46 MEMOIR OF DR WRIGHT. 



to have been constitutional, and the total want of that 

 brusquerie and self-assurance, so necessary to success 

 in this bustling profession ; or whether he was actua- 

 ted by an undefined and lurking preference for the 

 northern capital, he hesitated about the adoption of 

 the advice which was offered him ; and at length re- 

 solved, as appears by a letter to his brother, to be 

 guided by the opinion of his friends on the other side 

 of the Tweed. 



Dr Wright left London on the 15th of January 

 1778, and arrived soon afterwards in Edinburgh. 

 From thence he proceeded to Crieff, where, if we may 

 judge from the hiatus in the correspondence with his 

 brother, he appears to have made a stay of several 

 months. 



When a young man sets out in life with firmness 

 of character and habits of reflection, sufficient to guide 

 him, unassisted, on his onward path, he generally pro- 

 poses some object in the distance as the goal for which 

 he is to strive. In the case of Dr Wright, the even 

 tenor of his way was never disturbed by any project of 

 unreasonable ambition. The purpose of contributing 

 to the comfort of his parents in their declining years, 

 was, in his case, more a passion than a duty. It con- 

 strained him to hasten his departure from Jamaica 

 prematurely ; and the pain and disappointment he ex- 

 perienced must have been proportionably aggravated, 

 when he found his expected remittances so miserably 

 deficient as to be little more than equal to his own 

 immediate wants. 



With the view of offering some tangible induce- 



