A


      BRIEF  REVIEW
      » • »


                OF


         DR. HORNER'S



"NECROLOGICAL NOTICE"


                OF  *' C


      PHILIP SYNG PHYSICK, M. D.






            PHILADELPHIA:
                1838. 
 
  The reader will discover some errors in the arrangement of
sentences and words, which the author has permitted to pass
without correction, to save the time which would have been
required to remodel the pamphlet after the first impression. 
> 
  It is to be regretted that the learned author of the
notice  of Dr. Physick  did not furnish us with the
meaning of the expression " Necrological Notice;" for
although, when addressed by a Professor to a congre-
gation of Philosophers, it might be perfectly understood
and be in good taste, yet  when used as  a  title to a
publication which is obviously intended for the perusal
of all, whether learned or  unlearned, it is, to say the
least, out of place.
  In the opening of this "Necrological Notice," we
are informed  that  great men and  great mountains
should be seen from a distance in order to appreciate
their exact magnitude.   Now, overlooking the happy
similitude of a  great man  to a great  mountain, we
must aver that,  although distance may "lend enchant-
ment to the view," it is  very unfavourable to accurate
or exact  measurement;  at least  so it seems to  those
who are neither philosophers  nor professors.  But
perhaps it was the intention of the author of the Notice
to intimate that, when we  are near  a  great man, we
observe  many little peculiarities or obliquities which
       1 
4
 diminish the interest we are disposed to  feel in him,
 and which do not strike us when we behold him at a
 distance.   And what was the object proposed by this
 intimation?  To prepare us for the exhibition of some
 traits, peculiarities  or  faults, in the character of the
 lamented  Physick, which were  unknown to the  world
 when that great man lived, but which had not escaped
 the penetration of the biographer, whose  situation, he
 supposed, gave him opportunities which others had not?
 Such, indeed, seems to have been the  object; for the
 biographer, not  satisfied  with  the gentle intimation
 thrown out, proceeds to explain himself fully, by  main-
 taining that  none would be pleased with the historian
 who, from a mistaken  tenderness to the memory  of
 Caesar, should suppress  the  narrative of his dissolute-
 ness and prodigality!  Our  attention is then directed
 to the transgressions of David, Solomon, and Moses;
 and we are told that even the inspired volume recorded
 the errors of its great men.  Finally, as  if intending
 to prepare us for a history of the faults of the  great
 man who is the subject of the memoir,  "with this pre-
 amble I may now proceed to state," commences the
narrative of Dr. Physick's  life!  We are told distinctly
 that the circumstances and relations to which we have
adverted  form the preamble, and well do the pages
following sustain the opening promise.   There seems
to have  been a determination  not to present the
brightest side of a character which had always been
 sustained  through the severest ordeal—that of the life
of its possessor—and which, we  suppose, formed the
particular   inducement  to  the  Philosophical  Society
when they requested a Professor to prepare the notice 
5
which has been presented to the public in a "Necro-
logical" form.
   Credit should be awarded to the biographer for the
care with which he has preserved some historical facts,
which, though their connexion with Dr. Physick cannot
be  traced, are  doubtless important,  and might have
been  entirely lost to the world, had they not been
presented to the Philosophical Society;  to wit:—Mr.
Physick, the father of the  lamented surgeon, at  the
request  of  Governor Penn, took  possession  of  the
Lansdown estate; and it was in the icinter of this period
that Mr. Physick, on visiting Valley Forge, observed that
the cannons of the American army were frozen immovably
in the mud!
   We are left  in much doubt, by the contradictory
statements of circumstances, upon the subject of Dr.
Physick's tastes in early life.  First we  are informed
that the leaning of his mind was to the business of a
shoemaker, and that he made a pair of shoes;  then  he
doubts between the employment of a shoemaker and
that of a silversmith, until the compulsion of his father
makes him a  surgeon.   Still it seems that his dispo-
sition to become a silversmith lingered about him even
to the hour of his death; and his latest and most poig-
nant regret was that he had not been a silversmith.
