XXXIV PROCEEDINGS OE THE 



OBITTIAEY NOTICES. 



The Secretary then proceeded to read the following obituary- 

 notices of deceased Fellows : — 



John Adamson, Esq., F.S.A., F.E. G.S. Sfc., was descended from 

 a family of respectability in the county of Durham. His father, 

 Cuthbert Adamson, in 1773, accompanied the Hon. Capt. Phipps 

 as second Lieutenant of the Racehorse, in his celebrated Yoyage of 

 Discovery towards the North Pole ; and was afterwards stationed 

 at Newcastle in charge of the impress service of that port. Mr. 

 Adamson was born in Gateshead on the 13th of September 1787, 

 and after receiving his education at the Grammar School of New- 

 castle, was sent to Lisbon, where his elder brother had been for 

 some time established in business as a merchant. The unsettled 

 aspect of public affairs, however, induced him to return to England, 

 and completely altered his views in life. He was soon after ar- 

 ticled to Mr. Thomas Davidson, an eminent legal practitioner, and 

 Clerk of the Peace for the county of Northumberland. In 1811, 

 at the age of 24, he was so fortunate as to obtain the appointment 

 of Under-Sheriff of Newcastle, which office he retained for five- 

 and-twenty years; and the advantageous position which he had 

 thus early attained laid the foundation for his subsequent success 

 in his profession. From his youth he cultivated a taste for lite- 

 rature, antiquities, and natural history. He became a Member of 

 the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle in 1811, and 

 was one of its Secretaries from 1825 to the time of his death. His 

 taste for Portuguese literature, acquired during his brief visit to 

 that country in 1803, was evinced by the publication in 1808 of a 

 translation of Nicola Luiz's tragedy of Donna Ignez de Castro ; 

 and still more strongly by his ' Memoirs of the Life and Writings 

 of Camoens,' published in 1820 ; which obtained for him the title of 

 a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences at Lisbon, 

 and induced the Queen of Portugal, at a subsequent period, to 

 confer upon him the Orders of Knighthood of Christ, and of the 

 Tower and Sword. In 1842 he commenced a work entitled i Lusi- 

 tania Illustrata; or Notices on the History, Antiquities, Lite- 

 rature, &c. of Portugal,' of which two parts only were published. 

 He had, in 1831, printed for private circulation, under the title of 

 ' Bibliotheca Lusitana,' a catalogue of the books in his library 

 relating to Portugal ; but this ample and probably unrivalled col- 

 lection was, with few exceptions, together with nearly the whole 

 remainder of his choice and valuable library, destroyed by fire in 

 1849. A very remarkable collection, however, of the works of 



