the author to pity and scorn. But the production brought suspicions upon his own orthodoxy in various quarters, and one old lady, who had him in her will for a legacy of £300, cut it down to £30 on being informed that he had written a book against christianity!—so liable is honest criticism based on irrefragable evidence, to be misunderstood and resented by orthodox ignorance and bigotry. Still it must be admitted that the "Letters to Travis" are diffuse in style and argument, and are often disfigured by misplaced levity, by bursts of scornful indignation which might have been spared, and personal hits and allusions only meant to cover his opponent with ridicule and contempt. Porson continued to write a good deal in the critical reviews. The year 1792 was the turning period of his life. By the statutes of Trinity, the fellows must be in priest's orders within seven years of their taking a master's degree. Porson could not take orders conscientiously, and accordingly resigned his fellowship, though certainly Postlethwaite, the master, might have given him one of the lay fellowships. Without a sixpence he was thrown upon the world. So poor was he that he went sometimes two days without a dinner, and he once lived for four weeks on a guinea. Money was speedily collected among his friends to purchase an annuity for him, and about £100 a year was secured; but Porson, poor as he was, refused to touch it unless the principal sum were returned by trustees to the donors at his death. At this period he lived much in London, and spent a good deal of time one winter with Parr at Hatton. There in the evenings, if Parr was absent, he would gather the young men about him and would pour forth "pages of Barrow, whole letters of Richardson, whole scenes of Foote," &c. But the results of his convivial habits were such, that Mrs. Parr offered him a deliberate insult in order to compel his departure. In 1792 Porson was elected to the Greek professorship at Cambridge, the salary being only £40 a year. He gave an inaugural "prælectio" on Euripides as a dramatist, but delivered no subsequent course of lectures. The plays of Æschylus with corrections by him were printed at the Foulis' press in Glasgow in 1794, in two octavo volumes, and in the year following also in folio. In 1796 Porson married a widow lady, Mrs. Lunan, sister of Mr. Perry of the Morning Chronicle. The marriage was of great benefit to him, as it tended to wean him from those intemperate habits which were gradually undermining his constitution. But his wife lived only a short time, and on her death the restless scholar fell into his former tracks of irregular hours and dissipation. His intemperance was notorious. "He must be always drinking," said one of his friends, "no matter what it is." So, according to report, he drank a large quantity of spirits of wine in one house, and swallowed an embrocation in another. Horne Tooke is said to have asked him to spend a fourth night in drinking, after he had spent three consecutive nights in a similar way, and to his surprise Tooke found his powers of self-indulgence unimpaired. This dissipation began at length to tell upon him; he complains of blotches on his face in a letter to a surgeon, and says that he must be abstinent "till his nose recover its quondam colour and compass." In his last years he became slovenly in dress, and his clothes sometimes bore tokens that he had been rolling in the kennel: so dirty was his appearance at times that the servants of his friends refused him admission into their houses. His love of liquor is said to have begun at Eton, and it was increased by asthma, sleeplessness, restlessness, and disappointment, till it grew into disease. The demon took entire possession, and wielded him at will. But Porson was not a solitary tippler, and he did not spend his substance upon his appetite, as is shown by the funds which he left at his death. One of his famous effusions takes its fun from his own habits—
" I went to Strasburg, where I got drunk.
With that most learned Professor Brunck;
I went to Wortz, and got more drunken,
With that more learned Professor Ruhnken."
