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embark in new experimental inquiries, yet he continued for many years to feel a warm interest in the advancement of science, and to maintain an occasional correspondence with persons eminent for their rank as philosophers, both in this and other countries. His medical occupations had greatly increased, and, for a further interval of fifteen or twenty years, he had a share of professional employment which falls to the lot of very few. This, and the superintendence of some chemical concerns, prevented him from attempting more than to keep pace with the progress of knowledge. He was in no haste, however, to claim that exemption from active labour to which advanced age is fairly entitled ; and it was not till a very few years before his death, that he retired from the exercise of the medical profession. He died 18th of June, 1816, when he had nearly completed his 82d year.

Adam Fergusson.

BORN A. D. 1723.-DIED A. D. 1816.

ADAM FERGUSSON was born at Logierait, in Perthshire, in June, 1723. His father was minister of the parish of Logierait. He was educated at Perth, and at the university of St Andrews.

Having studied divinity, and obtained license, he went, says Sir Walter Scott," as chaplain to the Black Watch, or 42d Highland regiment, when that corps was first sent to the continent. As the regiment advanced to the battle of Fontenoy, the commanding officer, Sir Robert Munro, was astonished to see the chaplain at the head of the column, with a broadsword drawn in his hand. He desired him to go to the rear with the surgeons, a proposal which Adam Fergusson spurned. Sir Robert at length told him that his commission did not entitle him to be present in the post which he had assumed. 'D-n my commission,' said the warlike chaplain, throwing it towards his colonel. It may be easily supposed that the matter was only remembered as a good jest; but the future historian of Rome shared the honours and dangers of that dreadful day, where, according to the account of the French themselves, the Highland furies rushed in upon them with more violence than ever did a sea driven by a tempest.'

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This militant chaplain remained with his regiment until 1757, when he accepted of the situation of head-librarian to the faculty of advocates, Edinburgh. He resigned this office soon after, on being elected professor of natural philosophy in the university of Edinburgh. It is said that, like another very celebrated professor of chemistry in one of our southern universities, he only began to study the physical sciences after his election to this chair, but by five months' diligent study qualified himself for the discharge of its duties with credit to himself and advantage to his students.

About 1762, in concert with Lord Elibank, John Home, and David Hume, he founded a convivial association called the 'Poker-club,' "because its purpose was to stir up and encourage the public spirit of Scotland, the people of which were then much exasperated at not being permitted to raise a militia in the same manner as England. Dr Fergusson, upon the occasion, composed a continuation of Arbuthnot's Satirical His

edition of his essays on agriculture, observations on national industry, and several others of his early writings were composed during a residence of more than twenty years at Monkshill, the name of the abovementioned farm. In the year 1780 the honorary degrees of A. M. and LL. D. were conferred upon him by the university of Aberdeen.

In 1783, having previously arranged matters for the conducting of his farm, he removed to the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, principally with a view to the education of his increasing family, and influenced, no doubt, by a desire to live where he could enjoy more of literary society than was to be had in so remote a part of the country. Previous to his departure from Aberdeenshire, he was actively employed in promoting measures for alleviating the distresses of the poorer classes in that county, owing to the failure of the crops in 1782. About the same year he printed and circulated among his friends, a proposal for establishing the Northern British fisheries. This tract was never published, but the attention of the government being excited to the subject by it, he was applied to by the treasury to undertake a survey of the western coast of Scotland, for the purpose of obtaining information on this important subject. This public-spirited inquiry he undertook, and accomplished in 1784, having a revenue cutter to convey him round the coast. We next find him engaged in preparing for the publication of the Bee.' This was a project he had long contemplated, namely, a weekly periodical work, designed for the dissemination of useful knowledge, which by its cheapness should be calculated for all ranks of people, while sufficient attention was paid to its various literary departments to render it respectable in the highest circles. His name was now so highly established, that the encouragement given by the public to this performance was wonderful, and nothing but great mismanagement in conducting the commercial part of the work-for which, like most persons of similar habits, he was ill-adapted-could have caused it to fail in being a very profitable concern to him. His own writings form a conspicuous part of this book, under the names of Senex, Timothy Hairbrain, Alcibiades, and the greater part of the matter without signature.

