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Obituary.-Dr. Aikin.

politics. The candid, equitable and in-
dependent spirit which pervades the
whole, renders them extremely valuable,
not only as materials for thought and
rules of moral conduct, but as examples
of the temper with which subjects of
such high importance ought to be treated.
In 1796, he accepted an offer made to
him by Mr. Phillips, of undertaking the
editorship of a periodical work at that
time projected by him. This work, the
"Monthly Magazine," was accordingly
superintended by Dr. Aikin from its
commencement; and the numerous pa-
pers furnished by the Editor and his
friends, as well as the general spirit in
which the Magazine was conducted, con-
tributed greatly to establish it in the pub-
lic favour. The connexion of Dr. A.
with this work was, in May 1806, ab-
ruptly and unceremoniously dissolved by
the proprietor, from dissatisfaction with
an award in a dispute in which he was
one of the parties and Dr. Aikin one of
the arbitrators.

In the same year in which the Monthly
Magazine was commenced, Dr. Aikin,
in conjunction with his dear friend, Dr.
Enfield, agreed with Messrs. Kearsley and
Hamilton to undertake a general biogra-
phical dictionary, to be comprised in
about ten quarto volumes. He did not
engage rashly in so serious an occupa-
tion.
From his long unreserved inti-
macy with Dr. Enfield, he felt assured
that he possessed a co-adjutor of similar
views with himself and of indefatigable
industry, aud he anticipated great satis-
faction in the execution of the work.
His own health, however, began to be
impaired in 1797 by residence in London,
and his indisposition rapidly increasing
and assuming a very serious aspect,
obliged him in the ensuing year to quit
the Metropolis. He retired for some
months to Dorking, in Surrey, and in the
pure air of that delightful valley, aided
by gentle horse-exercise and an unusually
fine summer, made some progress to-
wards recovery. In the winter he took
a house at Stoke Newington, in which
henceforth he coutinued to reside. In
the mean time, he had lost by death his
friend and co-adjutor in this great work,
the first volume of which was published
in the Spring of 1799. Some time
elapsed before a successor to Dr. Enfield
could be found, and then commercial
difficulties on the part of the bookseller
interposed, materially impeding the suc-
cess of the work by retarding its regular
progress, so that the tenth and last
volume was not published till 1815.

It is not necessary farther to detail the literary occupations in which Dr. Aikin

was engaged during his residence at
Stoke Newington. While the infirmities
of age pressed with only a light hand,
the greater part of every day was devoted
to writing or reading. Painful and try-
ing was the period when the decay of
the mind, in consequence of a paralytic
attack, began to precede that of the bo-
dily frame, when the memory became
less and less capable of recalling the past,
and the intellect of receiving the impress
of the present. One ray, however, still
enlightened the gloom, and, when all be-
sides was dark, conjugal love still con-
nected him with the external world. He
died December 7, 1822, having nearly
completed his 75th year.

Dr. Aikin was endowed by nature with
a good constitution, and this original ad-
vantage he was always careful to preserve
by strict temperance and abundant exer-
cise: to this was added an intellect of
great activity in acquiring and facility in
well-regulated and cheerful, though far
communicating ideas, and a temper calm,
from sanguine. Hence he possessed in a
very eminent degree the inestimable bles-
sing of a sound mind in a sound body. The
abstractions of mathematical investiga-
tion, and the minute dissection of almost
evanescent ideas which characterizes the
metaphysician, either were not adapted
to his faculties, or did not agree with his
taste, which was strongly attracted to the
useful in morals, in politics, and in the
general conduct of life, and to the agree-
able, the harmonious, the elegant in
objects of amusement. Hence his stores
of knowledge were all producible in the
intercourse of society, and thus gave him
a wide range of subjects for conversation:
these were communicated in simple and
easy, though flowing, language, and regu-
rum and practical politeness, not often
The ruling
lated by a goodness of temper, a deco-
equalled, never exceeded.
principle of his conduct in great as in
small affairs, was equity; that equity,
which is best expressed by the Christian
inaxim of doing to others as we would
wish others to do to us. Kind, generous,
compassionate to all with whom he was
connected, either by ties of kindred and
acquaintance, or in the exercise of his
profession, he had no personal enemies;
and the attachment of his friends was in
proportion to their intimacy with him,
for there was nothing in his moral charac-
ter (using the expression in its widest
extent,) which required to be managed,
Fare thee well, revered and be-
to be kept out of view, to be glossed
loved, till we meet in the eternal world!
AR. AIKIN.
over.

