Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/549

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that I could not but fancy it probable that he was led to make such a note by an almost unconscious sympathy with the destiny to which it pointed.

Although he still continued very regardless of general society, he certainly felt occasional mortification from the consciousness of having too much neglected the art of conciliating many, who, he began to find out, were insensible or indifferent to all which he more justly prized in himself; and from which he had, perhaps, expected that their favour would alone be gained. I have heard him, in after years, refer to these feelings, and lament his inability to win people's kindness more generally; and once or twice have known him quote, in a tone of melancholy bitterness, the words expressive of the dismal fate of those who


             “ —————— roam along, the world's tired denizens,
             “ With none who bless them, none whom they can bless."

The winter of 1819-20, saw him return to Edinburgh, full of new health and spirits, to commence his second winter's studies; and from this period, until the day of his death, it was my happiness to be intimately acquainted with him. My first remembrance of him, is at the Friday night discussions of the Edinburgh Medical Society; in which he often took an active part. And, certainly, when I noted his pale, restless, sad, and penetrating countenance, and his somewhat ungraceful figure, and heard the brief and cutting apothegms, or severe or sarcastic mode of public address, in which he then delighted, whatever respect I felt for his talents and knowledge, I was little inclined to intimate friendship with him. Farther and various opportunities taught me all his