INTRODUCTION. xv 



A better son and husband, or a fonder father than Mr. 

 Hewson never existed. He was honoured with the friendship 

 of many respectable persons, now living, and the late Sir John 

 Pringle showed him singular marks of regard. 



Mr. Hewson' s manners were gentle and engaging; his 

 ambition was free from ostentation, his prudence was without 

 meanness, and he was more covetous of fame than of fortune. 



You will, I trust, readily forgive me, if I have been more 

 prolix than you desired. It would be no easy matter to relate 

 bare facts without some comment on such a subject. 



I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, 



MARY HEWSON. 



Kensington, Aug. 30, 1782. 



Mr. Hewson' s mother, whose maiden name was Heron, was 

 a native of Hexham, and allied to several respectable families 

 in that town. She had eleven children, of whom he and three 

 daughters only remained in 1767, when his father died. 



In the autumn of 1759 Mr. Hewson came to London, 

 lodged with Mr. John Hunter, and attended Dr. William 

 Hunter's Anatomical Lectures at a house in Covent Garden. 

 Hewson's diligence and skill soon recommended him to the 

 favorable notice of the brothers ; and when Mr. Hunter went 

 abroad with the army, early in 1761, he left to Mr. Hewson the 

 charge of instructing the other pupils in the dissecting-room, by 

 which means, as Mrs. Hewson remarks, he gained money at an 

 age when most students in surgery are only spending it. 



He entered himself a pupil at Guy's and St. Thomas's 

 Hospitals ; and attended Dr. Colin Mackenzie on midwifery, 

 and Dr. Hugh Smith on physic. In gratitude to the liberal 

 confidence of his father, Hewson was justly careful of his 

 money, and this prudence continued through life, though not 

 so as to check the growth of generosity; for no man ever 

 exercised his profession with less avidity of gain ; he disdained 

 every species of meanness, and possessed a judicious liberality 

 which elevated his character. His father had the happiness 

 of living to reap the fruit of this care. 



Mr. Hewson took with him recommendatory letters from 

 Dr. Hunter and Sir John Pringle to the professors at Edinburgh, 

 and studied there until the winter of 1762, when he returned 