We are  informed  that the severest sorrow with which
one of the most distinguished and greatest men of the
nineteenth century was afflicted,  was that he had not
been a silversmith.  But it will be permitted to others,
who think that they also had opportunities of learning
the tastes  and  feelings  of our departed  surgeon,  to
take a very different view.   It is believed that, what- 
0
ever his various  and unfixed  predilections (such  as
those which generally accompany boyhood) for par-
ticular branches of mechanical arts may have been,
there was  a  decided tendency of mind  to scientific
pursuits, which was wisely regulated and directed  by
his father to the profession for which  nature  herself
seems to have designed him; and as to the regret which
he expressed in late years, we affirm with confidence
that it was entirely misunderstood by his biographer.
With that modesty of character which is legitimate to
great minds, he might have  supposed that he had not
been as useful in the world as others who had served
in humbler capacities, and believed himself incompetent
to the great  undertaking in which he had embarked;
but there was in him so  much of the good Samaritan,
that if he did regret  the  adoption of the  medical pro-
fession, it was not because he thought that he might
have made "himself" happier by some other employ-
ment.
   The biographer proceeds to inform us that when
Dr. Physick was twenty years of age, his father placed
him under the direction of the celebrated John Hunter,
who replied to the interrogatory, 'what books will be
necessary,' by pointing to some dead bodies in a dis-
secting room, and saying "there are the  books which
the student will learn under my direction; the others
are  fit  for very little;" and Dr. Physick never forgot
the remark, especially after committing to memory Cullen's
First Lines.  In the year 1792, Dr. Physick took  his
degree;  and, as we are informed in a  note  by the
biographer, dedicated to John Hunter an Essay, enti-
tled "De Apoplexia," which was written in Latin; but 
7
whether this version was written by Dr. Physick him-
self or not, the biographer says that he does not know!
It was prudent in the Professor not to commit himself
upon a point involving a question as to the ability or
attainment of Philip Syng Physick.  After he had taken
his  degree,  according to the biographer, his father
secured him an office, and gave him two shillings and
sixpence, informing him  that he had then an outfit, and
must  learn  to take care of  himself.   Whether the
expression outfit refers to the  office, or to  the capital
of two  shillings and sixpence, or to both, is  not par-
ticularly stated; however, we are relieved of the appre-
hension created by  the statement of the outfit by the
subsequent  relation of his having succeeded in per-
suading several families to employ him at the rate of
twenty dollars a year. Now, though these particulars
may be correct, it  is most probable that there  were
many accompanying circumstances unknown to the
biographer,  which, if disclosed, would relieve us of the
unpleasant associations suggested by such details; at
all events, their introduction was unnecessary.
  There is a singular employment of words throughout
the "Necrological  Notice" which cannot escape the
observation of the most careless reader;  indeed, so
much so,  that manifest  injustice is frequently done to
the subject of the notice, when we are  satisfied that it
cannot be intended.  Upon one  occasion he is repre-
sented as giving a sardonic smile, which can  mean
nothing else than that Dr.  Physick was  at  the time
insincere, and forced a  smile upon his countenance
which was not the  faithful image of any emotion of
his heart.   We will here take the liberty of inquiring 
8
 with what view the painful description of Dr. Physick's
' body after death was introduced?   "His countenance
 had then a superannuated, painful, haggard expression,
 wrapped in  the  dulness and mystery of death.   His
 frame declared his recent sufferings and exhaustion;
 the upper parts  attenuated to  a  mere  skeleton, the
 lower extremities and abdomen bloated ready to burst
 with dropsy, and  actually beginning  a  sphacelated
 softening and ulceration here and  there."
   Not to be too troublesome with our interrogatories,
 we will now ask the Professor from whom this "Necro-
 logical Notice"  proceeds, why he  did not  reflect  a
 little, but a little while, ere he attempted to fix a  stain
 upon the memory of Philip Syng Physick, by charging
 him with obliquity of character and weakness in direct-
 ing that his  body should be watched after interment?
 If such were the sentiments of the Professor  as to Dr.
