TYTLER, James, scholar, born in Brechin, Forfarshire, Scotland, in 1747; died near Salem, Massachusetts, in 1805. He was educated for the church, and afterward for the medical profession. He was commonly called " Balloon Tytler," from being the first in Scotland to ascend in a fire-balloon on the plan of Montgolfier. He belonged to the Friends of the People, and, to avoid political persecution, fled to Ireland about 1793, and to this country about 1796. He was drowned near Salem, Massachusetts Robert Burns describes him as "a mortal who, though he drudges about Edinburgh as a common printer, with leaky shoes, a sky-lighted hat, and knee-buckles as unlike as George-by-the-grace-of-God and Solomon-the-son-of-David, yet that same unknown mortal is author and compiler of three fourths of Elliot's pompous 'Encyclopaedia Britannica, ' which he composed at half a guinea a week !" Besides contributing to magazines, he was the author of anonymous works and of popular songs, including " I ha'e laid a Herring in Saut," or '" I canna Come ilka Day to Woo," and " The Pleasures of the Abbey." His publications include "Essays on the Most Important Subjects of Natural and Revealed Religion," which he set in type without manuscript in Holyrood (Edinburgh, 1772) ; "System of Geography" (1788) ; "History of Edinburgh"; "Geographical, Historical, and Commercial Grammar" (2 vols.): " Review of Dritchken's Theory of Inflammation"; " Answer to Paine's 'Age of Reason'";" On the Excise "; "System of Surgery" ; and "Treatise on the Plague and Yellow Fever" (Salem, 1799).