Phipps throughout the latter part of his career, was not ashamed to allude to the lowness of his origin, and it was matter of honest pride to him that he had risen from the condition of common ship carpenter to the honours of knighthood and the government of a province. When perplexed with public business, he would often declare that it would be easier for him to go back to his broad axe again. He left behind him a character for probity, honesty, patriotism, and courage, which is certainly not the least noble inheritance of the house of Normanby. William Petty, the founder of the house of Lansdowne, was a man of like energy and public usefulness in his day. He was the son of a clothier in humble circumstances, at Romsey, in Hampshire, where he was born in 1623. In his boyhood he obtained a tolerable education at the grammar school of his native town; after which he determined to improve himself by study at the University of Caen, in Normandy. Whilst there he contrived to support himself unassisted by his father, carrying on a sort of small pedler’s trade with “a little stock of merchandise.” Returning to England, he had himself bound apprentice to a sea captain, who “drubbed him with a rope’s end” for the badness of his sight. He left the navy in disgust, taking to the study of medicine. When at Paris he engaged in dissection, during which time he also drew diagrams for Hobbes, who was then writing his treatise on Optics. He was reduced to such poverty that he subsisted for two or three weeks entirely on walnuts. But again he began to trade in a small way, turning an honest penny, and he was enabled shortly to return to England with money in his pocket. Being of an ingenious mechanical turn, we find him taking out a patent for a letter-copying machine. He began to write upon the arts and sciences, and practised chemistry and physic with such success that his reputation shortly became considerable. Associating with men of science, the project of forming a Society for its prosecution was discussed, and the first meetings of the infant Royal Society were held at his lodgings. At Oxford he acted for a time as deputy to the anatomical professor there, who had a great repugnance to dissection. In 1652 his industry was rewarded by the appointment of physician to the army in Ireland, whither he went; and whilst there he was the medical attendant of three successive lords-lieutenant, Lambert, Fleetwood, and Henry Cromwell. Large grants of forfeited land having been awarded to the Puritan soldiery, Petty observed that the lands were very inaccurately measured; and in the midst of his many avocations he undertook to do the work himself. His appointments became so numerous and lucrative that he was charged by the envious with corruption, and removed from them all; but he was again taken into favour at the Restoration.