Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/562

 in every light, and proved to me, what, indeed, I entertained no previous doubts concerning, his love of every kind of learning, his acuteness and candour as a critic, his high sense of honour, his unwearied assiduity, and his entire freedom from the meanness and selfishness, the development of which poisons almost every association of men, for whatever purposes. I never remember our entertaining different opinions on any subject connected with the conduct of the Journal. We divided the task of reading the Foreign Journals, and, during its performance, Dr. Darwall made himself well acquainted with the German language, “ hating,” as he expressed it, “ to take things at second-hand.” I may add, that if we had no great reason to estimate its pecuniary advantages highly, we felt that the exertion which our editorship imposed upon us, and the necessity of being alert and punctual, and attentive to passing events in our profession, was a most valuable remuneration: and such will these habits be found by all who, undertaking the management of the medical press in a good spirit, preserve their minds from the littleness and from the rancour which, without some vigilance, such an occupation certainly has a tendency to cast over the character. About the middle of the year 1827, Dr. Darwall's practice was increasing so much as to make him less desirous of continuing the occupation of a public writer, and we resigned the care of the Repository into the hands of Dr. Gordon Smith, who, although then in the prime of life, is now, also, numbered among the dead.

The portion of Dr. Darwall's life of which I have now treated, was one in which his hopes were yet