dating back to the 14th century. It occupies land to the north of Charterhouse Square, and lies within the London Borough of Islington. Originally constructed as a Carthusian priory, on the site of a burial ground, at the Dissolution of the Monasteries it became one of the greatest palaces of Tudor London. In 1611, the property was bought by Thomas Sutton, a businessman and "the wealthiest commoner in England", who established a school for the young and an almshouse for the old. The almshouse remains today, although the school was re-established as Charterhouse School in Godalming, Surrey in 1872.
Macbean wrote: [1]
Georg Ernst Stahl was a German chemist, physician and philosopher. He was a supporter of vitalism, and until the late 18th century his works on phlogiston were accepted as an explanation for chemical processes.
He also compiled numerous indexes, including that to Johnson's edition of the English Poets. [1]
Attribution
The public domain consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable.
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The Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) was published on 23 September 2004 in 60 volumes and online, with 50,113 biographical articles covering 54,922 lives.
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The Theological Repository was a periodical founded and edited from 1769 to 1771 by the eighteenth-century British polymath Joseph Priestley. Although ostensibly committed to the open and rational inquiry of theological questions, the journal became a mouthpiece for Dissenting, particularly Unitarian and Arian, doctrines.
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