always thought I saw Runciman revived in Fuseli. My father said he was a dissolute, blasphemous fellow, and repeated some of his sayings, which are better forgotten than remembered." One of his biographers, on the other hand, gives him credit for much real worth and goodness of heart, and a candour and simplicity of manners which caused his company to be courted by some of the most eminent literary characters of his time. With respect to his merits as an artist, his friend and scholar, Brown, celebrated for design, says: "His fancy was fertile, his discernment of character keen, his taste truly elegant, and his conceptions truly great. Though his genius seems to be best suited to the grave and serious; yet many of his works amply prove that he could move, with equal success, in the less elevated line of the gay and the pleasing. His chief excellence lay in composition-the noblest part of the art-in which, it is doubtful whether he had any living superior. With regard to the truth, the harmony, the richness, and the gravity of colouring,-in that style, in short, which is the peculiar characteristic of the ancient Venetian, and the direct contrast of the English modern school, he was unrivalled. His works, it must be granted, like all those of the present times, were far from being perfect; but it was Runciman's peculiar misfortune, that his defects were of such a nature, as to be obvious to the most unskilful eyes, whilst his beauties were of a kind, which few have sufficient taste or knowledge in the art to discern, far less to appreciate."

Sir John Hawkins

BORN A. D. 1719.-DIED A. D. 1789.

THE father of Sir John Hawkins was originally a house-carpenter, though descended from the preceding Sir John Hawkins. The title of the family was revived in the subject of the present article, who was born in the city of London, in 1719. He was apprenticed at a proper age to a relative of his father's, a respectable attorney and solicitor, under whom he gained a thorough knowledge of common law, whilst, by a systematic employment of his time, he managed to cultivate letters and gain the acquaintance of several of the leading literary characters of the day.

The first production of his pen was an Essay on Swearing,' which he contributed to one of the periodical publications; his next was an Essay on Honesty,' which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine' for March, 1739. In 1741 he became a member of the Madrigal club, founded by a brother-attorney of the name of Immyns. He was also admitted a member of the 'Academy of Ancient Music,' which used to meet at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand. To these associations, and his original love of music, we owe Sir John's voluminous work, the History of the Science and Practice of Music.' When Johnson instituted his celebrated club, in 1749, Hawkins had the honour of being selected one of its first members. He was at this time in good professional practice, but retired from business a few years afterwards, having received a handsome fortune with his wife, which enabled him to devote himself to literary pursuits and the society of the learned

during the remainder of his life. In 1760 he published an excellent edition of Walton's Angler,' of which a fifth and revised impression was published by his eldest son in 1792. The History of Music,' after sixteen years' labour and indefatigable research, was published in 1776. It contains a large body of curious and original information, but is a mere storehouse of facts; to the title of a scientific history of music it has no just claim.

In 1761 he was appointed one of the magistrates of Middlesex. In this station he conducted himself with great prudence, and rendered valuable services to the county. His spirited exertions to repress the Brentford and Spitalfield riots, in 1768 and 1769, and his conduct as chairman of the quarter-sessions, procured for him the honour of knighthood, in October, 1772. On the death of his intimate friend Dr Johnson, Sir John undertook to prepare a complete edition of his works with a memoir. His labour was interrupted by the accidental destruction of his library by fire; but he at last completed his intention in 1787. With the discharge of this pious task his literary life terminated. He died in May, 1789, leaving behind him a respectable reputation for abilities, integrity, and patriotism.

William Cullen.

BORN A. D. 1710.-DIED A. D. 1790.

THIS distinguished medical philosopher was a native of Hamilton in Scotland. His father was a member of the legal profession, and factor to the duke of Hamilton. From the grammar-school of his native town, young Cullen proceeded to the university of Glasgow, and thereafter was apprenticed to a surgeon of extensive practice in that city. In his twentieth year he went to London, and soon after obtained an appointment as surgeon to a merchant-vessel trading to the Spanish West Indies. On his return, he spent four years in the further study of his profession, and attended two sessions of the medical classes in Edinburgh.

