Smith of Chichester; and poor Wilson found it difficult to procure a scanty subsistence by selling the noble creations of his fine genius to pawnbrokers and such sort of customers. He had, however, a confident persuasion that the public taste would yet come round, and that the merits and value of his paintings would, ere long, be felt and acknowledged: "Beechey," he one day said to that artist, "you will live to see great prices given for my pictures, when those of Barret will not fetch one farthing."

In his declining years Wilson was rendered comfortable in his worldly circumstances by the bequest of a relative; but the gift came too late to rescue his genius from the oppressing ills of poverty. His sight was now failing, and his skill of touch forsaking him; his spirits too had been soured and fretted by the neglect with which he had been treated by a public not yet qualified to appreciate his genius. He died in May, 1782.

"As a landscape-painter," says Allan Cunningham, "the merits of Wilson are great; his conceptions are generally noble, and his execution vigorous and glowing; the dewy freshness, the natural lustre and harmonious arrangement of his scenes, have seldom been exceeded. He rose at once from the tame insipidity of common scenery into natural grandeur and magnificence; his streams seem all abodes for nymphs, his hills are fit haunts for the muses, and his temples worthy of gods. His whole heart was in his art, and he talked and dreamed landscape. He looked on cattle as made only to form groups for his pictures, and on men as they composed harmoniously. One day looking on the fine scene from Richmond Terrace, and wishing to point out a spot of particular beauty to the friend who accompanied him, There,' said he, holding out his finger, see near those houses, there where the figures are.' He stood for some time by the waterfall of Terni in speechless admiration, and at length exclaimed, Well done: water, by God!' In aërial effect he considered himself above any rival. When Wright of Derby offered to exchange works with him, he answered, With all my heart. I'll give you air, and you will give me fire.' Wilson,' says Fuseli, discoursing on art in 1801, observed nature in all her appearances, and had a characteristic touch for all her forms. But, though in effects of dewy freshness and silent evening lights few have equalled and fewer excelled him, his grandeur is oftener allied to terror, bustle, and convulsion, than to calmness and tranquillity. He is now numbered with the classics of the art, though little more than the fifth part of a century has elapsed since death relieved him from the apathy of cognoscenti, the envy of rivals, and the neglect of a tasteless public; for Wilson, whose works will soon command prices as proud as those of Claude, Poussin, or Elzheimer, resembled the last most in his fate, and lived and died nearer to indigence than ease.' Wilson's landscapes are numerous, and are scattered as they should be through public galleries and private rooms. They are in general productions of fancy rather than of existing reality; scenes pictured forth by the imagination rather than transcribed from nature, yet there is enough of nature in them to please the commonest clown, and enough of what is poetic to charm the most fastidious fancy. He sometimes indeed painted fac-similes of scenes; but his heart disliked such unpoetic drudgery; for his thoughts were ever dwelling among hills and streams

renowned in story and song, and he loved to expatiate on ruined temples and walk over fields where great deeds had been achieved, and where gods had appeared among men. He was fortunate in little during his life: his view from Kew gardens, though exquisite in colour and in simplicity of arrangement, was returned by the king for whom it was painted; nor was the poetic loveliness of his compositions felt till such acknowledgment was useless to the artist. The names of a few of his principal compositions will show the historical and poetical influence under which he wrought,-the Death of Niobe, Phæton, Morning, View of Rome, Villa of Mecanas at Tivoli, Celadon and Amelia, View on the river Po, Apollo and the Seasons, Meleager and Atalanta, Cicero at his Villa, Lake of Narni, View on the coast of Baiæ, the Tiber near Rome, Temple of Bacchus, Adrian's Villa, Bridge of Rimini, Rosamond's Pond, Langallon-Bridge, Castle of Dinas Bran, Temple of Venus at Baiæ, Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii, Broken Bridge of Narni, and Nymphs Bathing."

John Fothergill.

BORN A. D. 1712.—died a. D. 1780.

THIS distinguished physician was born near Richmond in Yorkshire. He studied medicine and took the degree of M.D. at Edinburgh. In 1746 he was admitted a licentiate of the London college of physicians. He attained a very extensive practice in the metropolis and realized a handsome fortune, notwithstanding his benevolent disposition, and the large sums which he is known to have given away in charity. There appears to have been a good deal of the religious mystic about Dr Fothergill; but his character was unimpeachable, and his superior skill as a physician very generally admitted by his brethren. He was a munificent patron of scientific and learned men, and expended large sums in the formation of botanical collections. He died in 1780.

