ture, the more are we
enabled and inclined to estimate, to love, and to revere, a being so
compassionate and beneficent. If Physicians are, what I once heard them
called by a lively friend, the Soldiers of Humanity, engaged in a
perpetual, and too often, alas! unsuccessful conflict against the
enemies of life; HOWARD is not only entitled to high rank in our corps,
but he is the very Caesar of this hard, this perilous, and, let me add,
this most honourable warfare. Perhaps the ambition of the great Roman
Commander, insatiate and sanguinary as it was, did not contribute more
to the torment and destruction of the human race, than the charity of
the English Philanthropist has contributed to its relief and
preservation. Of this we are very certain, the splendid and
indefatigable Hero of Slaughter and Vain-glory did not traverse a more
extensive field, nor expose himself more courageously to personal
danger, than our meek and unostentatious Hero of Medical Benevolence. In
point of true magnanimity, I apprehend the spirit of Caesar would very
willingly confess, that his own celebrated attempts to reduce Gaul and
Britain were low and little achievements, when compared to the
unexampled efforts by which Howard endeavoured to exterminate or subdue
(those enemies more terrific) the Gaol Fever, and the Plague.

"But leaving it to more able and eloquent panegyrists to celebrate the
originality, the boldness, and all the various merit of his
philanthropic exertions, I shall confine myself to a few remarks, and
chiefly professional ones, on his invaluable character. It appears to me
highly worthy of observation, that Howard, before he entered on his
grand projects of Public Benevolence, was subject to those little, but
depressive variations of health which have betrayed many a
valetudinarian into habits of inaction and inutility. Happily for
himself, and for mankind, this excellent person surmounted a
constitutional bias to indolence and retirement. The consequence
sequence was, he became a singular example of activity and vigour. His
powers, and enjoyments of bodily and mental health, augmented in
proportion to the extensive utility of his pursuits.

"Beneficial as his life has been to the world, his memory may be still
more so. It may prove a perpetual blessing to mankind, if it dissipates,
as it ought to do, a weak and common prejudice, which often operates as
a palsy upon the first idea of a great and generous undertaking. The
p