Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 7.djvu/298

 contributions from his young friends in Canterbury as their very moderate resources could supply.

This period of Mr. Newport's life was marked by the greatest privations, and he often, in after years, expressed some surprise how he was able to bear up against them. Whatever his expenditure was (and it was marvellously small), it was still supplied by the same attached friends at Canterbury. It is pleasing to be able to add, that all these precious debts were carefully recorded by him, and gradually liquidated, in after years, as the means of doing so came slowly into his possession.

At the expiration of his apprenticeship, Mr. Newport went to London to prosecute his medical studies. Through the friendly intervention of a Physician, to whom he had been fortunate enough to gain an introduction, he obtained a nomination to University College (then the University of London), at which he was entered on the 16th of January, 1832; and on a representation of his peculiar circumstances being laid before the Professors, they all most readily gave him gratuitous access to their respective lectures. There, besides attending to the ordinary branches of professional instruction, he became a diligent pupil in the class of Comparative Anatomy, under Dr. Grant. After the usual course of study, he received his qualification for practice both from the Company of Apothecaries and the College of Surgeons; and in April 1835 obtained the appointment of House Surgeon to the Chichester Infirmary. This appointment, slight as it was, may be said to have terminated his struggles for existence, and placed him, for the first time, in a position of comparative ease, security, and comfort. He, however, did not long retain the office, having resigned it in the beginning of 1837.

On leaving Chichester in January 1837, Mr. Newport returned to London, entering soon afterwards into partnership with a young Surgeon who had been for some time established in practice. This partnership continued several years, but was not productive of satisfactory results, either in a social or pecuniary point of view. On its dissolution, Mr. Newport became more and more occupied with his scientific pursuits, relishing his professional avocations less and less, and becoming, in some measure, unfitted for them, so that for a good many years before his death, the whole of his professional