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The father of John Fothergill was a member of the estimable society of Quakers, and resided at Carr-End, in Yorkshire, the family estate of a preceding generation; where this excellent man was born in the year 1712. He was one of many children, a circumstance which is generally, and with justice, considered favourable to the development of talents. His chief literary education was imbibed in the school of Jedburgh, in Yorkshire, a seminary which has acquired both classical and mathematical reputation. About the age of sixteen, he was apprenticed to Mr. Bartlett, an eminent apothecary at Bradford, who had previously been the master of Dr. Hillary. His sagacity and assiduity soon induced his intelligent preceptor to permit him to visit and prescribe for his patients. On the expiration of his term, he repaired to Edinburgh, at a period when the professorial chairs were occupied by Monro, Alston, Rutherford, Sinclair, and Plurnmer, all students of the Boerhaavian school, and whose merits have been recorded, by Fothergill himself, in an account which he published, in after life, of Dr. Russell, his contemporary and associate. The eminent Monro discovered the powers of his pupil, and urged him to reside sufficiently long to obtain the doctorate—for till then he had only intended to