MEMOIR OF DR. SEVAN. 
143 
“ not at home !” Revolting at the falsehood, he omitted the 44 not,” for which he 
received an angry reprimand, ending with, 44 You are so d-d conscientious, 
sir, you can’t tell a lie !” He reaped, however, the full benefit of his unflinching 
integrity ; for through the remainder of his noviciate no similar concession was 
demanded, though traps were occasionally laid, to ascertain whether he would be 
equally scrupulous when the expediency affected himself. That his principles 
remained unsullied, his preceptor bore honourable testimony, after his engagement 
expired. The same scrupulous observances have ever adhered to him, and he 
has frequently remarked in conversation, that the modern practice of explaining 
away the deceit of 44 not at home,” is undermining the veneration for truth. 
Though in the choice of a profession he submitted to the wishes of his friends, 
his own mind was early and strongty disposed towards the church; perhaps 
rather as a matter of taste, for its abstract associations, than from any higher 
motive; for though the wish was indefinitely cherished, yet when he had arrived 
at years of maturity, and took 44 Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri'’ for 
his motto, he admitted that a profession had been selected for him more suited to 
that spirit of free inquiry, by which his mind was prominently characterized 
from a very early period. 
At every stage of his progress his aim w T as to excel, not to rival his compeers, 
and during three sessions of attendance on the lectures of his instructors, Austin, 
Latham,* and Abernethy, he acquired the honourable soubriquet of the inde¬ 
fatigable. Under the auspices of the late Dr. John Clarke, brother of the 
baronet, he commenced his course of private practice, at Mortlake, near London, 
with an elderly gentleman in whose family he remained nearly five years; still 
continuing to store his mind for those congenial pursuits which were the beacon 
lights of his career. 
At the close of this engagement he settled on his own ^account, as a general 
practitioner, at Stoke-upon-Trent, in the Staffordshire Potteries, and after the 
lapse of a few successful years, he sacrificed his auspicious prospects to the claims 
of private friendship, and entered into partnership, at Congleton, in Cheshire, 
with a fellow-student w r hose health was declining, hoping thereby to impede the 
grogress of phthisis. But, alas ! this act of benevolence proved abortive; the 
malady Jhad advanced too far to be arrested, and at its melancholy close he com¬ 
plied with his friend’s wishes, by succeeding to the whole of the practice. 
His establishment in Cheshire w T as the era of his marriage with the second 
daughter of Mr. Cartwright, an apothecary in Salop, a man of some eminence, 
not merely professionally, but as being one of the last of the bishops of the self- 
constituted Primitive Christian Church. Mr. Cartwright educated his family 
* Dr. John Latham, but not the celebrated ornithologist, whose portrait and memoir appeared 
in our October number. 
