found it prudent to dispose of the apparatus, and resolved to push the fortune of his profession in the metropolis of London.

At this great goal for talents of every description he was received under the most encouraging circumstances, and soon found himself established in valuable practice. Men of greater persevérance would have extended such advantages to the accumulation of ample wealth; but Buchan was a man moderate in his worldly ambition, and he, ere long, contented himself with receiving patients at his residence in Percy-street, Rathbone-place. The time thus withdrawn from profitable business was not lost to the public; for almost immediately after his arrival, he marked with a discriminating spirit the terrible consequences attending on the impostures of empiricism in the metropolis, and as a consequence of his reflections produced a treatise on the Venereal Disease. This subject he pursued with the same familiar arrangement which had already made the Domestic Medicine so attractive: it was rewarded with a respectable circulation, and followed at subsequent periods by a second 'Essay on the treatment of Children; and an Advice to Mothers.' This was a return in age to the happy themes of youth; but though characterized by many sensible remarks, these last publications were diffusely put together, and rather unfavourably treated. One other work from his hands remains to be noticed. In those years of distress, which at the close of the last century, were significantly described as the great dearth, he was consulted by the Government upon the best means of bettering the condition of the poor, and gave the world a pamphlet upon the subject, which received the thanks of the Board of Agriculture, and was distinguished by many wholesome instruc

tions.

The decline of Buchan's life was spent with ease and respectability, at lodgings in Paternoster-row. An agreeable companion, he delighted in society; and as his information was various, and his memory unusually retentive, he seldom failed to impart both instruction and pleasure. His disposition was generous to a fault, and his eagerness to patronize rising merit, conspicuous. The primitive bent of his mind to mathematics generated a partiality for astronomy, which he retained to his death; and he was constantly in the habit of visiting Dr. Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal, and used to pass many a starry night

in observing the planetary system. He is also entitled to the praise of having confirmed Mr. Lowndes in his first experiments on the subject of medical electricity, and having suggested to him many improvements in a pursuit, which has been subsequently prosecuted to the most important results.

In closing this memoir it should not be suppressed, that Buchan was a man who professed nothing more than he practised, and as a physician, observed all he prescribed. His constitution was naturally good; and by these means he never suffered from a day's illness, until he was attacked by the disorder which terminated his life. That was the dropsy, under which he lingered for some months, and then placidly expired on the 25th of February 1805. His grave is distinguished by a plain bust and marble tablet, which simply announces that he was the

AUTHOR OF THE DOMESTIC MEDICINE.

151

FIRST VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, K.G.

In a recess from the North side of the chantry of Henry VII.'s Chapel, stands one of the largest and most costly monuments, by which the proud spirit of wealth has been able to preserve a record of the greatness of its former possessors within these beautiful walls. Its purport, as may be gathered from several inscriptions, too panegyrical and uninteresting to recompense the labour of being copied, is to signalize the memory of George Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham, whose effigy, in armour, is here introduced lying in state by the side of his Duchess, Catherine, daughter and sole heiress of Francis, Earl of Rutland. Above his head are marble statues of his children kneeling in prayer; and at his feet, Neptune, with his trident reversed, and Mars, with his head crushed. Four figures, pensively inclined, relieve the corners of the tomb, which is of fine workmanship in gilt brass, and must always be regarded as a highly finished specimen of that style in sepulchral architecture, for which the antiquity of England is celebrated.

The sumptuousness of these posthumous honours have in the present instance risen with an imposing accordance to the lofty fortunes of their subject-a man, who is remarkable in the history of his country, as having been one of the most powerful favourites ever exalted by the capricious influence of the Crown; and farther memorable, as having pushed the fortunes of such a State to their extreme. He was consequently the greatest and the last of the race by which the English court was enervated; and however exciting the example of his career, yet all emulation of his life becomes extinguished in the moral of his death, and we shun the paths by which he rose, to avoid the tragedy in which he fell. Born on the 28th of August 1592, at Brooksby in Leicestershire, he was the third son of Sir George

