Note 123 — PREFACE

Alexander Alesius, or Alesse, was a native of Edinburgh, born in 1500, and educated at St. Andrews. Calderwood, Bayle, the Biographia Britannica, Dr. MʻCrie, and, in particular, the Rev. Christopher Anderson, (Annals of the English Bible, vol. ii. pp. 427-468,) have given detailed accounts of his subsequent life and writings. He was imprisoned, and narrowly escaped the persecuting violence of his Superior, Patrick Hepburn, Prior of St. Andrews, in the year 1529. Alesse has the merit of being among the first who contended for the translation of the Scriptures into the vernacular tongue. He died at Leipzig on the 17th of March 1565.