320 HIFFERNAN. dispatch of sending you any thing that may be needful.” The doctor still expressed his gratitude with a sigh, and ardent grasp of the hand, but left the house by referring his friend to the Bedford coffee-house. .
- It was in vain to expostulate further—the gentleman
sent on the two following Saturdays a guinea each day, sealed up in a letter; which, on inquiry, he found the doctor received; but on the third Saturday, no messenger arriving, upon inquiry it was found that the doctor was no more—having died the preceding night at his lodgings in one of the little courts off St. Martin's Lane, about the beginning of June 1777. Thus ends the “eventful” history of a man who was possessed of learning sufficient to fill several situations in life, and that degree of talent and observation which, if connected with a moderate share of industry and prudence, would, in a l l probability, have rendered him both respected and independent. All his bad qualities seemed t o arise from his intolerable indolence; and h e adds another name t o the almost inter minable list o f men who have willingly sacrificed them selves t o this destructive and degrading vice. Men o f this stamp act a s i f they considered themselves a s a “kind o f rent-charge upon Providence,” who i s obliged t o invert the order o f nature i n their favour, and provide for them a t the public expense. . . . A succession o f disappointments—poverty, with a l l i t s attendant ills, o r the contempt o f the world, cannot teach them wisdom; and they proceed from indolence t o folly, and from folly t o vice, till a t length the intellects become unstrung—the constitution undermined, and they drop into the grave, pitied b y none but their companions i n torpidity. Such was the fate o f Hiffernan, and such has been the fate o f thousands; and melancholy and unavailing will the records be, that these individuals will one day have t o give, o f the numberless hours spent i n the pursuit o f vice, or wasted i n the bosom of idleness.
