

PKPT8, WILLIAM HASELDINE, F.R.S. 



PERCIVAL, THOMAS, M.D. 



oolptar*, and arcbiUotara. In 1084 he was elected president of the 

 Royal Society, and held that honourable office two yean. Ai a patron 

 of learning, it may I* mmcient to say that h contributed no fewer 

 f (ixty plate* to WUlughby'a 'liutoria Pi-cjiim.' To Magdalen 

 Coll**', Cambridge, he left an invaluable collection of manuscript 

 aval memoirs, of prints, and ancient English poetry, which hai often 

 been coniulud by critic* and commentators. One of iU most singular 

 euriwiti.B ia a collection of English ballads in five Urge folio volumes, 

 bajron by Selden, and carried down to the year 1700. Percy's 

 Beliqoea ' are for the moat part taken from this collection. 



Pepya published ' Memoirs relating to the State of the Roynl Navy 

 of England for ten yean, determined December 1683,' Svo, London, 

 1890, and then is a small book in the Pepysian library entitled 'A 

 Relation of the Troubles in the Court of 1'ortugal in 1667 and 166S, 

 by 8. P., E<i.,' limo, Lond. 1>>77, which Watt, in his 'Bibliotheca 

 BriUnuica,' ascribes to 1'epya. But the work by which he is best 

 known and by which be will continue be remembered is his ' Memoirs' 

 comprising hi* 'Diary' from 1659 to 1669, which after lying unread in 

 the original stenographic characters for more than a century and a 

 half was deciphered by a young collegian, Mr. John Smith (subse- 

 quently rector of Baldock, Herts), and published with a eelection from 

 his private correspondence by Lord Braybrpoke, in 2 Tola. 4to, Lond. 

 1825; it has since been several times reprinted in an octavo form. 

 Prrhapa no work of the kind was ever discovered that presented so 

 lively and characteristic a series of pictures of the manners of a past 

 age ; and every one who reads the ' Diary ' feels how imperfect would 

 be the knowledge of the court and times of Charles II. without this 

 naive narrative, whilst as a mere book of amusement it is in its way 

 without a rival 



1'El'YS, WILLIAM HASELDINE, F.R.S., was born in the year 

 177."', in the city of London, where his father conducted in the Poultry 

 a superior business as a cutler and maker of certain classes of surgical 

 instruments. His early history is connected in a remarkable manner 

 with that of the progress of chemistry, and of some other branched of 

 science in this country, as well as with that of the various insti- 

 tutions formed for their advancement. In March 1796 the Askesian 

 Society (from Senojuit, exercise), was established by the association of 

 a number of young men for their mutual improvement by the dis- 

 cussion of philosophical subjects. Of these Mr. I'epys was one. He 

 became a member of the Committee for Apparatus appointed by the 

 society, and took an active part in the experimental elucidation to the 

 members of facts generally understood, and in the repetition and 

 examination of new discoverits. Mr. IVpys also contributed papers 

 to the same body, which, from the residence or occupation of its 

 members in the the city of London, eventually led to the foundation 

 of the London Institution, and, through the British Mineralogical 

 Society, in part also to the establishment of the Geological Society of 

 London, of all which Mr. Pepys was an early member and office- 

 bearer. His skill and ingenuity in the construction of apparatus 

 proved most important auxiliaries in the progress of chemical and 

 electro-chemical science in England for a period exceeding thirty 

 years. His researches on respiration, prosecuted in conjunction with 

 Mr. Allen [ALLEN, WILLIAM], and published in the 'Philosophical 

 Transactions,' may be said to have established the foundation of our 

 exact knowledge of the chemical changes produced in air by that 

 process ; while their preliminary experiments on carbon and carbonic 

 acid, recorded in papers contained in the same collection, confirmed 

 several points in the chemical history of those bodies, which bad 

 remained in doubt or been insuOiciently examined. In 1808 Mr. 

 Pepya was elected a Fellow of the Koyal Society, in the proceedings 

 of which he took an active part for many years. 



As just intimated, ho was one of the earliest promoters of the 

 London Institution for the Advancement of Literature and the 

 Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, which was founded in 1806 and 1806, 

 with the intention of supplying for the City of London, advantages 

 corresponding to those derived in the west of the metropolis from the 

 establishment of the Koyal Institution, a few years before. He is 

 Mined as one of the managers of the London Institution in the 

 <hartr of Incorporation, dated January 21st, 1807, and for many 

 yean continued to be an active in. uiKr of tha Board. The arrange- 

 menu for the laboratory, the collection of chemical and philosophical 

 api aratiu, and subsequently for the lectures, were mainly carried out 

 by him, a..d from mi to 1824 he was honorary secretary. After an 

 InUrval of some years he was again elected a manager, and afterwards 

 a vioe-pmident, which office he continued to hold during the remainder 

 of hi* life. Under his direction a voltaic battery of 2000 double plates 

 of sine and copper was constructed for the laboratory, with which 

 many of Sir Humphry Davjs experiments on the magnetic phenomena 

 produced by electricity were made, with the personal assistance of 

 Mr. Pepys and other friends. In the ' Philosophical Transactions' for 

 1823 I* described another voltaic battery devised by Mr. Pepys, for 

 the performance of electro-magnetic experiments, and constructed for 

 the London Institution, consisting of two plates only, one of copper, 

 UM other of line, bnt tbow each fifty fret in length and two in width 

 oikd around each otbr. A remarkable experiment repeated by Sir 

 H. Davy with this apparatus is described in a paper by him in the 

 HUM volume. A aimilar apparatus was produced, about the same 

 time, but quite independcnUy, by the late Dr. Secbcck, of Berlin. 



