418 LETTER TO 



invigorating exhortations to resistance against 

 its common and most dangerous enemy, when 

 almost every one was benumbed by despair, 

 and sought only to prolong a miserable exist- 

 ence by base submission ; " all men," said Mr. 

 Burke, " possessed of an uncontrolled discre- 

 tionary power, leading to the aggrandizement 

 and profit of their own body, have always 

 abused it ; and I see no particular sanctity 

 in our own times, that is at all likely, by a 

 miraculous operation, to over-rule the course 

 of nature." I have thought proper to add thus 

 much, to free myself from the suspicion of being 

 actuated, in what I have written, by private re- 

 sentments against individual members of the 

 college. If such feelings had ever been pro- 

 duced in me, it would have become my duty, 

 and I trust I should have had strength to per- 

 form it, either to stifle them as unworthy of 

 life, or to make known their existence, in a 

 more direct way than the present, to those who 

 had given them birth. 



A more difficult task, my Lord, remains for 

 me to perform that of again apologising to 

 you for this letter. When I began it, my only 

 view was to acquaint your Lordship with the 

 event of an application to the college of Phy- 

 sicians, which had been occasioned by your 

 advice. But, after I had proceeded some way 



