ANDERSON, ALEXANDER (1845-1909).—­Poet, s. of a quarrier at Kirkconnel, Dumfriesshire, became a surfaceman on the railway.  Spending all his leisure in self-culture, he mastered German, French, and Spanish sufficiently to read the chief masterpieces in these languages.  His poetic vein, which was true if somewhat limited in range, soon manifested itself, and his first book, Songs of Labour, appeared in 1873, and there followed Two Angels (1875), Songs of the Rail (1878), and Ballads and Sonnets (1879).  In the following year he was made assistant librarian in the University of Edinburgh, and after an interval as secretary to the Philosophical Institution there, he returned as Chief Librarian to the university.  Thereafter he wrote little.  Of a simple and gentle character, he made many friends, including the Duke of Argyll, Carlyle, and Lord Houghton.  He generally wrote under the name of “Surfaceman.”

ANDREWES, LANCELOT (1555-1626).—­Churchman and scholar, was b. in London, and ed. at Merchant Taylor’s School and Cambridge, where he took a fellowship and taught divinity.  After receiving various other preferments he became Dean of Westminster, and a chaplain-in-ordinary to Queen Elizabeth, who, however, did not advance him further on account of his opposition to the alienation of ecclesiastical revenues.  On the accession, however, of James I., to whom his somewhat pedantic learning and style of preaching recommended him, he rose into great favour, and was made successively Bishop of Chichester, of Ely, and, in 1618, of Winchester.  He attended the Hampton Court Conference, and took part in the translation of the Bible, known as the Authorised Version, his special work being given to the earlier parts of the Old Testament:  he acted, however, as a sort of general editor.  He was considered as, next to Ussher, the most learned churchman of his day, and enjoyed a great reputation as an eloquent and impassioned preacher, but the stiffness and artificiality of his style render his sermons unsuited to modern taste.  His doctrine was High Church, and in his life he was humble, pious, and charitable.  Ninety-six of his sermons were published in 1631 by command of Charles I.

There are lives by A.T.  Russell (1863), and R.L.  Ottley (1894); Devotions were edited by Rev. Dr. Whyte (1900).

ANSTEY, CHRISTOPHER (1724-1805).—­Poet, s. of Dr. A., a wealthy clergyman, rector of Brinkley, Cambridgeshire, was ed. at Eton and Cambridge.  He pub. in 1766 a satirical poem of considerable sparkle, The New Bath Guide, from which Smollett is said to have drawn largely in his Humphrey Clinker.  He made many other excursions into literature which are hardly remembered, and ended his days as a country squire at the age of eighty.