wich (at a time when he held both offices), the result being the appointment of John Gooch, is not true. Cole sums up his character as follows: ‘He was of a kind and generous disposition … as I have hinted that he was a man of as great art, craft, and cunning as any in the age he lived in, so I must bear my testimony that he was as much of a gentleman in his outward appearance, carriage, and behaviour.’
He died at Ely House, Holborn, 14 Feb. 1753–4, but was buried at Cambridge in the college chapel, where there is a monument to him. There are portraits in the college lodge, in the university library. A third, by Heins, is at Benacre Hall, and a fourth, by Bardwell, is in the possession of Mr. A. Hartshorne. He is only known as an author by the publication of three sermons.
[Cole's MSS., Brit. Mus.; College Records; notes kindly supplied by Albert Hartshorne, esq., from Gooch's manuscripts in his possession.]
GOOD, JOHN MASON (1764–1827), physician and miscellaneous writer, the second son of the Rev. Peter Good, a congregational minister at Epping, was born at Epping on 25 May 1764. His mother, a Miss Peyto, the favourite niece of the Rev. John Mason [q. v.], author of ‘Self-Knowledge,’ died in 1766. Good was well taught in a school kept by his father at Romsey, near the New Forest, and the latter's system of commonplace books was of great use to the son in after life. While at school he mastered Greek, Latin, and French, and showed unusual devotion to study. At fifteen he was apprenticed to a medical practitioner at Gosport, and during his apprenticeship he mastered Italian, reading Ariosto, Tasso, and Dante. In 1783–4 he went to London for medical study, attended the lectures of Dr. George Fordyce and others, and became an active member of the Physical Society of Guy's Hospital. In the summer of 1784, when only twenty, he settled in Sudbury, in partnership with a Mr. Deeks, who very shortly retired. Here Good married in 1785 a Miss Godfrey, who only survived six months, and in 1788 a Miss Fenn, who bore him six children, and survived him. In 1792 he lost a considerable sum of money by becoming surety for friends, and although relieved by his father-in-law, he determined to free himself from difficulty by literary work. He wrote plays, translations, poems, essays, &c., but failed for some time to sell anything. At last he gained a footing on ‘The World,’ and one of the London reviews. In 1793 he removed to London, entering into partnership with a medical man, and on 7 Nov. was admitted a member of the College of Surgeons. His new partner was jealous of him, and soon caused the business to fail. While struggling to surmount his difficulties, Good in February 1795 won a prize of twenty guineas offered by Dr. Lettsom for an essay on the ‘Diseases frequent in Workhouses, their Cure and Prevention.’ In 1794 he became an active member of the ‘General Pharmaceutic Association,’ designed to improve the education of druggists, who were then notorious for their frequent illiteracy and mistakes. At the request of some members of this society Good wrote his ‘History of Medicine, so far as it relates to the Profession of the Apothecary,’ 1795. He now gained considerable practice, and contributed to several leading periodicals, including the ‘Analytical’ and the ‘Critical’ Reviews. The latter he edited for some time. In 1797 he began to translate Lucretius into blank verse. In order to search for parallel passages, he studied successively Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Persian; he was already acquainted with Hebrew; later he extended his acquirements to Russian, Sanscrit, Chinese, and other languages. Much of his literary work was done while he walked the streets on his rounds; even his translation of Lucretius was thus composed, a page or two at a time being elaborated, until it was ready for being written down. This work occupied the intervals of nearly six years till 1805. The notes still have considerable value from their parallel passages and quotations. From 1804 to 1812 he was much occupied, with his friend and biographer, Olinthus Gregory [q. v.], in the preparation of ‘Pantologia,’ a cyclopædia in twelve volumes, to which he furnished a great variety of articles, often supplying by return of post articles requiring much research. In 1805 he was elected F.R.S. In 1811–12 he gave three courses of lectures at the Surrey Institution, which were afterwards published in three volumes, under the title ‘The Book of Nature.’ In 1820 he devoted himself to practice exclusively as a physician, and obtained the diploma of M.D. from Marischal College, Aberdeen, and in 1822 he became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians. In this year he published his ‘Study of Medicine’ in four volumes, which was well received and sold rapidly, but proved of no permanent value. In it he endeavoured to unite physiology with pathology and therapeutics, an attempt which was bound to fail owing to the defective state of those sciences. His enormous labours at length told on his constitution, and for some years before his death his health was bad. He died of inflammation of the bladder on 2 Jan. 1827, in his sixty-third year, at the house of his widowed daughter, Mrs. Neale,
