ness; remarking, when his friends pressed him to resign the lectureship, ‘I am sure you will not choose a better in my stead.’ In his congregation he had several assistants from 1732, including Benjamin Hollis (d. 11 March, 1749), John Allen, M.D. (1749–59), Samuel Morton Savage, D.D. (1759–66), and Rice Harris, D.D., Earle's successor. Earle had remarkable vigour; he was never out of health, though he once broke his arm, and became blind many years before his death. At the age of ninety he could easily repeat a hundred lines at any given place from his favourite classic authors. The hackneyed stories of his jokes relate chiefly to his three wives, whom he called ‘the world, the flesh, and the devil;’ to one of them he explained the difference between exportation and transportation by saying, ‘If you were exported I should be transported.’ He preached on the last Sunday of his life, smoking his pipe in the vestry before sermon as usual, and died suddenly in his chair on 29 May 1768, aged 92, or, according to another account, 94 years.
He published: 1. ‘Sermon to the Societies for the Reformation of Manners … at Salters' Hall, 26 July,’ 1704, 12mo (dedicated to Sir T. Roberts). 2. ‘Hearing without Doing,’ 1706, 4to (last sermon at Lime Street lecture). 3. ‘Sacramental Exercises,’ 1707, 12mo; reprinted, Boston, Mass., 1756, 12mo; a version in Gaelic, Edinb. 1827, 12mo. 4. ‘On Prayer and Hearing the Word,’ 1708, 12mo (part of the Weighhouse Friday series; reprinted in ‘Twenty-four Practical Discourses,’ 1810, 12mo, 2 vols.). 5. ‘Sacred Poems,’ 1726, 12mo (dedication, dated 27 June, to Mrs. Susanna Langford; styles himself ‘chaplain to his grace the Duke of Douglas’). 6. ‘Umbritii Cantiani Poemata,’ 1729, 12mo (anon. dated ‘ex agro Cantiano Cal. Mart. 1729;’ a small volume of Latin verse; contains poem addressed to Prince Frederick, also elegies on Addison, Burnet, Tong, &c.). Earle published some twenty other separate sermons, including—7. ‘Ordination Sermon’ at Newport Pagnell (William Hunt), 1725, 8vo; and funeral sermons—8. For John Cumming, D.D., 1729, 8vo. 9. Joseph Hayes, 1729, 8vo. 10. Alice Hayes, 1733, 8vo. His latest publication seems to have been—11. ‘The Popish Doctrine of Purgatory,’ 1735, 8vo; a sermon at Salters' Hall. He contributed to the ‘Occasional Papers,’ 1716–19 [see Avery, Benjamin, LL.D.]; and translated into Latin sundry treatises by Daniel Williams, D.D., for foreign distribution in accordance with the terms of Williams's will. At the end of Matthew Clarke's funeral sermon for the Rev. Jeremiah Smith, 1723, 8vo, is Smith's character attempted in verse by Earle. Kippis publishes his facetious lines on the value of degrees in divinity; his lines on the burial service are given in ‘Evangelical Magazine,’ ii. 264.
[Biog. Brit. (Kippis), i. 177; Prot. Diss. Mag. 1799, 349, 389; Wilson's Diss. Churches, 1808, i. 169, ii. 225, iii. 508; Calamy's Hist. of my own Time, 1830, ii. 513, 529; Cat. of Graduates, Edinb. Univ. 1858; James's Hist. Litig. Presb. Chapels, 1867, 669; Jeremy's Presb. Fund, 1885, 123; Walter Wilson's MSS. in Dr. Williams's Library (Biog. Coll. 40, vol. ii.)]
EARLE, Sir JAMES (1755–1817), surgeon, was born in London in 1755, and received his professional education at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He was elected assistant-surgeon to the hospital in 1770. From 1776 to 1784, as Mr. Crane, one of the surgeons, was unable to operate, Earle performed one-third of the operations at the hospital. He was elected surgeon 22 May 1784, and held that office for thirty-one years, resigning two years before his death in 1817. He lived in Hanover Square, London, was surgeon extraordinary to George III, and was celebrated as an operator. In 1802, when president of the College of Surgeons, he was knighted by the king. He married the daughter of Percival Pott, then surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and his third son, Henry [q. v.], became surgeon to the same foundation. Earle wrote the memoir of Percival Pott prefixed to the three-volume octavo edition of Pott's works, published in 1790, and a life of another colleague, Dr. William Austin [q. v.], prefixed to an essay on lithotomy. Both are written in a simple, lucid style, which is also found in his surgical writings, and which was probably acquired from his study of the methods of thought and the writings of Pott. He was famous for his skill in lithotomy, and introduced an improvement in the treatment of hydrocele. His surgical works are: 1. ‘A Treatise on the Hydrocele,’ 1791 (with additions in 1793, 1796, and 1805). 2. ‘Practical Observations on the Operation for Stone,’ 1793 (2nd edition 1796). 3. ‘Observations on the Cure of Curved Spine,’ 1799. 4. ‘On Burns,’ 1799. 5. ‘A New Method of Operation for Cataract,’ 1801. 6. ‘Letter on Fractures of the Lower Limbs,’ 1807. 7. ‘On Hæmorrhoidal Excrescences,’ 1807. In the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ for 1803 he described a very large vesical calculus. His writings show that besides being a skilful operator he was a careful observer at the bedside, and in every way a worthy disciple of the illustrious Percival Pott.
[MS. Journal of St. Bartholomew's Hospital; Works.]
