On the 2d of January, 1815, Lord Niddry was made a Knight Grand Cross of the military order of the Bath. His half-brother, James, third Earl of Hopetoun, dying on the 29th of May, 1816, Lord Niddry succeeded to the family titles. On the 12th of August, 1819, he received the brevet of General.

When His Majesty was in Scotland, the Earl of Hopetoun was one of the few individuals who received the distinction of a royal visit.

Unhappily, His Lordship did not long enjoy his numerous honours, acquired and hereditary. He died at Paris, on the 27th of August, 1823, aged 57.

The remains of this gallant and much lamented nobleman having been brought from France in His Majesty's sloop Brisk, were interred in the family vault at Abercorn, on the 1st of October, as privately as circumstances would permit.

As a soldier, the Earl of Hopetoun was cool, brave, and determined; and his conduct as a nobleman, a landlord, and a friend, was always such as became his high station. By his numerous family and relatives his loss is deeply lamented; and indeed few men of his rank have been more sincerely regretted by all classes of the public.

The Earl of Hopetoun was twice married. On the 17th of August, 1798, he married, at Lea Castle, in the county of Worcester, his cousin Elizabeth, youngest daughter of the Hon. Charles Hope Weir, of Craigie Hall, and Blackwood; but by her, who died March 20th, 1801, he had no issue. On the 9th of Feb. 1803, at Ballindean, he married Louisa Dorothea, third daughter of Sir John Wedderburn, of Ballindean, in the county of Perth, Bart., (by his second wife Alicia, daughter of Col. James Dundas, of Dundas,) by . whom he had issue John, now Earl of Hopetoun, born Nov. 15th, 1803, eight other sons, and two daughters.

315

No. XV.

MATTHEW BAILLIE, M.D.

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETIES OF LONDON AND EDINBURGH; FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS IN LONDON; HONORARY FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS IN EDINBURGH, &c.

ALIKE distinguished as a physician, and amiable as a man, the late Dr. Baillie ran a career of honour and profit which falls to the lot of few. Acknowledged by the public, and by his brethren, as the undisputed head of the medical profession, he has left a blank, which we can scarcely hope soon to see adequately filled.

He was born Oct. 27th, 1761, in the manse of Tholy, near Hamilton, in Scotland. His father was the Rev. James Baillie, D.D. (a supposed descendant of the family of Baillie of Jerviswood,) some time minister of the kirk of Shotts, (one of the most barren and wild parts of the low country of Scotland,) and afterwards professor of divinity in the university of Glasgow. His mother was Dorothea, daughter of Mr. John Hunter, of Kilbride, in the county of Lanark, (a descendant of the family of Hunter of Hunterstown,) and sister of the two celebrated anatomists Dr. William and Mr. John Hunter.

In the earlier part of his life, Dr. Baillie enjoyed considerable advantages; indeed he was in the whole of it peculiarly happy. Having received the rudiments of knowledge under his father's immediate superintendence, in 1773, when in his 13th year, he began his college-education at the university of Glasgow, where he distinguished himself. In 1779, having been appointed to an exhibition, he went to Baliol College, Oxford, on the same foundation on which Adam Smith and

other eminent countrymen of his had gone before him; and, when of the usual standing, he took his degrees in arts and in physic; that of M.D. in 1789.

In 1780, (of course keeping his terms at Oxford,) Dr. Baillie went to London, and commenced his medical studies, by attending the anatomical lectures of his maternal uncle, Dr. William Hunter; and soon after, those of his other maternal uncle, Mr. John Hunter. He had the great advantage of residing with Dr. William Hunter, and, when he became sufficiently advanced in his studies, of being employed to make the necessary preparation for the lectures, to conduct the demonstrations, and to superintend the operations of the students. Previous to Dr. Hunter's death, which took place in March, 1783, his nephew had become the chief teacher of practical anatomy; and after that event, he became his successor in the lectures, having for an associate Mr. Cruickshank, who, during Dr. Hunter's life, had given a part of the lectures. Dr. Baillie began to lecture in 1784-5, and soon acquired the highest reputation as an anatomist and a teacher of anatomy; to which character his arduous labours in the formation of his collection of anatomical preparations, consisting of nearly eleven hundred articles, greatly contributed. He possessed the valuable talent of making an abstruse ́and difficult subject plain: his prelections were remarkable for that lucid order and clearness of expression which proceed from a perfect conception of the subject; and he never permitted any variety of display to turn him from his great object, of conveying information in the simplest and most intelligible way, and so as to be most useful to the pupils. He had no desire to get rid of national peculiarities of language; or, if he had, he did not perfectly succeed. Not only did the language of his own land linger on his tongue, but its recollections clung to his heart; and to the last, amidst the splendour of his professional life, and the seductions of a court, he took a hearty and an honourable interest in the happiness and the eminence of his original country. But there was a native sense and strength of mind which distinguished him,

