Cruden Alexander

Cruden Alexander, author of the well-known Concordance, was born in Aberdeen May 31, 1701, and was educated at Mareschal College with a view to the ministry, but aberration of mind caused his temporary confinement in an asylum, and prevented his entering on the ecclesiastical career. in 1732 he went to London, and was employed as a classical tutor and corrector of the press. He was appointed bookseller to the queen, to whom in 1737 he dedicated his Complete Concordance to the Holy Scriptures of the O. and N. Test., which first appeared in that year. Pecuniary difficulties growing out of the publication of this work now increased his insanity, and led to his temporary confinement, but he escaped from Bethnal Green, and brought an action against the proprietor and physician of the asylum, who of course obtained a verdict in their favor. For the rest of his life he was permitted to remain at liberty, and he returned with zeal to his learned and severe labors, manifesting his strange eccentricity in a thousand forms — soliciting knighthood from the king, a seat in Parliament from the people of London, and courting the daughter of the lord mayor, but preserving unchanged his piety and benevolence. He made a verbal index to Milton's poems, a Scripture Dictionary, and several religious works, continuing to the last the emendation of his Concordance. Many editions of this work have since appeared. On November 1, 1770, he was found dead in his chamber in the attitude of prayer. SEE CONCORDANCE.