Alexander Ross (c. 1590–1654) was a prolific
Scottish
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
*Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland
*Scottish English
*Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
writer and controversialist. He was
Chaplain-in-Ordinary to
Charles I.
Life
Ross was born in
Aberdeen, and entered
King's College, Aberdeen after completing his studies at Aberdeen Grammar School, in 1604. About 1616 he succeeded Thomas Parker in the mastership of the free school at Southampton, an appointment which he owed to
Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford
Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, 1st Baron Beauchamp, KG (22 May 1539 – 6 April 1621), of Wulfhall and Totnam Lodge in Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire, of Hatch Beauchamp in Somerset, of Netley Abbey, Hampshire, and of Hertford House, Cannon R ...
. By 1622 he had been appointed, through
William Laud's influence, one of Charles I's chaplains, and in that year appeared ''The First and Second Book of Questions and Answers upon the Book of Genesis, by Alexander Ross of Aberdeen, preacher at St. Mary's, near Southampton, and one of his Majesty's Chaplains.'' He was vicar of
St. Mary's Church, Carisbrooke
St Mary's Church, Carisbrooke is a parish church in the Church of England located in Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight.
History
The church is medieval dating from the Norman period.
The tower contains a ring of 10 bells. The back 8 bells were cast ...
in the
Isle of Wight from 1634 to his death; he left Southampton in 1642.
In ''Pansebeia'', Ross gave a list of his books, past and to come. He died in 1654 at
Bramshill House in
Hampshire, where he was living with Sir Andrew Henley, and in the neighbouring
Eversley church there are two tablets to his memory. Ross left many legacies, and his books were left to his friend Henley, an executor and guardian to a nephew, William Ross.
Among Ross's friends and patrons were
Lewis Watson, 1st Baron Rockingham,
John Tufton, 2nd Earl of Thanet
John Tufton, 2nd Earl of Thanet (15 December 1608 – 7 May 1664) was an English nobleman and supporter of Charles I of England. He was the eldest son of Nicholas Tufton, 1st Earl of Thanet, and Lady Frances Cecil, granddaughter of William Cec ...
,
Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel, and
John Evelyn. His correspondence with
Henry Oxenden, in English and Latin, is in the
British Museum.
He is not the Alexander Ross of the
Aberdeen doctors
The Aberdeen doctors or Doctors of Aberdeen were six divines working at Marischal College and King's College in Aberdeen, Scotland in the seventeenth century. Until 1635, they enjoyed the leadership of Patrick Forbes, Bishop of Aberdeen. They ar ...
, who remained in Scotland and died in 1639.
Works
Richard Westfall calls him "the vigilant watchdog of conservatism and orthodoxy". He was concerned to defend Aristotle and repel the
Copernican theory
Copernican heliocentrism is the astronomical model developed by Nicolaus Copernicus and published in 1543. This model positioned the Sun at the center of the Universe, motionless, with Earth and the other planets orbiting around it in circular pa ...
, as it gained ground. In 1634 he published a work on the immobility of the earth, attacking
Nathanael Carpenter and Philip Landsberg. He became involved in a debate with
John Wilkins and Libert Froidmond, around the beliefs of
Christopher Clavius. He attacked
Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne (; 19 October 160519 October 1682) was an English polymath and author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including science and medicine, religion and the esoteric. His writings display a deep curi ...
(defending, for instance, the beliefs that
crystal is a sort of fossilized
ice, and that
garlic
Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plant in the genus ''Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, Allium fistulosum, Welsh onion and Allium chinense, Chinese onion. It is native to South A ...
hinders
magnetism
Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particles ...
), and many other contemporary ideas. In other controversies he took on
Sir Kenelm Digby,
Thomas Hobbes, and
William Harvey.