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1822, Nov. 27, Edward Alexander, M. D., of Danett's Hall, near Leicester, after a series of intense and protracted sufferings, which were borne with exemplary fortitude and resignation. As the particulars of his distressing case cannot properly be detailed here, it will be sufficient to remark, that his disorder, which had long been making insidious approaches, first manifested itself in June 1810, and soon began to wear a formidable aspect. A state of peculiarly painful and complicated disease gradually ensued, clouded all the bright prospects which his successful medical career had opened to his view, and compelled him to relinquish the practical part of an occupation to which he was exceedingly devoted and admirably adapted. The few intervals Dr. A. was permitted to eujoy of comparative ease from agonizing pain, were usually passed in reading, meditation and domestic society. Theology and Medicine were the subjects to which he principally directed his attention. On these he had, for many years, read much, and thought still more. His purity of character from early life, his extraordinary moral worth, as well as knowledge and skill in his profession, have rarely been equalled. Nor was his ardent and vigorous mind satisfied with the exercise of his medical functions only. Rising above every selfish consideration, he carried into his practice the most exalted Christian virtues. He was not merely the able physician, but the sympathizing friend and comforter of his patients. He listened to their wants and sorrows, was prompt to aid them by his advice, to pour in the balm of consolation, or to relieve their necessities, as their respective situations and circumstances might require. In the performance of his professional duties he was strictly conscientious. No "respect of persons" did he shew; the rich and the poor partook impartially of his care and assiduity. To the latter his services were gratuitous, and likewise, in a considerable degree, to others, who could not, without difficulty, afford to make him a suitable remuneration. His bountiful hand was ever open to the claims of the indigent and the oppressed, and in all the relations of life, the same ardour, the same uprightness and integrity, the same unwearied activity distinguished his conduct. A remarkable sweetness of disposition, and strong intellectual powers, were, in him, combined with uncommon "singleness of heart." His ruling principle was love to God, displayed in a warm and disinterested love of man, wholly free from party spirit and narrow

distinctions. Devotion was his delight, studying the Scriptures his dearest employment, and his hope rested on the mercies of God in Christ. Perhaps, Dr. A. did not entirely agree with any denomination of Christians; but serious reflection and patient investigation led him to a full conviction of the truth of the leading tenets of Unitarianism, and from the time of his settling in the vicinity of Leicester, he joined the congregation assembling at the "Great Meeting" in that town. In politics, he embraced the liberal side of the question, and was always the firm and strenuous advocate of civil and religious freedom. "Every project for the benefit of his country, and the advancement of knowledge, liberty and truth obtained his zealous support."* His judgment of those who differed from him was uniformly candid and generous, and never did he retain the slightest malevolent or unkind sentiment against persons from whom he had experienced undeserved or injurious treatment.-The subject of this brief, imperfect outline, was the younger son of the late John Alexander, M. D. of Halifax, was born Nov. 25th, 1767, and received his classical education at Hipperholm School, which then was, and still is under the superintendance of the Rev. Richard Hudson, who, for more than half a century, has officiated as afternoon lecturer at the parish church in Halifax. Dr. A. possessed the advantage of being well initiated in the various branches of his profession, during his early youth. At the usual period, he went to London to pursue his anatomical studies, and there beHaving accomplished his object in the came a pupil of the late Sir Wm. Blizard. Metropolis, he repaired to Edinburgh, and finally took his degree at Leyden, with the highest honour, in October 1791.

