acquaintance not a few: whereas, though not of an ascetic cast of mind, and rather sociable than otherwise, his pursuits made him so entirely a recluse, that, with two exceptions, and exclusive of his family, no person ever saw him but on business in his latter years. Those exceptions were Dr. Heberden, who was his physician, and with whom, being a scientific man, he conversed freely about his plans. The other was George Whatley, esquire, Treasurer of the Foundling Hospital, who perhaps called two or three times a year for a stay of half an hour, occupied with common courtesies and enquiries; so that this friendless case contrasts remarkably with that of—Dr. Babington, an eminent physician, and father of the College, casually in the Author's way; who, on taking up a newspaper, reads, that the friends of this Gentleman, in the extensive circle of his practice, had subscribed 1,400 guineas, for a handsome monument either in the Abbey, or at St. Paul's. The faculty indeed, in the respective departments of medicine, surgery and pharmacy, if they are men of prepossessing address, a bland temper, and earnest solicitude for the relief of their patients, are peculiarly enabled to bespeak and to retain the goodwill of those with whom their profession brings them acquainted.[1] But as the name of this physician, however respectable, was seldom heard of in the provinces, his reputation being confined to the metropolis (unlike that of Mr. Abernethy and Sir Henry Halford) it would be a solecism to inscribe on his tomb—memoriæ sacræ eternam; which, though rather hy-
- ↑ We are luckily helped out in our definition, by stumbling on a contrast between the Physician and the Lawyer.—
—[The professional demeanour of the Lawyer follows; but this not being to the present purpose, we omit it: referring any enquirer to the Observer newspaper of the 10th August, 1834.]The Physician has intercourse with affliction, with pain, with death; his voice is naturally attuned to mildness and gentleness; his step is light and quiet; his face is susceptible of a look of sympathy; he has to do with humanity in its feebleness, to listen to the complaints of the suffering, to bear with the moans of the distressed; it is part of his business to be and to look amiable; who can speak unkindly to the dying? A brute of a Doctor must be a brute indeed!
