Duke-Street, Lambeth.
PORTRAITS, AND BIOGRAPHIES
CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME.
| 1. | Erskine | [1] |
| 2. | Dollond | [12] |
| 3. | John Hunter | [19] |
| 4. | Petrarch | [25] |
| 5. | Burke | [33] |
| 6. | Henry IV. | [41] |
| 7. | Bentley | [49] |
| 8. | Kepler | [59] |
| 9. | Hale | [66] |
| 10. | Franklin | [77] |
| 11. | Schwartz | [86] |
| 12. | Barrow | [94] |
| 13. | D’Alembert | [101] |
| 14. | Hogarth | [106] |
| 15. | Galileo | [113] |
| 16. | Rembrandt | [121] |
| 17. | Dryden | [127] |
| 18. | La Perouse | [135] |
| 19. | Cranmer | [141] |
| 20. | Tasso | [149] |
| 21. | Ben Jonson | [156] |
| 22. | Canova | [165] |
| 23. | Chaucer | [176] |
| 24. | Sobieski | [184] |
⁂ It should have been stated in the Life of D’Alembert, that that Life was mostly taken from the Penny Cyclopædia, with some alterations by the Editor of this work.
Engraved by R. Woodman.
ERSKINE.
From the original Picture by Hoppner
in his Majesty’s Collection at Windsor.
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall East.
ERSKINE.
The Honourable Thomas Erskine was the third son of David Earl of Buchan, a Scottish peer of ancient family and title, but reduced fortune. He was born in January 1748, and received the rudiments of his education, partly at the High School of Edinburgh, partly at the University of St. Andrews. But the straitened circumstances of his family rendered it necessary for him to embrace some profession at an early age; and he accordingly entered the navy as a midshipman in 1764. Not thinking his prospects of advancement sufficiently favourable to render his continuance in that service expedient, he exchanged it in the year 1768 for that of the army. In 1770 he married his first wife, Frances, the daughter of Daniel Moore, M.P. for Marlow; and soon after went with his regiment to Minorca, where he remained three years. Soon after returning to England he changed his profession again. It has been said that he took this step against his own judgment, and on the pressing entreaties of his mother, a woman of lofty and highly cultivated mind, the sister of Sir James Stewart, whose scientific writings, especially upon political philosophy, have rendered his name so famous, and the daughter of a well known Scotch lawyer and Solicitor-General of the same name. But it is certain that at this time he had acquired considerable celebrity in the circles of London society; and it is hard to suppose that he was not sensible of his own brilliant qualifications for forensic success. Whatever the cause, he commenced his legal life in 1775, in which year he entered himself as a student of Lincoln’s Inn, and also as a fellow commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge; not with a view to university honours or emoluments, but to obtain the honorary degree of M.A., to which he was entitled by his birth, and thereby to shorten the period of probation, previous to his being called to the bar. He gave an earnest, however, of his future eloquence, by gaining the first declamation prize, annually bestowed in his college. The subject which he chose was the Revolution of 1688. His professional education was chiefly carried on in the chambers of Mr. Buller and Mr. Wood, both subsequently raised to the bench. In Trinity term, 1778, he was called to the bar.