for the year 1788, and vol. lxxx., was written by him. The review of Knight's Essay on the Greek Alphabet,' January, 1794, has, from internal evidence, been given to him. Of the ironical defence of Sir John Hawkins' Life of Johnson' he is also said to have been the writer: this was comprised in three admirable letters inserted in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for 1787, under the signature of Sundry Whereof. Some letters upon the contested verse 1 John v. 7., appeared subsequently, in the same work; which at length caused the publication of his inimitable and unanswerable letters to Archdeacon Travis, which put the controversy upon the disputed text at rest for ever. Not long after he had taken his first degree, it was in the contemplation of the syndics of the university-press, at Cambridge, to publish Eschylus, with some papers of Stanley. Porson offered to undertake the work, provided he were allowed to conduct it according to his own ideas of the duty of an editor. Unhappily for the interests of learning this offer was rejected. He, sometime afterwards, visited Germany; on his return, being much teazed by a loquacious personage to give some account of his travels, he sarcastically replied,

I went to Frankfort, and got drunk,

With that most learn'd professor, Brunck;

I went to Wortz, and got more drunken,
With that more learn'd professor, Rhunken.

In 1786 Nicholson, the Cambridge bookseller, being about to publish a new edition of Xenophon's Anabasis, prevailed upon Porson to furnish him with some notes; which he accordingly did. These occupy about nineteen closely printed pages; and, although avowedly written in haste, attest the hand of a master. They relate chiefly to MSS. of which Hutchinson was either ignorant or negligent. Those marked W. have been assigned to Mr White, the author of the Etymologicum Magnum.' In 1790 a new edition of the very learned work, entitled 'Emendationes in Suidam et Hesychium, et alios Lexicographos Græcos,' was published at the Clarendon press. To this Porson subjoined some critical notes, which were termed 'Notæ breves, ad Toupii Emendationes in Suidam,' and Notæ in Curas novissimas.' These were never publicly acknowledged, any further than by the initials 3 of the learned Grecian.

Long before that probationary period had elapsed, in the course of which it was absolutely incumbent upon him to determine whether he would enter into holy orders, or resign his fellowship, he had, after the most deliberate investigation, made up his mind on the subject of subscription. It has been stated, that this determination cost him many painful and laborious days and months of study; and there is no question but that his motives were conscientious. So early as the year 1788 he had determined to surrender his fellowship, though with an enfeebled constitution, and having nothing to depend upon but acquirements which are little profitable to their possessor. In 1791 he was thrown upon the public without a profession; his emolument from his fellowship had ceased; his feelings were wounded by the mortifications he had suf

They are introduced by a remarkable preface, beginning "Pectori, si quis erit, &c. A. R. P. C. S. S. T. C. S. i. e. A. Rigardo Porson, Collegii Sacro Sanctæ Trinitatis Cantabrigiæ Socio

fered; and with a constitution little qualified to struggle through the world, and sensibility the concomitant of genius corroding his mind upon every disappointment, he seems to have stood an example of the inefficacy of great talents and immense erudition to procure independence, or even the means of existence, without patronage, or those sacrifices to which few men of genius or talents will stoop. In this unpleasant situation, without hope from the public, he yet attracted the attention of some private friends; and he was soon after, by the unanimous voice of the seven electors, appointed professor of the Greek language in the university of Cambridge. Although the salary annexed to this important situation is but £40 per annum, its distinction was grateful to him. This new office not obliging him to reside at the university, he settled in literary retirement in London. Here he is said to have passed much of his time in dissipation, amid the different convivial circles to which his wit and agreeable conversation made him welcome. In 1795 he married the sister of Mr Perry of The Morning Chronicle;' to which he contributed several papers, under the signature of S. England,' continuing at the same time to write criticisms for the magazines before mentioned.

In 1793 he disdained not the humble but useful office of corrector of the press to a most beautiful edition of Heyne's Virgil. Prefixed to this will be found a short preface, in which the modest professor disclaims any other merit than that of having brought together a few conjectural criticisms by learned men, together with some addenda to the index. This work was printed in London. Mr Porson was in possession of a copy of Pauw's edition of Æschylus, corrected throughout by himself. Having lent this to a gentleman, a surreptitious impression somehow most unaccountably found its way to the press. In 1795 a very beautiful small edition of the seven tragedies was published by the Foullis of Glasgow; and Schultz, having afterwards printed another in Germany, added Mr Porson's 'new readings,' to which he at the same time prefixed a short introduction replete with respect and acknowledgment.

