H4 DR - LETTSOM CHAP. 



he could with difficulty be lifted from the carriage, and 

 survived but a few days ; talking to Pettigrew almost 

 with his latest breath of the Philosophical Society the 

 child of his old age of which he was the President. He 

 died November i, 1815, and was buried in the presence of 

 a concourse of his poorer patients, and of a few Friends, 

 including William Allen, in the Friends' ground, Bunhill 

 Row, where lie George Fox and Edward Burrough. 



Lettsom was all his life a member of the Friends, 

 although his attachment to the society was not close nor 

 strict ; he attended its meetings not infrequently, and he 

 could on occasion offer a spirited defence of its principles. 

 But his outlook was from an early period a wide one, 

 regarding all men as equally the children of one creative 

 Parent ; hence he was tolerant of all creeds, and governed 

 by the same instinct which led him as a young man to free 

 his slaves. Boswell wrote truly of him : 



His liberal mind holds all mankind 

 As an extended nation. 



' ' I considered, ' ' he wrote in 1788, ' ' the tenets of different 

 religions and professions ; and I thought that there was 

 only one true religion, consisting in doing unto others as 

 we wish others should do unto us. A demure face and 

 sanctimonious exterior I appreciated as nothing, where 

 beneficence was wanting." He held advanced views on 

 the Old Testament, which would now hardly be considered 

 unusual, condemning the evil actions of some of its saints 

 and heroes. In an age when unbelief was common among 

 the studious, Lettsom did not waver from his faith in a 

 Deity of infinite perfection and goodness, whose unmerited 

 blessings he gratefully acknowledged. 1 



Those who knew Lettsom best, best loved him : his 

 foibles were on the surface : Nichols and Pettigrew held 

 him in real affection : "an Israelite without guile " 



1 He is said to have printed an " Essay on Religious Persecution " for 

 presentation to his friends. Fothergill, Works, Hi. pp. xcii-xcvii ; Gent. Mag. 

 1803, 897; 1804, 19; 1815, ii. 473; Verses by Boswell, idem, 1791, i. 367, 

 564 ; Lettsom, MS. Letter, Jan. 22, 1788, in possession of J. J. Green of 

 Hastings ; also MS. Letter to S. J. Pratt, Feb. 15, 1797, in private hands. 



