Thomas Linley.

BORN A. D. 1735.-DIED A. D. 1795.

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THIS very eminent musician and composer was originally a carpenter. His musical talents accidentally attracted the notice of Mr Chilcot, organist at Bath, who procured for him instructions in the theory and practice of music, and had the gratification of seeing his pupil take a high rank amongst British musicians. His principal compositions are 'Zelima and Azore,' The Camp,' The Spanish Rivals,' and 'The Strangers at Home.' He also wrote several glees and canzonets, and accompaniments to the original airs in The Beggar's Opera.' His compositions are distinguished for delicacy, simplicity, and tenderness. His son Thomas Linley, the younger, born at Bath in 1756, was likewise distinguished for his musical talents, and in the opinion of no less an authority than Mozart, would, had he lived a few years longer, have risen to great eminence in the musical world. At seventeen he composed an anthem in full score, which was sung in Worcester cathedral, at the meeting of the three choirs, on the 8th of September, 1773. After having completed his musical studies at Florence he returned to England, and became the leader of his father's concerts and oratorios at Bath. As a theatrical composer, he obtained great applause by the share he had with his father in the opera of 'The Duenna,' and the music which he wrote for The Tempest,' on its revival at Drury Lane theatre; where he led the band, when his father and Sheridan (his brother-in-law) were proprietors. But his most delightful production was the music to Dr Lawrence's Ode on the Witches and Fairies of Shakspeare; which was performed at Drury Lane the first year of his appearance in that orchestra. "The rich variety of the contrast in the witch and fairy music," says the author of the Dictionary of Musicians,' "the wild solemnity of the one, and the sportive exuberance of the other, keep the attention alive from the first bar of the overture, to the close of the ode." This promising young man was drowned on the 7th of August, 1778, by the upsetting of a boat on a piece of water at Grimsthorpe, the seat of the duke of Ancaster.

Josiah Wedgewood.

BORN A. D. 1730.-died A. D. 1795.

THE father of this ingenious person was a Staffordshire potter. He possessed a small entailed estate, but Josiah being a younger son, was left to push his way in the world for himself. This he did most profit

ably for his country as well as himself, by directing his exclusive attention to his father's business, and the improvement of the art. It was about the year 1760 that he began to carry into operation the results of his discoveries and researches in what might be designated the chemistry of pottery; and in 1763 he obtained his first patent for a superior kind of ware which received the name of Queen's ware.

Hitherto the Staffordshire potteries had produced no article at all approaching in fineness of texture, durability, and elegance of appearance to this new ware; the tables of our gentry were chiefly indebted to French skill for their services of china and earthen-ware. Mr Edgewood's invention, however, was speedily patronised by the queen and the nobility, and soon drove the foreign ware out of the English market. Its materials consisted of the finest white clays of Devon and Dorsetshire, mixed with ground flint, and coated with a vitreous glazing. Continuing his experimental researches, with the able assistance of his partner Mr Bentley, he afterwards introduced several other beautiful manufactures into the trade. Among these were: 1st, Terra cotta, resembling porphyry, granite, and other siliceous stones; 2d, Basaltes, a black porcelain, capable of resisting the action of acids and fire, and receiving a fine polish; 3d, A white porcelain of the same properties as the preceding; 4th, Jasper, a white porcelain of exquisite beauty, and capable of receiving through its whole substance, from the mixture of metallic calces, the same colour which these calces give to glass or enamel in a state of fusion; 5th, Bamboo, or cane-coloured biscuit porcelain; and 6th, A porcelain biscuit of excessive hardness, approaching to that of agate, and well-adapted for the formation of mortars and other vessels exposed to great pressure. Not contented with the discovery of new materials for his art, Mr Wedgewood directed much of his attention to the improvement of the forms and embellishments of his ware and his fine taste enabled him, in this respect also, to communicate a great impulse to the manufacture. Indeed, the beautiful and classical forms which were for the first time introduced into our English potteries under his auspices, may be considered as having exerted no small influence over the entire national taste, vitiated as it had been by the contemplation of the monstrous Chinese outlines, and tasteless and unsymmetrical forms from the Dutch and French potteries.

