chosen one of the physicians to the Foundling Hospital, which office he held during the remainder of his life. In 1784 he was chofen a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and made one of the Elects.

In 1786 Dr Watson had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him, being one of the body deputed by the College, to congratulate his Majesty on his escape from affaffination. As Sir William Watson lived in intimacy with the most learned and illustrious Fellows of the Royal Society, so he himself was one of its mest active members, and ever zealous in promoting the ends of that inftitution. For many years he was a frequent member of the council; and during the life-time of Sir John Pringle was elected one of the VicePresidents, which honourable office he continued to fill during the remainder of his life. He was a most constant attendant on the public meetings of the Society, and on the private affociations of its members, especially on that formerly held every Thursday, at the Mitre, and now at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, in the Strand.

Notwithstanding the great fatigue to which Sir William Watson was subjected in his professional duty, and his laborious exertions in profecuting his favourite objects, which were equally beneficial to mankind, and honourable to himself, he in general enjoyed a firm and found state of health. It was sometimes interrupt ed by fits of the gout, but these seldom confined him to his house. In the year 1786 the decline of his health was very visible to his friends; his strength was greatly diminished, and he had loft much of that vivacity, which so strongly marked his character. He, however, continued his utility to the very verge of the grave, and died on the 10th of May 1787, in the perfect exercise of his fenfes, and the full poffeffion of that VOL. XI. No. 61.

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esteem and regard of his surviving friends, which were the natural result of his thining abilities, added to the uniform propriety of his conduct.

Few men have inherited from nature more extensive talents than Sir William Watson, and few have made a better use of them. The wonderful strength and accuracy of his recollection, his intimate acquaintance with men, manners, and the objects of science, and the penetrating attention which he bestowed on the scientific topics of the day, always enabled him in a superior degree to communicate entertaining information; while the easy, free, and engaging manner, in which he converfed, rendered him a desirable associate in every society, and occafioned his company to be courted and frequented, by all contemporary philosophers.

In the younger part of his life he was noticed by those respectable cha racters Sir Hans Sloane, Dr Mead, Martin Folkes, and others of the fame rank and eminence, who very early introduced him into the Royal Society; and in the latter part of his time he enjoyed the friendship of Lord Charles Cavendish, the honourable Mr Cavendish, Doctors Heberden and Pitcairn, Sir John Pringle, Sir Joseph Banks, and Sir George Baker, all peculiarly diftinguished in the philofophical world, and for their ardent zeal in promoting the cause of Science and literature.

On the continent his connexions were also extensive and respectable. He lived in the freest habits of communication with the most celebrated foreign Literati, and maintained a regular correfpondence with the ingenious philosophers and naturalists of every country, where the iciences were cultivated and held in estima tion. Were proofs of this affertion necessary, there could be produced to the world, by his worthy fon and representative, As a physician, his humanity, affiduity, and caution, were eminently confpicuous; and his exact obfervance of the duties of focial politeness must ever be remembered with pleasure by all those who enjoyed the happpiness of his acquaintance. The smile of benignity was always displayed on his countenance; he invariably continued the generak, the ready, and the obliging friend of mankind; he was respectful to the elder and fuperior, encouraging to the younger, and pleasant and easy to all with whom he had any intercourse. The fame affability and good humour, which adorned his character in public life, were preserved also in the bosom of his family, and endeared him to those who were more immediately around him: He was scarcely ever out of temper; was always benignant and kind to his friends and relations, whilft he lived, and equally so when he died, as he disposed by will, of his large fortune, with that justice, judgment, and propriety, which gave univerfal fatisfaction to all who were concerned.