 Physick's directions for the disposal of his body, would
 it not have been more modest in him to suppose that
 Dr. Physick might be right and he wrong?  Would not
 such a supposition have better sustained his professions
 of regard and respect for the  departed  surgeon? or
 would it not have been wiser to pass over the matter
 in  silence?  What circumstance happening in the
 course of a long practice may have operated upon the
 mind  of Dr. Physick  and suggested  the directions
 adverted to, we  know not;  doubtless they were  such
 as to fully justify the expression of his wishes, and to
 render that expression compatible with the high senti-
 ments which distinguished his character.  This is one
 of the  many  instances  afforded  by  the  biographer
 throughout his notice of his entire forgetfulness of the 
9
nature of the charge reposed  in his hands.  It was
undoubtedly the intention  of those who selected him
as their orator, that he  should  assist in preserving for
the eye of memory the portrait of a great and good
man; a character for future admiration and imitation;
an example or a model—not a picture enveloped with
weaknesses or obliquities, apparently selected for the
purpose of concealing its beauty.  We  say apparently,
for we would be distinctly understood as charging the
biographer simply with want  of skill, discretion, or
information:  his good intentions we doubt not.
   We  are  further told by  the biographer  that Dr.
Physick was particularly intolerant to opposition; that he
said to a lady, whose  maternal solicitude was excited
to rebel at the repeated bleedings of a child, "Madam,
I take leave  of your child; the responsibility of its life
rests with you."   Could there  possibly  be  a  more un-
fortunate combination of words  and expressions than
is here presented?  The words  maternal solicitude at
once apologize for the conduct of the mother, because
they convey the  idea that it was nothing more than
natural in her to rebel at the repeated bleeding of the
child;  but the surgeon,  in the hands of his biographer,
is made to utter a cold and abrupt reply, without any
explanatory  reason. Again:  Mr.  Lardner was bled
frequently,  and simply made some expression of doubt;
to which the reply was, " Sir, I must have  my own
way, or none at all; I bid you good day."  Still further,
we suppose  to cap the climax  of the paragraph, "To
a West Indian, who was  refractory at being tapped
for  a hydrocele, he said,  'Sir, I'll  have none of this;
down with your pantaloons,  I know perfectly what I am 
10
about.'"  We  are left  in  doubt as to whether the
West  Indian did  down with his pantaloons;  but the
presumption is  that he did, because he was "cured."
Now we all know how much occurs to  annoy and
harass  a physician in his treatment of patients, and it
is  quite possible that the  expressions  above quoted
may have been used; but all the circumstances under
which  they were uttered should have been given, if
such were possible, or the whole relation should have
been suppressed.   Indeed, it seems  to us that a wise
biographer would not have  hunted among  the private
relations of a sick chamber for occurrences which,
wThen they may have happened, were as  much matter
of regret to the physician as to the patient, to make
up a history of  a great  man, which was intended for
the public eye.   In another case cited, of a gentleman
who, when under treatment for sore legs, had, by feast-
ing and drinking, violated the prescribed rules of diet,
Dr. Physick did no more  than express the strongest
reprobation.  He is not in  that case represented  as
having left the patient  abruptly; a case  of positive
disobedience, which would go much further than any
of the  others named towards disturbing the patience
of a physician.  The practice of this eminent man was
so extensive, that  very many of this community have
had opportunities  of witnessing his conduct in  the
chamber of the patient.  We  can  remember that his
manner was grave, and that his  tone was that of one
deeply impressed with a sense  of his responsibility,
yet characterized by that firmness which is indispen-
sable  in the hour of difficulty and danger, and which,
under  all circumstances, tends to  impart confidence 
11
and hope to  the patient, as much as it assists in pro-
moting the success of the physician; but to Dr. Physick
peculiarly belonged the faculty of wisely and delicately
blending the suaviter in modo with the fortiter in re.
   The description of the personal appearance of Dr.
Physick is not more flattering than that of his character
and deportment.  According to the biographer,  "his
ear was  large, fiat, and  unhandsome,"—"he was not
well formed in the legs and feet, the latter being rather
large and^Za/."  It may  not be a very important mat-
ter what was his personal appearance; still let us have
correct impressions  if we refer to the subject at all.
All who remember Dr. Physick must remember him as
a  remarkably fine  looking,  handsome man, without
descending to particulars  about his legs and feet; though
as to  the latter, disease in the evening of  his life may
have  affected them, and doubtless did;  which should
have been mentioned by  the biographer, together with
the statement that his legs were badly formed and his
feet large and flat.