For some years prior to his decease, the progress of age and in' 

 withdrew Mr. I'epys in a great degree from scienti6c si. 

 retained to the laxt his interest in the progress of science, together 

 with a vivid recollection of the part which ha and his friends and 

 fellow-labourers had taken in the production of the English s 

 Chemistry, among the contemporaries of l>avy ami Wollastou. Mo 

 died at his house in Earl's Terrace, Kensington, London, on the 17th 

 of August IS'ifi, st the age of eighty-one. 



rKUCIKlt, CHARLES, an architect of celebrity, whose namo is 

 intimately associated with that of his friend and professional colleague, 

 Pierre Francois Leonard Fontaine, both th< ir building* and their publi- 

 cations being the productions of their joint talents. [FONTAINE, 

 P)ERHE-FRAN(,-ois. LEONARD.] Percier, whose father was a colu; 

 dragoons, was born at Paris, August 22, 1764 ; and bad for his first 

 instructor in art one Poirson, a water-colour draftsman. In 1783 ho 

 entered the school of Peyre, and afterwards studied under th- 

 Uisors, another architect of considerable repute ; and having ot< 

 the prize for a project for a Jar.lin des Plantes, in 1786, he went u> 

 Rome. It was at Rome that his friend-hip and connection with 

 Fontaine commenced, and there he also became acquainted with Flax- 

 man, Canova, and other artists, who afterwards rose to eminence. 

 During their residence in that city, Percier and Fontaine made the 

 drawings which form the subject* of their first publication, viz. ' Palais, 

 liaisons, et uutres Edifices moderues, deatindes a Rome,' Pari.-. 

 a folio with 100 plates, beautifully delineated and engraved in outline. 

 In the interim, and for a while after their return, they had to contend 

 with necessities and difficulties for a subsistence ; the agitated state 

 of public ullkirs was most unpropitioua to their profession, more 

 especially to beginners in it; they were therefore fain to provide for 

 their actual subt-istence by making designs for various articles of 

 ornamental manufacture and furniture. The careful study and supe- 

 rior tasto displayed by them, rescued them from the obscurity to 

 which they seemed doomed, by bringing their talents in some . 

 before the public. Various decorations, executed by them at Mai- 

 maison for the First Consul and Madame Bonaparte, secured for 

 the powerful patronage of the Emperor Napoleon I. ; and almost 

 immediately after the commencement of his reign they were om; 

 to restore, complete, and embellish the two palaces of the Tuili-rir* 

 and the Louvre, of which latter more especially the very ext< 

 numerous, and complicated works fully occupied them for a series of 

 years extending to some time after the restoration of the Bourbons. 

 This accounts for their having, with all their high reputation, been 

 employed on so few buildings ; and tlattering and favourable as it was, 

 it was not wholly without drawback, because they could not lay 

 claim to those edifices as their own architectural creations, a-..! tin ir 

 fame in them merged in the renown of their original authors. < )uu 

 distinct work of theirs is the arch (1S06) in the Place du Carrousel, 

 before the east front of the Tuilerics; and such also are the j: 

 staircase and other separate portions of the interior of the Louvre. The 

 chief other monument by them is the ChapclU- Expiatoire erected after 

 the Restoration, in memory of Louis XV J. The line of houses called 

 the Ruo Rivoli adds nothing to their professional fame, it being no more 

 than a handsome and regular piece of street architecture. 



For the general celebrity attached to their names, Percier and his 

 colleague are perhaps, after all, mainly indebted to their publications, 

 and not least of nil to that entitled ' liecueil de Decorations Interioures, 

 con tenant tout ce qui a rapport u I'Amoubleiuent,' folio, Paris. 

 [FUNTAINK.] Another publication brought out by them about the same 

 time was the ' Choix des plua belles Maisons de l'laianca de Rome et 

 sea Environs,' a series not of strictly architectural studies, but 

 rial views of Roman villas and their gardens. To these may be added 

 two magnificent graphic works, one of them recording the ceivi 

 and pomps at Napoleon's coronation ; the other, those which took 

 place on his marriage with Marie Louise. Besides these there is 

 another work attributed to Percier, but which does not appear to have 

 got into public circulation, ' I'arallolc entre plusieurs Residences de 

 Souveraius de France, d'Allemagne, de Suede, de Rusaic, et d'ltalie,' 

 Paris, 1833, with thirty-eight plates. Percier died September 5th 

 1838. 



PEKCIVAL, THOMAS, M.D., was born at Warrington in Lan- 

 cashire, iu the year 1740. He was brought up under the care of an 

 elder t-ister, Laving lost both his parents at an early age, and received 

 his education at the grammar-school of his native town. Having 

 chosen the medical profession, he was tent to the university of 

 Edinburgh, where he studied for throe years. He afterwards visited 

 London and Leyden, and having spent some time iu both of these 

 places, he took his Doctor's degree at Leydeu in 1765. In 1707 In- 

 settled his practice at Manchester, and quickly met with great success, 

 being highly respected by all classes for his professional talents as 

 well as for bis high moral and religious worth. Amidst his pro- 

 fessional avocations, he found time for the pursuit of many experi- 

 mental inquiries on subjects connected with m< diciue, and wrote many 

 papers, which appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of London ; 

 and possessing considerable eloquence, he was fond of scientific 

 discussion, and was mainly instrumental in the foundation of the 

 Manchester Philosophical .Society. This institution originated in a 

 weekly meeting of literary men, who used to assemble at Dr. Percival's 

 houio for the purposes of conversing and reading papers on medical 



