but not malicious, disdained dissimulation, and in his gay or serious hours preserved a settled detest. ation of falsehood. So that he was an open and undisguised friend or enemy, entirely unacquainted with the artifices of flatterers, but so judicious in the choice of friends, and so constant in his affection to them, that those with whom he had contracted familiarity in his youth, had for the greatest part his confidence in his old age.

His abilities, which would probably have enabled him to have excelled in any kind of learning, were chiefly employed, as his station required, on polite literature, in which he arrived at very uncommon knowledge, which, however, appears rather from ju. dicious compilations than original productions. His style is lively and masculine, but not without harshness and constraint, nor perhaps, always polished to that purity which some writers have attained. He was at least instrumental to the instruction of mankind, by the publication of many valuable performances, which lay neglected by the greatest part of the learned world; and, if reputation be estimated by usefulness, he may claim a higher degree in the ranks of learning than some others of happier elo. cution, or more vigorous imagination.

The malice or suspicion of those who either did not know, or did not love him, had given rise to some doubts about his religion, which he took an opportunity of removing on his death-bed by a voluntary declaration of his faith, his hope of everlasting salvation from the revealed promises of God, and his confidence in the merits of our Redeemer, of the sincerity of which declaration his whole be

haviour in his long illness was an incontestible proof; and he concluded his life, which had been illustrious for many virtues, by exhibiting an example of true piety.

Of his works we have not been able to procure a complete catalogue: he published,

"Quintilianus," 2 vols. 4to.

"Valerius Flaccus,"

"Ovidius,” 3 vols. 4to.

"Poetæ Latini Minores," 2 vols. 4to. "Buchanani Opera," 2 vols. 4to.

Cum notis

variorum.

SYDENHAM.*

THOMAS SYDENHAM was born in the year 1624, at Windford Eagle in Dorsetshire, where his father, William Sydenham, Esq. had a large fortune. Under whose care he was educated, or in what manner he passed his childhood, whether he made any early discoveries of a genius peculiarly adapted to the study of nature, or gave any presages of his future eminence in medicine, no information is to be obtained. We must therefore We must therefore repress that

curiosity which would naturally incline us to watch the first attempts of so vigorous a mind, to pursue it in its childish enquiries, and see it struggling with rustick prejudices, breaking on trifling occasions the shackles of credulity, and giving proofs, in its casual excursions, that it was formed to shake off the yoke of prescription, and dispel the phantoms of hypothesis.

That the strength of Sydenham's understanding, the accuracy of his discernment, and ardour of his curiosity, might have been remarked from his infancy by a diligent observer, there is no reason to

* Originally prefixed to the New Translation of Dr. Sydenham's Works, by John Swan, M.D. of Newcastle in Staffordshire, 1742. H.

doubt. For there is no instance of any man, whose history has been minutely related, that did not in every part of life discover the same proportion of intellectual vigour; but it has been the lot of the greatest part of those who have excelled in science, to be known only by their own writings, and to have left behind them no remembrance of their domestick life, or private transactions, or only such memorials of particular passages as are, on certain occasions, necessarily recorded in public registers.

From these it is discovered, that at the age of eighteen, in 1642, he commenced a commoner of Magdalen-Hall in Oxford, where it is not probable that he continued long; for he informs us himself, that he was withheld from the university by the commencement of the war; nor is it known in what state of life he engaged, or where he resided during that long series of publick commotion. It is indeed reported that he had a commission in the King's army, but no particular account is given of his military conduct; nor are we told what rank he obtained when he entered into the army, or when, or on what occasion, he retired from it.

It is, however, certain, that if ever he took upon him the profession of arms, he spent but few years in the camp; for in 1648 he obtained at Oxford the degree of batchelor of physick, for which, as some medicinal knowledge is necessary, it may be imagined that he spent some time in qualifying himself.

His application to the study of physick was, as he himself relates, produced by an accidental acquaintance with Dr. Cox, a physician eminent at

that time in London, who in some sickness pre scribed to his brother, and, attending him frequently on that occasion, enquired of him what profession he designed to follow. The young man answering that he was undetermined, the Doctor recommended physick to him, on what account, or with what arguments, it is not related; but his persuasions were so effectual, that Sydenham determined to follow his advice, and retired to Oxford for leisure and opportunity to pursue his studies.

It is evident that this conversation must have happened before his promotion to any degree in physick, because he himself fixes it in the interval of his absence from the university, a circumstance which will enable us to confute many false reports relating to Dr. Sydenham, which have been confidently inculcated, and implicitly believed.

It is the general opinion that he was made a physician by accident and necessity, and Sir Richard Blackmore reports in plain terms [Preface to his Treatise on the Small Pox], that he engaged in practice without any preparatory study, or previous knowledge, of the medicinal sciences; and affirms, that, when he was consulted by him what books he should read to qualify him for the same profession, he recommended Don Quixote.

That he recommended Don Quixote to Blackmore we are not allowed to doubt; but the relater is hindered by that self-love which dazzles all mankind from discovering that he might intend a satire very different from a general censure of all the ancient and modern writers on medicine, since he might perhaps mean, either seriously or in jest, to insinuate