At the age of twenty-six, Cullen commenced practice in his native town. After residing seven years at Hamilton, he removed to Glasgow, and was soon after permitted to deliver, in the university, courses of the theory and practice of Physic, Materia-medica, and Chemistry. "In entering upon the duties of a teacher of medicine," says his biographer, Dr John Thomson, "Dr Cullen ventured to make another change in the established mode of instruction, by laying aside the use of the Latin language in the composition and delivery of his lectures. This was considered by many as a rash innovation; and some, desirous to detract from his reputation, or not sufficiently aware of the advantages attending this deviation from established practice, have insinuated that it was owing to Dr Cullen's imperfect knowledge of the Latin that he was induced to employ the English language. But how entirely groundless such an insinuation is, must be apparent to every one at all acquainted with his early education, course of studies, and habits of persevering industry. When we reflect, too, that it was through the medium of the Latin tongue that he must have acquired his extensive

knowledge of medical science, it seems absurd to suppose that he was not qualified, like the other teachers of his time, to deliver, had he chosen it, his lectures in that language. We are not left, however, to conjecture with regard to this point; for that Dr Cullen had been accustomed, from an early period of his life, to compose in Latin, appears not only from letters written by him in that language to some of his familiar friends, first draughts of which have been preserved, but also from the fact, that, whilst he taught medicine at Glasgow in his vernacular tongue, he delivered, during the same period, several courses of lectures on Botany in the Latin language. The notes of these lectures still remain among his papers; and I find also, written with his own hand, in the same language, two copies of an unfinished text-book on Chemistry. The numerous corrections of expression which are observable in the first sketches of Dr Cullen's Latin, as well as of his English compositions, show a constant attention on his part to the accuracy and purity of the language in which his ideas were expressed, and a mind always aiming, in whatever it engaged, at a degree of perfection higher than that which it conceived it had already attained."

In 1751 he became regularly attached to the university as regius professor of Physic. In 1755 he was conjoined with Dr Plummer in the chair of chemistry in the university of Edinburgh. In this science Dr Cullen's knowledge and merits as a lecturer were very great; he also delivered an admirable course of clinical lectures, and supplied the materia-medica chair during a vacancy in that professorship in 1760. It was generally expected that he would succeed Dr Rutherford in the chair of Practical medicine; but the doctor had imbibed strong prejudices against Cullen, and only resigned in favour of Dr John Gregory of Aberdeen, who allowed Cullen, however, to give alternate courses with himself. On the death of Gregory, in 1773, Cullen was appointed sole professor of the Practice of physic.

In this chair he acquired great fame and a European reputation; his classes were crowded with pupils from all parts of the continent, and his doctrines gave a new tone altogether to the science of physic, particularly by his theory of the influence of the nervous system on the different functions of the animal economy. He died in 1790. His published works consist of 'Lectures on the Materia-medica;' 'Synopsis Nosologiæ Practica,' containing the nosologies of Sauvages, Linnæus, Vogel, and Macbride, as well as his own; a tract on the recovery of persons apparently drowned; and some other minor pieces, besides his great work, entitled First Lines of the Practice of Physic.'

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Cullen," says a reviewer of Dr John Thomson's life of our physician, "is one of those illustrious minds by whom Scotland, during the past century, was raised from comparative insignificance to the very highest rank in literature and science. In no department of intellectual activity has Scotland been more prolific of distinguished talent, than in medicine; and as a medical philosopher the name of Cullen stands, in his native country, pre-eminent and alone. It would be difficult indeed to find in any nation an individual who displayed a rarer assemblage of the highest qualities of a physician. The characters of his genius were prominent, but in just accordance with each other. His erudition was extensive, yet it never shackled the independent vigour of his mind; while, on the other hand, no love of originality made him overlook or

disparage the labours of his predecessors. His capacity of speculation was strong, but counterbalanced by an equal power of observation; his imagination, though lively, was broken in as a useful auxiliary to a still more energetic reason. The circumstances under which his mind was cultivated, were also conducive to its full and harmonious evolution. His education was left sufficiently to himself to determine his faculties to a free and vigorous energy; sufficiently scholastic to prevent a onesided and exclusive development. It was also favourable to the same result, that from an early period of life, his activity was divided between practice, study, and teaching; and extended to almost every subject of medical science,-all however viewed in subordination to the great end of professional knowledge-the cure of disease."

John Howard.

BORN A. D. 1726.-died A. D. 1790.

