334 DOCTOR FOTHERGILL [1743-4. 



Doctor Bond, for his favourable description of me, and in the next, 

 to thyself, for thy acceptable present, which came safe ; and yet 

 more, for thy generous offers of assisting me, in procuring such 



ticeship, he removed to Edinburgh, where he pursued his studies with diligence, 

 and graduated on the 13th of August, 1736. He then entered himself a physi- 

 cian's pupil, at St. Thomas's Hospital, in London, the practice of which he at- 

 tended for two years. After a short excursion to the Continent with a few 

 friends, in the spring of 1740, he returned to London, and took up his residence 

 in White Hart Court, Grace Church Street, where he continued during the greater 

 part of his life ; and where he acquired and established both his fame and his 

 fortune. In 1754, Doctor Fothergill was elected a fellow of the College of 

 Physicians, at Edinburgh ; and in 1763, a similar honour was conferred upon 

 him by the Royal Society of London. These were not the only academical 

 honours which his great merits procured for him. He was one of the earliest 

 members of the American Philosophical Society ; and in 1776, when a Royal 

 Medical Society was instituted at Paris, Doctor Fothergill was one of a select 

 number of foreign physicians, whom the Society thought proper to rank among 

 their associates. 



Doctor Fothergill had very early acquired a taste for Botany, which he in- 

 dulged in proportion as the profits of his practice increased. For this purpose, 

 he purchased an estate at Upton, in Essex, containing, beside other lands, be- 

 tween five and six acres of garden-ground. In this place, at an expense seldom 

 undertaken by an individual, and with an ardour that was visible in the whole of 

 his conduct, he procured from all parts of the world a great number of the rarest 

 plants, and protected them in the most ample buildings, which England or any 

 other country, had then seen. In compliment to his zeal and abilities, the 

 younger LiNNiEUS distinguished a plant, of the class Polyandria Digynia [a North 

 American shrub, somewhat resembling the Alder, in habit, and referred to the 

 natural order of Hamamelacejs], by the name of Father gilla. But the exertions 

 of Doctor Fothergill were not confined to Botany ; he studied the other depart- 

 ments of Natural History, and patronised its ingenious cultivators. The great 

 botanical work by Miller [The Gardener's Dictionary'], was begun and finished 

 under the patronage of Doctor Fothergill, to whom it was with great propriety 

 inscribed ; but the dedication was afterwards cancelled, at his express solicita- 

 tion ; for, although he took pleasure in encouraging ingenuity, he disliked to be 

 told of it ; and, indeed, he was averse to dedications in general, considering them 

 as a species of literary pageantry, more productive of envy to the patron than of 

 advantage to the author. 



Doctor Fothergill was not content with exerting his talents for the benefit of 

 science, and of his profession ; his benevolence prompted him to many other 

 labours. But the institution of the Seminary at Ackworth, in Yorkshire, of which 

 he was the projector in 1778, and to which he was a liberal benefactor, both 

 during his lifetime and by his will, was one of the most important plans which 

 his zeal to promote the welfare of society led him to undertake. Of his kindness 

 and bounty to individuals, there may be mentioned an instance, in the case of his 

 worthy but unfortunate friend, Doctor Gowin Knight, who applied to Doctor 

 Fothergill in a moment of pecuniary distress, and returned with a heart set at 

 ease, by the noble benefaction of a thousand guineas. He also assisted Sydney 

 Parkinson in his account of his South Sea voyage; and, at the expense of two 



