Page:Studies of a Biographer 2.djvu/78

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STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER

Newcastle, Birmingham, and Bristol, and such names as Roscoe, Erasmus Darwin, Dalton, Priestley, Wedgwood, Watt, Beddoes, and Davy show that they included some real leaders in science and literature. Norwich, we are told, was called in a contemporary magazine the 'English Athens,' probably to distinguish it from a city similarly named in Scotland. A once famous Unitarian divine, John Taylor, of Norwich, left descendants of literary taste, of whom Sarah, married to John Austin, became afterwards known as a translator of German. There, too, lived the Aldersons, one of whom became Mrs. Opie, and the Martineau family, whose most honoured descendant is still among us, and the Quaker Gurneys, including the future Mrs. Fry. The great Dr. Parr was schoolmaster there for a time, and so was William Enfield, who translated (from the Latin) Brucker's great History of Philosophy. Norwich had, moreover, the unique distinction of a home-bred School of Art, of which 'Old Crome' was the most distinguished member. Mackintosh looked in occasionally upon circuit, with Basil Montagu. Another visitor was Crabb Robinson. He went to Germany partly at Taylor's suggestion, visited Weimar, crammed Mme. de Stael, it is said, in