MEMOIR OF Dlt WKKillT. ^_ 177 



it was to be a lmsband or a father, it was not because 

 he wanted the sentiments of tenderness which give to 

 these endearing relations their intrinsic value. The 

 family of his brother were to him as so many adopted 

 children ; and on them he lavished all a parent's fond- 

 ness. He survived his brother only a very few months, 

 and to the last maintained for him that strong affec- 

 tion which is so strikingly evinced throughout their 

 long and interesting correspondence. 



Among the peculiar objects of his care, was the 

 pale student, struggling for the acquisition of know- 

 ledge, against the depressing influence of penury 

 and neglect ; toiling perhaps for mere subsistence, 

 during the course of academical learning, which 

 his meritorious ambition had prompted him to pur- 

 sue ; until he has at length been enabled to sur- 

 mount the numerous obstacles which beset his path, 

 to emancipate himself from the unlettered and de- 

 graded caste to which he originally belonged, and 

 to rise to some distinguished station in a learned 

 and honourable profession. Such successful strug- 

 gles are not uncommon in the Scottish Universi- 

 ties ; and Dr Wright, though slow at the outset to 

 encourage so hazardous an undertaking, was never 

 backward with his purse, his counsel, or his influence, 

 to promote its accomplishment, when he found a fit 

 occasion for the exercise of his benevolence. 



" Open as day to melting charity," his hand was ever 

 ready to second the impulse of his heart, for the succour 

 of the aged and the needy, the widow and the orphan. 

 In Crieff, his native village, as well as in Edinburgh, 



M 



