vi 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 



Although he was surrounded by an increasing family, frequent and 

 unexpected vexations, and the defeat of all his favourite projects, each in 

 its turn did not in the least dishearten him, but, on the contrary, were con- 

 tinual incentives to his professional activity and to the most extended 

 literary research. For nearly four years, thus circumstanced, he concealed 

 his anxieties from those he most loved, maintained a cheerful demeanour 

 among his friends, pursued his theoretical and practical inquiries into every 

 accessible channel ; and, at length, by his exertions, and the blessing of God, 

 surmounted every difficulty, and obtained professional reputation and emo- 

 lument, sufficient to satisfy his thirst for fame, and to place him in what 

 are regarded as reputable and easy circumstances. 



In 1795, he gained a premium of twenty guineas by successfully com- 

 peting before the Medical Society ; having presented the best dissertation 

 on the question, " What are the diseases most frequent in workhouses, poor- 

 houses, and similar institutions, and what are the best means of cure 

 and of prevention." Soon after, his talents and acquirements began to be 

 highly appreciated, and in 1797 he commenced his translation of Lucretius. 

 ♦ To his knowledge of the Hebrevv^, Greek, Latin, French, and Italian, he now 



added that of the German, Spanish, and Portuguese; and, by the year 1800, 

 he had made considerable attainments in the Arabic and Persian languages. 

 Very soon he gave evidence m some of the Reviews of his success in 

 these difficult languages, and attracted the attention and secured the kind 

 offices of many of the literati of Great Britain. 



He next published his " History of Medicine," which has not since been 

 surpassed either in accuracy or style. During the few years which in- 

 tervened between his temporal embarrassments and his final triumph over 

 them, in 1812, besides multiplied productions of his pen in prose and poetry, 

 of which a catalogue would be too proUx for our present purpose, he made 

 a translation of the Song of Songs or Sacred Idyls, Essay on Medical Tech- 

 nology, Translation of the Book of Job ; and, in conjunction with Dr. Gregory 

 and Mr. Bosworth, prepared for the press the Pantologia, or Universal 

 Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Words, in twelve volumes, royal octavo. 



In the year 1810, he v^^as invited to deliver a series of lectures at the 

 Surrey Institution, "on any subjects, literary or scientific, which would be 

 agreeable to himself." He complied with the request of the directors, and 

 delivered a first, second, and third series of lectures during three successive 

 .winters, to crowded audiences which attended with gratification and de- 

 light. His subjects were — of the first series, "The Nature of the Material 

 World ;" the second, " The Nature of the Animate World ;" and the third, 

 " The Nature of the Mind." To these lectures we are indebted for the 

 nucleus upon which Dr. Good afterward amplified, until the " Book of 

 Nature" was the finished product. 



He continued, in addition to these immense intellectual labours, to perform 

 the duties of surgeon and apothecary, walking twelve or fifteen miles a day 

 through the streets of London, until the year 1820, when he added the more 

 elevated character of a physician, and, in his own language, " began the 

 ^ world afresh, with good omens and a fair breeze." Immediately afterward, 

 he published his " Physiological System of Nosology," and within two 

 years, " The Study of Medicine" was finished. This work the British 



