GOOCH. 323 I have a competent income I shall have neither disinclination nor difficulty in again becoming attached, as I have some reason to believe that there is still left in me more susceptibility than I once thought I should ever again possess." At the very time when this letter was written Gooch was forming an attachment to the sister of his friend Mr. Travers, and notwithstanding all his prudent resolutions, soon became convinced that he should best consult his own happiness by expediting his marriage with a person every way qualified to make him happy. There was, indeed, nothing imprudent in his so doing, for his practice was rapidly increasing, and the death of Dr. Thynne gave him the whole profit of the lectures at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. These lectures, though a source of emolument, were also a source of great anxiety to Gooch. He found himself called upon to give a complete course of prelections upon a very extensive subject, on many parts of which he felt his own know- ledge to be as yet but imperfect, and no time, or at most a very inadequate time, could be allowed for preparation. It was impossible to write each lecture, and he often found himself compelled to go to the hospital with scanty notes, and not fully possessed of all that was known on the sub- ject. He was a severe critic of himself, and though most of his auditors came away satisfied with the clearness of his statements, and the live- liness of his manner, he over-estimated all the de- fects of which he was conscious. He used to look forward to the hour of lecturing with horror. In oije of his letters he says, " I am going down Y 2
