The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 5 (of 7)

If this great ornament of our church did not boast of an exalted lineage, he numbered among his forefathers one at least, the worthy ancestor of such a descendant, Dr. Rowland T...

At this time the whole range of chemical and physico-chemical science was in an extremely imperfect state; and the first steps to a more improved system involved the necessity o...

At Oxford he formed a close friendship with John Locke, better known afterwards as a philosopher than as a physician. Their intimacy, which lasted to the end of Sydenham’s life,...

In May, 1648, Hyde received the King’s commands to join the Prince of Wales at Paris. On the way thither, he met Lord Cottington and others at Rouen, where he learned that the P...

He was fully alive to the sources of inspiration which this city of the arts contained. In the midst of his enthusiasm, however, he was secretly humiliated by discovering in him...

In 1712, ten days before the meeting of parliament, he published a pamphlet, entitled ‘The Conduct of the Allies,’ to facilitate peace, on which the stability, almost the person...

If Locke had been ambitious, his path to political advancement was now open. William offered him the ambassadorship to the Imperial Court, or to that of Brandenburg. He refused...

To the Long Parliament, which commenced its sittings in 1640, Selden was unanimously returned by the University of Oxford; but neither this new connexion with the clergy, nor th...

Paré appears to have been a man of quick and independent observation rather than of reflection or genius. His constitution was vigorous, and fitted no less for social enjoyments...

We conclude with Clarendon’s character of this great man. “He was of private extraction, yet had enough left him by his father to give him a good education, which his own inclin...

It is much to be regretted that L’Hôpital’s essay towards a work on French law is lost. There is a volume extant of his Poetical Epistles, of which the best edition is that of A...

Of Mrs. Siddons’s private life it is not necessary for us to speak at length. She had a full share of domestic troubles; and suffered the most poignant sorrow which could have b...

His father was a man of extreme benevolence, and strict integrity; warm in his affections, and cheerful in his disposition. Under the influence of his precepts and example the m...

He spoke and voted against military flogging, the game laws, the punishment of the pillory, the poor laws, the law of libel, and lotteries; against the suspension of the Habeas...

Leonard Euler[7] was born at Basle, April 15, 1707. His father was the clergyman of Reichen, near Basle, and had himself been a pupil of James Bernouilli. He intended his son fo...

Sir William Jones arrived in Calcutta in September, and entered on his judicial functions in December, 1783. One of his first employments was the organization of a scientific as...

La Nouvelle Heloïse has been censured for the dangerous example it affords, and for the interest it throws upon seduction and frailty. The character of St. Preux is decidedly fa...

The reason of the above absurd conduct we suspect to have been, that Harrison desired, in addition to the large reward claimed by him, to have a monopoly of the manufacture of h...

In the retirement of Binfield, Pope laboured successfully to make amends for the loss of past time. At fourteen years of age he had written with some elegance, and at fifteen ha...

Bolivar retired for a short time to his estate; but he soon became uneasy at the frequency of arrests, and obtained a passport to quit the country. He retired to Curaçoa. In the...

“Richard Arkwright rose by the force of his natural talents from a very humble condition in society. He was born at Preston, December 23, 1732, of poor parents. Being the younge...

He soon became acquainted with a family, bearing the name of Unwin, consisting of a clergyman, his wife and daughter, and one son, an undergraduate of Cambridge. Struck by Cowpe...