In 1797 appeared the 'Hecuba' of Euripides, in one volume, 8vo. with many emendations from manuscripts, to which were subjoined notes and a learned vindication. This work was intended, in part, to try the temper of the times, and prepare the public mind for the appearance of the other plays of the same author; two more accordingly made their appearance in succession. Soon after the publication of the first of these, the late Mr Gilbert Wakefield issued his Diatribe Extemporalis,' in which emendations are pointed out, and certain canons of criticism objected to, as not founded in propriety.

The last work that Professor Porson published was a third edition of the Hecuba.' He had also, it is said, made a considerable progress in the revision of the three other plays which he had formerly edited; but it is a circumstance most seriously to be lamented, that he should have spent so much time in revising what he had already given to the world, instead of proceeding to correct the text of the remaining plays. had undertaken to make out and copy the almost obliterated manuscript of the invaluable Lexicon of Photius, which he had borrowed from the library of Trinity-college. And this he had with unparalleled difficulty just completed, when the beautiful copy, which had cost him ten

He

months of incessant toil, was burned in the house of Mr Perry at Merton. The original, being an unique intrusted to him by the college, he carried always with him, and he was fortunately absent from Merton on the morning of the fire. Unruffled by the loss, he sat down without a murmur, and made a second copy as beautiful as the first. In 1800 he was profitably engaged by the bishop of St Asaph, to examine the Harleian manuscripts at the British museum, for the purpose of collating them with the Ernestine manuscript of the Odyssey, previously to the publication of Lord Granville's edition of Homer. continued to write various literary papers, chiefly of a critical nature, until within a short period of his death; in the year previous to which, he was elected principal librarian to the London Institution, Moorfields.

He

Mr Porson, who had ran little more than two-thirds of the ordinary course of human existence, had been for the last eleven years the victim of a spasmodic asthma, during the agony of which he never went to bed, and was forced to abstain from all sustenance. This, of course, greatly debilitated his body, and about a month before his death he was also afflicted with an intermittent fever. He had an unfortunate objection to medical advice, and therefore resorted to his usual remedy of abstinence; but on Monday the 19th of September 1808, he suffered an apoplectic stroke, from which he recovered only to endure another the next day. He languished in consequence until the Sunday night, and then expired without a struggle. The body was opened in the presence of several medical men, who gave a report, ascribing his death "to the effused lymph in and upon the brain, which they believe to have been the effect of recent inflammation. The heart was sound, and the pericardium contained the usual quantity of lymph. The left lung had adhesions to the pleura, and bore the marks of former inflammation. The right lung was in a perfectly sound state." In refutation of an idle falsehood about the form of his skull, they add, "that it was thinner than usual, and of hard consistence."

Porson was the first Grecian of his day; "in him were conspicuous boundless talent; a most exact and well-ordered memory; unwearied patience in unravelling the sense of an author, and explaining the perplexities of a manuscript; perspicuity in discovering the corruptions of a text; and acuteness, almost intuitive, in restoring the true reading."

John Home.

BORN A. D. 1722.-DIED A. D. 1808.

"THE memory of Mr Home, as an author," says an able critic, "depends, in England, almost entirely upon his celebrated tragedy of Douglas, which not only retains the most indisputable possession of the stage, but produces a stronger effect on the feelings of the audience, when the parts of Douglas and Lady Randolph are well filled, than almost any tragedy since the days of Otway. There may be something of chance in having hit upon a plot of such general interest; and no author has been more fortunate in seeing the creatures of his imagination personified by the first performers which England could produce.

But it is certain, that to be a favourite with those whose business it is to please the public, a tragedy must possess, in a peculiar degree, the means of displaying their powers to advantage; and it is equally clear, that the subject of Douglas, however felicitous in itself, was well-suited to the talents of the writer, who treated it so as to enable them to accomplish a powerful effect on the feelings of successive generations of

men."