Villiers, knight, and Mary, daughter of Anthony Beaumont, esquire, of Cole Orton, in the same county. Up to his tenth year he was bred at home, under the care of his parents, and then sent to school at Billisden. Three years after this his father died; and the partiality of his mother,* with whom a good person and a lively temper made him an especial favourite, recalled him to her house at Godby, where she thenceforward superintended, in person, the completion of his education. Under such a director his attainments naturally became rather ornamental than solid; and his progress in music, dancing, and fencing, was much more sedulously cultivated than in literature or science. Innate qualifications adapted him to excellence in such light pursuits, and accordingly his forwardness excited the approbation of his masters, and fulfilled every hope of maternal fondness. At the age of eighteen he was sent into France, whence, after spending three years in travelling, he returned home polished by every fashionable attribute, and resided with his mother for another-twelvemonth. At her recommendation he then began to think of marrying; and with a view of thus establishing himself in society, was actually paying his addresses to a daughter of Sir Roger Ashton, Master of the Robes to James I., when a casual introduction to Sir John Graham encouraged him to drop all such pursuits, and push his fortune at court.

This step, so exactly concurring with his humour and habits, once taken, was prosecuted with ardour, and in the result confirmed by unexpected prosperity. His introduction to the facile monarch, took place in a comedy, during one of the royal progresses to Althorpe, and at that favourable juncture, when the crimes of Somerset left a vacancy in the predilections of the royal bosom, which a slight attention to the graceful person and gay addresses of young Villiers easily supplied. Hasty in every project, and minute in all his cares, James even condescended to make such arrangements for the advancement of the new minion, as should obviate the jealousy of the elder nobility, and disarm the prejudice of public odium. Sir John Graham received instructions to

* This lady lived to witness the greatest honours her son obtained, and died a widow, April 19, 1632. She was created Countess of Buckingham in 1618, and is commemorated with her husband, by a fine monument of polished marble standing in the middle of the chapel of Nicholas.

promote young Villiers as the Queen's protegé; and he was accordingly first sworn in his majesty's servant, made cup-bearer at large early in 1613, and during the course of the summer of the same year, admitted cup-bearer in ordinary.

Upon the generality of men, the favours of fortune descend like those thick drops, which fall from the clouds at intervals during a sultry day, but on Villiers they came full and frequent as the rain showers of spring. Thus, on St. George's Day 1615, he was knighted, made a gentleman of the bed-chamber, and enriched with a pension of 1000l. a year, out of the Court of Wards. Again, on the new year's day following, he was appointed Master of the Horse; and in July 1616, installed a Knight of the Garter. On the 22d of the ensuing month, he was created Baron of Whaddon, in the county of Bucks, and Viscount Villiers; and on the 5th of January 1617, advanced to the Earldom of Buckingham, and sworn in a member of the Privy Council. By this time he was constantly the companion of his sovereign's private enjoyments, and an indispensable attendant upon his person at all public duties: few courtiers surpassed him in the value and variety of his appointments, and no one rivalled him in the confidence of the monarch. But this was not half the measure of his dignities or emoluments: he attended James on his journey to the north during the summer, and was sworn in a Privy Counsellor of Scotland, in honour of the occasion. On the 1st of January, in the next year, he was created Marquis of Buckingham, nominated Lord High Admiral of England, made Chief Justice in Eyre of the parks and forests south of the river Trent, Master of the King's Bench Office, Steward of Westminster, and Constable of Windsor Castle.

He now stood forth, erect in all the grace and consequence which a doting royalty could impart, and no sooner did he find himself steadily fixed upon the pinnacle, than he gave loose to all the impulses of a character, which was as overbearing as his fortune. In every instance the sole almoner of James's captious bounty, he deemed it as prudent as he found it easy to confirm the strength of his interest and popularity, by making a sterling provision for the numerous members and retainers of his own family.*

The greatness of Buckingham's patronage may be inferred from the following facts:He left his elder brother, John, Viscount Purbeck, and his

Χ