538 BIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT 



terpretation of the conduct of others, he was fair and Uberal, 

 while his mind retained its natural tone, and had not yield- 

 ed to the alarms of the French Revolution, and to the bias 

 which it produced. 



His range in science was most extensive ; he was familiar 

 with the whole circle of the accurate sciences, and there was 

 no part of them on which, if you heard him speak or lecture, 

 you Vt^ould not have pronounced it to be his fort, or a subject 

 which he had studied with more than ordinary attention. In- 

 deed, the rapidity with which his understanding went to work, 

 and the extent of ground he seemed to have got over, while 

 others were only preparing to enter on it, were the great fea- 

 tures of his intellectual character. In these he has rarely been 

 exceeded. With such an assemblage of talents, with a mind 

 so happily formed for science, one might have expected to 

 find in his writings more of original investigation, more works 

 of discovery and invention. I must remark, however, that 

 from the turn his speculations and compositions took, or ra- 

 ther received from circumstances, we are apt to overlook 

 what is new and original in a great part of them. An 

 article in a Dictionary of Science must contain a System, 

 and what is new becomes of course so mixed up with the 

 old and the known, that it is not easily distinguished. Many 

 of Mr FiObison's articles in the Encyclojjcedia Britannica are 

 full of new and original views, which will only strike those 

 who study them particularly, and have studied them in other 

 books. In Semnanship, for example, there are many such re- 

 marks ; the fruit of that knowledge of principle which he com- 

 bined with so much experience and observation. Carpentry^ 

 Roof, and many more, afford examples of the same kind. 

 The publication now under the management of Dr Brews- 

 ter, 



