Of the late Dr. Jenner / [Henry Jenner].

Henry Jenner

Date:: 1823

Credit: Of the late Dr. Jenner / [Henry Jenner]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

11/44 page 637

$2 fe wards pointed out the portrait of one, eminent for the same view. He thought it the duty of rich men to draw out, and succour obscure merit ; and his sentiments in this respect accorded withthose, admirably pro- pounded in a sermon of the Rev. Sidney Smith, on this:subject. . He always felt that aversion natural to the “ fiery grandeur of a generous mind,” towards those beings of a sordid and dirty traffic, who shoot up to poison, with the’rank breath of their groveling sentiment and invi- money, and inquired into their rustic concerns. A. colonel observed to me, “ The doctor is always picking up recruits, like a recruiting ser- geant.”” He much wished that servants, and persons in the middle classes of life, should know something of the elementary principles of natural philosophy. I was present at the examination of an individual in the laws of gravitation; the doctor let fall a knife, and asked why it fell? ‘“* Because you let it go,” said the person. He then explained the cause; but the pupil seemed cordially to hate philosophy, and was glad to escape. : | ~He condescended to men of low estate, and suffered them to have access to him at all times, and in a way that seemed prohibitory of more valuable objects. But he was -rather. disposed to favour interruption, and let them tell their own stories at all times, with the usual circuitous diffuséness. He also flattered the conceit peculiar.to the -inferior orders. He -was capable of sarcasm, where there was cause. ‘Two proposed to settle a noisy dispute by calculations ; “I hope then,” said he, “ it will not be by vulgar fractions.”—-A person oncereplying to him ina muttering tone of voice, he said, “Are you a ventriloquist ?” “ No;” ‘Then I am wrong, for I thought the voice came from the bowels.” He housed, and cloathed, and found instruction for numbers.. Dr. Jenner had a great dislike for the artificial manners of very high orders of society, being‘considered by him as inconsistent with nature and a proper freedom. “ It is all very well,” he said, “ to-attain to a certain rank; but there is one beyond, where mind and nature cease, and man becomes a thing made of imaginary dignity, of form, rule, starch; and ruffles.” ‘Tired of “ absurd pomp,” he had left the. vain, ‘cold-kearted, and treacherous scenes of. fashionable life, on the one hand; and the enviable ostentation of listening levees, and circles of scientific compeers, to which he had attained by his genius, and to which he was intitled by descent and personal pretensions, comprehending all that is brilliant and glorious in existence, on the other—for the debrés of. those scenes in which he too often appeared like an aged solitary swan, that oared and paddled about the waters, upon which: he had -plumed his brightest quills, over-much bereaved. havo Rp ‘He was-very bountiful, and his: house was open to all who came. ‘Though ‘scientific conversation best pleased him, he loved music, and sometimes sung, especially two medleys which. he himself had made, ‘He did not like to be visited as a lion ; and on these occasions he said, «‘ They come to see me under the pretence of visiting. — —, the puff of the country, indeed: it is made’ of puff-stone.” . A visitor who came into the town last'summer, asked: what were: Dr. Jenner’s pursuits?$

Of the late Dr. Jenner / [Henry Jenner].

Licence and re-use

Contents