in acquiring them. Applying the principles of generalization, classification, and affinity, he mastered a language with surprising ease and rapidity. In this way he studied with success the Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Sanscrit, Chinese, and other languages, and gave ample proofs of his acquisitions, by private communications to his friends, and by many elaborate articles in the reviews. He seemed to act on the principle of redeeming every moment of time, and filling up all its interstices with some useful employment. Scarcely any region of inquiry escaped his curiosity, and he resolved to bring himself under something like the urgency of a moral necessity, to become thoroughly acquainted with the utmost possible variety of subjects, upon which men of literature, science, and investigation had been able to throw any light. He acted on the maxim of another eminent individual, whose habits of order and activity were akin to his own-Dr. E. D. Clark; who said, "I have lived to know that the great secret of human happiness is this; Never suffer your energies to stagnate. The old adage of "too many irons in the fire," conveys an abominable lie. You cannot have too many; poker, tongs, and all,-keep them all going." In a letter to Dr. Drake, dated Jan. 29th, 1803, Dr. Good says, after mentioning his being engaged in translating "Solomon's Songs," and writing the "life of Dr. Geddes," and walking from twelve to fourteen miles a day to visit his numerous patients,-"I have edited the Critical Review, besides writing several of its most elaborate articles. I have every week supplied a column of matter for the Sunday Review, and have for some days had the great weight of the British Press upon my hands; the committee for conducting which have applied to me lately, in the utmost consternation, in consequence of a trick put upon them by the proprietors of other newspapers, and which stopped abruptly the exertions of their editor, and several of their most valuable hands."

p. 62.

These habits of study and business were continued for many years; indeed, we may say through life, with this difference only, that during the last twenty years of his life his acquisitions and efforts were directed more exclusively to the promotion of religion. He frequently contributed valuable and learned articles for the reviews, particularly the British, the Analytical, and the Critical, and to the British and Monthly Magazines; and sent forth continually, through different periodicals, various pieces of poetry. He undertook the translation of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, but his professional calls were so numerous, that his translation was nearly all composed in the streets of London, while on visits to his patients. This translation accompained with a great variety of learned and valuable notes, was pronounced to be one of great elegance and merit. While engaged in this work, he was also

associated with Dr. Gregory and Mr. Bosworth in the compilation of a "Universal Dictionary" of arts, sciences, and words, in which work he was engaged about eight years.

In 1810 he delivered, by invitation of the directors, a course of lectures at the Surry Institution, and received for them the most gratifying compliments. To these he added a second and third series, in the two succeeding winters. In 1820, he received, under circumstances of peculiar honor, a diploma from Marischal College, Aberdeen, and soon after was induced to add to his other professional duties, those of a physician. The same year he published a "System of Nosology," and two years after, his "Study of Medicine" in four large volumes octavo.

Such severe and continued mental application began to make fearful ravages on Dr. Good's health and constitution. He had indeed received a heavy shock as early as 1803, by the death of his only son, a youth of great promise and of uncommon precocity of intellect; and in consequence of this event, he sunk for a time into a state of alarming mental depression. Something may be judged of his feelings from the following extract of a letter addressed eight years after, to Dr. Gregory, on the occasion of a similar loss.

My very dear Friend,

CAROLINE PLACE, May 7, 1811.

With no common feeling do I sympathize with you. Your letter has touched upon a string which vibrates with so much agony through my heart and brain, and I fear ever will continue to do so, that I fly from it upon all occasions like the stricken deer from the hunter. You have indeed conjectured right, and the similarity of our trials is peculiarly remarkable. I, like you, had every thing I could wish for in one-one only; I enjoyed the present, I feasted on the future; at the age of twelve, the same fatal disease made its attack-the result was the same and my arms, like yours, formed a pillow during the last gasp; there was the same sense of piety whilst living, and the same prominent shoot of genius. The master of the Charter-house, in a letter to me on the occasion, bewailed the loss of one of their most promising blossoms; and a variety of little effusions, both in prose and verse, found in the well known hand afterwards, but never shown to any one, and written for personal amusement alone, seemed sufficiently to justify the opinion, so generally entertained.