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Having removed to the vicinity of London about the year 1797, he once more engaged in the service of the public, and produced in Apri!, 1799, the first number of his Recreations,' a miscellaneous monthly publication, having for its principal objects agriculture and natural history. Although the work contains a number of communications from others, yet the greater part of it is written by himself. It met with the greatest encouragement from the public; but complaining of the irregu larity of his printers and booksellers as being intolerable, he dropt it at the end of the sixth volume. The thirty-seventh number of his Recreations' is his last publication, in March, 1802, after which he consigned himself to quiet retirement, at a time when he foresaw the decline of his own powers approaching; these were hastened to decay by being overworked. He died on the 15th October, 1808.

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As a practical farmer, it is acknowledged by all who knew him, that he not only understood how to turn the modes of culture usually followed by others to the greatest advantage, by judiciously selecting then and applying them according to the circumstances of the case, but also that he had powerful resources within his own mind in the invention of new practices, many of which, and of those followed in distant countries,

his eightieth year he was one of the most striking old men whom it was possible to look at. His firm step and ruddy cheek contrasted agreeably and unexpectedly with his silver locks; and the dress which he usually wore, much resembling that of the Flemish peasant, gave an air of peculiarity to his whole figure. In his conversation, the mixture of original thinking with high moral feeling and extensive learning; his love of country; contempt of luxury; and, especially, the strong subjection of his passions and feelings to the dominion of his reason, made him, perhaps, the most striking example of the Stoic philosopher which could be seen in modern days. His house, while he continued to reside in Edinburgh, was a general point of re-union among his friends, particularly of a Sunday, where there generally met, at a hospitable dinner-party, the most distinguished literati of the old time who still remained, with such young persons as were thought worthy to approach their circle, and listen to their conversation. The place of his residence was an insulated house, at some distance from the town, which its visitors (notwithstanding its internal comforts) chose to call, for that reason, Kamtschatka."

Samuel Webbe.

BORN A. D. 1740.-DIED A. D. 1816.

THIS eminent musical composer was born in 1740, of parents of high respectability and independent fortune. His father was sent to Minorca under some government appointment,-while Samuel was yet an infant of scarcely a year old,-and died there, leaving his family affairs unsettled, and his wife reduced to a state of comparative penury, which proved disastrous to the future fortunes of her infant son. She could extend to him little advantage of education, but, being intent upon rendering him capable of providing for himself, she bound him apprentice to at cabinet-maker, at the early age of eleven years. This arrangement, however, was so little to his taste, that no sooner were the seven long years of his apprenticeship expired, than he determined to abandon the workshop.

Within a year after this emancipation, (for such he always considered it,) he lost his mother, and with her the little means of support derived from her slender income. Thus destitute of any visible means of support, and still under twenty years of age, he turned his attention to the employment of copying music, as connected with an art of which he was passionately fond, but with which as yet he was totally unacquainted. He obtained his principal employment from Mr Welcher, keeper of a wellknown old music shop in Gerrard-street, Soho, through whom he became acquainted with a musician of the name of Barbandt, organist of the Bavarian chapel, a professor of no particular skill, but from whom he rapidly acquired the rudiments of music, which his own intense study and observation soon enlarged into a thorough knowledge of the art. At the expiration of his apprenticeship, he applied himself sedulously to the acquirement of Latin, and did not allow himself to be interrupted by the necessity of copying music for a subsistence, though, when fully employed, he would sit till past twelve at night, and return to it by five in

liancy. I told one story at one house, another at another, and continued to vary my tale just as the suggestions arose; the consequence of which was, that I moved the good country people exceedingly one called me a poor fatherless child; another exclaimed what a pity I had so much sense; a third patted my head, and prayed God to preserve me, that I might make a good man; and most of them contributed, either by scraps of meat, farthings, bread and cheese, or other homely offers, to enrich me, and send me away with my pockets loaded. I joyfully brought as much of my stores as I could carry to the place of rendezvous my parents had appointed, where I astonished them by again reciting the false tales I had so readily invented. My father, whose passions were easily moved, felt no little conflict of mind, as I proceeded. I can now, in imagination, see the working of his features: God bless the boy, I never heard the like!' then turning to my mother, he exclaimed, with great earnestness, This must not be! The poor child will become a common-place liar, a hedgeside rogue-he will learn to pilfer, turn a confirmed vagrant, go on the highway when he is older, and get hanged.'"

