Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/118

 Pottinger, described his death as ‘a posltlve national calamity.’

 MORRISON, THOMAS (d. 1835?), medical writer, studied at Edinburgh in 1784, but subsequently removed to London, Where he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1798 he was in practice at Chelsea, but by 1806 appears to have settled in Dublin. In the ‘List of Members of the Royal College of Surgeons’ in 1825 his address is given as Vale Grove, Chelsea. His name disappears from the lists before 1829. He died apparently at Dublin in 1835 (Post Office Directory of Dublin, 1807 and 1835). He published: 1. ‘Reflections upon Armed Associations in an Appeal to the Impartial Inhabitants of Chelsea,’ &c., 8vo, London, 1798. 2. ‘An Examination into the Principles of what is commonly called the Brunonian System,’ 8vo,London [1806] 3. ‘The Pharmacopœia of the King and Queen’s College of Physicians, Ireland, translated into English with observations,’ 8vo, Dublin, 1807. He also contributed two papers to Duncan’s ‘Annals of Medicine,' 1797 (ii. 240 and 246).

 MORRITT, JOHN BACON SAWREY (1772?–1843), traveller and classical scholar, born about 1772, was son and heir of John Sawrey Morritt, who died at Rokeby Park, Yorkshire, on 3 Aug. 1791, by his wife Anne (d. 1809), daughter of Henry Peirse of Bedale, M.P. for Northallerton. Both parents were buried in a vault in Rokeby Church, where their son erected to their memory a monument with a poetic inscription. Morritt, who had previously been in Paris during 1789, was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. 1794 and M.A. 1798. Early in 1794 he proceeded to the East, and spent two years in travelling, mainly in Greece and Asia Minor. He arrived, with the Rev. James Dallaway [q. v.] and a few other Englishmen, from Lesbos on 6 Nov. 1794, landing about twenty miles below Lectum, in the Sinus Adramyttenus, and proceeded to make a careful survey of the scene of the ‘Iliad.’ When Jacob Bryant published some works with the desire of proving that no such city as Troy had existed, Morritt’s knowledge of the country led him to undertake Homer’s defence, and he published at York in 1798 ‘A Vindication of Homer and of the Ancient Poets and Historians who have recorded the Siege and Fall of Troy.’ This produced from Bryant ‘Some Observations’ in 1799, and when Dean Vincent reviewed Morritt’s work in the ‘British Critic’ for 1 Jan. and 1 March 1799, and issued the criticisms in a separate form, Bryant rushed into print with an angry ‘Expostulation addressed to the “British Critic,”’ 1799, whereupon Morritt retaliated with ‘Additional Remarks on the Topography of Troy, in answer to Mr. Bryant’s last Publications,’ 1800. Some account of his expedition to Troy is given by Dallaway in ‘Constantinople, with Excursions to the Shores and Islands of the Archipelago, and to the Troad,’ 1797, and his opinions are corroborated in ‘Remarks and Observations on the Plain of Troy, made during an Excursion in June 1799,’ by William Francklin [q. v.] Morritt inherited a large fortune, including the estate of Rokeby, which his father had purchased from the ‘long’ Sir Thomas Robinson [q. v.] in 1769, and in 1806 he served as high sheriff of Yorkshire. A conservative in politics, he was returned to parliament by the borough of Beverley at a by-election in 1799, but was defeated at the dissolution in 1802. In 1814 he was elected on a by vacancy for the constituency of Northallerton in Yorkshire, which he represented until 1818, and he sat. for Shaftesbury, Dorset, from 1818 to 1820. ln 1810 he published a pamphlet on the state of parties, entitled ‘Advice to the Whigs, by an Englishman,’ and in 1826 he gave Sir Walter Scott a copy of a printed ‘Letter to R. Bethell,’ in iiavour of the claims of the catholics, whereupon Scott noted in his diary that twenty years previously Morritt had entertained other views on that subject. A reply to this letter was published by the Rev. W. Metcalfe, perpetual curate of Kirk Hammerton. In 1807 he made an ‘excellent speech’ at the nomination of Wilberforce for Yorkshire. Morritt paid Scott a visit in the summer of 1808, and was again his guest in 1816 and January 1829. Their friendship was never broken. Scott, on his return from London in 1809, spent a fortnight at Rokeby, and described it as one of the most enviable places that he had ever seen. In December 1811 he communicated to Morritt his intention of making it the scene of a poem, and received in reply a very long communication on its history and beauties. A second stay was made in the autumn of 1812, with the result that his poem of ‘Rokeby,’ although falling short of complete success, was lauded for the ‘admirable, perhaps the unique fidelity of