But here, my dear friend, I am afraid I must drop the parallel; for, in the weakness of my heart, I freely confess I have not yet acquired that strength of duty which you are already enabled to manifest.

I dare not examine myself as to what I should wish for, if it were in my power. All I have hitherto been able to say is, "Thy will be done!"

Mr. Lwas with us when your letter arrived; we were listening to a new and most sweetly impressive anthem, "My song shall be of judg ment and of mercy! to Thee, O Lord, will I sing!" What could be more appropriate, even if we had been aware of the melancholy fact, and could have foreseen your distressing communication. It struck me forcibly,-and we dwelt upon the coincidence. The judgment is unquestionable, but is not the mercy, my excellent friend, equally visible? Your own pious reVOL. II. 56

flections will suggest a thousand proofs that it is; I will only repeat the remark that was most obvious to ourselves; that had this affliction happened about a year and a half ago, when you were living alone, and had no such affectionate nurse to have co-operated with you, no such affectionate bosom comforter to have supported you,-severe as it is, it must have been of a character far severer still. There are a few gracious drops intermixed with every cup of bitterness, or how could man at times endure the draught. You have them from this source; you have them from the recollection of having sown the good seed, at an early hour, in the best of seasons, and in a most propitious soil; but, most of all, you have them in the harvest that has already been produced, in the safe deposit of the grain in its imperishable garner. It is accomplished; the great task entrusted to you is executed the object of life is rendered secure-the gulf is forded; the haven of happiness has hold on the anchor. pp. 63, 64.

Dr. Good's health, as we before observed, began to decline in 1822. Still his labors were not much remitted; and he continued to suffer greatly in his health, till 1826. A few extracts from his letters will give us the best clue to his condition. Writing to Dr. Drake, Aug. 21, 1822, he says,

On Friday I purpose to set off for Matlock, with my dear wife and daught ter, for about ten days, for the purpose of recreation. You, I apprehend, are still as busy as ever, and will no doubt travel farther in your easy chair, and probably over still more picturesque and romantic landscapes, than we shall do in our chariot. May you never travel over any but may administer to you solid delight and satisfaction,-tranquilizing or elevating the animal spirits, and reading a useful lesson to the mind! In one sense, and that the most important, we are all travelers and pilgrims, journeying to an unknown country, and at a rate we cannot check, though we may precipitate it. May we, my dear friend, be enabled to finish our course with joy, and enter into the rest that remaineth, and “remaineth” ALONE "for the people of God!" p. 83.

January 31, 1823, he writes,

The important point is, to regard all these reverses as corrective visitations, which most of us, (and I am sure I can speak for myself,) stand repeatedly in need of, to wean us from this world, and quicken us in our preparation for another; to empty us of ourselves, and to fill us, by the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit, with an humble trust in the merits of Him who is the sacrifice and propitiation for the sins of the whole world; and should it accomplish this-then indeed will the cloud we are made to pass through, descend upon us in a fruitful and refreshing rain, and amply answer its purpose. p. 83.

Again, December 11, 1824.

I know the danger of even honorable reputation, and I fear the Circean cup. The richest pearl in the christian's crown of graces is humility; and when I look back upon myself, and examine my own heart, and see how little progress I have made in that which it most imports us to study, I am sure there is no man breathing, who has more cause, not only for humility, but for abasement, than myself; for how often have I neglected the cistern for the stream, and have been pursuing a bubble, instead of giving up all my feeble powers and possessions, in purchase of " the pearl of great price."

What a mercy not to have been allowed to persevere in that neglect. p. 84.

Again, August 25, 1826.

The die is cast, and we are going to Leamington. May a gracious Providence render its breezes balmy, and its waters healthful! And, above all, direct me how best to devote whatever time may yet be alloted me, to the glory of God and the good of myself and others. I have trifled with time too much already; it is high time to awake and be sober, and to prepare to leave it for eternity! Every moment ought to be precious. p. 84.

