Major Thomas Pearson was born about the year 1740 at Cote Green, near Burton-in-Kendal, Westmoreland. He was educated at Burton, and came to London about 1756 to fill a post in the Navy Office, which he resigned in 1760. In the course of the following year he left England, having obtained a cadetship on the Bengal Establishment, in which he rose to the rank of Major. He distinguished himself on several occasions, and was particularly noticed by Lord Clive, to whom he adhered during the mutiny fomented by Sir Robert Fletcher, at whose trial he held the office of Judge Advocate. In 1767 Pearson married a sister of Eyles Irwin, the traveller and writer. This lady died in the following year, and an epitaph inscribed to her memory may be found, together with other poetical pieces by Pearson, in vol. iv. of Pearch's Collection of Poems. Pearson returned to England in August 1770 with Governor Verelst, under whom he had acted as Military Secretary, and built a house for himself at Burton, in which he collected a very extensive library, consisting of works on the history, antiquities, topography, and heraldry of Great Britain and Ireland, foreign history, voyages and travels, natural history, etc., but it was principally remarkable for the large number of books in all branches of old English literature, and it was especially rich in the works of the early poets and dramatists. In 1776 Pearson again went to India, but after a residence there of five years he fell a victim to the effects of the climate, and died at Calcutta on the 5th of August 1781. Some years after his death his library was brought from Westmoreland, and sold on April 14th, 1788, and twenty-two following days, by T. and J. Egerton at their room in Scotland Yard. The prices obtained at the sale, in which there were five thousand five hundred and twenty-five lots, were very small:—Boccaccio's The Falle of Princis and Princesses and other Nobles, translated by Lydgate, and printed by Pynson in 1494, fetched but one pound, twelve shillings; The Castell of Laboure, also printed by Pynson, two guineas; two books printed by Wynkyn de Worde—Hawes's Example of Virtu, and The Lyf of Saynt Ursula, translated by Hatfield—seven pounds, ten shillings and one pound, ten shillings; Skelton's Ryght Delectable Traytise upon a goodly Garlande, or Chapelet of Laurell, printed by Richard Faukes in 1523—an excessively rare, if not unique book—seven pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence; Peele's Polyhymnia, London, 1590, three guineas; Lyly's Midas, London, 1592, seven pounds; and England's Helicon, collected by John Bodenham, London, 1600, five pounds, ten shillings. Two volumes of ballads, chiefly collected by the Earl of Oxford, and purchased by Major Pearson at Mr. West's sale, were bought by the Duke of Roxburghe for thirty-six pounds, four shillings and sixpence, and are now, with additions by the Duke, preserved in the British Museum. Books bound for Pearson may be recognised by the device of a bird surmounting a vase, stamped on the panels of the back.