THIS illustrious name might perhaps with more propriety have been classed in our political category; its insertion here, however, will not be productive of any great misapprehension on the part of the reader. This illustrious philanthropist was born on the 2d of September, 1726, at Hackney, in the vicinity of London. His father was a respectable tradesman, of dissenting principles. On leaving school, young Howard was apprenticed to a grocer in the city, but soon after the death of his father, in 1742, finding himself in affluent circumstances, he bought out his indenture, and paid a visit to the continent. In 1752 he married a lady several years older than himself, and of a sickly and infirm constitution; this union, like most events in Howard's life, was the result of that generous and humane spirit which ever impelled him to sacrifice his own comfort and ease to the welfare of others. The woman he thus made his wife, while he himself was still in the flush of youth, had been his landlady, and had nursed him with great assiduity during a severe illness which he had in her house; on his recovery, out of gratitude he offered her his hand; and though for a time she hesitated to avail herself of the offer, and even remonstrated with him on account of the sacrifice he was making, he would take no denial. Unequal as the match was in many respects, they lived in much harmony together until the death of Mrs Howard, in 1755.

In 1756 he left England with the intention of proceeding to Lisbon, in order to witness the effects of the dreadful earthquake which had so recently desolated that city. In the voyage, the packet in which he had embarked was captured by a French privateer, and carried into Brest. He employed himself while in captivity in inquiring into the condition of the English prisoners in France, and, upon obtaining his release, made such representations to the English government as led to a remonstrance addressed to the French court which procured better treatment for the prisoners of war at Brest, Morlaix, and Dinan. Perhaps it was this incident in Howard's life which so powerfully directed the current of his philanthropy in after life towards the state of prisons, and prison and penitentiary discipline. He did not however imme diately enter upon that circumnavigation of charity,' as Burke ex

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presses it, which he afterwards undertook, and in which he gained for himself so imperishable a name in the annals of mankind. He married a second time soon after his return to England; and spent several years in retirement on his own estate, happy in the society of a beloved wife, and finding abundant employment of a kind most congenial to his disposition in promoting the comfort of his numerous tenantry. He was often heard to declare that this was the happiest period of his life; but his felicity was destined to receive a fatal interruption by the death of his lady in 1765. To relieve his mind a little from the depression occasioned by this event, he visited the continent in 1767, and repeated his visit in 1769.

In 1773 he was appointed high-sheriff of Bedfordshire, and, though a dissenter, accepted the office, which he saw would afford him greater facilities than he had yet possessed for exercising true and patriotic benevolence. He examined minutely into the state of the countyprisons, and, on discovering the gross abuses which prevailed in their management, he resolved to attempt a reform of the entire system of prison-discipline. With this view he visited in person nearly all the county-gaols in England, and, in March, 1774, laid the result of his investigations before the house of commons. The house passed a vote of thanks to Mr Howard, and he had the satisfaction of seeing different bills brought in and passed for the regulation and improvement of priIn the month of December, 1774, he, in conjunction with Mr Whitbread, contested the election for the borough of Bedford; his colleague was ultimately declared duly elected, and he himself lost his election by only four votes.

sons.

The years 1775 and 1776 were spent by Mr Howard in visiting the prisons of France, Flanders, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Scotland, and Ireland; and in 1777 he published the result of his observations, to which he added an appendix in 1780. This publication created a great sensation, and led to the correction of numerous abuses in the penitentiary and prison-discipline of various continental states as well as that of Great Britain. From 1780 to 1784 Howard was engaged in extending his inquiries into the state of foreign prisons; his character was now European, and highly appreciated in every court on the continent; wherever he went he was received with marked attention, and his suggestions were seldom neglected. His friends in England would have erected a statue to his honour, but abandoned their intention in consequence of his earnest and repeated entreaties. Towards the end of 1785 he set out on a visit to the principal lazarettos of Europe; on his return he visited the English hulks, after which he published the result of his investigations, and announced his intention of revisiting Russia and Turkey, in the hope of becoming more extensively useful to his fellow-creatures. He set off, accordingly, from London in the summer of 1789, and had made his way to Cherson on the Dnieper, when he was arrested by the hand of death, on the 20th of January, 1790. It is said that one great object he had proposed to himself in this journey was to try the effects of James's powder as a febrifuge; and that in his attendance, with this view, upon a prisoner labouring under malignant fever, he caught the disease, which carried him off in a few days' illness.

His death was announced in the London Gazette as a national cala.