In the year 1793, he married his first cousin, Ellen, the eldest daughter and co-heiress of the late Samuel Waterhouse, Esq., of Halifax, one of the Justices of the Peace for the West-Riding of the County of York, and a Deputy-Lieutenant for the same district. Dr. A. fixed at Stafford, and was directly appointed physician to the County Infirmary. He removed into the neighbourhood of Leicester, October 1797, where he continued to reside till his deeply-lamented death. All who knew him must regret him, and to his immediate friends his loss is irreparable.

* See Leicester Chronicle, Nov. 30.

Nov. 28, at York House, Bath, of dropsy, DON FRANCISCO ANTONIO ZBA, the Colombian Minister. He had the satisfaction in his last moments of having his family (from whom during many years of his life he had been necessarily separated) with him, Madame and Miss Zea having arrived a few weeks since from Paris to join M. Zea. M. Zea was between 50 and 60 years of age. He was a native of the province of Autioquia, in New Granada, now part of the Republic of Colombia. Great part of his life has been spent in Europe. Under the former Government of Spain, and previous to the Revolution breaking out in South America, he held at different times several offices under the Spanish Government. The Revolution in his own country drew him to the side of Bolivar, whose constant companion and assistant in the great work of liberating his country he was for many years, until his mission to Europe in 1820. At the time of his quitting Colombia he was Vice-President of the Republic, and he had the satisfaction, before taking his departure, of presenting to the Congress the projet of the Constitution of his country, which was afterwards adopted in all its leading particulars. M. Zea was a man of considerable talent, and of scientific and literary attainments of a very respectable class. He possessed great natural acuteness, and a countenance into which he could at times Infuse a degree of penetration that few could escape. In his address to the Congress of Colombia, shortly before his leaving that country for England, he has left a memorial of eloquence of no ordinary cast. His manners were those of a gentleman, which, together with the personal consideration due to him on all accounts, procured for him the society

and the attentions of some of our most distinguished nobility. His government and his countrymen cannot but have been flattered with the distinguished mark of attention paid to M. Zea at the public dinner given to him on the 8th of July last, at the City of London Tavern, at which the most eminent men of all parties joined in shewing the cordial satisfaction with which the establishment of another temple of freedom, in a beautiful, a rich, and an interesting part of the universe, is viewed in this land of constitutional liberty. M. Zea's address to the company on that occasion was marked by discretion, modesty and good sense. There were no bitter railings again Spain -no assumption of arrogant expectations from others. As to Spain, he said, his country was ready to forget and to forgive; and as to other nations, they merely

VOL. XVIII.

I

claimed to be treated with the common
rights of civilized society.

1823, Jan. 1, at his house in Clapton, in his 58th year, SAMUEL PETT, Esq., M.D. Known, esteemed, respected and beloved throughout a very wide circle, his death has produced an impression of grief and distress rarely witnessed. It came upon his friends wholly unprepared for it.

After a few

He had latterly enjoyed a better state of health than usual: his spirits were lively, and he appeared to feel the pleasure which he was in the habit of imparting. On Saturday, the 28th of December, he received a slight and, at the time, imperceptible wound, in performing one of the painful duties of his profession. Gangrene rapidly followed, with Medical skill its usual consequences. and assiduity were in vain. changes, alternately exciting hope and fear, Dr. Pett departed this life on the evening of Wednesday, new-year's day. His mental faculties were entire to the last. His end was calm. And his surviving friends have the consolation of reflecting that after the first few hours of the attack, he endured no positive pain. The shock produced at Hackney, and indeed in the metropolis, by the news of his death, which was carried to numbers of his friends without their being apprized of his illuess, can be conceived by those alone that knew his worth. He was interred on Friday, Jan. 10th, in a family vault, in the churchyard of Hackney, amidst a concourse of spectators, including very many poor persons, whose tears attested their sense of their loss.

