Born at Aberdeen, 31st May, 1701, took his M.A. at Marischal College, but for a short time was under restraint. On his release he left Aberdeen, and, after ten years’ tutoring, in 1732 started as a bookseller in London. In 1737 appeared his admirable “Concordance of the Holy Scriptures.” It was dedicated to Queen Caroline, who promised to “remember him,” but died a few days later. Cruden now relapsed into insanity, and for ten weeks was kept in a madhouse, as again for a fortnight in 1753. Earning meanwhile his livelihood as a press-reader he assumed the title of “Alexander the Corrector,” and in 1755 began to go through the country reproving Sabbath-breaking and profanity. But many a good and kindly action was interwoven with his crack-brained courtships, his dreams of knighthood and a seat in parliament. He was just back from a visit to Aberdeen when he died at his prayers in his Islington lodgings, 1st November, 1770. See life by A. Chalmers, prefixed since 1824 to the “Concordance.”

Personal

  Alexander Cruden, who compiled the great “Concordance,” was one of the most unique eccentrics upon record. The man was of excellent and mild disposition, very piously inclined, of studious habit, and of an industry that cannot be surpassed, for it was incessant and lifelong. A thread of madness seems to have run through all that he did, and at times usurped the whole web of his life, so that confinement seemed to those who knew him to be indispensable. This idea was probably erroneous, and aggravated the disease it should have repressed, causing needless misery to a very gentle and harmless being. The facts of his life are few, but most instructive to those who delight in watching the occasional freaks and pranks of Nature in her hors d’œuvres. One of the most singular of these is to be found in Alexander Cruden. In his general conduct he is a model of method and routine, but, when driven by an impulse, no course of action is too much out of rule to deter him. He becomes at one and the same moment, as it were, a man of order that can surpass the most disorderly at a bound.

  His biblical labours have justly made his name a household word among the English-speaking peoples; his earnest, gentle, and self-denying piety commanded in his later days, in spite of his eccentricities, the kindly and compassionate toleration, often the admiration, of his contemporaries. It is probable that his habits in later life improved his mental condition.

Concordance of the Bible

  It is so complete as a Concordance that nothing remains materially deficient.

  It is not unlikely that Cruden, corrected and improved, will still retain his place in English literature.

  Of Cruden’s “Concordance,” there have been many abridgments, which profess to contain all that is valuable in the original, which makes us marvel at the stupidity of the author, who devoted so many days and nights to accumulate what we are now assured is entirely superfluous! Yet being old-fashioned in our ideas, we rather prefer having every line of this unnecessary matter.