Mr Wedgewood had originally received a very limited education but the habits of his mind were vigorous, and he ultimately acquired an eminent degree of scientific as well as practical knowledge. His communications to the Royal society were highly esteemed; and his invention of the pyrometer, or instrument for measuring high degrees of heat, was a valuable boon conferred on chemistry. To his energy and enterprise his native county is greatly indebted for the improvement of its facilities of trade and communication. He was the original projector of the Grand Trunk canal, uniting the rivers Trent and Mersey, and enabling the potters of Staffordshire to obtain their materials from Devonshire, Dorset, and Kent, at a low charge of transit. The scheme of this canal was opposed by a very strong party both in and out of parliament; but the indefatigable perseverance of its projectors triumphed over all obstacles. He was also the founder of The General Chamber of the Manufacturers of Great Britain.'

He died in 1795 in possession of an immense fortune, the produce of his own industry and enterprise, an extensive scientific reputation, and an unblemished character.

John Sibthorp.

BORN A. D. 1758.-DIED A. D. 1796.

THIS eminent botanist was the youngest son of Dr Humphrey Sibthorp, Oxford professor of botany. He was educated at Oxford, and obtained a Radcliffe travelling fellowship. He then went to Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, and afterwards visited France and Switzer land. In 1783 he succeeded his father as professor of botany at Oxford. In 1784 he visited Germany, whence he set out, by way of Italy, for Greece. His object in all these journeys was the extension of that science to whose cultivation he had devoted his life; and especially, in so far as Greece was concerned, the illustration of the writings of the ancient botanist, Dioscorides.

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The first sketch of his 'Flora Græca,' which comprises about eight hundred and fifty plants, "may be considered," says the author, as containing only the plants observed by me, in the environs of Athens, on the snowy heights of the Grecian Alp Parnassus, on the steep precipices of Delphis, the empurpled mountains of Hymettus, the Pentele, the lower hills about the Firæus, the olive grounds about Athens, and the fertile plains of Boeotia. The future botanist, who shall examine this country with more leisure, and at a more favourable season of the year, before the summer sun has scorched up the spring plants, may make a considerable addition to this list. My intention was to have travelled by land through Greece; but the disturbed state of this country, the eve of a Russian war, the rebellion of its bashaws, and the plague at Larissa, rendered my project impracticable." Dr Sibthorp, subsequently, made numerous additions to the above catalogue, so that the number of species collected, from an investigation of all his manuscripts and specimens for the materials of his 'Prodromus Floræ Græcæ,' amounts to about three thousand.

In 1789 he was elected a member of the Royal society. In 1794 he set out on a second tour to Greece, his object still being the extension of his favourite science. In this excursion he made the complete circuit of the Morea, and greatly enriched his Greek Flora. Unfortunately, he caught a severe cold during his travels, from the effects of which he never recovered. He returned to England in the autumn of 1795, and died at Bath in the month of February, 1796. He left, by his will, a freehold estate to the university of Oxford, for the purpose of first publishing his Flora Græca,' in ten folio volumes, with one hundred coloured plates in each, and a Prodromus of the same work, in octavo, without plates. When these were published, the annual sum of £200 was to be paid to a professor of rural economy, and the remainder of the rents of the estate applied to the purchase of books for the professor. He also left to the university the whole of his collections, drawings, and books of natural history, botany, and agriculture.

Edward Gibbon.

BORN A. D. 1737.-DIED A. D. 1794.

THE celebrated historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' was born at Putney, on the 27th of April, 1737. His father was a private gentleman of fortune. In his ninth year he was sent to a private academy, and, in his eleventh, was placed at Westminster school. His health proving delicate he was removed from the latter seminary, and placed under the private tuition of Mr Francis, the wellknown translator of Horace. In April, 1752, he was matriculated of Magdalen college, Oxford, where he spent fourteen months in a very profitless manner: not that he was devoid of capacity or application, but, according to his own account, for want of proper tutorage, and skilful and vigilant professors.