On the following Sunday morning, a fu-
neral sermon was preached at the New
Gravel Pit Meeting-House, in which Dr.
Pett had been a sincere worshiper, by
Mr. Aspland, the minister, to an exceed-
The subject
ingly crowded, highly respectable and
deeply-sorrowing audience.

was "The Blessing pronounced by Christ
on the Merciful," Matt. xxv. 34-40.
At the request of the family of the de-
We reserve
ceased, and of the congregation, the ser-
mon is given to the public.
for our next number a memoir of this
excellent and much-lamented man.

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strength as for its susceptibility. While he sat in stern judgment on his own conduct-he obtained the affection-the reverential affection of those who surrounded him. He was a fine specimen of the unbending and ennobling spirit of the older time, and dignified all his opinions by consistency and the habitual exercise of benevolence. As a son, he was a model of attentive and solicitous obedience-as a husband, almost unexampled in cour tesy and kindness as a father, commanding the respect and the veneration of his children. All these links are broken. The virtues which brightened around a pilgrimage of three and seventy years, light the pilgrim's path no longer :-but we will cherish their memory-and patiently look onward to their reward.

J.B.

Jan. 17, in Loudon, in the 72d year of his age, GEORGE EDWARDS, Esq., M. D., late of Barnard Castle, in the County of Durham. He was an eminently patriotic and benevolent man, and devoted his time and fortune to the publication of works on the science of Government, which were less read than from the purity of the writer's motives they deserved. As early as 1788, appeared his "Aggrandizement of Great Britain," in which

among other important plans, that of a Property Tax was first suggested. This plan was submitted to the Government, and the author had many interviews upon the subject with the late Mr. Rose. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Addington afterwards acted upon the suggestion, but, contrary to the author's intention, adopted a tax upon income, instead of property.

Jan. 27, at his house in Bedford Row, CHARLES HUTTON, LL.D., F.R.S., in the 86th year of his age; eminent as a writer on mathematics for upwards of 60 years, during 40 of which he discharged the arduous office of Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, with the highest honour to himself and advantage to his country.

While we are engaged in the melancholy task of revising this Obituary sheet, we see announced in the newspapers the death of Dr. JENNER, the discoverer of Vaccination, who expired on the 26th inst. after a very short illness, at his house in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, in the 74th year of his age.

INTELLIGENCE.

Meetings of the Protestant Dissent

ing Deputies.

Bill of the Unitarians made, through mere perseverance and frequent introduction of its claims on public attention, is one proof of the policy of such a course of proceeding. The Legislature is only to be operated upon beneficially by the expression of public opinion; but the best channel for exciting and directing that public opinion is a frequent introduction of the subject in Parliament, however unsuccessful the first efforts must be expected to be, by persons who form a cor

DURING the past year, several efforts have been made to stimulate the Deputies and their Committee to more active exertions in the great object for which they were originally established, The Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. After so long an existence for a specific purpose, it seemed to many members high time that the real business of the Society should be undertaken in good earn est; that public attention should be re-rect estimate of the principles and mopeatedly drawn to the subject, so as to make its partizans know the justice and strength of their cause; and that the advocates for Religious Liberty should not wait as they have hitherto done, for the lucky chance of some favourable opportunities occurring, but should endeavour to create such opportunities, or at least place themselves in a situation which may enable them to turu a favourable concurrence of circumstances to profitable account. The progress which the Marriage

tives of those with whom we have there to deal. On the General Meeting for receiving the Report of the Committee, two special adjournments took place, and after much discussion the following resolutions were adopted, and we trust that they betoken a steady and active attention to the important cause confided to this body. Resolved, That it is desirable that much more of the active and vigilant attention of this Deputation should be directed to the promotion of

