ROBERT GORDON LATHAM, M.D., F.R.S.

ROBERT GORDON LATHAM, eldest son of the Rev. Thomas Latham, of Billingborough, Lincolnshire, was born in the vicarage of that village, March 24, 1812. Early in 1819 he was entered at Eton, at the bottom of school, for which he was educated by his father with the special view of a Fellowship of King's College, Cambridge.

About two years afterwards he was admitted on the Foundation; and, in May, 1829, having narrowly escaped the equivocal advantage of getting what was then called the Montem, went off to King's, where he took his Fellowship and degrees in the regular manner. With his Fellowship,-all the more valuable, in his eyes, for being a lay one, he was in no hurry about a profession, and passed the first year after his B.A. degree at a little village near Hamburg, in Copenhagen, and in Christiania. This was perhaps the most important year in his life, as, during it, his reading was largely, if not exclusively, philological. Professor Carlingberg in Hamburg, and Mr. C. L. Daae, then a student, and now Professor of History in the University of Christiania, had much to do in the direction of his studies; especially in familiarizing him with the Comparative Grammar of Bopp, of which the first number was just published, and the writings, en masse, of the great Danish philologue Rask. His early introduction to these he has always considered a great advantage.

In 1835 he declared for Medicine, and attended the necessary lectures, those of Drs. Haviland, Bond, and Clarke, and of Professor Henslow, at Cambridge, making the most of the opportunities afforded by the Addenbrooke Hospital. In London he was a student (chiefly in the wards of his relation, Dr. P. M. Latham), at St. Bartholomew's.

VOL. I.

P

Literature, however, kept pari passu with Medicine, or, rather, ran ahead of it. A few weeks after obtaining (in 1842) his License from the College of Physicians, he was elected to the Physicianship of the St. George's and St. James's Dispensary. He then became Lecturer on Forensic Medicine, and afterwards on Materia Medica, at the Middlesex Hospital. Finally (in 1844) he was elected Physician to that Institution. He always refers his promotion to the first and last of these offices to dint of canvassing, and to the effect of a general, rather than a professional, reputation for ability,-adding, with what is doubtless genuine sincerity, that he kept fitter men out of each place. In 1849 he resigned his appointments and such private practice as he had, taking leave of the active part of the profession, but ever retaining a lively sense of the value of a medical education, and a feeling of satisfaction of having followed the calling.

We must now go back fifteen years and follow his literary history, which was, of course, to a great extent, concurrent with his medical. The effect of his Scandinavian studies was to send him back to England an ardent admirer of the great Danish philologue, a strong advocate for the system of metagraphy, or transliteration as applied to alphabets other than European, and (as akin to this) a phonetic speller. Hence, during the year 1834, came out his three first literary essays-short pamphlets or tracts. 1. An Abstract of Rask's Essay on the Sibilants,' with his alphabet for the transliteration of the Georgian and Armenian languages. 2. 'An Address to the Authors of England and America,' in favour of Phonetic Spelling. 3. 'A Greek Grammar,' with the Greek in English cha

racters.

Then came an edition of Cicero's 'Epistolæ ad Familiares,' and 'Ad Atticum,' with English notes. Then a time for mixing in political journalism through the Cambridge liberal paper, followed by small contributions to periodicals now extinct, in verse as well as in prose. Then, in 1838, translations of Frithiof's Saga and Axel, from the Swedish of Tegnèr. Then (in 1840) Norway and the Norwegians.' All this seems to have been writing for the mere pleasure of doing so. We have not heard that any of these lucubrations were even mistaken for a work that "no gentleman's library should be without." In his translation of Frithiof's Saga, a notable share was taken by his old school-fellow and brotherin-law, Professor, now Sir Edward, Creasy; indeed the work is a

joint production. In 1839, the resignation by Professor Rogers of the Chair of English Language and Literature, in University College, London, left a vacancy, which Mr. Latham was chosen to fill up. The result was his first work of any note, 'The English Language,' published in 1841. Though this appointment fixed him for the greater part of the year in London, he was still able and willing to pass the vacations in Cambridge; and it was not until he took his license that he cast anchor for good in London.

To the Transactions of the Philological Society, established in 1843, he was an early and a somewhat liberal contributor, writing miscellaneous papers on outlying subjects, de omnibus linguis et quibusdam aliis: translator, too, of Sydenham for the Sydenham Society, and, what looks more like a literary man, ex professo, a regular contributor to the 'Morning Chronicle,' then under the political influence of Sir John Easthope, and the editorship of his son-in-law.

Largely modified by his medical education, his Philology gradually developed itself on the side of Ethnology, and in the eyes of many has, of late, become merged in it. In 1844, he attended the York Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and in conjunction with Drs. Prichard, Hodgkin, and King, worked hard in getting Ethnology recognized as a subject sufficiently scientific to be allowed a place at the meetings. At first it was attached to Medical Science, with which it amalgamated badly. Eventually, however, it joined partnership with Geography; Geography itself associated with Geology, having been nearly swamped by its more popular rival. In 1850 he published 'The Varieties of Man,' followed by The Germania of Tacitus, with Ethnological Notes,' and somewhat later by 'Man and his Migrations,' 'The Ethnology of Europe,' 'The Ethnology of the British Colonies,' and 'The Ethnology of the British Islands,'-these four last small works. Meanwhile, his English Language' had been reproduced in several smaller volumes, and adapted, in different forms, for schools and scholars of various kinds. In 1852 he undertook the direction of the Ethnological Department of the Crystal Palace, the whole plan, of which his was only a part, being a noble one. Its general character was sketched in a vigorous, though rough draft, by the late Edward Forbes, and approved by Sir Joseph Paxton. An adequate, not to say liberal sum, was to be devoted annually for Natural History-Natural History

meaning Zoology, Palæontology, Botany, and Ethnology. The grouping was to give the plants, the animals, and the human inhabitants of the different parts of the world in an accurate geographical association. Of the work hitherto done, it may fairly be said that it is sufficient to show that the great difficulties connected with so bold and comprehensive an undertaking were not insurmountable.

"The Native Races of the Russian Empire' (published, as we may guess à priori, in the year of the Crimean War), and a largely annotated edition of Prichard's Eastern Origin of the Celtic Races,' were followed in 1858 by Descriptive Ethnology,' for which the account of Polynesia and America has still to be written; this last being followed, in 1862, by 'Comparative Philology.'

Concerning Dr. Latham's opinions upon the higher questions connected with the Natural History of Man, we find little that is either very definite or very explicit. He seems to prefer the delivery of facts and the exhibition of methods to general theories, and is often silent where a decided opinion is expected. From two papers, however, an article in the 'Philosophical Journal,' and another on the Antiquity of Man, in the Westminster Review,' the general bias of his opinion may be ascertained. In the first, he commits himself to the doctrine that definite classes are obtained only when there has been an obliteration of transitional forms; in the second, he holds that the origin of protoplasts is extra-scientific, and that it must rest, not on inference, but on specific historical evidence, being a physical effect without any cause within the range of physical induction. Consistency in these views must of course make the origin, as well as the antiquity of man, an open question at the very least.

The opus magnum, however, of Dr. R. G. Latham,—a new edition of Johnson's Dictionary, which has been for some years in his hands,—is to be published, we believe, within a few weeks.