   We now approach  a  more important  topic.   Dr.
Physick's biographer represents him as having "strong
suspicions and prejudices of the French character; he
was with no small difficulty made to believe that there
was anything sensible,  good, or truthful in French
medicine." Where is the evidence of this aversion to
French character and medicine?  What record or re-
mark made by the eminent surgeon sustains the charge?
In the same paragraph with the preceding, the biogra-
pher contradicts himself when he says, "Notwithstand-
ing, however, his aversion to every thing French, he
saw the value of Dessault's principles  of bandaging; 
12
and having made some useful additions, he pract-ced
on them during  the greater pan of his surgical life."
He practiced on Dessault's principles during the greater
part  of his  surgical life, and yet  held the  strongest
aversion to  every thing that was  French!  Now, we
declare that Dr. Physick had wo prejudice against  the
French at any time; that he had at one time, and justly
too, reason to find fault with a French surgeon, Du-
puytren, who very unhandsomely claimed an invention,
the credit of which was due to Dr. Physick; that even
the difficulty growing out of this  difference between
him and Dupuytren was entirely removed many years
since.   In a letter from a physician residing in Paris,
addressed to Dr. Physick, we have the  following:
  "While the unfavourable reports of your health have
occasioned no little anxiety to your friends in this city,
there is one report in which you are interested, origi-
nating  here, which has  proved highly gratifying to
them, and which will, I trust, not prove uninteresting
to you.  This is the long withheld  acknowledgment
on the part of certain French surgeons, of the  origin
of the operation  for artificial anus.  A  few days since
Professor Mott, of New York, and Dr.  Tucker,  of our
city, were invited by M. Roux to hear his lecture intro-
ductory to a clinical  course in the Hotel Dieu.   M.
Roux is the successor of Dupuytren; and on this occa-
sion, after alluding to the numerous improvements in
surgery which have lately occurred in Europe, he  stated
that they were not confined to one side of the Atlantic,
but that several very important ones were due  to an
eminent surgeon of Philadelphia, and among them one 
13
claimed by his predecessor in the chair he then occu-
pied; namely, the operation for artificial anus."
  It is  known  to those who were on familiar  terms
with Dr. Physick, that the information conveyed in this
letter afforded him much satisfaction  and pleasure; but
the author of the "Necrological Notice" was not one
of those with whom Dr. Physick conversed upon the
subject.  The conduct of  Dupuytren upon the subject
of this  invention very naturally created some feeling
in the breast of Dr. Physick towards Dupuytren and
his French friends, who were as disingenuous as him-
self; but this feeling was not extended to the French
nation—neither to French medicine nor to science in
France, whatever he may in some moment of mirth
have  said about  a French cook.   We very  distinctly
remember that, having occasion to visit Dr. Physick
upon business  important to him, though unconnected
with his profession, when ushered into his parlour, we
found him surrounded by French medical periodicals;
and such was the degree of interest which they seemed
to have excited in him, that we found it almost impos-
sible to lead his attention from them to the object of
our visit.  He repeatedly took them up and read pass-
ages aloud;  and certainly, as much from the  ease with
which he read them  as from his expressions of senti-
ment, we  received the impression  that he was in the
habit of reading French medical literature and enjoyed
it.  We maintain—and believe that all who appreciate
the character of Dr. Physick will sustain us—that he
had no  illiberal prejudice against any thing because it
was French.
  As an instance of the peculiarity  of  style adopted 
14
by the biographer upon an occasion invested with the
most solemn and melancholy associations, we would
notice the following words: "When we could swallow
the preceding creed with  the sincerity and simplicity
of John Bull himself."  In a professor writing upon the
subject of the death of a great man, and addressing
himself to philosophers, this may not be  undignified or
trifling; but it certainly would be deemed so in any
other person.  Perhaps it was intended as a severe
and cutting  sarcasm upon this "John Bull;"  if so, it
was unkind.
  We now approach the  notice of Dr. Physick's reli-
gious or theological views; in adverting to which the
biographer has  fallen into the most lamentable confu-
sion, and has, we sincerely believe unconsciously, charged
our departed surgeon with  infidelity of the  darkest
character, and at the same time attacked religion itself.
