ters the terrors of the amputation. It is a distortion of words from their natural sense, to call that man a coward, who has completely conquered the fear of death.

Among the most remarkable persons who have contended for the innocence, and even for the merit of some suicides, are two eminent English divines of the seventeenth century, whose writings are now little read. The first was the celebrated Dr. Donne, who was probably driven to the contemplation of this question by his own sufferings. While he was secretary to Lord Chancellor Egerton, he married a young lady of rank superior to his own, which gave such offence to his patron, that he was dismissed from his office. He suffered extreme poverty with his wife and children; and in a letter in which he adverts to the illness of a daughter whom he tenderly loved, he says, that he dares not expect relief, even from death, as he cannot afford the expense of the funeral! He afterwards took orders, and was promoted to the deanery of St. Paul's. In the early part of his life, and probably during the period of his sufferings, he wrote a book entitled Babavaros, "A declaration of that paradox, or thesis, that self-homicide is not so naturally sin, that it may never be otherwise." He did not publish it, but, on the contrary, forbade it "both the press and the fire." He desired "it to be remembered, that it was written by Jack Donne, not by Dr. Donne;" and it was published many years after his death, by his son, a dissipated young man, tempted by his necessities to forget his father's prohibition. It is a very ingenious book, and in substance correct; but written in that paradoxical temper which thrusts forward whatever truth is averse to common opinion, and slightly acknowledges whatever agrees with it. His margin, crowded with references, is a curious proof of the great revolution which a century and a half have produced in the reading of Europe. Of the innumerable multitude of canonists, jurists, and schoolmen whom he has cited, there are not a dozen names now known to the most curious inquirer. Henry Dodwell, the learned nonjuror, had that propensity towards singular speculations, in which ingenious men, who profess slavish principles of govern ment, not unfrequently give vent to the native independence of their understanding. He maintained the innocence of suicide in some cases, in an apology for the philosophical writings of Cicero, prefixed to a translation of "Cicero de Finibus," by his brother nonjuror, the noted Jeremy Collier, a writer remarkable for vulgar shrewdness and coarse vigour, who, by a fatality not unparalleled among translators of a higher order, chose an original the most dissimilar to himself, and attempted an English version of the most elegant and majestic of prose writers.

EULOGIUM ON THE LATE DR. RUSH.

We have before us an introductory discourse to a course of lectures lately delivered in the college of physicians and surgeons, by Dr. David Hosack, professor of the theory and practice of physic and clinical medicine, in the university of the state of New-York. After an exordium, giving an account of the additional means of instruction recently provided in the medical establishment of New-York, Dr. H. proceeds to point out what he deems the proper method of cultivating the science of medicine. He recommends the inductive system of philosophizing, as the only sure means of acquiring correct principles in science, and enforces the same by the celebrated examples of Bacon, Boyle, and Newton, in physics; of Reid, Beattie, and Stewart, in metaphysics; and of Hippocrates, Sydenham, and Boerhaave, in medicine. After dwelling particularly upon the respective merits of these distinguished medical characters, he concludes with the following eulogy on our countryman, the late Dr. Benjamin Rush.

BUT, gentlemen, while we thus revere the great and good of the old world, let us do homage to merit in the new. While we acknowledge the benefits which the science of medicine has received from the physicians of Europe, let us not be unmindful of the debt of gratitude we owe to a native of our own soil, who was no less an ornament to human nature, than his various exertions have been precious to his profession, to science, and his country.

Your feelings, I trust, will be in unison with mine, while, in addition to the numerous offerings of public and private respect, which have been paid to the memory of Doctor Benjamin Rush, we devote a few moments to the contemplation of the professional attainments, the public services, the moral and religious character, which make up the portrait of that distinguished philosopher and physician.

Doctor Rush was born on the 24th December, 1745, on his father's estate, about twelve miles from the city of Philadelphia. His ancestors followed William Penn from England to Pennsylva nia, in the year 1683. They chiefly belonged to the society of quakers, and were all, as well as his parents, distinguished for the industry, the virtue, and the piety, characteristic of their sect, His grandfather, James Rush, whose occupation was that of a gunsmith, resided on his estate near Philadelphia, and died in the year 1727. His son John, the father of Dr. Rush, inherited both bis trade and his farm, and was equally distinguished for his indus

try and ingenuity. He died while his son Benjamin was yet young, but left him to the care of an excellent and pious mother, who took an active interest in his education and welfare. In a letter which I had the pleasure to receive from Dr. Rush, a short time before his death, and which was written upon his return from a visit to the tomb of his ancestors, he thus expresses the obligation he felt for the early impressions of piety he had received from his parents:

"I have acquired and received nothing from the world which I prize so highly as the religious principles I inherited from them; and I possess nothing that I value so much as the innocence and purity of their characters."*

