and if his wishes had not been counteracted, we know that he would have undertaken the labour."'"

From this time, instead of lectures, he turned his thoughts to publication. His Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis, as has been truly said, put the controversy on the disputed text to rest; and indeed it was the peculiar felicity of his mind, that whatever he undertook to elucidate, he fixed for ever in the light.

In 1795 he married Mrs. Lunan, the sister of Mr. Perry, of the Morning Chronicle, but who sunk under a decline in April 1797, and from that time the Professor himself was so incessantly afflicted with a spasmodic asthma, as to interrupt him in every study to which he applied himself. Whether his sedentary habits served to bring it on we know not, but certainly very few men had accustomed themselves to such patient and continued toil. He had undertaken to make out and copy the almost obliterated manuscript of the invaluable Lexicon of Photius, which he had borrowed from the library of Trinity College. And this he had, with unparalleled difficulty, just completed, when the beautiful copy which had cost him ten months of incessant toil, was burnt in the house of Mr. Perry at Merton. The original being an unique, intrusted to him by his college, he carried with him wherever he went, and he was fortunately absent from Merton on the morning of the fire. Unruffled by the loss, he sat down without a murmur, and made a second copy as beautiful as the first. It is extant in his library, and is quite ready for the press. Of the plays of Euripides, which he published, the learned world has

pronounced its judgment. It may be pleasant for our readers, however, to know, that he has left an Orestes quite ready for the press.

On the establishment of the London Institution, the managers manifested their own discernment and love of letters, by selecting him to be their principal librarian, an appointment for which he was peculiarly qualified; and if time and health had been allowed him, he would have made their library truly valuable. His own, which he has been gradually collecting for thirty years, he has enriched by annotations of such value and importance to literature, that we hope and trust the whole will be placed in his own college, that it may for ever be within the reach of those whom his example may arouse to similar pursuits, though they may despair of reaching equal attainments.

Mr. Porson, as we have stated before, bad, for the last eleven years been a victim of spasmodic asthma, during the agony of which he never went to bed, and in which he was forced to abstain from all sustenance. This greatly debilitated his body; and about a month ago he was afflicted by an intermittent fever; he had an unfortunate objection to medical advice, and he resorted to his usual remedy of abstinence; but on Monday the 19th ult. he suffered an apoplectic stroke, from which he recovered only to endure a second attack the next day. He languished to the Sunday night, and expired without a struggle. The body was opened, by his medical men, and they have given a report, ascribing his death" to the effused lymph in and upon the brain, which they believe to have been the effect of recent

inflammation. The heart was sound, and the pericardium contained the usual quantity of lymph. The left lung had adhesions to the pleura, and bore the marks of former inflammation. The right lung was in a perfectly sound state." This is signed by Dr. Babington, Sir William Blizard, Mr. Norris, Mr. Blizard, and Mr. Upton. In refutation of an idle falsehood about the form of his skull, they add, “that it was thinner than usual, and of hard consistence."

Mr. Porson has left a sister living, an amiable and accomplished woman. She is the wife of Sidny Hawes, Esq. of Coltishall, in Norfolk; they have five children; their eldest son is entered of Bene't College, Cambridge. Henry, the second brother of the Professor, was settled in a farm in Essex, and died young, leaving three children. His brother Thomas kept a boarding school at Fakenham, an excellent scholar, and died in 1792, without issueand his father, Mr. Huggin Porson, died in 1805, in his 74th year. His mother died in 1784, aged 57." Courier.

ART. DCXCIX. REV. EDWARD TYMEWELL BRYDGES.

DIED, Oct. 17, 1807, at his seat at Wootton Court, near Canterbury, aged fifty-eight, the Rev. EDWARD TYMEWELL BRYDGES, the late Claimant to the Barony of Chandos. He had been long in a declining state of health, and bore many bodily sufferings with exemplary patience and cheerfulness. His good qualities were striking and attractive: a

warmth of heart, a generosity of temper, an elegance, and eloquence of manners, and a certain playful-, ness and originality of humour, engaged the approbation of most people, and the interest of all. Though occasionally fond of retirement, he had mixed widely with the world; and if his ductile spirit did not always profit of his experience, it arose from a venial confidence, which, if not prudent, was at least engaging. He was a good scholar; of quick apprehension, keen natural taste, and much irre- ́ gular reading; but his wit was sometimes too sarcastic to be relished; and his irony too doubtful to be perfectly understood.

The long litigation in which he was engaged for the admission of his right to the Peerage of his ancestors, with the unexpected decision, that he had not satisfactorily made out his claim, which took place after a division in a thin House, in June 1803, on a day when the determination was not anticipated, and when many of those who supported his case were absent, affected deeply both his peace of mind, and the strength of his constitution. The discussion lasted more than thirteen years, having commenced immediately after the death of James the third and last Duke of Chandos, in Sept. 1789. He claimed the Barony only (not the higher honours) in right of a descent from the third son of Sir John Brydges, the first Peer, so created in 1554. He had a vast field of prior branches to clear away'; and he had six or seven generations in his own line to establish. There are certain pieces of evidence which the experience and wisdom of the law has long established as proofs of certain facts, which are not to

be disputed. These are just and necessary barriers against the caprice of individual opinion. Even if we could suppose that these rules will sometimes lead to a wrong conclusion, it is better that human affairs should be subjected to this occasional and rare error, than to the fluctuation and uncertainty of each man's private conviction. Every one, who is conversant with the world, must have observed the unaccountable whims, on which the judgment of a large mass of the people is dependent. Circumstances which appear trifles too light to be noticed by one man, operate like conviction on another. Prejudices, which are treated with just scorn by the sound and honest mind, have the force of certainty with the thoughtless and weak. Cunning men who are interested to mislead, know too well what use to make of this imperfection. The Claimant, however, thinking it unnecessary to satisfy all the nonsense of extrajudicial misconception and false rumour, was advised to rest his case on the basis of having fulfilled the proofs required by the law. His friends and advisers thought, and still think, those proofs were such as would have entitled him to a direction from a judge at Nisiprius to a jury, to find a verdict for him, in a trial for estates. However it is well-known that a gradual opposition had so inflamed itself in its progress, (from whatever motives arising) as to have become not only uncommonly violent, but such as the claimant and his friends could not help considering to be rancorous. They complained that in this spirit much irrelevant and injurious matter was mixed up with this cause, which could neither be established under the pro