COMBE, George (1788-1858), was born in Edinburgh, 21st October 1788. As the first advocate in this country of the phrenological doctrines of Gall and Spurzheim. and as the author of The Constitution of Man Considered in Relation to External Objects, he attracted much attention in Britain, on the Continent, and in America. His father was a brewer,—a man of shrewd business qualities, and of a benevolent disposition, and a strict observer of Calvinistic practices; and his children—nine daughters and eight sons—-were placed under a rigid system of religious instruction. In a fragment of autobiography written by Combe shortly before his death, he complains of the irksomeness of the Sunday observances and tasks imposed on his father’s household. His frame was feeble; the Sunday tasks followed weeks of severe mental labour at school, and, so far from cultivating in him a religious spirit, they rendered the church, Sunday, and the Catechism sources of weariness and terror to him. His character was earnest and thoughtful even as a child; and feelings of despondency thus engendered were intensified by the weakness of his constitution. His mind became largely occupied with the current theological theories and, in time, with doubts of their truth. He attended the High School for five years, and then proceeded to the university. In 1804 he entered a lawyer’s office as an apprentice, and applied himself diligently to the acquirement of the details of his profession. At the same time he assisted his younger brothers and sisters in their studies, and read philosophy, history, and general literature; philosophical works, however, had most attraction for him. In 1812 he obtained his commission as writer to the signet, and, soon after, that of notary public. His shrewdness and conscientiousness in dealing with clients speedily obtained for him a degree of practice which exceeded his expectations. Meanwhile, in private, he had vague yearnings to accomplish something which might benefit mankind. In 1815 the Edinburgh Review contained an article on Gall and Spurzheim’s system of ,, ' craniology,” which the reviewer denounced as “a piece of thorough quackery from beginning to end.” Combe laughed like others at the absurdities of this so-called pew theory of the brain, and thought that it must be finally exploded after such an exposure; and when Dr Spurzheim delivered lectures in Edinburgh, in refutation of the statements of his critic, Combe considered the subject unworthy of serious attention. He was, however, invited to a friend’s house where he saw Spurzheim dissect the brain, and he was so far impressed by the demonstration that he attended the second course of lectures. Proceeding tö investigate the subject for himself, he became satisfied, after two years of study and observation, that the fundamental principles of phrenology were true—namely “that the brain is the organ of mind; that the brain is an aggregate of several parts, each subserving a distinct mental faculty; and that the size of the cerebral organ is, caeteris paribus, an index of power or energy of function.” He had moved slowly at first; he now pursued his investigations with enthusiasm. He compared the known characteristics of friends with their phrenological developments; he studied anatomy; he visited schools, prisons, and large manufactories; and he became more and more satisfied that he was approaching a truth which would be of great value to humanity. He requested his brother Dr Andrew Combe— who was at that time a medical student in Paris—to give particular attention to the dissection of the brain, in order to be prepared to support or to condemn the new theories on anatomical principles. In 1817 his first essay on phrenology was published in the Scots Magazine; and a series of papers on the same subject appeared soon afterwards in the Literary anì Statistical Magazine; these were collected aud published in 1819 in book form as Essays on Phrenology. His friends became alarmed by his public advocacy of a cause which was the laughing-stock of all men of reputation, and warned him that it would be the ruin of his professional prospects; He was not diverted from his course, and he had the satisfaction of finding his business increase; for the many who laughed at his hobby or regretted it still recognized his assiduity in attending to the affairs of his clients. The Essays gave an extraordinary impetus to the new science; friends and foes became numerous; a phrenological society was founded; the Phrenological Journal was established, and was published quarterly for twenty years; a volume of Phrenological Transactions was issued; and Combe’s first work developed into A System of Phrenology in two large volumes, of which five editions have been published. By his lectures and writings he attracted public attention to the subject on the Continent and in America, as well as at home; and a long discussion with Sir William Hamilton in 1827-28 excited general interest.

