1818.] Lord Woodhouseke. 423 



of the year 1795 he was seized with a long and dangerous fever, 

 accompanied with delirium, and tending frequently to relapse. 

 Under the-anxious care of his friend and physician Dr. Gregory, 

 he 'recovered from the fever ; but in one of the paroxysms of 

 the disease, he had the misfortune to rupture some of the blood- 

 vessels of the bladder — an accident which not only protracted 

 his recovery at the time, but which threatened to degenerate 

 into one of the most painful diseases to which the human frame 

 is subject. 



In the state of weakness and suffering which succeeded this 

 severe illness, Mr. Tytler was for a long time incapable of 

 returning to his professional studies : but his mind was incapable 

 of inactivity ; and he turned willingly to those pursuits in natural 

 history which had formed the amusement and the delight of his 

 youth, and which are, perhaps, of all others, the most suitable 

 to the grateful feelings of convalescence. 



Among the works with which he now amused himself was the 

 once celebrated treatise of Dr. Derham, entitled " Physico- 

 Theology." In perusing it again, with all the affecting associa- 

 tions which the past and the present afforded him, he could not 

 but lament that it was in some degree rendered obsolete by the 

 innumerable discoveries with which science has been enriched 

 since its publication, and that its popularity among those to 

 whom it might be most serviceable was restrained by the number 

 of Latin quotations which remained without a translation. It 

 occurred to him that his hours of convalescence could, not be 

 better employed than in remedying these defects, and in thus 

 extending the usefulness of a work of which he had himself felt 

 the value. This pleasing and unfatiguing task he executed with 

 his usual ardour, and prefixing to it a short but valuable disserta- 

 tion on Final Causes, published it in the year 1799. 



Of this work it is unnecessary for me to enter into any further 

 detail ; but I cannot omit a passage relating to it which I find 

 among Mr. Tytler's papers, and which marks distinctly the 

 great principle by which his studies as well as his conduct were 

 governed. 



" Of all my literary labours (says he), that which affords me 

 the most pleasure on reflection is the edition which I published 

 of ' Derham's Physico-Theology.' The account of the Life 

 and Writings of Dr. Derham. with the shoit disseitation on 

 Final Causes, tire translation of the notes of the author, and the 

 additional notes, containing an account of those more modern 

 discoveries in the sciences and arts which tend further to the 

 illustration of the subjects of the work, are all the original matter 

 of the edition to which 1 have any claim; so that the vanity of 

 authorship has a very small share in the- pleasure 1 enjoy from it. 

 JJut when engaged in that work, L had a constant sense that 1 

 was well employed in contributing, as far as lay in my power, to 

 those great and noble ends which this most worthy man pro- 



