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HEBERDEN.
It is impossible to view the countenance of this excellent man, as delineated in his portraits, with- out an immediate respect, and even affection, to- wards his memory. The tranquillity of mind, the gentle benevolence, and the unaffected modesty which beam on every feature, represent with truth the amiable and unblemished ornament of the domestic circle ; while the air of discernment and reflection which pervades the whole, announces with equal justice the genius for observation, and the power of combining its results. The life of such an individual, pursued into its minuter de- tails, would have been equally interesting to the world at large, and instructive to the student of his own profession. Unfortunately, few materials exist to render due account of an individual who, after being placed in coUision with the vices and folhes of a metropolis during nearly half a century, appears to have retired to the grave without hav- ing contracted on his way a single particle of cor- ruption, rich in the accumulated wisdom of age, and still richer in all the innocence of youth.
William Heberden was born in London in the year 1710. He was sent at a very early age, near the end of 17:24, to St. John's College, Cambridge. He took his first degree in 1728, and became M. D. in 1739. He remained at Cambridge