The publication of his most popular work, The Constitution of Man, was determined upon after serious deliberation. He had circulated private copies amongst his friends, several of whom regarded the principles of the essay as dangerous to society and urged him to suppress it. The principle on which he based his argument was that all the laws of nature were in harmony with each other, and that man would best fulfil God’s will, and attain the greatest happiness for himself, by discovering those laws and obeying them. He saw nothing irreligious in this principle; he believed that on the contrary it supplied a philosophic basis to religion. When the book was published in 1828, he was charged by the church party with being a materialist and an atheist; but, on the other hand, he received from near and distant quarters grateful thanks for the new light his work had shed upon religion, and for the satisfaction it afforded to doubting minds. As one indication of the estimation which the work obtained, it is notable that amongst many editions in America there was one for the blind. From this date the current of Combe’s public life broadened; he became strong in his own convictions of the truth, and consequently more resolute in carrying them to practical issues. He might hesitate at first,.doubting himself; but once satisfied that he was right, he never faltered. He saw everything by the light of phrenology, and the light rendered him patient of the opposition of others, and guided him to the most earnest efforts to benefit his fellow-creatures, morally and socially. He gave time, labour, and money to help forward the education of the poorer classes; he established the first infant school in Edinburgh under the direction of Mr Wilderspin; and he originated a series of evening lectures on chemistry, physiology, history, and moral philosophy— the lectures on the latter subject being delivered by himself. He studied the criminal classes, and tried to solve the problem how to reform as well as to punish them; and he strove to introduce into lunatic asylums a humane system of treatment. In 1836 he offered himself as a candidate for the chair of logic in the Edinburgh University, and the testimonials submitted on his behalf on that occasion show that he was held in high esteem by men of very opposite opinions. As he had expected, he was rejected by the town council in favour of Sir William Hamilton.

Having received numerous invitations to visit America, he proceeded thither in 1838, and about two years were occupied in lecturing in the principal States on phrenology, education, and the treatment of the criminal classes. On his return in 1840 he published his Moral Philosophy, and iu the following year his Notes on the United States of North America. In 1842 he delivered, in German, a course of twenty-two lectures in the university of Heidelberg—being the first Englishman who had ventured to lecture there in the national language. But the effort resulted in an illness which prostrated him for some time. He continued to travel much on the Continent—inquiring into the management of schools, prisons, and asylums. The commercial crisis of 1855 elicited his remarkable pamphlet on The Currency Question. The culmination of the religious thought and experience of his life is contained in his work On the Relation between Science and Religion, first publicly issued in 1857, and now in its fifth edition. Writing pamphlets, contributing to periodicals, lecturing, and correcting the new editions of his works rendered his days busy to the last. He was engaged in revising the ninth edition of the Constitution of Man when he died at Moor Park, Farnham, 14th August 1858. He had married in 1833 Cecilia Siddons, a daughter of the great actress. She had been the companion of all his travels, and she was with him at the end. Apart from his position as a phrenologist he earned distinction by his efforts on behalf of education, and by his courage in promulgating certain philosophic truths, which at the time were regarded as subversive of everything good, but are now accepted so entirely as matters of course that his share in obtaining recognition for them is apt to be forgotten. (c. G.)

