carrying on his various pursuits with the order which has been already adverted to. After his decease, the effects of this love of method and orderly arrangement were more than ever evinced. For though his professional and other occupations continued to employ him daily, until the very eve of his journey to Shepperton; yet, when his papers came to be examined, they were found with labels and indorsements, describing the nature of each packet,—which was of little, which of much, which of immediate, which of remote consequence, which related to his profession, which to his banker, which to the concerns of his daughter Mrs Neale, which to any of his friends, which to proposed new editions of some of his works, which to a work just ready for the press-as completely assorted, described and specified, as if for the last six months of his existence he had neglected everything else, and acted with unremitting reference to the injunction- Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die and not live.'

As a literary man Dr Good appeared under two distinct characters,―part of his works relating to professional topics, and the remainder to subjects of a different description. The latter do not require any very particular notice. He seems, in their composition or compilation, to have followed the example of Lord Kames, who, as we are told, used to sit down to write a book on any subject which he had occasion to study. This seems to be much like beginning at the wrong end of the business; and whether or not it may be calculated to answer the purpose of the writer, the old-fashioned method of studying first and writing afterwards would plainly be more conducive to the edification of the reader. That Dr Good actually proceeded on this plan appears from the assertion of his biographer, who says " This work (the translation of Lucretius) he undertook, partly at the entreaty of his literary friends, but principally, as I have more than once heard him state, that he might bring himself under something like the urgency of a moral necessity to become thoroughly acquainted with the utmost possible variety of subjects upon which men of literature, science, and investigation, had been able to throw any light."+―The astonishing imperfection, in point of knowledge, with which he entered on his very important undertaking, is most completely proved by an acknowledgment of ignorance or forgetfulness, which would have been inexcusable in a seventh-form boy at a public school.

In a letter to his friend Dr Nathan Drake of Hadleigh, written in September 1798, he says,

"I do not know whether among the extracts you have done me the honour to select from my version, ‡ you have made choice of that which I have given as a specimen in my Prospectus. I mean the little episode on the sacrifice of Iphigenia. There is an error which

* Idem, pp. 119, 120.

+ Idem, pp. 84, 85. That is for the purpose of insertion in the Literary Hours.'

has crept into the last line but one of my translation, owing to my having forgotten the actual state of the Grecian fleet at the time that the sacrifice was demanded, and to my not having had an opportunity of consulting the Iphigenia of Euripides upon the subject. Having, however, obtained of late a perpetual admission into the readingrooms of the British Museum, among other books I have been again reading this part of the dramas of the Greek poet-and I find that on the demand of Chalchas, the fleet was not in a storm, which such a sacrifice was necessary to extricate it from, but absolutely lying without wind in the harbour at Aulis, and so totally becalmed that it could not possibly proceed to sea. It was to obtain a breeze, therefore, and to get liberated from this imprisonment, that Chalchas insisted upon the death of Iphigenia; and the verse to which I refer, instead of being

'Of Grecian navies rescued thus from storms,'

should be corrected

⚫ Of Grecian navies favour'd thus with gales.' The Latin of Lucretius will apply equally to both, whether a happy escape from port or from tempests :

• Exitus ut classi felix, faustusque daretur '"*

Hence it appears that Dr Good did not always write from the fulness of his knowledge; but collecting his information as he proceeded, he made use of it according to his own conception of its importance at the moment of its acquisition. He thus accumulated much that was irrelevant and heterogeneous, and combined it with what was really illustrative of his subject.

The principal medical publications of the subject of this memoir, are his Nosology,' and his Study of Medicine.' The former of these works is liable to an objection, arising from the present state of medical science, which is by far too imperfect to admit, for any purpose of practical utility, of a systematic terminology. The attempt of Dr Good, like many others of the same kind, irresistibly recalls to mind the sarcastic observation of the French critic

'Si vous ne pensez pas, créez des nouveaux mots.'

6

In one respect the characteristic industry of the author has been employed with advantage in his Physiological Nosology,' as he has subjoined to the peculiar designations which he has thought proper to bestow on the diseases included in his system their chief technical and vernacular synonymes, confining the vernacular names to the English, German, and French languages, and the technical ones principally to the Greek, Latin, and Arabic.

6

The treatise on the Study of Medicine' is by far the most valuable of all Dr Good's productions. And its excellence

* Mem. of Dr M. Good, pp. 86, 87.

obviously originated in its being composed on a different plan from most of his other works; since, instead of taking up a subject with which he was but little acquainted, he has here presented his readers with the result of the experience of his whole professional career, as well as with the fruits of his studies in the walks of ́literature and science.

CATALOGUE OF THE WORKS OF DR JOHN MASON GOOD.

1. Maria; an Elegiac Ode. 1789, 4to.

2. A Dissertation on the Diseases of Prisons and Poor-houses, 1795. 12mo.

3. The History of Medicine, so far as it relates to the Profession of the Apothecary, from the earliest accounts to the present period. 1795, 12mo.

4. A Dissertation on the best means of employing the Poor in Parish Workhouses. 1798, 8vo. 2nd edit. 1805.

5. A Second Address to the Members of the Corporation of Surgeons of London. 1800.

6. The Triumph of Britain; an Ode. 1803.

7. The Song of Songs; or Sacred Idylls, translated from the Hebrew; with Notes, critical and explanatory. 1803, 8vo.

8. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr Alexander Geddes. 1803, 8vo.

