Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/560

 vanishing of many of the fresher and better feelings in men's progress through life; and how often the acquired faults of selfishness come to be cherished, as if they were proofs of wisdom increased, and experience turned to profitable uses. From his youth upwards he had been carefully instructed in religion; and, when not excited by any reference to political considerations, his views were as worthy of the philosopher as of the christian. He seemed always persuaded that life was given to men for good ends: and in all the years in which I knew him, and in all the circumstances in which I saw him, I never knew him idle, or frivolously occupied; or rendered, either by fatigue or care, unwilling to enter upon any subject connected with the advancement of knowledge or the interests of virtue.

We had, for several months before this time, been projecting the establishment of a new Medical Review; and one of the results of this journey was an engagement to assist Dr. Copland in editing the London Medical Repository, of which a number appeared on the first of every month. This kind of labour, than which nothing can be more irksome to men of middle age, is particularly attractive to younger writers, and we entered on our task with much enthusiasm. It requires a bold man, Montesquieu says, to make a reviewer; for he must make up his mind to make a hundred enemies a month. Like other reviewers, we sometimes found it difficult to speak the truth without offending the sensitiveness of authors: we were sometimes threatened, and sometimes flattered, in the hope that we would be partial or unjust; but, during the two years in which