Let the biographer  speak for  himself:—"The doctrines
of theology occupied much of his attention for twenty
years or more before he died; yet it must be admitted
that he derived a very doubtful  satisfaction from them.
Its* dogmatic points were  always the subjects of  in-
quietude, and were  never fully received by him; diffi-
culties great  and  small were constantly present to his
imagination.  His profession made him the witness of so
much human pain and misery, that he did not know how
to reconcile it with what was said of the goodness of  the
Creator."  * * * "The preceding sombre and question-
able  views of the benevolence of  the Deity, no doubt
arose from his bad  state of health, excluding him from
* To what does "its" refer? 
15
every thing like personal  enjoyment, or a deliberate
survey of the glories and beauties, I may say beatitudes,
of nature; and  from his mind  being therefore never
relieved from the achings produced by his routine  of
professional duty." * * *  " It will now be understood
how Dr. Physick's unsatisfactory prosecution  of reli-
gious inquiries  was the natural and the logical result of
his character.  His sensibility to suffering made  it in-
comprehensible  to him how the  fiat  of Omnipotence,
which spoke the beasts of  the earth into existence and
the cattle, but also infused the most hostile and deadly
passions into them, should, under such circumstances,
declare "God saw that it was good."  * *  * "Impelled
to it (the Christian faith) on one  side by a sense  of
his helplessness; of the necessity of a support  more
than  the world  can give; by a feeling of respect for a
system so universally diffused, advocated and adopted
by men of the greatest virtue and intelligence.  On the
other side, he loas repelled from it by the invincible prin-
ciples of his own mind.  It was an incomprehensible code
to him, and so it continued  to the last.   In former  years
I have  often heard him say, when ruminating on this
subject:  " Death, what can it be; with all our inquiry
it is at last a fearful step in the dark."  "All knowledge
is emptiness itself, or a misty vision."
   "It is  no uncommon thing in the  practice of medi-
cine  to find a woman, born, living, and dying in ob-
scurity, with  little or no  education,  but yet, directed
by her  religious sentiments and vows, exhibit a most
edifying example of meekness and joy at the prospect
of release from a painful existence;  believing that she
had done her part, and had nothing  more to ask for. 
16
 On the contrary, the man of high powers and cultivation,
 emblazoned with distinctions, or tumid with philosophy,
 is found in every  way the reverse." * *  *  "Death is
 to him a region of unpromising  and unknown charac-
 ters; the admitted revelations on  this subject are to
 him either conjectures or fables, for his texture of mind
 renders it unsusceptible of the requisite faith; his belief
 can never  reach that vivifying and enthusiastic point
 which enables him to  say, Death  where is  thy sting!
 grave where is thy  victory!  How  strangely does the
 inside of a great man contrast with the outside—with the
 part and the appendages that the world sees, and delu-
 sively believes to be the source of unfailing happiness."
  We will  begin our comment upon this  strange  and
 sad combination and contradiction of views  and senti-
 ments, by flatly denying that it conveys  correct  im-
 pressions of  the lamented Physick.  We  subjoin  the
 only record  in existence of  Dr.  Physick's  religious
views—one written by himself, and which returned to
his hands from the person to  whom it was directed—
 was preserved by him  until his death, and was never
 by him  contradicted.   It is an  extract from a letter
 written  to  a  relative in '98, when Dr. Physick was a
 physician in  the  "Yellow-fever Hospital,"  and sur-
 rounded by all those most terrible forms of disease and
 death which his biographer would  suppose calculated
 to make him doubt the goodness  and benevolence of
 his  God. Dr. Physick  writes: "Make yourselves easy
 about me;  I  am doing  my duty; and I am at present
 quite easy, in the belief and certainty that I am in  the
 hands of a  most merciful God, in  whom alone is all my
 dependence.   What support and comfort does the Chris- 
17
Han religion afford me!"  Now it seems to us that the
conduct of the biographer in attempting to  represent
to the world the religious opinions  of a great man,
whose example  must have some weight, without any
other data than loose expressions, escaping perhaps in
moments of light conversation, when it could not have
been  understood that those  expressions were to be
formally and solemnly recorded as  the  evidences of
settled convictions, deserves the most unqualified con-
demnation.   At least a little inquiry might have been
made to ascertain whether  or  not there existed any
testimony to rebut the unfavourable and rashly formed
presumptions of the biographer.  Such inquiry would
have resulted in  the production of the conclusive proof
above quoted by us, and of another important fact, to
wit:  that  some  time before  Dr. Physick died, he was
asked by a relative,  "Have you faith in the Christian
religion?" to which  he  replied, with great  emphasis,
" Yes! indeed I have."
