Edward Jcnner as Naturalist. 
49 
us that he was the only one of a long line of ancestors and 
relatives who was not a graduate of Oxford. It has been 
questioned, however, whether this very fact, his having 
spent so much of his early life communing with nature in 
the groves and fields of the country, had not quickened his 
powers of observation as nothing else could have done, and 
the very comparative solitude in which he had lived engen¬ 
dered habits of reflection which the constant change of 
subjects of thought at the halls of an university might have 
failed so fully to develop. Many years afterwards, when 
he had acquired fame, his friends desired that he should 
become a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of 
England. The Council of that very conservative body in¬ 
sisted that he should undergo the usual examination as to 
his knowledge of the classics, upon which he exclaimed 
that he would not take the time to refresh his mind regarding 
them for a diadem. “That, indeed,” he said, “were but a 
bauble. I would not doit for John Hunter’s museum itself.” 
* 773 Jenner obtained his license to practice, and 
returned to Berkeley, commencing both as a surgeon and 
apothecary, which were then alike considered as somewhat 
inferior to the pure physician, to assume whose duties was 
barred by many restrictions. He is described as a man of 
moderate stature, rotund, with a short, thick neck, a florid, 
jovial face, lips indicating love for the table, mirth and 
good company, a nose quick to express emotion, with eyes 
of clear gray, and arched brows, a capacious forehead, and 
hair that became iron-gray. By no means handsome, but 
with goodness in every line. He rode to see his patients 
in the saddle, in a blue coat with yellow buttons, buckskin 
breeches, well polished jockey boots with silver spurs, and 
carried a smart whip with silver handle. His hair was en 
qucur, or bagged, and he wore a broad-brimmed hat. Within 
doors he dressed in a blue coat, white waistcoat, nankeen 
breeches and white stockings. He lived, it has been said, 
“with the generosity of a good man, and the simplicity 
which befits a great one.” 