Mr Home was the son of Mr Alexander Home, town-clerk of Leith. His grandfather was a lineal descendant of Sir James Home of Coldingknowes. He was born in the vicinity of Ancrum, in Roxburghshire, in 1724, and received the first rudiments of education at the parochial school of that place. It was Mr Home's inclination, and the desire of his parents, that he should enter the church. He therefore attended the philosophical and theological classes of the university of Edinburgh for several years. But his studies were for a while suspended by the public commotions of the year 1745. On the approach of the insurgents, the citizens of Edinburgh formed themselves into an association for the support of their sovereign, and the defence of their city. Mr Home was one of about twenty students of the university who offered their services as volunteers to act against the common enemy. But intimidated by the number of their opponents, or adverse to the hardships of a military life, the college company soon disbanded. Mr Home, however, retained his arms, and marched with a detachment of the royal army to Falkirk; where, in the battle fought in its neighbourhood, in which the rebels vanquished the king's troops, he was taken prisoner, and confined for some time in the castle of Doune. From this place of captivity he effected his escape, and the battle of Culloden having blasted all the hopes of the Pretender's adherents, tranquillity and order were soon restored. Mr Home resumed his studies, and was licensed to preach the gospel. His character, at this period, is thus described by his biographer Mr Henry Mackenzie: "His temper was of that warm susceptible kind which is caught with the heroic and the tender, and which is more fitted to delight in the world of sentiment than to succeed in the bustle of ordinary life. This is a disposition of mind well-suited to the poetical character, and, accordingly, all his earliest companions agree that Mr Home was from his childhood delighted with the lofty and heroic ideas which embody themselves in the description or narrative of poetry. One of them, nearly a coeval of Mr Home's, Dr A. Ferguson, says, in a letter to me, that Mr Home's favourite model of a character, on which, indeed, his own was formed, was that of young Norval, in his tragedy of Douglas, one endowed with chivalrous valour and romantic generosity, eager for glory beyond every other object, and, in the contemplation of future fame, entirely regardless of the present objects of interest or ambition."

Not long after, Home visited England, and was introduced to Collins, the poet, at Winchester, by a Mr Barrow, who had been his fellowstudent at the university. Collins addressed to him his Ode on the Superstition of the Highlanders,' considered as the subject of poetry composed in 1749, but not published till many years after his death It is evident that Home at this period had exhibited some poctical powers. In the first stanza, Collins delivers a prediction, which was soon after fulfilled ::

ton.

months of incessant toil, was burned in the house of Mr Perry at MerThe original, being an unique intrusted to him by the college, he carried always with him, and he was fortunately absent from Merton on the morning of the fire. Unruffled by the loss, he sat down without a murmur, and made a second copy as beautiful as the first. In 1800 he was profitably engaged by the bishop of St Asaph, to examine the Harleian manuscripts at the British museum, for the purpose of collating them with the Ernestine manuscript of the Odyssey, previously to the publication of Lord Granville's edition of Homer. continued to write various literary papers, chiefly of a critical nature, until within a short period of his death; in the year previous to which, he was elected principal librarian to the London Institution, Moorfields.

He

Mr Porson, who had ran little more than two-thirds of the ordinary course of human existence, had been for the last eleven years the victim of a spasmodic asthma, during the agony of which he never went to bed, and was forced to abstain from all sustenance. This, of course, greatly debilitated his body, and about a month before his death he was also afflicted with an intermittent fever. He had an unfortunate objection to medical advice, and therefore resorted to his usual remedy of abstinence; but on Monday the 19th of September 1808, he suffered an apoplectic stroke, from which he recovered only to endure another the next day. He languished in consequence until the Sunday night, and then expired without a struggle. The body was opened in the presence of several medical men, who gave a report, ascribing his death "to the effused lymph in and upon the brain, which they believe to have been the effect of recent inflammation. The heart was sound, and the pericardium contained the usual quantity of lymph. The left lung had adhesions to the pleura, and bore the marks of former inflammation. The right lung was in a perfectly sound state." In refutation of an idle falsehood about the form of his skull, they add, "that it was thinner than usual, and of hard consistence."

Porson was the first Grecian of his day; "in him were conspicuous boundless talent; a most exact and well-ordered memory; unwearied patience in unravelling the sense of an author, and explaining the perplexities of a manuscript; perspicuity in discovering the corruptions of a text; and acuteness, almost intuitive, in restoring the true reading."

John Home.

BORN A. D. 1722.-DIED A. D. 1808.

"THE memory of Mr Home, as an author," says an able critic, "depends, in England, almost entirely upon his celebrated tragedy of Douglas, which not only retains the most indisputable possession of the stage, but produces a stronger effect on the feelings of the audience, when the parts of Douglas and Lady Randolph are well filled, than almost any tragedy since the days of Otway. There may be something of chance in having hit upon a plot of such general interest; and no author has been more fortunate in seeing the creatures of his imagination personified by the first performers which England could produce.