William Cole.

BORN A. D. 1714.-DIED A. D. 1782.

THIS industrious antiquary was the son of a gentleman of property in Cambridgeshire, and was born at Little Abington, near Baberham, in that county. After having been placed five years at Eton, he was entered of Clare hall, Cambridge. He afterwards removed to King's college. In 1736 he took the degree of B. A. In 1740 he proceeded M. A. In 1745 he was admitted to priest's orders, and in 1749 collated to the rectory of Hornsey in Middlesex.

In 1765 he accompanied Horace Walpole to France, and at one time thought of settling in that country. He was, however, diverted from

1 Chalmers is of opinion that Cole was secretly inclined to Romanism, and that to this leaning may be traced his desire to settle in France. See article COLE in Biographical Dictionary.'

this design by observing the unsettled state of the country, and by being told that if he died in France the king would claim his papers and personal property in virtue of the Droit d'Aubaine.

His passion for antiquarian pursuits manifested itself even in his boyish days. His manuscript collections were very extensive, and, in some departments, of considerable value. They amount to above one hundred volumes small folio. He had early professed to compile an account of the Cambridge scholars, in imitation of Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses.' Chalmers, who appears to have inspected his collections, reports them of little value.

William Emerson.

BORN A. D. 1701.-DIED A. D. 1782.

WILLIAM EMERSON, an eminent and in a great measure self-taught mathematician, was born in the neighbourhood of Darlington. His father was a schoolmaster, and a tolerable proficient in mathematics. Young Emerson was allowed to devote himself entirely to study; and, resting satisfied with a small patrimony, he continued throughout life a diligent student. He was an accomplished musical theorist and a tolerable classical scholar. His publications are rather numerous, and many of them of considerable repute. The following is a list of them: 1. The Doctrine of Fluxions,' 1748, 8vo.; 2. The Projection of the Sphere, orthographic, stereographic, and gnomical,' 1749, 8vo.; 'The Elements of Trigonometry,' 1749, 8vo.; 4. The Principles of Mechanics,' 1754, 8vo.; 5. A Treatise of Navigation,' 1755, 12mo; 6. A Treatise of Algebra, in two books,' 1765, 8vo.; 7. The Arithmetic of Infinites, and the Differential Method, illustrated by Examples,' 1767, 8vo.; 8. Mechanics, or the Doctrine of Motion,' 1769, 8vo.; 9. The Elements of Optics, in four books,' 1768, 8vo.; 10. A System of Astronomy,' 1769, 8vo.; 11. The Laws of Centripetal and Centrifugal Force,' 1769, 8vo.; 12. The Mathematical Principles of Geography,' 1770, 8vo.; 13. 'Tracts,' 1770, 8vo.; 14. 'Cyclomathesis, or an easy Introduction to the several branches of the Mathematics,' 1770, in 10 vols. 8vo.; 15. A short Comment on Sir Isaac Newton's Principia; to which is added, A Defence of Sir Isaac against the objections that have been made to several parts of his works,' 1770, 8vo.; 16. A Miscellaneous Treatise, containing several Mathematical Subjects,' 1776, 8vo.

Henry Home, Lord Kames.

BORN A. D. 1696.-DIED A. D. 1782.

THIS celebrated lawyer, philosopher, and critic, was the son of a Scotch country-gentleman of small fortune, and was born in the year 1696. He was privately educated, and at the age of sixteen was put to learn the profession of a solicitor or law-agent. He had nothing to depend upon but what he could realize by his own exertions, for his father had involved himself in debt very deeply. The branch of the

profession which he was now studying, if it did not offer the most dazzling objects of ambition to a young and ardent mind, presented at least the surest and steadiest road to moderate competency. But young Home was soon fired to aim at greater things than were designed for him. Being sent one evening by his master with some papers to one of the judges, he was admitted to his lordship's presence, and very handsomely treated by him and his daughter; the combination of dignity and elegance which the young man saw in the manners and situation of the venerable judge and his accomplished daughter, so wrought upon his fancy, that, from that moment, he determined that nothing less should satisfy him than the attainment of the highest honours of the legal profession. He commenced a most laborious course of study, as well in the departments of literature and science as in the knowledge more peculiarly appropriate to his intended profession, and made a rapid progress in them all.