9. Lucretius on the Nature of Things, translated from the Latin; with philological and explanatory Notes and the original Text. 1805, 2 vols. 4to.

10. An Anniversary Oration, delivered before the Medical Society of London. 1808.

11. An Essay on Medical Technology. 1810.

12. The Book of Job, literally translated from the original Hebrew, and restored to its natural arrangement; with Notes, critical and illustrative. 1812, 8vo.

13. A Physiological System of Nosology; with a corrected and simplified Nomenclature. 1817, 8vo.

14. The Study of Medicine. 1822, 4 vols. 8vo. 2nd. edit. 1825, 5 vols. 8vo.

15. The Book of Nature. 1826, 3 vols. 8vo.

16. A Sketch of the Revolution in 1688.

17. An Essay on Providence, inserted in Dr Gregory's Memoirs of

Dr Good, p. 38 to 55.

18. A Translation of the Book of Proverbs, MS.

19. A Translation of the Psalms, MS.

20. Contributions to the Pantologia, and to various periodical publications.

ANTHONY ROBINSON.

"Were the Supreme Being to appear before me, and say- Mortal! lo, in my right hand is all truth, and in my left hand the love of truth; choose between them:' I should make answer- Lord, give me the contents of thy left hand; those of thy right hand can be held by none but thee." "

LESSING.

ANTHONY ROBINSON was born in July 1762, at Kirkland, near Wigton, in Cumberland. His father John Robinson, and his direct ancestors, during several centuries, had resided on their paternal inheritance, and were, in the language of the northern counties, statesmen. In the happy mediocrity of his birth Mr Robinson took pleasure, but rather in accordance with the prophet's prayer, than as a modification of family pride. He received his education at the endowed grammar-school of Wigton, where mathematics and the higher classics were taught. Being the youngest of three sons, he was designed by his father for trade, and his education was therefore probably limited by that object. Of his attainments in school learning little is known. It was a peculiar feature of his mind to hold in too little estimation everything purely ornamental. Neither the fine arts nor polite literature had any value in his eyes, except in subserviency to serious truths and important duties. His avowed indifference to classical learning must have manifested itself both as cause and effect in the direction of his studies. He served an apprenticeship at Cockermouth in Cumberland; but his father's death having left him in possession of a small property, and master of his own actions, on attaining his majority he availed himself of his liberty by becoming a pupil of Dr Caleb Evans, of Bristol, the head of an academy belonging to the Calvinistic Baptists. We are unable to account for Mr Robinson's abandonment of the church of England, in which he was brought up, or his preference of a community so widely different from the establishment. But we find that, having submitted to the rite of baptism (by immersion) he pursued his studies for the usual period of three years; and at the end of that time accepted, under the auspices of his tutor, an invitation to supply, for six months, an orthodox Baptist

church, at Fairford in Gloucestershire. He had, however, scarcely assumed the ministerial office, before his sensitive and scrupulous mind was disturbed by the discovery, that he was not universally acceptable to his congregation. On this he wrote to the church, inviting his own dismissal. In the answer he was informed, in respectful and kind language, that some members found his ministry "not adapted to their edification:" and he was released from his engagement.

He now returned to the north, and even then contemplated resuming his first pursuits as a man of business. From this he was diverted by an invitation through his friend Mr Job David, then a General Baptist minister at Frome, who had recommended him to the church of that community, assembling at Worship street, London. And it is worthy of remark, as shewing how early Mr Robinson had made known to his friends that peculiar mode of thinking which afterwards gave occasion to such notable productions from his pen, that Mr David urged as a reason for his friend's remaining in the ministry the intolerance of their churches. As if the correction of this vice was a fitter object for the labours of an ardent and vigorous mind than the support of any system of abstract metaphysical opinions. In no other way, probably, could Mr R. have been brought to adopt the ministry as a profession. A rapid and striking change had taken place in his opinions and feelings when he first assumed the ministerial office at Fairford. No sooner was the duty imposed on him of accurately defining the articles of the creed he was to promulgate, than his faculties being sharpened by that sense of duty, he felt his inability to fathom the mysteries of orthodoxy, and he trembled before the responsibility of being an assertor dogmatically of any doctrines. He was informed that the learned Mr Bulkeley, who had preached in Worship street Meeting, was, some sort a Unitarian." In fact, neither Mr Bulkeley nor Mr Noble, the last pastor of the church, had deviated farther from popular opinions than Arianism. The unfixed state of sentiment in the church on the dogma concerning the person of Christ, was a recommendation to the young divine, and he consented to become their preacher, but the more solemn charge of the pastoral office he did not accept.

❝ in

His personal connexion with his old friend and tutor remained unbroken. In a letter from the doctor to his former pupil, written about this period, he kindly laments the change in his opinions, rejoicing, however, that he had "not sunk into Socinianism,' which he thought "less consistent than sober Deism;" and gently hinting that his young friend would do well to "fix in Arianism-though far from the truth," rather than be "thus ever learning," and "kept fluctuating in the boundless ocean of spe