Certainly he went far astray during his residence in London, and must have lost self-respect. Sometimes at an advanced hour of his convivial evenings he would get up and toast Jack Cade. Papers, too, of his of a very unbecoming nature appeared in some periodicals. In 1797 came out the Hecuba, which was fiercely attacked by Gilbert Wakefield and by Hermann; the Orestes was published in 1798; the Phœnissæ in 1799; the Medea appeared in 1801, and in the notes he did not spare his opponents. A new edition of the Hecuba followed, in which Wakefield and Hermann are not forgotten, and a third edition in 1808. At his death were found corrected copies of some of the other dramas of Euripides, especially the Hippolytus. It may be mentioned too that he collated the Harleian MS. of the Odyssey for the famous "Grenville Homer." In 1806 Porson was chosen librarian of the London Institution, with a yearly salary of £200 and a suite of rooms. He held this office till his death, though he discharged its duties very unsatisfactorily—the directors being obliged to send him a remonstrance in the following words—"We only know that you are our librarian by seeing your name attached to the receipts for your salary." But his brain had become seriously injured by his nightly potations at the Cyder Cellars, and on 19th September, 1808, he was struck with apoplexy in the Strand, and taken, because not recognized, to the workhouse in St. Martin's lane. He was conveyed next day to his abode in Old Jewry. Seized the same afternoon with a second fit, he expired at length on the 25th of the month, in the forty-ninth year of his age. He was buried on 3d of October with great pomp in the chapel of Trinity college, Cambridge, the master, Bishop Mansell of Bristol, reading the service, the vice-master and eight senior fellows bearing the pall, to which were affixed various tributes to his memory in Greek and Latin.
Porson's notes and critical remarks, written on stray papers and copy-books, were diligently collected after his death, and the most of them edited—the "Adversaria" by Monk and Blomfield; his "Annotations on Aristophanes" and his "Photius," the first transcription of which had been destroyed by an accidental fire, by Dobree; Kidd brought out his "Tracts," "Reviews," &c., with an "Imperfect Outline of his Life"—the whole, with the "Letters to Travis," forming six octavo volumes. That Porson was the greatest scholar, and one of the greatest drinkers of his time, is no exaggeration. In his own special department he stands unrivalled—not even Reiske, Valckenaer, Heyne, Hermann, Ruhnken, or Wittenbach, come into successful competition; nor yet Burney, Elmsley, Dobree, Gaisford, Monk, or Blomfield. In vigour and grasp of mind, Bentley was before him, but in verbal criticism, Bentley was sometimes rash, and not seldom more ingenious than satisfactory. Porson, on the other hand, possessed a rare combination of gifts—a prodigious memory, as prompt as it was accurate and extensive, a nice ear for the delicacies of Greek metre, as seen in his famous canon on the "Pause," with a sagacity, tact, and felicity in restoring imperfect and analyzing difficult readings, that in their ease, correctness, and certainty amounted to genius. In looking at his critical discussions of the text, you do not say of his emendations that they are happy, but that they are of necessity right. Greek scholarship in England owes much to him, not merely to what he did, but to the example he set. It is ever to be regretted that he did so little; though, considering his history, his treatment from those who should have been his patrons, his restless and often aimless life, the time he spent on literary trifles, and his indolence fostered by his personal habits, we may be thankful that he did so much and did it so well. The most extraordinary stories are told of his uncommon strength of memory. His brain seemed to hold an entire classical library, and his mind's eye could read off any page of any of the volumes as he pleased; nay, he could quote a passage a nd the comments of any editor upon it. He repeated more than once the Rape of the Lock, with the various readings of the various editions. From a child's picture-book to a page of Athenæus or Eustathius on Homer, he could give any paragraph that was wanted, and he could tell on what side of the page in various editions a sentence was. He could repeat a couple of pages of any book after reading them once—nay, could for a wager repeat them backwards. "He could," he says, "never forget anything," and his memory was occasionally a source of misery to him. The Greek classics, especially the poets, were at his fingers' end. Milton and Shakspeare, his favourite English poets, were a portion of himself. It may be added that his critical acumen was displayed also in his rejection of the forgeries of Ireland, when Parr was imposed on, and he was indignant at Johnson's leniency toward the similar attempt of Lauder. Porson was characterized by a high spirit of integrity and independence. He was also a man of marked modesty, and was often uneasy under Parr's cumbrous eulogiums. As became a son of Cambridge, he had a strong passion for mathematics, and an equation was found in his pocket when he was seized in the street with his death-stroke. His handwriting was exceedingly neat and elegant, and he was childishly fond of displaying it—nay he offered to letter the backs of Richard Heber's vellum-
