1818.]
Extracts from Lettsom's Correspondence.
637
stitutions of the metropolis: He was also, according to his biographer, the person who sent the vaccine lymph across the Atlantic. He consigned it to the care of his friend Dr Waterhouse, by whose agency its benefits were distributed throughout all the United States. During the whole of this time, and up to the period of his death in 1815, Dr Lettsom, besides publishing various works on medical and other subjects, maintained a correspondence with most of the celebrated men in Europe and America. The work which is the subject of our article, is a selection from that correspondence; the whole of which, extending to many thousand letters, has been consigned to the hands of Mr Pettigrew, who was the intimate friend of Dr Lettsom.
The book is in many respects interesting, as well from the variety and importance of its subjects as from the characters of the different writers. We shall give a few extracts from some of the letters. The following is from a letter of Dr Lettsom to Dr Cumming. It is a very fair sketch of the late Dr Johnson.
"He was a pious man; attached, I confess, to established system; but it was from principle. In company I neither found him austere nor dogmatical; he was certainly not polite, but he was not rude. He was familiar with suitable company, but his language in conversation was sententious; he was sometimes jocular, but you felt as if you were playing with a lion's paw. His body was large, his features strong, his face scarred and furrowed with scrophula; he had a heavy look, but when he spake, it was like lightning out of a dark cloud. With a capaciousness of mind, and some inequalities in it, like his face, he resembled a Colossus, which, like that of Rhodes, embraced the whole sea of literature, affording awe and distance rather than esteem and social friendship: his will evinced the narrowness of his friendships; and from some of his writings, one may discern a sternness from disappointment rather than from philosophy. His Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, was perhaps his own picture, and it inculcates apathy to the world rather than happiness in it. Upon the whole, he seems not to have been a happy man; his religion was rigid rather than social, and his mind warped by system rather than humanised by virtue and truth. But who is perfect?
Vol. i. p. 78.
Who indeed? The following of Dr Warburton, from a letter of Dr Cumming, is a good companion to the above:—
"Many years ago I read over the polemical and critical works of the late Dr Warburton, and from the perusal I conceived a most unfavourable opinion of the man; so stiff and conceited in opinion, so dictatorial in his sentiments, treating every one who thought differently from himself with the most sovereign contempt. It is above thirty years ago, Ralph Allen of Prior Park first came to pass about three months in the summer, annually, at Weymouth: his niece, Mrs Warburton, was always of the party. She was elegant in her person, possessed of an excellent understanding, great politeness, and a most engaging naiveté in conversation. I had been introduced to Mr Allen's acquaintance soon after his first arrival, and was always professionally employed in the family. After a few years, the bishop, whom I had never seen, came to pass a month of the summer with Mr A. at Weymouth. I was soon after sent for to attend some one of the family. After having visited my patient, Mrs W. took me by the hand, and led me to the dining-room, where we found the bishop alone! She presented me to him, with 'Give me leave, my lord, to introduce to you a friend of mine, to whom you and I have great obligations, for the care he has repeatedly taken of our son.' He received me courteously enough, but I own to you I felt an awe and awkward uneasiness. I determined to say but little, and to weigh well what I said. We were left alone—it was an hour to dinner—he soon engaged me on some literary subjects, in the course of which he gave me the etymology of some word or phrase in the French language, with a 'Don't you think so?' I ventured to dissent, and said I had always conceived the origin to be so and so; to this he immediately replied, 'Upon my word, I believe you are in the right; nay, 'tis past a doubt; I wonder it never struck me before.' Well, to dinner we went: his lordship was easy, facetious, and entertaining. My awe of him was pretty well dissipated, and I conversed with ease. Some time after dinner, when he was walking about the room, he came behind me, tapp'd me on the shoulder, and beckoned me into an adjoining room. As soon as we entered, he shut the door, seated himself in an armed chair on one side of the fire-place, while he directed me by his hand to one on the opposite side. My fit immediately returned: I expected to be catechised and examined; but it was of short duration. He said he was happy in this opportunity of asking the opinion and advice of a gentleman of my character, respecting some complaints he had felt for some time past, and which he found increasing. On this my spirits expanded: I did not fear being a match for his lordship on a medical subject. He then began to detail to me the complaints and feelings of those persons addicted to constant study and sedentary life. As I mentioned several circumstances which he had