  It will be  observed that the biographer  maintains
that Dr. Physick doubted the benevolence of God,
because there was siiffering in the world; that he did not,
could not believe Divine Revelation, because  the  truths
of Christianity were not demonstrated or even not obvious
to the senses; and he was repelled from them by the invin-
cible principles of his own mind; and upon his own
account the biographer  asserts  that  the man of high
powers and cultivation  never exhibits  an edifying ex-
ample of meekness and joy at the prospect of release
from  a painful  existence!  We  have no  authority
offered for any of these conclusions, which  seems to
have been sanctioned by Dr. Physick, with the excep-
tion of a remark once made by him, that "Death was 
18
a fearful step in the dark."  What the Doctor intended
to intimate by this, we know not, nor could his biogra-
pher know; it is susceptible  of many constructions,
all of which  may be consistent with Christian belief.
The biographer has assumed the responsibility of the
public declaration, that one of the most eminent men
of the nineteenth century—a man whose fame had
reached the old world and was treasured there, whose
opinions in his profession were as laws or principles—
a  man  who,  at home or abroad, was admired and
respected—was an Infidel!  And upon what authority?
Idle rumour!   He should have paused and reflected
long, very long, before he threw into the scale of infi-
delity the weight  of such  an example;  for,  if what
he has advanced be  true, he has done more to  assist
the enemies to religion throughout the world, than all
the open attacks of a Paine or a Hume could have
done,  and has sustained one of their most fearful and
dangerous  assumptions.  Had it been true, the cause
of religion  required  of one of its professors silence;
indeed, tremendous was the responsibility assumed by
the biographer when he presumed to face  the contin-
gency of its  being  true or  false.  That  the whole
charge is unfounded, we trust  that we have established
by the testimony of the lamented surgeon himself—by
the production  of the only record in existence of his
religious views;  and we point to his life for the mani-
festation of Christian faith in the practice of the virtues
it inculcates.
   We do know that, during the last year of Dr. Phy-
sick's life, an eminent divine* of the Episcopal church
* Rev. William H. De Lancey, D. D. 
19
was, at his request, constantly at his bed-side, pouring
into his heart the consolations of the Christian religion;
that  they were  gratefully  received, the anxiety  with
which they were repeatedly solicited sufficiently estab-
lishes; though the sincere and glowing eloquence which
doubtless was mingled with them may have increased
the assurance that the waters which  the  dying  man
was imbibing had their fountain in  Heaven.
   The biographer becomes less dangerous to the me-
mory of Dr. Physick, though more so to himself, when
he becomes so wrapt in confusion that, in  spite of his
own religious principles, he maintains that the man of
high powers seldom or never exhibits an edifying ex-
ample  of meekness  and Christian submission!—that
the man of mind can  never look upon death with  com-
posure!—that the inside of a great man is very different
from  his outside!  However, that  part  of the notice
which treats of religion we will dismiss; it defies  criti-
cism—it is brilliantly incomprehensible.
   The conclusion of this  singular  notice relates that
"Some of the incidents of the doctor's last sickness,
marking the decrepitude into which  he had  fallen,  tran-
spired, so as to  become the subjects of public conversa-
tion; for to him  was not granted the boon so eloquently
expressed in the message of the Senate to the President
of the United States on the death of General Wash-
ington, that, 'Favoured of Heaven, he departed without
exhibiting the weakness of humanity.' " *  * * "That
Philadelphia feels impatient and excited when she hears
that her great men have undergone the lot  of declining
humanity; that the pains, the capriciousness, the imbecili-
ties of mind and body of old age, have also come  upon
        3 
20
them." * *  *  * That "Philadelphia requires that the
ermine of reputation be neither stained, torn nor abused
in any way; that the character itself should correspond
with the hypothetical perfection and greatness which are
presumed to attend it; and she denies to age its great
privilege of returning once more to childhood."  This
is the concluding lamentation of the biographer in his
own behalf and in that of the city of Philadelphia over
the departed Physick.
