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Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persons. 



[FEB. 



died, and Sir Thomas remained unmar- 

 ried. 



It was on Saturday, the 2d of January, 

 when he dined with a party at Mr. Peel's, 

 that Sir Thomas experienced the commence- 

 ment of that attack which terminated in his 

 death, on the 7th of that month. In the 

 interim, however, he was several times 

 abroad ; and, for the Athenaeum Club 

 House, on the Wednesday, only thirty 

 hours before his decease, he was anxiously 

 engaged on a splendid portrait of His Ma- 

 jesty ; thus verifying his motto Loyal a la 

 mart. His last drawing, lithographed by 

 Lane, and now at every printseller's, was a 

 ]H)rtrait of Fanny Kemble. 



Sir Thomas Lawrence's illness was un- 

 derstood to be of an inflammatory nature ; 

 but, on opening the body, by Mr. Green, 

 the Lecturer on Anatomy, at the Royal 

 Academy, it appeared that, although inflam- 

 mation of the bowels had taken place, the 

 actual cause of his death was an extensive 

 and complicated ossification of the vessels of 

 the heart. 



Sir Thomas Lawrence was considered so 

 handsome in his early youth, that Mr. 

 Hoare is reported to have said of him, that 

 if he had to chuse a head for a picture of 

 Christ, he would select Lawrence for that 

 study. This character he retained in an 

 eminent degree through life. He was 

 thought to resemble Mr. Canning, and he 

 was proud of the resemblance. Two or 

 three slight portraits of him are amongst his 



friends; one, we believe, remained in his 

 own possession ; besides an exceedingly fine 

 one, in rapid progress, at his death, which 

 he intended as a present to the Literary and 



Philosophical Institution of his native town 



Bristol. He had appointed the 12th of 

 January for a sitting, to his friend and 

 townsman, Baily, the sculptor, for a bust. 

 Since his decease that able artist has taken 

 a cast of his head, from which it is his inten- 

 tion to proceed. 



On the evening of Wednesday, the 20th 

 of January, the remains of Sir Thomas 

 Lawrence were removed from his house, in 

 Russel Square, to Somerset House, where 

 they lay in state on the following morning, 

 the day appointed for his public funeral, at 

 St. Paul's Cathedral. The order of proces- 

 sion resembled that which was adopted at 

 the funeral of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The 

 Academicians, Associates, and Students, 

 attended ; also the officers, &c. of the So- 

 cieties of Painters in Water Colours and 

 British Artists. There were forty-two 

 mourning coaches, the coaches of all the 

 Ministers, many of the nobility, and about 

 two hundred others. In all respects, every 

 possible mark of respect was paid to the 

 memory of the deceased. His remains 

 were interred in the vault beneath the south 

 aisle of St. Paul's Cathedral, in the imme- 

 diate vicinity of the grave of Sir Christopher 

 Wren, and divided from Sir Joshua Rey- 

 nolds's only by that of Sir Benjamin West. 



MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



THE general tenor of our country letters is, that an Agricultural Report for the past 

 month must be chiefly meteorological, with a detail of home business, of almost universal 

 distress in the midst of overflowing abundance, and of the great and various efforts making 

 for its relief. About the middle of last month, in the most forward districts, and among 

 the best farmers, winter fallowing was completed, and some little ploughing done for beans, 

 our earliest spring crop. Upon cold and difficult soils, tenanted by persons in distressed 

 circumstances, all out-door business is very backward ; the chief exertions of such having 

 been directed to getting their corn to market with all possible expedition, in order to raise 

 money for their immediate occasions. The commencement of the frost put an immediate 

 stop to field labour, with the exception of carting manure upon the land, and taking back 

 bank and ditch earth, as a fresh supply. Felling trees, carting wood, and road-mending, 

 have also formed the usual routine of home occupation. To speak of the weather, during 

 the last thirteen months, our climate, however proverbially variable, has surely outdone 

 all its former outdoings. No living man, we apprehend, ever before witnessed such 

 incessant alternations of wind and weather. During the severity of the frost, we were 

 somewhat surprised at finding the wind quoted, in most parts, as from the N. and N. E. ; 

 whereas, in our vicinity, it has seldom remained long in those quarters of the compass, 

 blowing chiefly, during the frost, from the E. S. E. and even the S. To this general 

 southerly tendency of the wind, we no doubt owe the short duration of the frost, and 

 frequent thaws. Had the wind, as in former hard winters, blown steadily from the N. 

 and N. E., we might again have had frost and skaiting-fairs upon the Thames. But culti- 

 vation, draining, and clearing the country of wood, has softened the ancient rigour of our 

 climate, and never more will Father Thames bear the burden of hackney-coaches plying 

 upon his glassy bosom, as happened a few years before the Revolution ; nor will, pro- 

 bably, another " Tiddy Doll" (whom, by the by, we knew personally) ever again 

 hate a similar occasion to exclaim "where are you now, Mary?" as in the great frost 

 of 1739-40. 



The thaw now appears to be general, with rain, the wind full south, and we now look 

 for a cheering appearance of the late sown wheats, which have lain dormant and hidden in 

 the soil, an unprecedented length of time. The frost very fortunately put an end to the 



