.MEMOIK OF DB WRIGHT. 19 



pect of a speedy return. " Nothing," he says, ^ could 

 give me more pleasure than to see you, nor greater 

 grief than again to part." The time he would thus 

 have spent he devotes to his professional improve- 

 ment ; — the money, he remits to his father, to purchase 

 those additional comforts which were suitable to his 

 advancement in years. In a subsequent letter, he ac- 

 knowledges the obligation which he owes to his bro- 

 ther for his acquiescence in the measure, and for the 

 kind interest which he took in reconciling their pa- 

 rents to so severe a trial of their patience. " The only 

 consideration which alleviates my grief," he adds, " is 

 the tender care and concern you have ever shewn 

 them. May God reward you for it, and enable me to 

 shew you my gratitude." 



It was at this period that Mr Wright obtained 

 the degree of Doctor of Medicine, through the instru- 

 mentality of a gentleman who had served with him as 

 a surgeon in the navy, and whose father, Dr Simson, 

 at that time occupied a professor's chair in the Uni- 

 versity of St Andrew's, in which he was afterwards 

 succeeded by his son, the early friend of Mr Wright. 



Of the five or six years which Dr Wright had 

 spent in the navy, he uniformly speaks as a series of 

 misfortunes ; but wisely comforts himself with the re- 

 flection, that the slowness of his advancement had 

 operated as a spur to his exertions, and prompted him 

 to improve himself by study, while others were wast- 

 ing their time in idleness and dissipation. Of this he 

 had a striking instance when he first went on board 

 the Levant, where the surgeon, a man of talent and 