While at Oxford he fancied himself made a convert to the Roman Catholic faith by the perusal of Bossuet's Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine,' and the works of Parsons the Jesuit. In the sketch he has

left us of himself he says: "To my present feelings, it seems incredible

that I should ever believe that I believed in transubstantiation. But my conqueror oppressed me with the sacramental words, 'This is my body;' and dashed against each other the figurative half-meanings of the protestant sects. Every objection was resolved into omnipotence; and, after repeating, at St Mary's, the Athanasian creed, I humbly acquiesced in the mystery of the real presence." On his arrival in London, he was admitted a member of the Romish church, in June, 1753. His father was highly indignant at his religious conversion, and sent him, in consequence, to Lausanne, in Switzerland, where he resided in the house of Mr Pavillard, and "spent nearly five years with pleasure and profit." His tutor, who was a Calvinistic minister, spared no effort to recover him from his Papistical errors; and his exertions, aided by the mature reflections of his pupil, were at length successful. "The various articles of the Romish creed," says our author, "disappeared like a dream; and, after a full conviction, on Christmas-day, 1754, I received the sacrament in the church of Lausanne." During his stay in this city, he made rapid progress in his studies; and, besides opening a correspondence with the chief literati of the continent, acquired a knowledge of French and Italian, and perfected his acquaintance with the Greek and Latin languages. Speaking of his first residence at Lausanne, he says: "Whatever have been the fruits of my education, they must be ascribed to the fortunate banishment which placed me at Lausanne. If my childish revolt against the religion of my country had not stripped me in time of my academical gown, the five important years so liberally improved in the studies and conversation of Lausanne, would have been steeped in port and prejudice among the monks of Oxford." To his classical acquirements while at Lausanne, he added the study of Grotius, Puffendorf, Locke, Montesquieu, and Pascal. In the midst too of his studies and reading he contrived to fall in love with a young lady, of whom he has left us the following account: "I saw,' he says, "and loved. I found her learned, without pedantry; lively in

She permitted

She listened to the

conversation; pure in sentiment; elegant in manners. me to make her two or three visits in her father's house. I passed some happy days there in the mountains of Burgundy, and her parents honourably encouraged the connection. In a calm retirement, the gay vanity of youth no longer fluttered in her bosom. voice of truth and passion, and I might presume to hope I had made some impression on a virtuous heart. At Crassy and Lausanne, I indulged my dream of felicity; but, on my return to England, I soon discovered that my father would not hear of this strange alliance. After a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate. I sighed as a lover; I obeyed as a son: my wound was insensibly healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new life. My cure was accelerated by a faithful report of the tranquillity and cheerfulness of the lady herself; and my love subsided into friendship and esteem. A rich banker of Paris, a citizen of Geneva, had the good fortune and good sense to discover and possess this inestimable treasure; and, in the capital of taste and luxury, she resisted the temptation of wealth, as she had sustained the hardships of indigence. The genius of her husband has exalted him to the most conspicuous station in Europe; and Mademoiselle Curchod is now the wife of M. Necker."

In 1758 he received permission to return home. His father received him with kindness, and left him to consult his own tastes in the future employment of his time. Fortunately for his literary career he found it difficult to establish himself in an extensive and general acquaintance, which flung him upon his books for entertainment and mental occupation. "I had not been endowed," he says, "by art or nature, with those happy gifts of confidence and address, which unlock every door and bosom." To his books then he gave himself up by a kind of necessity; and from this period he began to accumulate that immense and multiform erudition which was to support him through the composition of his great work.

In 1761 he appeared for the first time as an author in a small volume entitled Essai sur l'etude de la Litterature.' 6 It was written in the French language, and attracted considerable attention in Paris; in England it was scarcely noticed. To amuse himself and gratify his father, he now accepted a commission in a militia regiment; but “a wandering life of military servitude" did not approve itself altogether to his genius and habits, though he retained his commission till the regiment was disbanded in 1763, and was afterwards pleased to hint that the historian of the Roman empire was somewhat aided in his magnificent task by the military knowledge he had acquired while a captain of the Hampshire grenadiers! During his military service his active mind would not allow him to remain altogether without a master-object. Hume and Robertson were gaining rich trophies in the field of historical literature, and the young soldier was even then ambitious of emulating their example. He tells us, that, among the subjects which suggested themselves to him as fit themes for him to exercise his pen upon, were the expedition of Charles VIII. into Italy,-the crusade of Richard I., the Barons' wars against John and Henry III.,-the history of the Black Prince,—the life of Sir Philip Sydney,—of the marquess of Montrose, of Sir Walter Raleigh,—the history of Swiss liberty, and the history of Florence under the Medici.