PORSON, RICHARD, the greatest Greek scholar England has ever produced, was b. on Christmas, 1759, at East Ruston, Norfolk, where his father was parish clerk. The curate of the parish conceiving a liking for the boy, on account of his omnivorous appetite for books and his marvelous memory, took charge of him. and had him educated along with his own sons. Person afterward found a patron in Mr. Norris (the founder of the Nor risian professorship at Cambridge), who sent him to Eton in 1774, where he remained four years. but did'not acquire any of the ordinary distinctions, although it is evident that it was there his mind acquired a fixed bias toward classical studies. Another patron, sir George Baker, sent him, in 1778, to Trinity college, Cambridge, of which he was elected a scholar in 1780. Next year he won the Craven scholarship, and subsequently, the first chancellor's medal. In 1782 he was chosen a fellow of Trinity. It was about this time that he began to give indications of his subtle sagacity and taste in the difficult ver bal criticism of theGreek dramatists. For four years he contributed to Maty's Review —his first critique being on Schulz's .tEschylus, and his finest on Brunek's Aristophanes. He also opened a correspondence with professor Ruhnken. If, however, we are to judge from a quatrain written at a later period of his life, he did more than correspond: 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 Ruhnkem In 1787 appeared, in the Gentleman's Magazine, his sarcastic letters on Hawkins's Life of John-son.. For the same periodical he also wrote his far more famous and trenchant Letters to Travis on the Three Witnesses. The dispute concerned the genuineness of John r. 7, 8, and was occasioned by a blundering and pretentious defense of the passage by archdeacon Travis, against the scornful attack of Gibbon. Person naturally incurred great odium on account of the side he took in this controversy. One old lady who had him iu her will for a legacy of £300, cut it down to £30, when she heard that he had written a book against Christianity. In 1702 he resigned his fellowship, as he found that he could not conscientiously take orders in the church. Some of his friends now raised a fund to preserve him front want, and about £100 a year was secured. He was also appointed to the regius professorship of Greek in the university of Cambridge—an &lice, indeed. only
worth £40 a year; yet so splendid was his learning. so admirable his taste, so vigorous and epigrammatic his style of criticism, that lie might easily have—by the exercise of a moderate degree of continuous literary labor—succeeded in gaining a handsome income.
But already' " two devils had him gripe"—procrastination and a raging thirst for drink—and they held him firm to the end of his melancholy career. The only thing he ever did in connection with his Greek professorship was to deliver a praiectio so excel lent, that, it has been said, if he had passed from verbal to aesthetic criticism he would. have surpassed all his countrymen in that too. In 1794 he edited the plays of 4-7,schylus. for the Foulis press, Glasgow; and between 1797 and 1801, four of Euripides, the Hecuba,. the Orestes, the Pflanz:we, and the Xedea. He also collated the Harleian MS. of the Odys sey for the Grenville Homer. In 1806 he was appointed librarian of the "London institu tiou" with a salary of .4:200; but was so grossly negligent of his duties that the directors. . officially notified their dissatisfaction in these emphatic words: " We only know that you are our librarian by seeing your name attached to the receipts for your salary." He died of apoplexy, Sept. 25, 1808, in the 49th year of his age, and was buried with great pomp in the chapel of Trinity college, Cambridge. Porson's rage for drink was fearful. lie would pour anything down his throat rather than endure the " terrible torture or thirst." Ink, spirits of wine for the lamp, an embrocation, are among the horrible things he is reported to have swallowed in his extremity. "He used to return to the dining room after the company bad left it; pour into a tumbler the drops remaining in the wine glasses, and drink off the collectauea." In fact, his thirst was so outrageous, that Por son cannot be considered a mere willful drunkard; one must believe that he was driven. into his excesses by some unknown disease of his constitution. See POLYD:FSIA. Pot son's memory was as amazing as his thirst. The anecdotes told by h's biographers. almost surpass belief, yet are thoroughly authenticated. His critical acumen has never been matched in England. His tracts, reviews, letters, etc., were collected and edited; with a biographical notice, by Kidd, in six volumes. See " Porsoniana" in Rogers's Table-Talk, and the rev. J. Selby Watson's Life (f Richard Porson, M.A. (1861).