- Samuel Musgrave
Samuel Musgrave (
September 29 ,1732 -July 5 ,1780 ) was an English classical scholar andphysician .Musgrave was born at Washfield in
Devon , and was educated at theUniversity of Oxford . There he was elected to a Radcliffe travelling fellowship, he spent several years abroad. In 1766 he settled at Exeter, but moved toPlymouth to improve his career prospects.Everything went wrong when he published a
pamphlet in the form of an address to the people of Devon, accusing certain members of the British government of having been bribed by the French government to conclude theTreaty of Paris (1763) , and declaring that ChevalierCharles d'Eon de Beaumont , the French minister plenipotentiary to England, had in his possession documents which would prove the truth of his assertion.Eon de Beaumont denied all knowledge of any such transaction and of Musgrave himself, and the House of Commons in 1770 decided that the charge was unsubstantiated. The discredited Musgrave was obliged to earn a meagre living in
London by writing until his death, in reduced circumstances. He wrote several medical works, now forgotten; and his edition ofEuripides (1778) was a considerable advance on that ofJoshua Barnes .See
William Munk , "Roll of the Royal College of Physicians", ii. (1878).References
*1911
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