Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/543

 life, it was generally observed of him that he had grown more and more considerate in the expression of opinions which no one suspected him of being likely to abandon.

The unusual steadiness of his outward deportment, which sometimes raised a pardonable smile in those who thought merely of his youthful years, was but the outward sign of his composed and thoughtful mind, and of a temperament so little prone to any irregularities, that he seemed an exception to all the instances of youthful folly, and quite incapable of any approach to what was vicious. Yet this happy exemption from faults that are so often commingled with fine and promising qualities, and which, too, they often mar and always enfeeble, was conjoined with a singular candour in estimating the conduct of men less happily organised, or less habitually exercising a severe self-command. This, also, was a characteristic developed early, and which always continued to distinguish him. Together with this singular purity of morals, was associated a generosity of disposition often wanting to such natures. For any becoming object─for the acquisition of the means of knowledge─for the maintenance of a proper station, he thought no sacrifices too considerable; but he had nothing to spare for luxury, or vanity, or sensuality, or any kind of selfish indulgence.

In October, 1816, he went to London to attend the hospitals and lectures. It was now his good fortune to be a daily bearer of the eloquent and instructive lectures of Mr. Abernethy, of some of which he took, and carefully preserved, copious notes. He became much attached to that great