Dr. Good's last illness was short but exceedingly severe, and terminated his useful life on the second of January, 1827, in the sixty-third year of his age.

The published works of Dr. Good, would fill more than twenty large octavo volumes, seventeen or eighteen of which are standard works; many of them on recondite subjects requiring extensive research, and all adorned with an elegant style, and enriched with various knowledge. His translations of Solomon's Song, of the book of Job, of the book of Proverbs, of the Pslams, and of parts of the minor Prophets, all accompanied with critical, copious, and learned notes, have placed him as a Hebrew scholar and biblical critic, in the estimation of foreign judges, by the side of Lowth and Blaney. His "Book of Nature," and "Study of Medicine,"-works which stand among the very first in those departments of knowledge and science, of which they treat, -have been reprinted and are in extensive circulation in this country. The latter work, if we are not mistaken, has been generally adopted as the authoritative and standard text book of the profession. It was written with the most comprehensive and enlightened views, aided by the vast and varied improvements and discoveries of the last century. He had evidently at command whatever was contained in almost every language relative to the various branches of the science; and with his extraordinary professional acumen, his inexhaustible fund of general knowledge, his long experience and close habits of reflection and observation, he was peculiarly qualified to produce a work on medicine of rare excellence. This work has received the highest encomiums from distinguished medical men in Europe and the United States, and the British Medical Reviews pronounce it, "beyond all comparison, the best of the kind in the English language; and its author, one "who could devour and digest whole libraries."

There is visible in the writings of Dr. G. particularly those of his later years, a predominant disposition to make all his knowledge and labors subsidiary to the cause of religion and humanity; and a settled habit of "looking through nature up to nature's God,"

and tracing his providence in all the multiform occurrences of life. His was that

"Philosophy," which," baptized

In the pure fountain of eternal love,

Has eyes indeed; and viewing all she sees
As meant to indicate a God to man,

Gives him his praise and forfeits not her own."

He had "sought for intelligence at the Great Fountain of Intellect, and had found Him, whom to know is life eternal."

We have purposely omitted saying any thing definite respecting Dr. Good's religious character, till we might take a retrospect of his whole life; and in contemplating it now, we think it important to revert to some circumstances in his early history. No circumstance, however trivial in itself, if it exerts a permanent influence on the character, can be unworthy of notice. A misapprehension of duty, or of the terms of acceptance with God, may lead to endless ruin. As our actions have an immediate, and perhaps, indissoluble dependence on our belief, it requires but little reflection to perceive, that an error in our creed may involve consequences the most serious and alarming. Dr. Good's father was a man of correct religious sentiments, and of exemplary character; but in his instructions, both public and domestic, he does not seem to have given that prominence to the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, as essential to right practice and to salvation, which their importance demands. In the education of his children, religion was regarded as rather a secondary concern, which would follow almost as a matter of course. As a consequence perhaps, in part, John Mason Good after arriving at years of maturity, though he felt a high respect for religion and its professors, and acknowledged the divine authority of the scriptures, yet knew nothing of the transforming power of religion, as felt in the heart, and exhibited in the life. Adopting first the system of materialism, and rejecting with the universalists, the doctrine of future punishment, he finally settled down in the system of modern Socinianism, and on his removal to London in 1793, joined the congregation of Mr. Belsham, where he constantly attended worship till the beginning of the year 1807. Immersed in business and literary pursuits, he remained comparatively indifferent to religion, though he read the bible very frequently as a matter of taste, and as a means of intellectual improvement. But, as he afterwards declared, he often felt uneasy, and found it difficult at times to stifle conviction. He began seriously to investigate the scriptures; and a change, great and permanent, the result of much reflection and solemn deliberation, was eventually wrought in his sentiments and feelings, of which, though its precise epoch is not known, the reality was demonstrated by the most unequivocal evidences.