the great object for which it was instituted, and to which all the other subjects of its attention, however useful, ought to be considered subordinate: That this deputation is convinced, from parallel cases in religious and political history, that the end in view can be most effectually and honourably accomplished by active and unremitted efforts to enlighten the public mind and concentrate and direct the temperate exertions of those who ought to co-operate in the cause, and by earnest applications to the Legislature, renewed on every favourable opportunity, and urged on the broadest principles of truth and justice :-That every means should be adopted to give effect to such a course of proceeding, by Annual Reports, by correspondence with the country, and by occasional appeals as well to the public as to the Dissenting body, which shall point out the actual state of religious toleration in this country, explain the relief to be sought, and establish sympathy and confidence between this Deputation and its constituents :— That these Resolutions be printed at the foot of the circular convening the first Meeting of the Deputation for the ensuing year.

Earthquake in Syria.

The following account of this awful calamity is distributed by the Committee for the relief of the sufferers, from the report of JOHN BARKER, Esq., the British Consul at Aleppo. We insert it, in hope of forwarding the work of humanity. "It has fallen to my lot to relate the particulars of an event that has thrown most of the families of this part of Syria into sorrow and mourning, and all into the greatest difficulties and distress.

"On the 13th of August, at half-past mine in the evening, Aleppo, Antioch, Idlib, Riha, Gisser, Shogr, Darcoush, Armenas, every village, and every detached cottage, in this Pachalic, and some towns in the adjoining ones, were in ten or twelve seconds entirely ruined by an earthquake, and are become heaps of stones and rubbish, in which, at the lowest computation, twenty thousand human beings, about a tenth of the popula. tion, were destroyed, and an equal number maimed or wounded. The extreme points where this terrible phenomenon was violent enough to destroy the edifices, seem to be Diabekir and Merkab, (twelve leagues south of Latachia,) Aleppo and Scanderoon, Killis and Khan Shekoon. All within those points have suffered so nearly equally, that it is impossible to fix on a central point. The shock was sensibly felt at Damascus,

Adeno and Cyprus. To the east of Diabekir, and north of Killis, I am not well informed how far the effect extended in those radii of the circle. The shock was felt at sea so violently within two leagues of Cyprus, that it was thought the ship had grounded. Flashes of volcanic fire were perceived at various times throughout the night, resembling the light of the full moon; but at no place, to my knowledge, has it left a chasm of any extent; although in the low grounds slight crevices are every where to be seen, and out of many of them water issued, but soon after subsided.

"There was nothing remarkable in the weather or state of the atmosphere. Edifices on the summits of the highest mountains were not safer than buildings situated on the banks of the rivers, or on the beach of the sea.

"Although slight shocks of earthquakes had been from time to time felt in this country, it is certain that for several centuries none had done any material damage, except one twenty-seven years ago, when a single town, Latachia, was partially thrown down. In 1755, an earthquake was felt at Aleppo and Antioch, which so alarmed the inhabitants, that they all abandoned their houses for forty days, but very little injury was sustained, and no lives lost.

"The appearance of some very ancient edifices renders it probable that this country has not suffered from earthquakes since the memorable one recorded by Gibbon, about twelve centuries ago, in which one-third of the inhabitants of Antioch perished, when that celebrated city was supposed to contain a population of seven hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand souls.

"It is impossible to convey an adequate idea of the scenes of horror which were simultaneously passing in the dreadful night of the 13th of August. Here, hundreds of decrepid parents, half-buried in the ruins, were imploring the succour of their sons, not always willing to risk their own lives by giving their assistance.

"There, distracted mothers were franticly lifting heavy stones from heaps that covered the bodies of their lifeless infants, The awful darkness of the night, the continuance of the most violent shocks, at short intervals, the crash of falling walls, the shrieks, the groans, the accents of agony and despair of that long night, cannot be described.

"When at length the morning dawned, and the return of light permitted the people to quit the spot on which they had been providentially saved, a most affecting scene ensued. You might have seen many, unaccustomed to pray, some prostrate,

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