er lustre of his abilities, or his
improvements of his science, and his contempt of pernicious methods,
supported only by authority, in opposition to sound reason and
indubitable experience. These men are indebted to him for concealing
their names, when he records their malice, since they have, thereby,
escaped the contempt and detestation of posterity.

It is a melancholy reflection, that they who have obtained the highest
reputation, by preserving or restoring the health of others, have
often been hurried away before the natural decline of life, or have
passed many of their years under the torments of those distempers
which they profess to relieve. In this number was Sydenham, whose
health began to fail in the fifty-second year of his age, by the
frequent attacks of the gout, to which he was subject for a great part
of his life, and which was afterwards accompanied with the stone in
the kidneys, and, its natural consequence, bloody urine.

These were distempers which even the art of Sydenham could only
palliate, without hope of a perfect cure, but which, if he has not
been able by his precepts to instruct us to remove, he has, at least,
by his example, taught us to bear; for he never betrayed any indecent
impatience, or unmanly dejection, under his torments, but supported
himself by the reflections of philosophy, and the consolations of
religion; and in every interval of ease applied himself to the
assistance of others with his usual assiduity.

After a life thus usefully employed, he died at his house in
Pall-mall, on the 29th of December, 1689, and was buried in the aisle,
near the south door of the church of St. James, in Westminster.

What was his character, as a physician, appears from the treatises
which he has left, which it is not necessary to epitomise or
transcribe; and from them it may likewise be collected, that his skill
in physick was not his highest excellence; that his whole character
was amiable; that his chief view was the benefit of mankind, and the
chief motive of his actions, the will of God, whom he mentions with
reverence, well becoming the most enlightened and most penetrating
mind. He was benevolent, candid, and communicative, sincere, and
religious; qualities, which it were happy, if they could copy from
him, who emulate his knowledge, and imitate his methods.

CHEYNEL [54].

There is always this advantage in contending with illustrious
adversaries, that the combatant is equall