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 and fellowship, but was elected honorary fellow on 18 Oct. 1800. He subsequently became involved in personal controversy with his colleague, Dr. E. Hill, who was obliged, under the provisions of the act, to resign the professorship of botany, which he had held simultaneously with the regius professorship of physic. Perceval now became an active member of the ‘Prison Discipline Society,’ subsequently merged with the Howard Society, and was called ‘the Irish Howard’ (Proceedings of the Howard Society, 14 Feb. 1832). On 18 March 1819 he was appointed physician-general to the forces in Ireland. In 1821 he published an essay, in which he sought to show from the texts of the New Testament that Christ, although a divine person, was distinct from the deity, a doctrine similar to that of Adam Clarke [q. v.] After a lingering illness he died on 3 March 1839. He married, in 1786, Anne, daughter of W. Brereton of Rathgilbert.

Perceval was a successful physician; but his claims to fame rest chiefly on his philanthropic efforts. His published contributions to chemistry are unimportant; the notes for a medical treatise he intended to publish were handed to John Mason Good [q. v.], on Perceval's hearing that Good contemplated a similar undertaking.

His published works are: 1. ‘Tentamen Physiologicum Inaugurale De Corde,’ Edinburgh, 1780. 2. ‘An Account of the Bequest of Sir P. Dun,’ Dublin, 1804. 3. ‘An Essay to establish the Divinity of … Christ … with a Review of the Doctrine of the Trinity,’ Dublin, 1821. And the following papers in the science section of the ‘Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy’: 4. Chemical communications and inquiries [‘On the Distillation of Acids’], 1790, iv. 85; 5. ‘On a Chamber-lamp Furnace,’ 1790, iv. 91; 6. ‘On the Solution of Lead by Lime,’ 1791, v. 89; 7. ‘On some Chalybeate Preparations,’ 1810, xi. 3. He left some other treatises in manuscript.

[Taylor's Univ. of Dublin, p. 443; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Dublin University Calendar, 1833; Register of the King's and Queen's Coll. of Phys. Ireland; Parthenon, 11 May 1839; Hill's Address to Students of Physic, September 1803, and Address to the President and Fellows of the King's and Queen's Royal Coll. of Phys. February 1805; Book of Trinity College, Dublin, 1892; Plan and List of Members of the Royal Irish Academy, 1785; Cameron's History … of the Irish Schools of Medicine, 1886; Gmelin's Gesch. der Chemie, iii. 567; private information from Dr. G. P. L. Nugent, Fellow and Registrar of the Royal College of Physicians, Ireland, and a manuscript memoir by Perceval's grandson, Major Robert Perceval Maxwell of Finnebrogue, kindly communicated to the writer.]  PERCEVAL, SPENCER (1762–1812), statesman, second son of John Perceval, second earl of Egmont [q. v.], by his second wife, Catherine, third daughter of the Hon. Charles Compton, envoy to the court of Lisbon, and granddaughter of George, fourth earl of Northampton, was born at his father's house in Audley Square, London, on 1 Nov. 1762. His name, Spencer, was a family name on his mother's side, derived originally from Sir John Spencer, owner of Crosby Place, whose daughter Elizabeth married William Compton, first earl of Northampton. Perceval was brought up at Charlton House, near Woolwich; about the age of ten he was sent to Harrow, and thence to Trinity College, Cambridge, where Dr. William Lort (afterwards bishop) Mansel [q. v.] was his tutor. He gained the college declamation prize for English, and on 16 Dec. 1781 graduated M.A. Being a younger son, with only a small income, he went to the bar and joined the midland circuit, where he soon became popular. Romilly, who began on circuit a friendship with him lasting many years, describes him at this time (Memoirs, i. 91) ‘with very little reading, of a conversation barren of instruction, and with strong and invincible prejudices on many subjects; yet by his excellent temper, his engaging manners, and his sprightly conversation, he was the delight of all who knew him.’ Windham (Diary, p. 71), meeting him in 1786, noted that his career was likely to be distinguished. In 1790 his grandfather procured him the deputy-recordership of Northamptonshire; next year he obtained a small mint sinecure, the surveyorship of the meltings and clerkship of the irons, just vacated by George Selwyn's death. He seized the occasion of the dissolution of parliament in 1790, while the impeachment of Warren Hastings was proceeding, to publish an anonymous pamphlet on the constitutional question involved, which is said to have brought him favourably to the notice of Pitt. He presently began to obtain crown briefs, in 1792 on Paine's trial, in 1794 on Horne Tooke's. In the latter year Lord Chatham made him counsel to the board of admiralty, and in 1796 he became a king's counsel, an appointment all the more honourable to him because, in bestowing it, Lord Loughborough intimated that he thought there were already king's counsel enough, but was induced to increase the number by his high opinion of Perceval's talents. 