Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/358

 ciples of Mechanicks,’ 1758, 5th edit., 1825. 5. ‘The Doctrine of Proportions,’ 1763. 6. ‘Elements of Geometry,’ 1763, new edit., 1794. 7. ‘The Method of Increments,’ 1763. 8. ‘Cyclomathesis,’ 1763, 2nd edit., 1770. 9. ‘Treatise on Algebra,’ 1764. 10. ‘Navigation,’ 1764. 11. ‘The Arithmetic of Infinites,’ 1767. 12. ‘Elements of Conic Sections,’ 1767. 13. ‘Elements of Optics,’ 1768. 14. ‘Perspective,’ 1768. 15. ‘The Laws of Centripetal and Centrifugal Force,’ 1769. 16. ‘The Art of Surveying or Measuring Land,’ 1770. 17. ‘Calculation, Libration, and Mensuration,’ 1770. 18. ‘Chronology,’ 1770. 19. ‘Dialling,’ 1770. 20. ‘The Doctrine of Combinations, Permutations, and Composition of Quantities,’ 1770. 21. ‘The Mathematical Principles of Geography,’ 1770. 22. ‘A short Comment on Sir I. Newton's “Principia,”’ 1770. 23. ‘A System of Astronomy,’ 1770. 24. ‘Miscellanies,’ 1776. 25. ‘Tracts, with a Memoir of the Author by W. Bowe,’ 1794.

[W. Bowe's Some Account of the Life of W. Emerson, Lond. 1793; Hutton's Phil. and Math. Dict. i. 471; Gent. Mag. lxiii. 610; Brit. Mus. and Bodleian Catalogues.] 

EMERY, EDWARD (d. 1850?), numismatist, under whose direction the notorious imitations of coins known as ‘Emery's forgeries’ were produced, was a coin-collector and coin-dealer living in London. He is said to have belonged to ‘a respectable family,’ and to have been well off. He engaged an engraver at considerable expense to manufacture dies of rare English and Irish coins, and some of the specimens struck off from these dies sold for large sums. The forgeries were in the market during the summer of 1842, but they were exposed in the ‘Times’ and in the ‘Numismatic Chronicle.’ Before the end of that year Emery (or his engraver) was obliged to surrender the dies, which were then cut through the centre and thus rendered useless. Emery's forgeries are: penny of Edward VI, with portrait; shillings of Edward VI with false countermarks of portcullis and greyhound; jeton or coin of Lady Jane Grey as queen of England; half-crown and shilling of Philip and Mary; gold ‘rial’ of Mary I; groats and half-groats of Mary I (English and Irish), and probably others. The forgeries are clever, though the lettering is not successful. After 1842 Emery is believed to have left London in debt, and to have died at Hastings about 1850.

[Hawkins's Medallic Illustrations of Brit. Hist., ed. Franks and Grueber, i. 63, 64, ii. 725, from information supplied by the late W. Webster, the London coin-dealer; Numismatic Chron. (old ser.), v. 159, 160, 202, 203, where the Times of 19 July 1842 is quoted; Emery's forgeries in Brit. Mus.] 

EMERY, JOHN (1777–1822), actor, was born at Sunderland 22 Sept. 1777, and obtained a rudimentary education at Ecclesfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father, Mackle Emery (d. 18 May 1825), was a country actor, and his mother, as Mrs. Emery, sen., appeared 6 July 1802 at the Haymarket as Dame Ashfield in Morton's ‘Speed the Plough,’ and subsequently played at Covent Garden. Emery was brought up for a musician, and when twelve years of age was in the orchestra at the Brighton theatre. At this house he made his first appearance as Old Crazy in the farce of ‘Peeping Tom.’ John Bernard [q. v.] says that in the summer of 1792 Mr. and Mrs. Emery and their son John, a lad of about seventeen, who played a fiddle in the orchestra and occasionally went on in small parts, were with him at Teignmouth, again at Dover, where young Emery played country boys, and again in 1793 at Plymouth. Bernard claims to have been the means of bringing Emery on the stage, and tells (Retrospections, ii. 257) an amusing story concerning the future comedian. After playing a short engagement in Yorkshire with Tate Wilkinson, who predicted his success, he was engaged to replace T. Knight at Covent Garden, where he was first seen, 21 Sept. 1798, as Frank Oatland in Morton's ‘A Cure for the Heartache.’ Lovegold in the ‘Miser,’ Oldcastle in the ‘Intriguing Chambermaid,’ Abel Drugger in the ‘Tobacconist,’ an alteration by Francis Gentleman of Jonson's ‘Alchymist,’ and many other parts followed. On 13 June 1800 he appeared for the first time at the Haymarket as Zekiel Homespun in the ‘Heir-at-Law,’ a character in the line he subsequently made his own. At Covent Garden, 11 Feb. 1801, he was the original Stephen Harrowby in Colman's ‘Poor Gentleman.’ In 1801 he played at the Haymarket Clod in the ‘Young Quaker’ of O'Keeffe, Farmer Ashfield in ‘Speed the Plough,’ and other parts. From this time until his death he remained at Covent Garden, with the exception of playing at the English Opera House, 16 Aug. 1821, as Giles in the ‘Miller's Maid,’ an unprinted comic opera founded on one of the rural tales of Blomfield, and attributed to Waldron. For a time he was kept to old men. His reputation was, however, established in country men, in which he had an absolute and undisputed supremacy. He was the original Dan in Colman's ‘John Bull,’ 5 March 1803; Tyke in Morton's ‘School of Reform,’ 15 Jan. 1805; Ralph Hempseed in Colman's ‘X Y Z,’ 11 Dec. 1810; Dandie Dinmont in Terry's