But this was not the only source of that virtue and religion for which he was so eminently distinguished. His mother, as if influenced with a presentiment of the future destinies of her son, resolved to give him the advantages of the best education which our country then afforded: for this purpose he was sent, at the early age of eight or nine years, to the West Nottingham Grammar School, and placed under the care of his maternal uncle, the Rev. Doctor Samuel Finley, an excellent scholar and an eminent teacher, and whose talents and learning afterwards elevated him to the presidency of the college of Princeton. At this school young Rush remained five years, for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, and other branches necessary to qualify him, as preparatory for a collegiate course of study. But under the tuition and guidance of Dr. Finley, he was not only instructed in classical literature; he also acquired what was of no less importance, and which characterized him through life-a habit of study and observation, a reverence for the christian religion, and the habitual performance of the duties it inculcates for his accomplished and pious instructor not only regarded the temporal, but the spiritual welfare of those committed to his care.

At the age of fourteen, after completing his course of classical studies, he was removed to the college of Princeton, then under

The letter here referred to was originally addressed, by Dr. Rush, to the Hon. John Adams, Esq. late President of the United States: from a copy of the same, sent to the author by Dr. Rush, several of the preceding interesting particulars have been taken.

the superintendence of President Davies, one of the most eloquent preachers and learned divines our country has produced.

At college, our pupil not only performed his duties with his usual attention and success, but he became distinguished for his talents, his uncommon progress in his studies, and especially for his eloquence in public speaking. For this latter acquirement, he was doubtless indebted to the example set before him by President Davies, whose talents as a pulpit orator were universally acknowledged, and were frequently the theme of his pupil's admi

ration.

Dr. Rush received the degree of bachelor of arts in the autumn' of 1760, at the early age of fifteen. The next succeeding six years of his life were devoted to the study of medicine, under the direction of Dr. John Redman, at that time an eminent practitioner in the city of Philadelphia. Upon commencing the study of medicine, the writings of Hippocrates were among the very first works which attracted his attention; and, as an evidence of the early impression they made upon his mind, and of the attachment he had formed to them, let it be remembered, that Dr. Rush, when a student of medicine, translated the aphorisms of Hippocrates from the Greek into his vernacular tongue, in the seventeenth year of his age. From this early exercise he probably derived that talent of investigation, that spirit of inquiry, and those extensive views of the nature and causes of disease, which give value to his writings, and have added important benefits to the science of medicine. The same mode of acquiring knowledge which was recommended by Mr. Locke, and the very manner of his commonplace book, was also early adopted by Dr. Rush, and was daily continued to the last of his life. To his records, made in 1762, we are at this day indebted for many important facts illustrative of the yellow fever, which prevailed in, and desolated the city of Philadelphia, in that memorable year. Even in reading, it was the practice of Dr. Rush, and for which he was first indebted to his friend Dr. Franklin, to mark with a pen or a pencil, any important fact, or any peculiar expression, remarkable either for its strength or its elegance. Like Gibbon," he investigated with his pen always in his hand;" believing with an ancient classic, that to study without a pen is to dream-" Studium sine calamo somnium."

Having with great fidelity completed his course of medical

studies under Dr. Redman, he embarked for Europe, and passed two years at the university of Edinburgh, attending the lectures of those celebrated professors, Dr. Munro, Dr. Gregory, Dr. Cullen, and Dr. Black.

In the spring of 1768, after defending an inaugural dissertation "de coctione ciborum in ventriculo," he received the degree of doctor of medicine. In that exercise, which was written with classical purity and elegance, it was the object of Dr. Rush to illustrate, by experiment, an opinion that had been expressed by Dr. Cullen, that the aliment, in a few hours after being received into the stomach, undergoes the acetous fermentation. This fact he established by three different experiments, made upon himself; experiments which a mind less ardent in the pursuit of truth would readily have declined.

From Edinburgh Dr. Rush proceeded to London, where, in attendance upon the hospitals of that city, the lectures of its celebrated teachers, and the society of the learned, he made many accessions to the stock of knowledge he had already acquired.

In the spring of 1769, after visiting Paris, he returned to his native country, and immediately commenced the practice of physic in the city of Philadelphia, in which he soon became eminently distinguished.

Few men have entered the profession in any age or country with more numerous qualifications as a physician, than those possessed by Dr. Rush. His gentleness of manner, his sympathy with the distressed, his kindness to the poor, his varied and extensive erudition, his professional acquirements, and his faithful attention to the sick, all united in procuring for him the esteem, the respect, and the confidence of his fellow citizens, and thereby introducing him to an extensive and lucrative practice.

It is observed, as an evidence of the diligence and fidelity with which Dr. Rush devoted himself to his medical studies, during the six years he had been the pupil of Dr. Redman, that he absented himself from his business but two days in the whole of that period of, time. I believe it may also be said, that from the time he commenced the practice of medicine to the termination of his long and valuable life, except when confined by sickness, or occupied by business of a public nature, he never ab