Elmsley, Peter, Dd

Elmsley, Peter, D.D.

an English scholar and divine, was born in 1773, and educated at Westminster School and at Merton College, Oxford. In 1798 he was presented to Little Horkesley, a small chapelry in Essex, but becoming master of a fortune by the death of an uncle, he devoted himself to literary studies, and particularly to Greek literature. He lived for a while in Edinburgh, where he was intimately associated with the founders of the Edinburgh Review, and contributed to that periodical several articles. He also edited with consummate ability several classical works. In 1816 he made a voyage to Italy in search of manuscripts, and passed the winter of 1818 in researches in the Laurentian library at Florence. The next year he was appointed to assist sir Humphry Davy in the unavailing task of trying to decipher some of the papyri found at Herculaneum. He died March 8, 1825. Dr. Emsley was one of the most accomplished Greek scholars of his day. See The New Amer. Cyclop. 7:111; (Lond.) Annual Register, 1825, page 232; Hart, English Literature, page 439.