BROCKLESBY, Richard, a physician of considerable reputation, was born in Somersetshire on the 11th of August 1722, and was descended from a respectable and opuĭent Irish family belonging to the sect of Quakers. He received his grammatical education at the acade y of Ballytore, in the north of Ireland, and afterwards pursued his medical studies at Edinburgh and at ⅛‰ si " 5 at which latter university he graduated in 1745, choosι g for the subject of his thesis, De Saliva eanael mavbaea. In the following year he fixed with a view to practice; and m 1751 was aUmittea a n centiate of the Royal College of Physicians, of winch he [7:5:586] afterwards became a fellow, having previously received honorary degrees of doctor in medicine from the universities of Dublin and of Cambridge. The first publication by which he became known to the world was his Essay on the Mortality of the Horned Cattle., which appeared in 1746, and gained him considerable reputation; and his practice extended itself with that gradual and steady progress which affords the surest prospect of permanent and distinguished success. His benevolent attention to his poorer patients, and the general suavity of his manners, soon brought him into notice, and procured him the esteem of a wide circle of friends, especially among his professional brethren. In consequence of their recommendation of him to Lord Barrington, he was appointed, in 1758, physician to the army; in which capacity he served in Germany during the greater part of the seven years’ war, and in the course of it was chosen physician to the hospitals for British forces. The results of his observations during this period were published in 1764, under the title of Economical and Medical Observations, from 1738 to 1763, tending to the improvement of Medical Hospitals, in one volume octavo. He had already, however, given to the public many proofs of the activity of his mind and the variety of his attainments. The Transactions of the Poyal Society for 1747 (vol. xliv.) contain a letter of his on the Indian Poison sent over by Don Antonio de Ulloa; and the succeeding volume for 1747-8 contains a paper on the Poisonous Root lately found mixed with the Gentian. In the Transactions for 1755 (vol. xlix.) are inserted his Experiments on the Sensibility and Irritability of the several parts of Animals. He also published, in different volumes of the Medical Observations, the following papers, namely, the case of a lady labouring under diabetes, in vol. iii.; experiments relative to the analysis of Seltzer water, and case of an encysted tumour in. the orbit of the eye, in vol. iv. FIis Dissertation on the Music of the Ancients appeared in 1749, and his Oratio Harveiana in 1760.

Dr Brocklesby was appointed, by his patron and friend the Duke of Richmond, physician-general to the royal regiment of artillery and corps of engineers; an appointment that connected him much with the laboratory of Woolwich, which he always visited with pleasure. It was by his advice, indeed, that a professorship of chemistry was added to the establishment of the college; and it was also by his recommendation that the celebrated Dr Adair Crawford was nominated the first professor in this new chair.

The life of a medical practitioner, absorbed in the laborious duties of his profession, is seldom diversified with much incident; and Dr Brocklesby was now arrived at that period when the approaching infirmities of age demanded some relaxation from labour, and an exchange of the anxieties and fatigues of practice for the tranquil amusements of literature and the solace of cheerful society. The frugal use which he had made of means originally slender, but progressively augmenting by the increase of his professional emoluments, by the addition of a pension from the Duke of Richmond, his half pay from the army, and an estate which devolved to him on the death of his father, had placed him in circumstances not only independent, but affluent, and enabled him to derive from retirement all the advantages he had contemplated. His society was courted on all sides; and the circle of his friends comprehended some of the most distinguished literary men of the age. He was during the whole of his life intimate with Burke. His acquaintance with this extraordinary man began at the school where they were both educated, and soon ripened into the warmest and most durable friendship. He was also on terms of close intimacy with Dr Johnson, and attended him in his last illness with the assiduity and kindness of a friend. Dr Brocklesby is characterised in Boswell’s Life of Dr Johnson as a man whose reading, knowledge of life, and good spirits, supplied him with a never-failing source of conversation; and several letters, addressed to him from Dr Johnson, are preserved in that entertaining work. One trait, however, is omitted, which does him great honour. Understanding that Dr Johnson wished, in the latter part of his life, to remove to the Continent for the recovery of his health, Dr Brocklesby immediately made him offer of an annuity of L.100 during the remainder of his life; and, when this offer was declined, pressed him to reside in his house, as more suited to his health than the one in which he then lived. The same generous disposition was manifested in his conduct to Burke, to whom he transmitted L.1000, as a legacy he had intended leaving him, but which he thought would be of more use to him at the present time. Dr Brocklesby was, indeed, the survivor of Burke, though only for a few months; for on his return from a visit which he paid to the widow of his friend at Beaconsfield, after dining with his two nephews, Dr Thomas Young and Mr Beeby, of whose education he had taken the principal charge, he expired suddenly a few minutes after retiring to bed, without the least pain or previous illness. He left his fortune, which was considerable, between his two nephews, with the exception of a few legacies to friends and distant relations. (γ.)