Edinburgh publisher, born in Carnbee, Fife; started as a bookseller near the Cross in Edinburgh; published the Scots Magazine, the Edinburgh Review, and the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," and from 1802 to 1826 the works of Sir Walter Scott, when the bankruptcy connected with the publication of these so affected him that it ruined his health, though he lived after the crash came to start the "Miscellany" which bears his name (1774-1827).