Authorship of the ''Alcoran of Mahomet''
In his 1734 translation of the
Qur'an,
George Sale
George Sale (1697–1736) was a British Orientalist scholar and practising solicitor, best known for his 1734 translation of the Quran into English. In 1748, after having read Sale's translation, Voltaire wrote his own essay "De l'Alcoran ...
attributes to Alexander Ross the translation into English of André du Ryer's 1647 French translation of the Qur'an,
L'Alcoran de Mahomet. This attribution is, most probably, spurious. Furthermore, Sale is most critical of the quality of both the Arabic-French translation work as well as the French-English translation work. Despite this, since the publication of Sale's translation, Alexander Ross has been widely and most probably wrongly credited with this work.
[Thomas Burman, 'European-Qur'an Translations' in Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, Volume 6. Western Europe (1500-1600, (Leiden: Brill, 2014]
Publications
*''Rerum Judaicarum Libri Duo'' (1617)
*''Questions and Answers on the First Six Chapters of Genesis'' (1620)
*''Tonsor ad cutem Rasus'' (1629)
*''Commentum de Terrae Motu Circulari Refutatus'' (1634)
*''Virgilii Evangelisantis Christiados Libri xiii'' (1634), a
cento composed entirely from
Virgil
*''The New Planet, no Planet, or the Earth no Wandering Star, against Galilaeus and Copernicus,'' (1640)
*''God's House, or the House of Prayer, vindicated from Profaneness'' (1642) sermons
*''God's House made a Den of Thieves'' (1642) sermons
*''Philosophical Touchstone, or Observations on Sir Kenelm Digby's Discourse on the Nature of Bodies and of the Reasonable Soul, and Spinosa's Opinion of the Mortality of the Soul, briefly confuted'' (1645)
*''Medicus Medicatus, or the Physician's Religion cured'' (1645)
*''The Picture of the Conscience'' (1646)
*''Mystagogus Poeticus, or the Muses' Interpreter'' (1647)
*''Th
Alcoran of Mahomet Translated out of Arabique into French by the Sieur Du Ryer, Lord of Malezair, and Resident for the King of France at Alexandria, and Newly Englished for the Satisfaction of All That Desire to Look into Turkish Vanities, to Which is Prefixed the Life of Mahomet, ... with a Needful Caveat, or Admonition, for Those Who Desire to Know What Use May Be Made of, or If There Be Danger in Reading, the Alcoran'' (1649)
*''Enchiridium Oratorium et Poeticum'' (1650)
*''
Arcana Microcosmi, or the Hid Secrets of Man's Body discovered, in Anatomical Duel between Aristotle and Galen; with a Refutation of Thomas Browne's Vulgar Errors, from Bacon's Natural History, and Hervey's book De Generatione'' (1651)
*
Web version of the text*''The History of the World, the Second Part, in six books, being a Continuation of Sir Walter Raleigh's'' (1652)
*''Πανσεβεια ("Pansebeia"), or View of all the Religions in the World, with the Lives of certain notorious Hereticks'' (1652)
*''Observations upon Hobbes's Leviathan'' (1653)
*''Animadversions and Observations upon Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World'' (1653)
*''Three Decads of Divine Meditations, whereof each one containeth three parts. 1. History. 2. An Allegory. 3. A Prayer. With a Commendation of a Private Country Life.''
*''Four Books of Epigrams in Latin Elegiacs''
*''Mel Heliconium, or Poetical Honey gathered out of the Weeds of Parnassus''
*''Melisomachia''
*''Colloquia Plautina''
*''Chronology, in English''
*''Chymera Pythagorica''
References
;Attribution
*
External links
*
*
David Allan, "‘An Ancient Sage Philosopher’: Alexander Ross and the Defence of Philosophy", The Seventeenth Century, 17 (2001), 68-93 (PDF)The Alcoran of Mahomet (first edition 1946, London, printed, Anno Dom.) first Quran translated into English.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ross, Alexander
1590s births
1654 deaths
Alumni of the University of Aberdeen
People from Aberdeen
Writers from Aberdeen
People from Hart District
17th-century Scottish writers
Translators of the Quran into English
17th-century Scottish clergy
17th-century translators