ofession
for myself, his second marriage, etc. He knew him to be his true friend,
and not only wise and honest, but preeminently a man of affairs, _capax
rerum_. Dr. Belfrage was a great man _in posse_, if ever I saw one,--"a
village Hampden." Greatness was of his essence; nothing paltry, nothing
secondary, nothing untrue. Large in body, large and handsome in face,
lofty in manner to his equals or superiors;[28] homely, familiar,
cordial with the young and the poor,--I never met with a more truly
royal nature--more native and endued to rule, guide, and benefit
mankind. He was forever scheming for the good of others, and chiefly in
the way of helping them to help themselves. From a curious want of
ambition--his desire for advancement was for that of his friends, not
for his own, and here he was ambitious and zealous enough,--from
non-concentration of his faculties in early life, and from an affection
of the heart which ultimately killed him--it was too big for his body,
and, under the relentless hydrostatic law, at last shattered the
tabernacle it moved, like a steam-engine too powerful for the vessel it
finds itself in,--his mental heart also was too big for his
happiness,--from these causes, along with a love for gardening, which
was a passion, and an inherited competency, which took away what John
Hunter calls "the stimulus of necessity," you may understand how this
remarkable man--instead of being a Prime Minister, a Lord Chancellor, or
a Dr. Gregory, a George Stephenson, or likeliest of all, a John Howard,
without some of his weaknesses, lived and died minister of the small
congregation of Slateford, near Edinburgh. It is also true that he was a
physician, and an energetic and successful one, and got rid of some of
his love of doing good to and managing human beings in this way; he was
also an oracle in his district, to whom many had the wisdom to go to
take as well as ask advice, and who was never weary of entering into the
most minute details, and taking endless pains, being like Dr. Chalmers a
strong believer in "the power of littles." It would be out of place,
though it would be not uninteresting, to tell how this great resident
power--this strong will and authority, this capacious, clear, and
beneficent intellect--dwelt in its petty sphere, like an oak in a
flower-pot; but I cannot help recalling that signal act of friendship
and of power in the matter of my father's translation from Rose Street
to Broughton Pla