To which are added Critical Dissertations. the Reverend Mr. Hurd. In three volumes. fourth Edition, corrected and enlarged," 8vo.

By

The

1780, is thus recorded: "His great talents, and knowledge in his profession, were universally acknowledged by the gentlemen of the faculty; and his tenderness and humanity recommended him to the friendship and esteem, as well as veneration, of his patients. He was endued with uncommon quickness and sagacity in discovering the source, and tracing the progress, of a disorder; and though, in general, a friend to prudent regimen, rather than medicine; yet in emergent cases he prescribed with a correct and happy boldness, equal to the occasion. He was so averse from that sordid avarice generally charged, perhaps often with great injustice, on the faculty, that many of his friends in affluent circumstances found it impossible to force on him that reward for his services which he had so fairly earned, and which his attendance so well merited. As a man, he was sincere and just in his principles, frank and amiable in his temper, instructive and lively in his conversation, his many singularities endearing him still farther to his acquaintance, as they proceeded from an honest plainness of manner, and visibly flowed from a benevolent simplicity of heart. He was, for days, sensible of his approaching end, which he encountered with a calmness and resignation, not easily to be imitated by those, who now regret the loss of so good a man, so valuable a friend, and so skilful a physician."-Ralph, the younger son, was also bred to the profession of his father and brother; and, having taken the degree of M. D. published, in 1746, 1. "An Ode on the present Rebellion;" and also, 2. "An Account of the present Rebellion, by R. Schomberg, M.D. 1746." The next publication of his that I have met with is an octavo volume, handsomely printed, of about 200 pages, dedicated to Dr. Bernard, and intituled, 3. "Aphorismi Practici; sive observationes medicæ, tam veterum quam recentiorum quos in usum medicinæ Tyronum collegit, et in ordinem alphabeticam digessit, Radulphus Schomberg, M.Ď.1750." Dr. Ralph Schomberg was at that period "settled at Yarmouth, where he practised with success, and where he devoted those hours of leisure, which a young physician must always have, to the collecting instructions, in the form of Aphorisms, for himself, and for every other physician of his standing, from authors whom it was a credit to him to shew himself so well acquainted with. The Aphorisms are succinct, intelligible, of consequence, and shew a critical knowledge of more of the authors from whom they are collected, than concerns only those passages. There are some of them that fly a little in the face of the present mode of common practice indeed, but they are not to be too hastily condemned for that. The Collector seems to have thrown them thus in the way of observation, to put those who have most opportunities of deciding the controversy upon the doing it. There are not wanting some things of his own. They are few, mo

destly

"An Account of the Life of John Ward, LL. D. Professor of Rhetorick in Gresham College; F.R.S.

destly asserted, and carry conviction with them: there are some authors he has been obliged to indeed, in places, which, were we to have judged of them, we would have avoided; but our differing from him in opinion, in regard to the works of another, is no proof that he is in the wrong. Upon the whole, nobody will deny him the character of a judicious Collector; nor does he seem ambitious of a greater: the man who can retain the knowledge contained in this small compass, will not be at a loss to give an account of his profession, or to know what intention he is to prescribe in, even under any uncommon symptoms." (Monthly Review, vol. IV. p. 52.-4. "Prosperi Martiani Annotationes in Cæcas Prænotiones Synopsis; accurante R. Schomberg, M. D. 1751." He was elected F.S. A. July 6, 1752; soon after changed his residence from Yarmouth to the gayer scenes of Bath; where he was seated in 1762, when he published, 5. "Van Swietan's Commentaries abridged." 6. "A Treatise of the Colica Pictorum, or the Dry Belly-ache, 8vo, 1764." 7. "Du Port de Signis Morborum Libri quatuor. Quibus accedunt Notæ Auctoris; aliorum eruditorum Medicorum, et sparsim Editoris, Radulphi Schomberg, M. D. Societ. Antiquar. Lond. 1766." S. "The Death of Bucephalus, a Farce, 1765." 9. "The Life of Mæcenas, 1767." 10. "The Judgment of Paris, a Burletta, 1768." 11. A Second Volume of the "Abridgement of Van Swietan's Commentaries, 1768." 12. "A Critical Dissertation on the Characters and Writings of Pindar and Horace. In a Letter to the Right Honourable the Earl of B. By Ralph Schomberg, M. D. 1769;" which was thus concisely characterized: "A remarkable piece of plagiarism. We have now before us a little duodecimo, printed at Paris, in 1673, and intituled, Comparaison de Pindare et d'Horace. Dediée à Mons. le Premier President. Par Mons. Blondell, Maistre des Mathematiques de Monsigneur le Dauphin.' From this work has Dr. Ralph Schomberg, of Bath, pilfered and translated what he has given to the publick as his own Critical Dissertation on the Characters and Writings of Pindar and Horace a procedure which requires no farther explanation!— But it is hoped we shall hear no more of this honourable gentleman, in the Republick of Literature." Monthly Review, vol. XLI. p. 230. This charitable hope, however, was not fulfilled. The Doctor was afterwards heard of in a money transaction of which we shall not relate the particulars. He was the author of a Tragedy called "Romulus and Hersilia," in 1782; which Mr. Steevens thus pointedly noticed in the "Biographia Dramatica:" "Within a few months past, this Tragedy has been recommended by some Paragraph-writer in our public prints, as fit for immediate exhibition. There is a difficulty, however, in ascribing the slightest notice of it to any other pen than that of its author. An anonymous Drama, indeed, on the same subject,

