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, was born at Caskieben, near Aberdeen, the seat of his ancestors, in 1587, and probably was educated at Aberdeen, as he was afterwards advanced to the highest dignity in that university. The study to which he chiefly applied, was that of physic; and to improve himself in that science, he travelled into foreign countries. He was twice at Rome, but the chief place of his residence was at Padua, in which university the degree of M. D. was conferred on him in 1610, as appears by a ms copy of verses in the advocates’ library in Edinburgh. After leaving Padua, he travelled through the rest of Italy, and over Germany, Denmark, England, Holland, and other countries, and at last settled in France, where he met with great applause as a Latin poet. He lived there twenty years, and by two wives had thirteen children. At last, after twenty-four years absence, he returned into Scotland, as some say in 1632, but probably much sooner, as there is an edition of his “Epigrammata,” printed at Aberdeen in 1632, in which he is styled the king’s physician. It appears by the council-books at Edinburgh, that the doctor had a suit at law before that court about the same time. In the year following, Charles I. went into Scotland, and made bishop Laud, then with him, a member of that council; and by this accident it is probable the acquaintance began between the doctor and that prelate, which produced his “Psalmorum Davidis Paraphrasis Poetica.” We find, that in the same year the doctor printed a specimen of his Psalms at London, and dedicated them to his lordship, which is considered as a proof that the bishop prevailed upon Johnston to remove to London from Scotland, and then set him upon this work; neither can it be doubted but, after he had seen this sample, he also engaged him to perfect the whole, which took him up four years; for the first etlition'of all the Psalms was published at Aberdeen in 1637, and at London in the same year. In 1641, Dr. Johnston being at Oxford on a visit to one of his daughters, who was married to a divine of the church of England in that place, was seized with a violent diarrhoea, of which he died in a few days, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, not without having seen the beginning of those troubles which proved so fatal to his patron. He was buried in the place where he died, which gave occasion to the following lines of his learned friend Wedderburn in his “Suspiria,” on the doctor’s death: