274
celebrated John Hunter, who was his brother-in-law.
Under such an instructor an ordinary pupil was cer-
tain to surpass the general average in the knowledge
of his profession; and this was more especially the
case with Everard Home, who possessed talents of
no common kind. Having completed his prepar-
atory studies, he commenced practice as a surgeon
in London, where his success was almost without a
rival for more than forty years. On January 2d,
1813, George IV., while prince-regent, raised him
to the rank of a baronet by patent, and also conferred
on him the appointment of sergeant-surgeon, an
office which was continued to him by William IV.
Sir Everard was also surgeon to Chelsea Hospital,
and honorary professor of anatomy and surgery to
the Royal College of Surgeons, of which college he
was moreover the president for many years. After
a long and active life in his profession, by which he
won both fortune and honourable distinction, he died
in his apartments at Chelsea College on the 31st of
August, 1832, at the age of seventy-six. In 1792 he
had married Jane, daughter and co-heiress of the
Rev. Dr. Tunstall, by whom he had two sons and
four daughters, and was succeeded in his title by his
eldest son, Sir James, who was a captain in the
royal navy.
Besides being a distinguished medical practitioner,
Sir Everard Home acquired reputation by his pro-
fessional writings, and was author of the following
works:—Practical Observations on the Treatment of
Ulcers on the Legs, considered as a Branch of Mili-
tary Surgery, 1797.—Observations on Cancer, 1805.
—Practical Observations on the Treatment of Stricture
in the Urethra and in the (Esophagus, 3 vols. 8vo.—
Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, in 2 vols. 4to, in
which are explained the preparations in the Hun-
terian collection, illustrated by 171 engravings.—
Hunterian Oration, in honour of surgery, and in
memory of those practitioners by whose labours it
has been advanced; delivered in the theatre of the
college, Feb. I4th, 1814. Besides these, he wrote
other surgical works, which were of high repute, and
which greatly aided in the advance of the science to
its present state of excellence. He also contributed
largely to the Philosophical Transactions, and a
variety of ably-written articles to the medical period-
icals of the day.
HOME, HENRY (LORD KAMES), a lawyer and
metaphysician, son of George Home of Kames, was
born at his father's house in the county of Berwick,
in the year 1696. The paternal estate of the family,
which had once been considerable, was, at the period
of the birth of the subject of this memoir, consider-
ably burdened and reduced by the extravagance of
his father, who appears to have pursued an easy
hospitable system of living, unfortunately not com-
patible with a small income and a large family.
With the means of acquiring a liberal education,
good connections, and the expectation, of no per-
manent provision but the fruit of his own labours,
the son was thrown upon the world, and the history
of all ages has taught us, that among individuals so
circumstanced science has chosen her brightest orna-
ments, and nations have found their most industrious
and powerful benefactors. In the earlier part of the
last century, few of the country gentlemen of Scotland
could afford to bestow on their children the expensive
education of an English university, and an intuitive
horror at a contact with the lower ranks frequently
induced them to reject the more simple system of
education provided by the universities of Scotland.
Whether from this or some other cause, young Home
was denied a public education, and received instruc-
tions from a private tutor of the name of Wingate, of
whose talents and temper he appears to have retained
no happy recollection.1 The classical education
which he received from this man appears to have
been of a very imperfect description, and although
on entering the study of his profession he turned his
attention for some length of time to that branch of
study, he never acquired a knowledge of ancient
languages sufficiently minute to balance his other
varied and extensive acquirements. Mr. Home was
destined by his family to follow the profession of the
law, the branch first assigned him being that of an
agent. He was in consequence apprenticed to a
writer to the signet in the year 1712, and he con-
tinued for several years to perform the usual routine
of drudgery, unpleasant to a cultivated and thinking
mind, but one of the best introductions to the accu-
rate practice of the more formal part of the duties of
the bar. The ample biographer of Home has de-
tailed in very pleasing terms the accident to which
he dates his ambition to pursue a higher branch of
the profession than that to which he was originally
destined. The scene of action is represented as being
the drawing-room of Sir Hew Dalrymple, lord-pre-
sident of the Court of Session, where Home, on a
message from his master, finds the veteran judge in
the full enjoyment of elegant ease, with his daughter,
a young beauty, performing some favourite tunes on
the harpsichord. "Happy the man," the sentimen-
tal youth is made to say to himself, "whose old age,
crowned with honour and dignity, can thus repose
itself after the useful labours of the day in the bosom
of his family, amidst all the elegant enjoyments which
affluence, justly earned, can command ! such are the
fruits of eminence in the profession of the law !" If
Home ever dated his final choice of a profession from
the occurrence of this incident, certain praises which
the president chose to bestow on his acuteness and
knowledge of Scottish law may have been the part
of the interview which chiefly influenced his deter-
mination.
Having settled the important matter of his future
profession, Mr. Home applied himself to the study
of the laws, not through the lectureship which had
just been established in Edinburgh for that purpose,
but by means of private reading and attendance at
the courts.
He put on the gown of an advocate in the year
1723. From the period when Mr. Home com-
menced his practice at the bar he seems to have for
a time forgot his metaphysics, and turned the whole
of his discriminating and naturally vigorous intellect
to the study of the law; in 1728 he published the
first of his numerous works, a collection of the Re-
markable Decisions of the Court of Session, from 1716
to 1728, a work purely professional, which from the
species of technical study being seldom embodied by
1Tytler, in his Life of Kames, mentions an amusing scene
which took place betwixt the scholar and master some time
after their separation. When Home was at the height of his
celebrity as a barrister, the pedagogue had contrived to amass
a sum of money, which he cautiously secured on land. Anxious
about the security of his titles, he stalked one morning into
the study of his former pupil, requesting an opinion of their
validity. The lawyer having carefully examined the several
steps of the investment, assumed an aspect of concern, and
hoped Mr. Wingate had not concluded the bargain; but Mr.
Wingate had concluded the bargain, and so he had the plea-
sure to listen to a long summary of objections, with which the
technical knowledge of his former pupil enabled him to pose the
uninitiated. When the lawyer was satisfied with the effect of
his art, the poor man was relieved from the torture, with an
admonition, which it were to be wished all followers of "the
delightful task" would hold in mind: "You may remember,
sir, how you made me smart in days of yore for very small
offences—now I think our accounts are closed. Take up your
papers, man, and go home with an easy mind; your titles are
excellent."