left a young orphan, without patrimony, and obliged to struggle with
early disadvantages, he raised himself by meritorious exertion to the
head of a profession in which opulence is generally the just attendant
on knowledge and reputation. But neither opulence, nor his long
intercourse with sickness and death, have hardened the native tenderness
of his heart; and I had lately known him shed tears of regret on the
untimely fate of an amiable patient, whom his consummate skill and
attention were unable to save.

Thus strongly prepossessed in his favour, I was delighted to observe
that he was preparing to address the Assembly in the moment we entered.
My celestial Guides smiled on each other in perceiving my satisfaction;
and being placed by them instantaneously in a commodious situation, I
heard the following discourse; which the character I have described
delivered with an ease and refined acuteness peculiar to himself, never
raising his voice above the pitch of polite and spirited conversation:

"I am persuaded, that every individual to whom I have now the happiness
of speaking, will readily agree with me in this sentiment, that we
cannot possibly do ourselves more honour as a Fraternity than by
considering HOWARD as an Associate: assuredly, there is no class of men
who may more justly presume to cherish his name and character with a
fraternal affection. In proportion as we are accustomed to contemplate,
to pity, and to counteract, the sufferings of Nature, 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,