796 ANNUAL RE G ISTER, 1805. 



person and manners were alike hap- 

 pily adapted to the offices of his 

 profession. 



To an address peculiarly engaging, 

 from its uncommon mixture of dig- 

 nity, respectfulness, and ease, was 

 united a gravity of deportment that 

 bespoke the scriouincKS of interest, 

 not the gloom of apprehension. The 

 expression of a benign sympathy, 

 which, on every occasion of distress, 

 his features borrowed from the ge- 

 nuine feelings of the kindest com- 

 miseration, presented him likewise, 

 the comforter in the physician ; and 

 the topics of encouragement and 

 consolation, which the goodness of 

 his heart, and the ample stores of his 

 cultivated mind, so abundantly sup- 

 plied, enabled him to administer re- 

 lief to the wounds of the spirit, witi 

 no less efficacy than to the diseases 

 of the body. In truth, the admira- 

 ble picture so lately drawn, by his 

 own masterly pencil, in that volume 

 in which he has delineated the re- 

 quisites and qualifications of the 

 physical practitioner,* diiplays the 

 most exact portraiture of himself; 

 and, whilst he there depicted those 

 excellencies of the medical character, 

 which he approved in theory, he 

 unconsciously but described those 

 which he every day exemplified 

 in practice. Indeed, in that most 

 valuable treatise, which he express- 

 ly dedicated as a " paternal legacy" 

 to a much-loved son, and which may 

 now be regarded as a bequest to his 

 brethren of the facul ty and to the pub- 

 lic, he had left behind him a monu- 

 ment of professional integrity and 

 honour, which will exhibit him to 

 those of after-times, what his life 



and conduct have done to his cotcm. 

 porarics, one of the worthiest ob- 

 jects of their admiration and esteem 

 As a literary character^ Dr. Per- 

 cival held a distinguished rank. His 

 earlier publications were devoted to 

 enquiries exclusively medical and 

 philosophical, and have long obtain- 

 ed, for their author, high and de- 

 served reputation amongst the learn- 

 ed, for the powers which thej' evince 

 of sagacious invention, cautious in- 

 vestigation, and scientific research. 

 The subjects which occupied his pen 

 in later years were of a nature the 

 most congenial to his feelings ; and 

 in the several volumes of " Father's 

 " Instructions" and " Moral Disser- 

 " tations," which have appeared at 

 different periods, through a space of 

 25 years, and which were originally 

 conceived with the design of exciting 

 in the breasts of his children a de- 

 sire of knowledge and a love of vir- 

 tue, there is to be found as much of 

 pure style, genuine feeling, refined 

 taste, apt illustration, judicious en- 

 forcement, and pious refiecdon, as 

 can easily be discovered in the same 

 compass of any didactic composition. 

 Perhaps it is not within the reach of 

 human ingenuity to execute such a 

 work, in a niannei better adapted to 

 its object; and certainly, within 

 the range of human selection, 

 there can be no object of higher 

 importance than that which the au- 

 thor held in view, the intellectual, 

 moral, and religious improvement of 

 the rising generation. This, indeed, 

 was the object always nearest to his 

 thoughts; to this he directed the 

 powers of his fancy, the stores of 

 ids memory, and the results of his 



learning. 



* " Medical Ethics ; or a Code of Institutes and Precepts adapted to the Pro- 

 fessional conduct of Physicians and Surgeons." 



