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 reported at some length in the ‘State Trials,’ xix. 1154–5, dilating on the outrage to the constitution which the execution of general search warrants involved, and, according to Lofft, the reporter, ‘shone extremely.’ The jury found for the plaintiff. Eyre, however, was by no means a partisan of Wilkes, and gave serious offence to the corporation by refusing to present to the king the remonstrance on the subject of the exclusion of Wilkes from parliament, drawn up for the corporation by Horne Tooke. The remonstrance was presented in the name of the corporation by Sir James Hodges, the town clerk, on 23 May 1770, and treated with contempt. The corporation passed a vote of censure on Eyre. The ministry, however, marked their approbation of his conduct by raising him to the exchequer bench in October 1772. He was knighted on 22 Oct. He was a member of the court which on 19 Nov. 1777 passed sentence of fine and imprisonment on Horne Tooke as the author and publisher of an advertisement soliciting subscriptions on behalf of ‘our beloved American fellow-subjects’ ‘inhumanly murdered by the king's troops at or near Lexington.’ On 26 Jan. 1787 he was raised to the presidency of the court of exchequer. In the interval between the resignation of Lord Thurlow and the appointment of Lord Loughborough, 15 June 1792 to 21 Jan. 1793, he was chief commissioner of the great seal. On 11 Feb. 1793 he was appointed chief justice of the common pleas. In this capacity he presided in November and December 1794 at the trials of Hardy, Horne Tooke, and others, charged with having conspired to subvert the constitution, displaying in the investigation some of the highest judicial qualities, patience, impartiality, and the power of sifting relevant from irrelevant matter, and presenting the former to the jury in a luminous manner. These qualities he again exhibited in the case of Thomas Crosfield and others, charged with conspiring to take the life of the king by means of a bow and arrow. The trial took place in May 1796, and ended, like those of Hardy and Horne Tooke, in an acquittal. Eyre died on 1 July 1799. He was buried in the parish church of Ruscombe, Berkshire, where he had his seat. His portrait hangs in Gray's Inn Hall, in the bay window of which his arms are emblazoned.

[Howell's State Trials, xix. 1154–5, xxiv. 199, xxv. 2, 748; Gent. Mag. (1763) p. 203, (1772) pp. 539, 543, (1799) p. 709; Stephens's Memoir of Horne Tooke, ii. 7 n.; Haydn's Book of Dignities; Lysons's Mag. Brit. i. 352; Douthwaite's Gray's Inn; Foss's Lives of the Judges.] 

EYRE, JAMES (1748–1813), philologist, born in 1748, educated at Catharine Hall, Cambridge, was head-master of Solihull grammar school and rector of Winterbourne, Stoke, and Nettleton. He annotated Johnson's ‘English Dictionary’ (in manuscript), and his notes were incorporated by Todd in his edition of Johnson. He died in 1813.

[Gent. Mag. 1813, vol. lxxxiii. pt. i. p. 499; Preface to Todd's Johnson.] 

EYRE, JAMES, M.D. (1792–1857), physician, was born in 1792, and in October 1811 commenced his medical education at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where he was a pupil of Abernethy. In 1813 seventy-five students subscribed to give the great silver cup with cover to Abernethy which is now used as a loving-cup at the annual dinner of the teachers of the medical school of St. Bartholomew's, and Eyre was chosen to present the piece of plate. In 1814 he became a member of the College of Surgeons, and began practice in Hereford, where he attained some local celebrity; in 1830 was elected mayor, and was knighted in that year on the accession of William IV. Drinkwater, mayor of Liverpool, was the only other mayor knighted, and a remark of Abernethy to a patient on these honours preserves the correct pronunciation of Eyre's name. ‘Go away,’ said Abernethy, ‘and have always in your thoughts the names of the mayors who have just been knighted, Eyre and Drinkwater, and you will soon recover your wind, and your shape too, I promise you.’ Soon after his being knighted, Eyre decided to become a physician, studied in Paris for a year, graduated at Edinburgh in 1834, became a member of the College of Physicians of London in 1836, and set up in practice in Lower Brook Street, London. He published in 1845 ‘Practical Remarks on some Exhausting Diseases, particularly those incident to Women;’ and in 1852 ‘The Stomach and its Difficulties.’ Both books advocate the use of oxide of silver as a remedy for several gastric disorders. They are addressed rather to patients than to physicians, and contain many trivial anecdotes, and no scientific observations. After practising with no great success for several years, Eyre retired to Brompton, and died suddenly while visiting a friend at Clapham on 19 June 1857.

[Eyre's Works; London and Provincial Medical Directory, 1847. Lancet, June 1857, gives an erroneous account of his knighthood.] 

EYRE, JOHN (1754–1803), evangelical clergyman, son of John Eyre of Bodmin, was born there in January 1754, and baptised on 25 Feb. He was educated in classics by the