• Sir William Watson had a natural activity, both of mind and body that never allowed him to be indolent in the flightest degree. He was a most exact economist of his time, and throughout life a very early riser, being up usually in summer at fix o'clock, and frequently sooner; thus fecuring to himself daily two or three

his younger days these early hours were frequently given up to the purs poses of simpling; but in riper years they were devoted to study. He read much and carefully; and his ardent and unremitting defire to be acquainted with the progress of all those sciences, which were his objects, joined to a vigorous and retentive memory, enabled him to treasure up a vast stock of knowledge. What he thus acquired he freely disperfed. His mode of conveying information' was clear, forcible, and energetic, and justified the encomium bestowed upon him by a learned foreigner in a letter to a correfpondentt. His liberal and communicative difposition, and his courteous behaviour, encouraged enquiry; and those who wished for information from him feldom departed without it. In his epistolary correspondence he was remarkably copious and precise, and such as enjoyed the privilege and pleasure of it, experienced in his punctuality another qualification which greatly enhanced its value." We shall conclude our account of the life and writings of this great and good man, with the following anecdote, which it would be injurious to his memory not to mention, and which equally displays his humanity, and the warmth with which he interested himself in the cafes of his patients: Not many years before his death he was waked fuddenly one morning very early by his servant, who came to inform him, that his house had been broken open, and that his plate (which was of confiderable value) was stolen. Is that 'all, said he coolly, 'I was afraid 'you had brought me some alarming ' message from Mr-, concerning 'whose dangerous situation I have 'been very uneasy all night.'

Miscellaneous

Greek Emperors wore beards. The Goths and the Franks had only whiskers. Clodion ordered his fubjects to let their beards grow, that they might be diftinguished from the Romans. The ancient philophers wore long beards. The ecclesiastics of the Ealt always had beards, but the clergy of the Weft used a razor. There are fome countries where a long beard ferves to express grief, and there are others where the want of a beard is a mark of mourning. The trouble of shaving is certainly disagreeable to most people, and it would be a fubject worthy of fome academy to propose a confiderable prize to the perfon who might discover a method of easing them of it.

The art of explaining all forts of coats of arms is an invention of the French. It began to be in vogue in the eleventh century, and the technical terms which express the different parts of coats of arms, are the names of different pieces which compofed then the harness of the knights. It was neceffary for heralds at arms to be well versed in this science, because they characterised the arms of those who wished to enter the lifts in tournaments.

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The Egyptians are faid to have been the inventors of beer, in the year 1212 before the Chistian æra. They named it the Pelufian liquor, because it was first made at Pelufium, a city near the mouth of the Nile..

The brutality and savage fury of the Barbarians, who, after a battle, took from their graves such of their enemies as had perished, that they might insult and strip them, introduced among the ancients the cuftom of burning dead bodies. The Greeks adopted it long before the Trojan war; and Sylla, fearing that the Romans would treat him in the fame manner as he had treated Caius Marius, ordered, when dy ing, that his body should be placed on a funeral pile. From that epoch,

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till the time of Theodofius, these people always burnt their dead.

The use of coffee was not known in Europe till the fixteenth century, The tree which produces it grows in great abundance in the kingdom of Yemen. For the cultivation of it we are indebted to the Dutch, who carried it from Moka to Batavia, and thence to Holland. The properties of coffee were discovered, as is faid, by the Prior of an Arabian monastery, who having obferved that cattle did not fleep when they ate certain small beans, tried the effects of them upon his monks, to prevent them from falling asleep in the choir during night.

Among the Romans, at the end of December, during the Saturnalia, children drew lots with beans to fee who would be King; and this custom was borrowed from that practised at Athens for the election of magiftrates, Hence, perhaps, is the origin of our drawing for King and Queen on Twelfth Night.

Cardinals were at first only the principal priests, or clergymen, of the different parishes in Rome: but this title was not confined to the church of Rome; it was used also in France, The Bishop of Paris, and several others, had their Cardinal Priefts. These priests alone had the right of administering the sacraments; and when they were promoted to be Bishops, their Cardinalship was at an end. In this state things remained till the eleventh century, when the Sovereign Pontiff thought that his grandeur required him to have a council of Cardinals fuperior in dignity to the ancient priests. But thefe Cardinals had no longer pre-eminence over the Bishops; they never claimed this privilege till they affumed to themselves the right of electing the Pope. Other distinctions followed. They obtained a red cap, and the purple. Urban the Eighth granted them the title of Eminente, on the 10th of January, 1630;