and

and F.S.A. By Mr. Thomas Birch, D.D. Sec. R. S. and F.S.A." from hints suggested by several learned Friends, and finished for the press after the death of Dr. Birch, by his intimate friend and executor Dr. Maty, in 8vo.

"The Principles of the English Language di gested; or, English Grammar reduced to Analogy. By James Elphinston *." 12mo. 2 vols.

and with the same title, 4to, was published in 1685; a piece concerning which the original Compiler of the present Work [Mr. Baker] has expressed himself in favourable terms. Perhaps Dr. Schomberg, with his usual freedom, may have borrowed, and with his usual awkwardness may have spoiled it. Compare also his 'Life of Mæcenas' with that written by Meibomius, and then exclaim with Horace:

-moveat cornicula risum Furtivis nudata coloribus!

Even the all-swallowing vase at Bath-Easton has been found to nauseate our Doctor's compositions. When it was first opened, he was a constant candidate for the myrtle wreath. The wreath, however, as if indeed with prescience of his future shame, persisted in avoiding the slightest contact with his head."

After the period above alluded to, Dr. Schomberg retired from the public exercise of his profession, first to Pangbourn in Berkshire, and afterwards to Reading. The Obituary of Mr. Urban's LXIId Volume records, that, on the 29th of June, 1792, "Ralph Schomberg, esq. died at Reading."

* My account of this singular but truly worthy man shall be abridged from a memoir of him which was presented to me in 1809 by R. C. Dallas, esq. one of his grateful pupils †.

"James Elphinston was born at Edinburgh, Dec. 6, 1721. He was the son of the Rev. William Elphinston; his mother's maiden name was Honeyman; she was the daughter of the Minister of Kinef, and the niece of Dr. Honeyman, bishop of Orkney. By the marriage of his sister with the late William Strahan, Esq. the King's Printer, he was uncle to the Rev. Dr. George Strahan, vicar of Islington, rector of Cranham, and prebendary of Rochester; to the present Andrew Strahan, esq. M.P. who succeeded his father as his Majesty's Printer; to the late Mrs. Spottiswoode, the wife of the late John Spottiswoode, esq. of Spottiswoode in Scotland; and to the late Mrs. Johnston, the wife of the late Andrew Johnston, esq. father of the present Gen. Johnston, and of the Lady of Sir Andrew Monro, bart. "Mr. Elphinston received his education at the High School of Edinburgh, which for many generations has been among the

"From Mr Dallas's situation as a pupil of Mr. Elphinston's, he had the honour of being presented to Dr. Jortin, Dr. Franklin of Philadelphia, 'and Dr. Johnson, a triumvirate not easily matched."

