ters the terrors of the amputation. It is a distortion of words from their natural sense, to call that man a coward, who has completely conquered the fear of death.

Among the most remarkable persons who have contended for the innocence, and even for the merit of some suicides, are two eminent English divines of the seventeenth century, whose writings are now little read. The first was the celebrated Dr. Donne, who was probably driven to the contemplation of this question by his own sufferings. While he was secretary to Lord Chancellor Egerton, he married a young lady of rank superior to his own, which gave such offence to his patron, that he was dismissed from his office. He suffered extreme poverty with his wife and children; and in a letter in which he adverts to the illness of a daughter whom he tenderly loved, he says, that he dares not expect relief, even from death, as he cannot afford the expense of the funeral! He afterwards took orders, and was promoted to the deanery of St. Paul's. In the early part of his life, and probably during the period of his sufferings, he wrote a book entitled Bradavaros, "A declaration of that paradox, or thesis, that self-homicide is not so naturally sin, that it may never be otherwise." He did not publish it, but, on the contrary, forbade it "both the press and the fire." He desired "it to be remembered, that it was written by Jack Donne, not by Dr. Donne;" and it was published many years after his death, by his son, a dissipated young man, tempted by his necessities to forget his father's prohibition. It is a very ingenious book, and in substance correct; but written in that paradoxical temper which thrusts forward whatever truth is averse to common opinion, and slightly acknowledges whatever agrees with it. His margin, crowded with references, is a curious proof of the great revolution which a century and a half have produced in the reading of Europe. Of the innumerable multitude of canonists, jurists, and schoolmen whom he has cited, there are not a dozen names now known to the most curious inquirer. Henry Dodwell, the learned nonjuror, had that propensity towards singular speculations, in which ingenious men, who profess slavish principles of government, not unfrequently give vent to the native independence of their understanding. He maintained the innocence of suicide in some cases, in an apology for the philosophical writings of Cicero, prefixed to a translation of "Cicero de Finibus," by his brother nonjuror, the noted Jeremy Collier, a writer remarkable for vulgar shrewdness and coarse vigour, who, by a fatality not unparalleled among translators of a higher order, chose an original the most dissimilar to himself, and attempted an English version of the most elegant and majestic of prose writers.

EULOGIUM ON THE LATE DR. RUSH.

We have before us an introductory discourse to a course of lectures lately delivered in the college of physicians and surgeons, by Dr. David Hosack, professor of the theory and practice of physic and clinical medicine, in the university of the state of New-York. After an exordium, giving an account of the additional means of instruction recently provided in the medical establishment of New-York, Dr. H. proceeds to point out what he deems the proper method of cultivating the science of medicine. He recommends the inductive system of philosophizing, as the only sure means of acquiring correct principles in science, and enforces the same by the celebrated examples of Bacon, Boyle, and Newton, in physics; of Reid, Beattie, and Stewart, in metaphysics; and of Hippocrates, Sydenham, and Boerhaave, in medicine. After dwelling particularly upon the respective merits of these distinguished medical characters, he concludes with the following eulogy on our countryman, the late Dr. Benjamin Rush.

BUT, gentlemen, while we thus revere the great and good of the old world, let us do homage to merit in the new. While we acknowledge the benefits which the science of medicine has received from the physicians of Europe, let us not be unmindful of the debt of gratitude we owe to a native of our own soil, who was no less an ornament to human nature, than his various exertions have been precious to his profession, to science, and his country.

Your feelings, I trust, will be in unison with mine, while, in addition to the numerous offerings of public and private respect, which have been paid to the memory of Doctor Benjamin Rush, we devote a few moments to the contemplation of the professional attainments, the public services, the moral and religious character, which make up the portrait of that distinguished philosopher and physician.

Doctor Rush was born on the 24th December, 1745, on his father's estate, about twelve miles from the city of Philadelphia. His ancestors followed William Penn from England to Pennsylvania, in the year 1683. They chiefly belonged to the society of quakers, and were all, as well as his parents, distinguished for the industry, the virtue, and the piety, characteristic of their sect. His grandfather, James Rush, whose occupation was that of a gunsmith, resided on his estate near Philadelphia, and died in the year 1727. His son John, the father of Dr. Rush, inherited both his trade and his farm, and was equally distinguished for his indus

try and ingenuity. He died while his son Benjamin was yet young, but left him to the care of an excellent and pious mother, who took an active interest in his education and welfare. In a letter which I had the pleasure to receive from Dr. Rush, a short time before his death, and which was written upon his return from a visit to the tomb of his ancestors, he thus expresses the obligation he felt for the early impressions of piety he had received from

his parents:

"I have acquired and received nothing from the world which I prize so highly as the religious principles I inherited from them; and I possess nothing that I value so much as the innocence and purity of their characters."*

But this was not the only source of that virtue and religion for which he was so eminently distinguished. His mother, as if influenced with a presentiment of the future destinies of her son, resolved to give him the advantages of the best education which our country then afforded: for this purpose he was sent, at the early age of eight or nine years, to the West Nottingham Grammar School, and placed under the care of his maternal uncle, the Rev. Doctor Samuel Finley, an excellent scholar and an eminent teacher, and whose talents and learning afterwards elevated him to the presidency of the college of Princeton. At this school young Rush remained five years, for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, and other branches necessary to qualify him, as preparatory for a collegiate course of study. But under the tuition and guidance of Dr. Finley, he was not only instructed in classical literature; he also acquired what was of no less importance, and which characterized him through life-a habit of study and observation, a reverence for the christian religion, and the habitual performance of the duties it inculcates for his accomplished and pious instructor not only regarded the temporal, but the spiritual welfare of those committed to his care.

At the age of fourteen, after completing his course of classical studies, he was removed to the college of Princeton, then under

The letter here referred to was originally addressed, by Dr. Rush, to the Hon. John Adams, Esq. late President of the United States: from a copy of the same, sent to the author by Dr. Rush, several of the preceding interesting particulars have been taken.