308 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. reason on abstract subjects, and to take nothing for granted : unquestionably this was not without its disadvantages and dangers, but had it not been for his accidental acquaintance with Harley, Gooch might perhaps have neglected altogether the cultivation of his reasoning powers at the time of life when that cultivation is most important ; so fully impressed was he with this fact, that he always felt grateful to Mr. Harley ; paid him every attention during life, and bequeathed him 100^. at his death, as a proof of his regard. When, in the autumn of 1824, Gooch revisited Yarmouth, after an absence of many years, his attention to his early friend was most marked. The evening of his arrival he was eager to call upon him, and when it was suggested, that it was late and dark, he exclaimed, that he could find the house blind- fold : he groped his way down the narrow rows, and recognized with delight the old broken brass knocker, which remained unchanged. While Gooch was with Mr. Borrett the attack upon Copenhagen took place, and on the return of Lord Nelson, the wounded were placed in the Na- val Hospital at Yarmouth. Being acquainted with some of the young surgeons, Gooch, though then but a boy, v/as not unfrequently at the hospital. " I w^as (he says in a letter written long afterwards) at the Naval Hospital at Yarmouth, on the morn- ing when Nelson, after the battle at Copenhagen, (having sent the wounded before him,) arrived at the roads and landed on the jutty. The populace soon surrounded him, and the military were drawn up in the market-place ready to receive him, but making his way though the dust, and the crowd,
