expect to see it succeeded by a better. The simplicity of his character inspired confidence, the ardour of his eloquence roused enthusiasm, and the gentleness of his manners invited friendship. I admired,' says Mr. Gibbon, after describing a day passed with him at Lausanne, the powers of a superior man, as they are blended, in his attractive character, with all the

t

softness and simplicity of a child: no human being was ever more free from any taint of malignity, vanity, or falsehood.'

"The measures which he supported or opposed may divide the opinion of posterity, as they have divided those of the present age. But he will most certainly command the unanimous reverence of future generations, by his pure sentiments towards the commonwealth; by his zeal for the civil and religious rights of all men; by his liberal principles, favourable to mild government, to the unfettered exercise of the human faculties, and the progressive civilization of mankind; by his ardent love for a country, of which the well-being and greatness were, indeed, inseparable from his own glory; and by his profound reverence for that free constitution which he was universally admitted to understand better than any other man of his age, both in an exactly legal and in a comprehensivel philosophical sense.

IT is perhaps not easy to invest the memoirs of a verbal critic with the interest which attaches itself to the lives of men distinguished in other departments of literature and science: the classical scholar has little sympathy, in respect of his peculiar vocation, with the world around him, and the world for the most part repays his indifference with interest. Nevertheless, it is due to the great reputation of the subject of this memoir to relate the principal events of his life.

Richard Porson was born December 25, 1759. His father, Mr. Huggin Porson, was the parish-clerk of East Ruston, near North Walsham, in the county of Norfolk. Notwithstanding his poverty, Porson had the good fortune to obtain a first-rate education. Even in his childhood he was taught by a careful father more than is generally learned by the children of the rich; and after he had spent a short time at a village school, to which he was sent at the age of nine, his abilities attracted the notice of Mr. Hewitt, the vicar of his native place, who kindly undertook to

teach the young prodigy the rudiments of Greek and Latin. In these elementary studies Porson passed his time till 1774, being also occasionally employed as a shepherd or a weaver. But his reputation had reached the ears of Mr. Norris, of Grosvenor Place, who in the summer of that year undertook the charge of maintaining him at Eton College. His name soon became favourably known beyond the circle of his admiring school-fellows. The interest which he excited was fortunate for him, for on the death of his kind patron Mr. Norris, he would have been unable to continue at Eton, had it not been for a subscription collected by Sir George Baker, then President of the Royal College of Physicians, from a number of gentlemen who had heard of Porson's talents, and were desirous of giving him a fair opportunity to cultivate them to the uttermost. With this subscription an annuity of 80%. for a few years was purchased for him; and thus he was enabled to finish his course at Eton, and to proceed thence to Trinity College, Cambridge.

In the second term of his third year (1781) Porson obtained one of the Craven University Scholarships, which, being open to the free competition of the whole body of undergraduates, have always been regarded among our most honourable academical distinctions. He took the degree of B.A. in 1782; and, on the mathematical tripos, obtained the respectable place of third senior optime: but he gained the first of the medals annually given by the Chancellor of the University to the two commencing bachelors of arts, under certain restrictions, who pass the best examination in classical learning. In the following September he was elected Fellow of Trinity College. He proceeded to the degree of M.A. in 1785; but being unwilling, from conscientious motives, to subscribe to the articles of the Established Church, he could not take orders, and, according to the rules of

the College, vacated his Fellowship in 1791. He was thus for the second time dependent upon the liberality of his friends. Nor did they neglect him: a subscription was entered into by Mr. Cracherode and some others, from the proceeds of which a life annuity of 100l. was purchased for him.

In 1792 he was elected Regius Professor of Greek: but, as the salary of this office is only 40l. per annum, he was still a poor man; and not being able to procure a suitable lecture-room, he was prevented from making the usual addition to his income, by delivering lectures on the Greek authors. In 1795 he married Mrs. Lunan, the sister of Mr. Perry, the well-known Editor of the Morning Chronicle. From this union, short as it proved, Porson derived important benefits. He laid aside, while it lasted, most of the unseemly and intemperate habits which he had contracted at College: but unfortunately his wife died of consumption in 1797, and he subsequently relapsed into his former course of life, and, as is too notorious, sacrificed friends, health and fortune, to his passion for drinking. After her death the kindness of his brotherin-law provided him with a home, gave him an opportunity of mixing in good society, and preserved him from many inconveniences, to which a man of Porson's careless habits is always exposed.

About the time of his wife's death, in 1797, Porson published an edition of the Hecuba of Euripides, which he intended to form the first portion of a complete edition of that poet, and which, with very modest pretensions, was at once acknowledged to be a piece of first-rate criticism by the scholars not only of England but of all Europe. However, in 1800, Gottfried Hermann of Leipzig, who has since become very eminent as a verbal critic, published an edition of the same play, as a professed attack on Porson's ; and there was something in the tone, as well as in the