tion of Reynolds-and he was now only rising into notice-all the portrait-limners of the day were wretched daubers.

A visit to Italy, which Wilson was enabled to make in his thirty-sixth year, proved the means of leading him into that department wherein his better genius lay. At first, says Allan Cunningham, "he continued the study and practice of portrait-painting, and, it is said, with fair hopes of success, when an accident opened another avenue to fame, and shut up the way to fortune. Having waited one morning, till he grew weary, for the coming of Zucarelli the artist, he painted, to beguile the time, a scene upon which the window of his friend looked, with so much grace and effect that Zucarelli was astonished, and inquired if he had studied landscape. Wilson replied that he had not. 'Then I advise you,' said the other, to try, for you are sure of great success.' The counsel of one friend was confirmed by the opinion of another. This was Vernet, a French painter,-a man whose generosity was equal to his reputation, and that was very high. One day, while sitting in Wilson's painting-room, he was so struck with the peculiar beauty of a newly-finished landscape that he desired to become its proprietor, and offered in exchange one of his best pictures. This was much to the gratification of the other; the exchange was made, and with a liberality equally rare and commendable, Vernet placed his friend's picture in his exhibition-room, and when his own productions happened to be praised or purchased by English travellers, the generous Frenchman used to say, 'Don't talk of my landscapes alone, when your own countryman, Wilson, paints so beautifully. These praises, and an internal feeling of the merits of his new performances, induced Wilson to relinquish portrait-painting, and proceed with landscape. He found himself better prepared for this new pursuit than he had imagined; he had been long insensibly storing his mind with the beauties of natural scenery, and the picturesque mountains and glens of his native Wales had been to him an academy when he was unconscious of their influence. He did not proceed upon that plan of study, much recommended, but little practised, of copying the pictures of the old masters, with the hope of catching a corresponding inspiration; but he studied their works, and mastered their methods of attaining excellence, and compared them carefully with nature. By this means he caught the hue and the character of Italian scenery, and steeped his spirit in its splendour. His landscapes are fanned with the pure air, warmed with the glowing suns, filled with the ruined temples, and sparkling with the wooded streams and tranquil lakes of that classic region. His reputation rose so fast that he obtained pupils. Mengs, out of regard for his genius, painted his portrait; and Wilson repaid this flattery with a fine landscape."

Wilson returned to England after a six years' residence abroad. The sure road to fame now lay before him: landscape painting, in its true principles, was yet unknown in England, and none were better qualified to become the founder of a new school in that delightful branch of the art than Wilson. But he had to inspire his countrymen with a new taste, before he could hope to cultivate a branch of the art in which he was so eminently qualified to excel with advantage to himself; and this he found no small difficulty in accomplishing. His easy, artless, truthful style, failed to win the attention of such purchasers as gloated on the productions of Barret's easel, and the equally worthless daubs of

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."

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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 Mecænas 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 Baix, 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

'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 long 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, 66 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