JENNER. 26/ candidly sought to undermine the pretensions of its author. The late eminent surgeon, Mr. Cline, deserves to be enumerated among the warmest friends of Jenner ; he advised him to quit the country, and to settle in Grosvenor Square, pro- mising him an income of ten thousand a year as the fruits of his practice. Here was the tide in Jenner's life which perhaps he might have taken to his advantage, but those who read the modest and philosophic reasons which he assigns for preferring his original situation, will respect his motives. " Shall I," says he in a letter to a friend, " who even in the morning of my days sought the lowly and sequestered paths of life, the valley, and not the mountain, — shall I, now my evening is fast approaching, hold myself up as an object for for- tune and for fame ? Admitting it as a certainty that I obtain both, what stock should I add to my little fund of happiness ? My fortune, with what flows in from my profession, is sufficient to gratify my wishes." However wisely Jenner may have consulted his own feelings on this occasion, the public lost the benefit of his judgment and presence ; after a long period of apathy, and in spite of ridicule, a re- action at length ensued, and vaccination suddenly became a favourite with all ranks, and was not always judiciously practised, nor carefully exa- mined. While the author of the discovery was absent, busy rivals started up ; he was not present to plead his own claims, nor to explain his own views ; cabals were formed, not for the purpose of doing him justice, but rather to repress him into obscurity. But these alloys are seldom wanting