most

"An Essay on the Coins of Cunobelin: In an Epistle to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of

most celebrated of the British Empire for Learning, and the eminent Scholars it has produced.-From the High School, it is presumed, Mr. Elphinston went to the College of Edinburgh, as he mentions in one of his letters a recollection from college; where, or soon after he left it, he became the tutor of Lord Blantyre. He took a pleasure in boasting of being a tutor when he was scarcely seventeen years old.-About the time he came of age he was introduced to the celebrated Historian Carte; whom he accompanied in a tour through Holland and Brabant, and to Paris, where he remained some time an inmate in the house of his fellow-traveller and friend, received great civilities, and perfected his knowledge and practice of the French language, in which he not only conversed, but wrote both in prose and verse with the facility and elegance of the most accomplished natives. On the death of Mr. Carte, ten years after, Mr. Elphinston mentioned him in the following manner to a friend. 'You will, I am sure, condole with me on the loss of my valuable friend Mr. Carte. He was in London some weeks ago, preparing for the publication of his fourth volume. He was most cordial good company. But he breathed no less benefit to the publick than to his friends. He told me that, after finishing his History, when he could play with his time, as he phrased it, he meant to animadvert upon Lord Bolingbroke. Though this last must fall by his own inconsistence, what has England not lost in her Historian! and how light to me, in comparison, was a group of deaths, that crowded upon us in one morning, which separately might each have claimed a tear, but which were all swallowed up in Mr. Carte's!'-On Mr. Elphinston's leaving France, he immediately repaired to his native country. His worldly circumstances, fortunately for many, were such as rendered it necessary for him to employ his talents and attainments with a view to his support; and soon after his return to Scotland, he became an inmate in the family of James Moray, esq. of Abercairny in Perthshire, to whose eldest son he was tutor, and who, it appears from a letter of his mother's, had become his patron at that early period of his life. The manner in which she mentions it gives a pleasing idea of patronage: I heartily bless God for your safety and welfare, and that you enjoy the good company of your patron, which I know you so much wished and longed for.'

patronage that excites such longing is truly delightful and noble; it at once stamps a character of worth on the protected, and of good sense and amiable feelings on the protector. How long Mr. Elphinston remained at Abercairny is uncertain; but in the year 1750 he appears taking an active part at Edinburgh in the circulation of Dr. Johnson's "Ramblers," the numbers of which, with the Author's concurrence, he re-published in Scot land, with a translation of many of the mottos by himself.—

John

Carlisle, President of the Society of Antiquaries; wherein that noble Set of Coins is classed, and

Johnson was highly gratified with the successful zeal of his friend, and transcribed himself the mottoes for the numbers of the English edition when published in volumes, affixing the name of the translator, which has been continued in every subsequent edition. In the year 1750, Mr. Elphinston, while residing at Edinburgh, lost his mother, of whose death he gave a very affecting account in a letter to his sister, Mrs. Strahan, then living in London. This being shewn to Johnson, brought tears to his eyes, and produced from his pen one of the most beautiful letters of condolence ever written. It was published among his Works. This debt Mr. Elphinston had a melancholy opportunity of repaying, about two years after, when Johnson lost his wife, and again in 1759, on the death of his mother; nor was it paid in coin less sterling.In 1751 he married Miss Gordon, the daughter of a brother of General Gordon, of Auchintoul, and grand-daughter of Lord Auchintoul, one of the Senators of the College of Justice before the Revolution of 1688. About two years after his marriage Mr. Elphinston left Scotland, and fixed his abode near the Metropolis of England, first at Brompton, and afterwards at Kensington; where for many years he kept a school in a large and elegant house opposite to the King's gardens, and which at that time stood the first in entering Kensington. This noble mansion has since not only been hid by new houses, some of which stand upon the old play-ground, but defaced by the blocking-up of the handsome bow-windows belonging to the once elegant ball-room at the top of the Eastern division of the house. On that site of learning Mr. Elphinston not only infused knowledge, taste, and virtue into the minds and hearts of his pupils, but seized every opportunity of sacrificing to the Muses himself,, and of extending instruction and service to the larger circle of the world.-In the year 1753 he made a poetical version of the younger Racine's Poem of Religion,' which, at the suggestion of Richardson, the amiable author of 'Clarissa,' &c. he sent to the author of the Night Thoughts,' whose applause it received, both for the utility of the Work and the spirit of the Translation. Finding no English Grammar of which he could approve, he about this time composed one himself for the use of his pupils, which he afterwards published in two duodecimo volumes. In 1763 he published his Poem intituled Education.' It is a complete plan of Reason detailed in spirited verse.—It was impossible for a man like Mr. Elphinston to live at Kensington without adding to the number of his friends the great character who was then rector, Dr. Jortin, whose death, in 1770, was severely felt by Mr. Elphinston.

"In March 1776, he gave up his school, but continued to reside in the same house in Kensington for some time longer, employ ing himself in a Translation of Martial, the Proposals for publishing