In addition to the study of the classical and the principal modern languages, his attention was closely directed to metaphysical investigations. In early life he carried on a correspondence with Andrew Baxter, Dr Clarke, and other celebrated metaphysicians. Dr Clarke had some years before published his celebrated 'Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God.' Home, at the age of 27, wrote him a log letter, proposing objections to different parts of his treatise. It was a clever but rather forward production, and was briefly answered by the Doctor.

In January, 1724, Home was called to the bar. For some years he had to struggle against the established ascendancy of several able and eloquent seniors in the profession. He did so gallantly, and his exer tions were finally rewarded by abundant practice and high reputation. In 1728 he published a volume of Remarkable Decisions,' in which he evinced great acuteness and indefatigable industry. In 1732 he published a volume of legal essays, which contributed still farther to advance his professional fame. Business now flowed in upon him; and the road to the attainment of his most ardent hopes was fairly opened to him. His manner as a barrister, says his biographer Lord Woodhouselee, was peculiar to himself. He never attempted to speak to the passions, or to captivate his hearers by the graces of oratory; but addressing himself to the judgment, and employing a strain of language only a little elevated above that of ordinary discourse,-which even by its peculiar tone and style fixed the attention of the judge, while it awakened no suspicion of rhetorical artifice,—he began by a very short and distinct statement of the facts of the case, and a plain enunciation of the question of law thence arising. Having thus joined issue with his adversary on what he conceived to be the fair merits of the case, he proceeded to develope the principle on which he apprehended the decision ought to rest, and endeavoured with all the acuteness of which he was master to show its application to the question in discussion."

In 1741 Mr Home published, in two volumes fol., 'The Decisions of the Court of Session, from its institution to the present time, abridged and digested under proper heads in the form of a Dictionary.' In 1747 he published a volume of essays on various points of law antiquarianism. In 1751 appeared his Essays on the Principles of Morality and

Natural Religion.' This work was occasioned by the appearance of his friend David Hume's Philosophical Essays.' Hume had assigned utility as the foundation of morals. This appeared to Home a very dangerous doctrine, as tending to annihilate all distinction of right and wrong in human actions, and to make good and evil depend on the fluctuating opinions of men with respect to the general good. In the Essays he has, therefore, subjected this theory to examination, and succeeded in pointing out its defects though certainly not in erecting a sounder system in its place. Hume's doctrine of cause and effect is also subjected to a rigid scrutiny in the Essays. The conclusion come to by Home on this point is,-that although the connexion between cause and effect is not demonstrable, yet are we assured of its reality: our conviction with respect to it resting on the same ground as that of the fact of our own existence, and the existence of the material world, the evidence, namely, of intuitive perception, creating a belief that is irresistible, constant, and universal. Some of the doctrines advanced in the Essays, however, proved highly offensive to many, and Home was included with Hume in the proposed vote of censure meditated in the general assembly of the Church of Scotland.

In the month of February, 1752, Mr Home was elevated to the bench, and took his seat as a lord of session, by the title of Lord Kames. The promotion gave great and universal satisfaction, and he acquitted himself, as a judge, in a manner which commanded the highest approbation of intelligent men. He has been censured by some for severity as a criminal judge, but without just grounds, we think. Amidst his various judicial and public duties, he found means to publish several useful professional works. In 1761 he published a small volume entitled An Introduction to the Art of Thinking;' and, in the following year, his most celebrated work, the Elements of Criticism,' appeared in three volumes 8vo. "In this elaborate work," says his biographer, "the author proceeds on this fundamental proposition, that the impressions made on the mind by the productions of the Fine Arts, are a subject of reasoning as well as feeling; and that, although the agreeable emotion arising from what is beautiful or excellent in those productions may be a gift of nature, and, like all other endowments, very unequally distributed among mankind, yet it depends on certain principles or laws of the human constitution which are common to the whole species. Whence it follows, that, as a good taste consists in the consonance of our feelings with these fixed laws, our judgments on all the works of genius are only to be esteemed just and perfect when they are warranted by the conclusions of sound understanding, after trying and comparing them by this standard." These principles are doubtless sound, and Lord Kames deserves to be regarded as the first who reduced the rules of philosophical criticism to the form of a science. We are doubtful, however, of his right to being considered as the discoverer of these principles, which appear to us to have been known from the days of Aristotle.

Lord Kames's next great work is his Sketches of the History of Man,' first published in 1774, in two volumes 4to. The leading doctrine of this singular work appears to be, that man originally existed in a state of utter savageism, and that all his subsequent advancement has been the mere result of the progressive development of his natural