COMBE, William (1741-1823), an anonymous hack writer of great fertility and of some merit, was born at Bristol in 1751. The circumstances of his birth and parentage are somewhat doubtful, and it is questioned whether his father was a rich Bristol merchant, or a certain William Alexander, a London alderman, who died in 1763. Be this as it may, it is certain that Combe was educated at Eton, with Fox, Lyttelton, and William Beckford; that Alexander bequeathed him some £2000—a little fortune that soon disappeared in a course of splendid extravagance, which gained him the nickname of Count Combe; and that he finally fixed his residence in London (about 1771), as a law student and bookseller’s hack. In 1775 he published The Philosopher in Bristol, a series of essays of merely local interest; and in 1776 he made his first success in London with The Diaboliad, a satire full of bitter personalities. Four years afterwards (1780) he became an inmate of the King’s Bench; and much of his subsequent life was spent in prison. He appears to have written a correspondence between Sterne and Eliza Draper, and also the Letters of the Late Lord Lyttelton (1780). Periodical literature of all sorts—pamphlets, satires, burlesques, “two thousand columns for the papers,” “two hundred biographies,” The Origin of Commerce— filled up the next years, and about 1789 Combe was receiving £200 yearly from Pitt. Six volumes of a Devil on Two Sticks in England caused him to be saluted as “the English Le Sage;” in 1794-96 he wrote the text for Boydell’s History of the River Thames; in 1803, he was placed on The Times. In 1807 All the Talents, a satire, appeared; it ran through twenty editions and is generally attributed to Combe. In 1809-11 he wrote for Ackermann’s Political Magazine the famous Three Tours of Dr Syntax, which, owing greatly to Rowlandson’s designs, had an immense success. Then came poems in illustration of drawings by Princess Elizabeth, The Military Adventures of Johnny Neucome (1815), The English Dance of Death (1815-16), The Dance of Life (1816-17), The Adventures of Johnny Quae Genus (1822)—all written for Rowlandson’s caricatures; together with Histories of Oxford and Cambridge, Picturesque Tours along the Rhine and other rivers, Histories of Madeira, Antiquities of York, texts for Turner’s Southern Coast Views, and contributions innumerable to the Literary Repository. In his later years, notwithstanding a by no means unsullied character, Combe was courted for the sake of his charming conversation and inexhaustible stock of anecdote. He is said to have written and burned his autobiography; but it does not appear that the loss of this memorial is to be regretted. He died in London in 1823.

Brief obituary memoirs of Combe appeared in Ackermann’s Literary Repository and in the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1823; and in May 1859 a list of his works, drawn up by his own hand, was printed in the latter periodical. See also Diary of H. Crabb Robinson, Notes and Queries for 1869, and a paper in the Churchman's Shilling Magazine for the same year.

t, On the 14th November, 1863, Lord Combermere had reached his ninetieth year, still in the full possession of his mental faculties, and with his usual activity very little impaired; indeed, the only infirmities which afflicted him were deafness and occasional weakness of the limbs, arising as much from slight rheumatism as a failure of general strength. He still rode three hours daily, and walked short distances with his usual alert step and upright carriage. His voice was as strong, his hand as steady as ever, and he wrote clearly ahd rapidly without spectacles, which he never used except by candle-light. The wonderful memory for which he had always been remarkable never failed, and while it recalled long past events with surprising accuracy, registered and reproduced those of more recent date with equal exactness. No one could detect any failure in his quick perception or ready conclusions, nor did he betray even the most trifling of those mental deficiencies often attendant on a lesser age than his. When eighty-seven, he had danced a quadrille at a rural fête as lightly as his grandchildren, and at eighty could climb over a hurdle with ease. All these immunities from disease and decrepitude were secured by the invariable moderation which, in spite of service in various climates, left his naturally vigorous constitution unimpaired up to the very end. He rose very early in summer, and the last few years of his life rode an hour before breakfast. This meal was always very simple, and without meat of any kind. At half-past one a small luncheon and half a glass of wine satisfied him until dinner. This last was his largest meal, at which he partook plentifully of meat, and drank, for the last fifteen years, one pint of light sherry. Tea or coffee he never touched in early life, afterwards seldom indulging at breakfast in the former, usually drinking instead cocoa, as the most wholesome beverage. Plain meat, bread, and potatoes constituted his dinners, and he never for twenty-six years once transgressed the rule which he had determined to observe, of eating only what was wholesome, and avoiding fruit, vegetables, beer, champagne, salt meat, condiments, and every other article proscribed by the most rigid dietetics. Besides carefully rejecting all unwholesome food, he made it a practice to eat so slowly that he was always longer than any one else at meals. Few could resist as he did the temptation of a well-supplied table, which he wished to be luxurious for others, while he contented himself with simple fare, enjoying only the sight of the fine fruits furnished from his productive houses and well-cultivated gardens.

“Such abstinence would to many be impracticable; but Lord Combermere possessed a power of self-control which few can compass. As an instance of this, after having long indulged in the habit of taking snuff incessantly, he relinquished it suddenly and entirely. Continual smoking had equally been a practice of his earlier life, until, becoming aware of its evil effects on his health, he restricted himself to two small cigars nightly.”