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It is, perhaps, not easy to identify with this little ragged boy the author of Hugh Trevor' and the Road to Ruin;' but it was probably in this situation that he acquired those habits of patience, hardihood, and perseverance, which render energy efficient and talents productive. In his thirteenth year we find him engaged as a stable boy at Newmarket a situation of comparative elegance and luxury. "Happy had been the meal where I had enough-rich to me was the rag that kept me warm-and heavenly the pillow, no matter what, or how hard, on which I could lay my head to sleep. Now I was warmly clothed, nay gorgeously, for I was proud of my new livery, and never suspected that there was any disgrace in it-I fared voluptuously, not a prince on earth, perhaps, with half the appetite and never-failing relish-and instead of being obliged to drag through the dirt after the most sluggish, obstinate, and despised among our animals, I was mounted on the noblest that the earth contains, had him under my care, and was borne by him over hill and dale, far outstripping the wings of the wind: was not this a change such as might excite reflexion even in the mind of a boy? Whether I had or had not begun to scrawl and imitate writing, or whether I was able to convey written intelligence concerning myself to my father, for some months after I left him, I cannot say; but we were very careful not to lose sight of each other; and following his affection as well as his love of change, in about half-a-year he came to Newmarket himself, where he at first procured work of the most ordinary kind at his trade. There was one among his shopmates whom I well remember, for he was struck with me, and I with him; he not only made shoes, but was a cockfeeder of some estimation; and, what was to me much more interesting, he had read so much, as to have made himself acquainted with the most popular English authors of that day: he even lent me books to read, among which were Gulliver's Travels' and theSpectator' both of which could not but be to me of the highest importance. I remember, after I had read them, he asked me to con. sider, and tell him which I liked best.-I immediately replied, There was no need of consideration, I liked Gulliver's Travels' ten times the best.'' Aye,' said he, 'I would have laid my life on it, boys and

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long this misuse of valuable hours might have continued, I cannot say ; not improbably till I had arrived at the dignity of pounding a mortar, spreading plasters, and compounding medicines. Accident at length

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removed me to a wider, a fairer, and a more promising field. however, do myself the justice of declaring, that on since looking around me, in a circle not extremely limited, I have never been enabled to recognise any of the individuals, in whose society I dog's-eared the Colloquies of Corderius, and bewildered myself in the fables of Phædrus.

After having been at several schools he was placed under the care of Dr Parr, at Stanmore. "I had much to learn," he says of himself at this period, "to arrive at the level of those who were now my associates; and so much to unlearn, to avoid derision and contempt, that my situation was for a time truly pitiable. I was humbled, retired, and as they thought vulgar; while to me they all appeared insolent, rude, and intolerable. I had not been taught, or taught imperfectly, to make Latin verses. This was my first labour, and arduous it was. I conquered, however, the difficulty by perseverance, and became progressively reconciled to my situation. I cannot say more, for perhaps the period of my life which I look back upon with the smallest degree of satisfaction, is the time consumed in this seminary. Perhaps I should qualify the term consumed. I became a good scholar in the ordinary acceptation of the word, but I by no means passed my time to my satisfaction, and lost, as I then thought, and still believe, no unimportant portion of time in learning to unravel the complicated perplexities of Greek metre, which after all I very imperfectly understood. I could, however, at the time of my departure, compose in Latin with tolerable ease; read any Latin author without difficulty; and Greek with no great degree of labour. At this place and time, when probably the foundation of my literary character was laid, I have not half so much to remember, at all deserving commemoration, as I have of the hours spent at my remote but beloved village."

He matriculated at Bennet college, Cambridge, where he took the degree of B.A. in 1779. He soon afterwards entered into orders, and became curate of Earlham; but having married, and finding his means inadequate to the support of himself and family, he removed to London, and began to write for the booksellers. On the breaking-out of the French revolution, he and Mr Nares started the British Critic,' with the view of advocating high-church principles. Referring to this his Magnum opus' in his Reminiscences, he says: "There was a time in England, and a dire time it was, when the contagion of the French revolution had so infected our purer atmosphere, that the disloyal, illdesigning, and more profligate part of the community dared to use the language of violence, and of menace, to overawe and intimidate those whose sentiments they knew to be adverse to their own; who had the presumption to prophecy, that 'Church and state prejudices were coming to a speedy issue in this country; who had the insolence to use all their efforts to check and suppress the circulation of what the honest advocates of truth and order wrote and published in vindication of their sentiments; and even proceeded so far as to hold out threats to the individuals themselves, whom they affected with equal absurdity and impertinence, to denominate Alarmists.' A sevenfold shield was wanted, be

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