APPENDIX D 





 BIOGRAPHICAL AND MANUSCRIPT REFERENCES AND PORTRAITS 



BIOGRAPHY 



A FEW weeks after the death of Fothergill, Dr. William Hird, 

 a Friend who had married one of his nieces, and who seems to 

 have stepped in for a tune to attend to his medical practice, 

 published An Affectionate Tribute to the Memory of the late 

 Dr. John Fothergill, Feb. 28, 1781. This essay or eulogium 

 sympathetically appreciates Fothergill's character, and is 

 evidently written by one who could himself respond to its 

 finer traits. Hird, who was physician to the Leeds Infirmary, 

 did not long survive his uncle. In the meantime Dr. (after- 

 wards Sir) John Elliot was collecting the scattered papers of 

 Fothergill that had been published, and one or two unpub- 

 lished, and from such information as he could glean, as well 

 as from Hird's Tribute, compiled an account of his life, which 

 he prefixed to A Complete Collection of the Works of John 

 Fothergill, published in the middle of 1781. The haste with 

 which the volume was compiled and the slight personal 

 knowledge of his subject enjoyed by the writer led to the 

 inclusion of a good many errors. In the next year, 1782, 

 Dr. Gilbert Thompson, who had known Fothergill well, drew 

 up at the desire of the Medical Society (of Physicians) Memoirs 

 of the Life and a view of the Character of the late Dr. John 

 Fothergill. In this essay an accurate account of Fothergill's 

 life is given, and a discriminating picture of his medical 

 character. In the same year Lettsom, whose long intimacy 

 with his patron, and whose ready mind and pen rendered 

 him obviously. the fittest biographer, read before two sessions 

 of the Society of (Licentiate) Physicians Some Account of the 

 late John Fothergill. Upon this memoir he had been at work 

 for some time ; he used all the previous essays, and added 

 much information of his own, obtaining more from David 

 Barclay and from the medical and other friends of the deceased. 



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