and much more than compensated for the want of the polish and purity of English pronunciation. When the increase of his practice as a physician made it necessary for him to decline lecturing, which it did in 1799, the students in Windmill Street showed their sense of his merits, and of their obligations to him, by presenting him with a very handsome and valuable piece of plate, having a Latin inscription expressive of their gratitude.

In the year 1787, Dr. Baillie was elected physician to St. George's Hospital, which office he held for thirteen years. In the year 1789, he was admitted a candidate at the college of physicians, and in the following year had the full privileges of a fellowship conferred upon him. He served the office of censor in 1792 and 1797; and that of commissioner, under the act of parliament for the inspection and licensing of madhouses, in 1794 and 1795.

Dr. Baillie owed his introduction to practice to the reputation for talents and learning which he had acquired by his lectures, and to the recommendation of professional men, ever the best judges of professional merit. Such an introduction must always insure an eventual and stable, although it may not produce a rapid or brilliant success. Among the eminent medical characters of that day who were particularly attached to Dr. Baillie, was the late Dr. David Pitcairn, a man of elegant literary accomplishments, united with great professional knowledge. Notwithstanding the disparity of their years, there existed between Dr. Pitcairn and Dr. Baillie a long and uninterrupted intimacy; and the confidence reposed by Dr. Pitcairn in the abilities of his friend was evinced by his consulting no other medical adviser, except, we believe, in his last illness, when Dr. Wells attended with Dr. Baillie. It was on the secession from practice of Dr. Pitcairn, who was compelled by illness, in the year 1798, to seek the milder climate of Lisbon, that Dr. Baillie began to find the demands for his professional aid gradually multiply upon him, until at length he was almost overwhelmed with practice, among all the first persons of rank and fortune in the kingdom.

Having been called in to the late Duke of Gloucester, (whose malady however proved a hopeless case,) he gave such satisfaction to the royal family, that, on the subsequent illness of His late Majesty, he was commanded to join in consultation with the court-physicians; and he thenceforward continued a principal director of the royal treatment. For a while he was, in consequence, placed in circumstances which might have shaken men of less firm and independent minds. But, amidst the hope and fear which for so long a time agitated the nation on the subject of the King's health, the opinion of Dr. Baillie always regulated that of the public, who were perfectly convinced that no consideration could ever bend the stubbornness of his integrity. On the first vacancy, which was in 1810, he was appointed one of the physicians to His late Majesty, and received the offer of a baronetage, which his good sense and unassuming disposition induced him to decline.

If the income which Dr. Baillie derived from his practice, when it was at its height, was not the largest, it was certainly the second in amount, and much exceeded that of any physician in London who preceded him. In one of his most busy years, when he had scarcely time to take a single regular meal, it is said to have reached to 10,000l. But whatever might have been his professional emoluments, there cannot be any doubt that there was no physician of his time who enjoyed an equal reputation with his brethren for professional skill and knowledge, of which the admitted greater extent of his consultation-business may be regarded as a proof. contemporary physician was supposed to possess, or in fact did possess, equal anatomical knowledge; and particularly equal knowledge of that part of anatomy which throws light upon the nature of disease. His opinion was frequently wished for by other physicians for their own instruction, as well as for the satisfaction and benefit of the patient.

No

Dr. Baillie was remarkable for forming his judgment of any case before him from his own observation exclusively; carefully guarding himself against any prepossession from the