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offer to the queen any part of the curiosities of which her majesty might approve, and to present the remainder to the British museum. You must remember, Sir, that, in pursuance of these instructions, the entire (or nearly the entire) collection was confided to you, in order to be deposited in the museum; and you cannot forget that you disposed of it by sending it all to France, with no authority but your own, with no pretence except that the philosophers of the two nations were not at war. Thus, Sir, you imposed an obligation on the French, which they have repaid it seems to your exquisite gratification. By the sacrifice of what duties and what principles that obligation was imposed, it is not for me to say; but I will without hesitation assert, that your acknowledgment of its discharge has brought disgrace upon your country, and discredit on the Royal society, the guardianship of whose honour was confided to you by your sovereign.—I am, Sir, &c. &c.

"MISOGALLUS."

He died on the 19th of June, 1820, after a lingering illness, which he endured with much patience and even cheerfulness. His magnificent library of natural history, of which an admirable catalogue was compiled by his librarian in five volumes, octavo, he devised to the British muHis published writings are neither very numerous nor very important. They consist of a few papers in the Philosophical Transactions,' the Archæologia,' and some other periodical works, and an essay on the causes of Mildew, first published in 1803.

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John Aikin.

BORN A. D. 1747.-DIED A. D. 1822.

JOHN AIKIN, the only son of the Rev. John Aikin, D. D., was born at the village of Kibworth-Harcourt, in Leicestershire, on the 15th of January, 1747. He was originally destined for the study of divinity; but "the weakness of his voice, and perhaps the native vivacity of his temper," caused a change in his prospects, and he was subsequently articled to a surgeon and apothecary at Uppingham. At the age of eighteen he was sent to pursue his medical studies at the university of Edinburgh, where he spent two winters and the intermediate summer, after which he became once more a pupil under Mr White of Manchester. In 1769 he attended Dr William Hunter's lectures in London, and the next year repaired to Chester with the view of commencing practice in that city. He found Chester, to use his own expression, coy but very agreeable mistress," whom he should probably have courted with success, but that her favours were already engaged; in other words, he soon became sensible that the ground was fully pre-occupied in that city; and after a residence of somewhat more than a year, he quitted it, and returned to Warrington, then the residence of his revered parents.

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Early in 1772 he first ventured to solicit the notice of the public as a cultivator of elegant literature, in a small volume, entitled, Essays on Song-writing.' A few months afterwards he married Martha, youngest daughter of his maternal uncle, Mr Arthur Jennings. In the following year he published in conjunction with his sister, afterwards Mrs Bar

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bauld, a small volume of Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose.' He next appeared as the translator of those two exquisite tracts of the Roman historian, the 'Life of Agricola,' and ' On the Manners of the Germans.' A fresh proof of his indefatigable industry was soon after afforded by the appearance of his Specimen of the Medical Biography of Great Britain,'—a work, the original plan of which he was afterwards obliged to curtail, but which led to the publication of his Biographical Memoirs of Medicine in Great Britain, from the Revival of Literature to the time of Harvey,' in one volume, 8vo. In 1776 he superintended the publication of a selection of pieces from Pliny's Natural History,' for the use of schools, to which his father contributed an elegant Latin preface; and soon afterwards a similar selection from Seneca, and a complete edition of Statius, were printed at Warrington under his eye. 'An Essay on the application of Natural History to Poetry,' printed in 1777, was Mr Aikin's next contribution to the amusement and instruction of the public. This was followed by an essay on Thomson's 'Seasons,' which was prefixed to an ornamented edition of that popular poem. Botany next engaged his attention; and in 1778 he published a translation of Baume's Manuel de Chymie.' His professional engagements were now too numerous to admit of his devoting a very considerable portion of his time to literary composition; but in 1784 appeared an enlarged and corrected edition of Lewis' Experimental History of the Materia Medica,' by Mr Aikin. In July, 1784, he set out for Leyden, furnished with a thesis, ' De Lactis secretione in Puerperis,' which procured for him the degree of M. D. from that university. At the close of this year he quitted Warrington, and went to Yarmouth.

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In 1792 Dr Aikin published A View of the Character and Public Services of the late John Howard,' the eminent philanthropist, with whose friendship he had been long favoured; a few months previously to the appearance of this work, he printed a small volume of poems. The same year the literary attractions of the metropolis prevailed on him to leave Yarmouth, and commence a new career in the capacity of a London physician; in this year he produced, in conjunction with his sister, the first volume of Evenings at Home,'-the most popular perhaps of all his works, and one of the most useful, its leading idea being that of teaching things rather than words. In the beginning of 1794 appeared the first volume of his Letters from a Father to his Son,' which were received with general favour. In June, 1795, he published a' Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles round Manchester,' besides preparing a new edition of a previous topographical publication, entitled, England Delineated.' Both these works are highly respectable in their line, and may still be consulted with advantage. In 1796 he undertook the literary editorship of the Monthly Magazine,' which he enriched to a great extent with his own pieces; and in the conclusion of that year, having secured the co-operation of Dr Enfield, he engaged in the preparation of his great work, the 'General Biography,' which employed the larger portion of his time during a period of nineteen years, and extended to 10 volumes, 4to. On Dr Enfield's death, which took place before the completion of the first volume, Dr Thomas Morgan succeeded to his portion of the work. These incessant labours, added to the fatigues of a necessarily laborious profession, impaired Dr Aikin's health; and in October, 1798, he re

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