__ chased them did I possess one line of his writings, save bis! 
xvi ADDRESS. 
and that they were tbe only writings of which he desired 4 — 
posthumous publication. 1 hold the sacredness of such a wish 
of such a man, inviolable. And since it has, by an extraordi. 
nary and unlooked for course of. events, fallen to my lot to 
possess them as my own property, with a full right to preserves 
burn, or publish them, I seize with avidity on the first favoura- 
ble opportunity of giving them to the public—though I was 
never destined by their author to inherit nor edit them—nor 
any the least valuable of his Manuscripts. Never till I pur- 
ters to me and my father, Were I without any other motiv 
however, the single fact of my being a public teac of “Ma- 
teria Medica in a new and rising institution 1 
the course 