   Before taking our leave of the subject, we desire it
to be understood that we have no disrespectful feeling
towards the author whose "Notice" we have reviewed;
that if any opinion or expression has  escaped in this
hastily written  production which has any tendency to
impugn the motives of that author, or to question the
sincerity of his regard for the lamented  surgeon, we
regret  it extremely, and  solemnly declare  that such
was not intended.  Our business  has been with  the
"Notice,"  and  not with the author; he  might have
complained, and justly  too, if we had said to  him,
" Sir, be prepared for a bad character. You have some
virtues, we believe;  but they are so clogged by weak-
nesses and faults that their force is lost.  You pub-
lished an essay in Latin, which looks something like a
pretension  to literature, but then we  do not believe
that you wrote  it.  You can never have enlarged views
of professional subjects, because you are  bitterly pre-
judiced against a nation (France) the most  distin-
guished in the world of science,  and you will take no
hint from her.  You are very irritable, and  intolerant
of opposition; even the legitimate exhibition of maternal
solicitude will cause an outbreaking of your temper.
The fact is, that your  personal appearance is much 
21
against you; to be honest with you, try as you may to
hide your ears with your hair, we all know that  they
are large, flat and unhandsome; your legs are badly
formed; indeed, nature seems to have  determined that
you should have no symmetry; for the other extremi-
ty of your person, your feet, are, like your ears, large
and flat.   Further, for we must be candid with you, it
is the natural and logical deduction from your charac-
ter that the sublime truths of Christianity must be lost
upon you; into a miserable condition of imbecility and
decrepitude you will fall, and you cannot die 'favoured
of Heaven.' "   Whilst we deny that we have said any
thing like this  to the author, we ask him, do you recog-
nise the portrait?
  We cannot be charged with an "odious comparison"
when we say that, in perusing the Necrological Notice
of Dr. Physick, we did dwell with sincere and  deep
regret upon the absence of a pen which has contributed
some of the most brilliant pages to the  annals of litera-
ture in this country—which has exhibited the principles
and truths of medical science with taste and genius—
a pen, guided by one whose character  is the combina-
tion of many beauties of mind  and heart, now occupy-
ing a chair in the same hall which was  once adorned
by a Physick—one who enjoyed the confidence of that
lamented surgeon always and everywhere—whether in
the profession or  in the most private relations of life—
Nathaniel Chapman.
   The man who is endowed with powers beyond those
ordinarily allowed to his race, frequently labours under
the misfortune of being misunderstood and misjudged.
It is the hand of kindred genius that best can trace
through  all the workings of such a mind, their finely 
22
woven relations, and exhibit  the  consistency of the
whole with sound and philosophical views.  Dr. Phy-
sick needs no defender; his friends ask for him only
justice;  he still lives vividly and freshly in the  minds
of us all; and long, very long, will he be as  a household
memory in most of the families  of  this  community,
cherished amid associations and recollections of friends
relieved of the pangs of disease or saved from the hand
of death.  Without  fortune or  friends he entered upon
the career of his profession—in its close he was blessed
with both.   He had no friend  near the throne of that
most eccentric  and  fickle  of all monarchs—public
opinion; he  determined to earn his place among the
distinguished of  the land, and successfully were his
energies  devoted.  Silently and  unostentatiously he
worked his way through the paths of his profession—
then almost  untrodden in this country—never yielding
to the prejudices of any hour, nor courting the  assist-
ance of popular clamour.  The  corner stone of his fame
was laid early in life—when the fever of '98 threatened
the country with desolation.  He continued through
a long practice to prove that the name then originated
was not the offspring of  a happy combination  of cir-
cumstances  yielding him  opportunities which,  if pre-
sented to any other under  similar relations, might have
produced  the same results.   In the college, the sick
chamber,  the hospital an   the prison, by day and by
night,  almost without res  through the whole  of his
professional life he was at work, bringing from each
and all the materials for an  enduring fame, until it
was built up like the temple of Solomon, "where neither
the sound of the axe nor the hammer was heard." 
 
 
 
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