Volume 1

The history of British fishes / [Robert Hamilton].

  • Hamilton, Robert, M.D.
Date:
[1876]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of British fishes / [Robert Hamilton]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    slept ill, and both for tlie purpose of avoiding the weariness of lying long awake, as well as satisfying his thirst for knowledge, he was in the frequent practice of spending a great part of the night in study. The leading qualities of his mind were energy, acuteness, and penetration ; but he was often too precipitate in liis judgments, and had frequent occasion to regret for having acted on the resolutions he had formed. He was liberal to excess, distri- buting his money with such ])rofusion, that although his emoluments from the university and his practice were very considerable, independently of his annual pension and the property he inherited from his sister-in-law, he left scarcely any thing to his heirs. One of his most expensive propensities Avas a pas- sion for building, which he indulged to an extra- vagant extent, frequently causing an edifice, when completed according to his first plan, to be taken down, and reconstructed again and again till it suited all the caprices of his fancy. He Avas fond of gi'dng instructions to others, and took groat pleasure in his public iirelcctions in the university, Avhich he rendered higldy popular, by interspersing AAnth illustrative anecdotes and hu- morous sallies. He took great delight in the study of anatomy; and Avas thought on one occasion to indulge his zeal to the extent of committino- an outrage on decency and good feeling, by dissecting the body of one of his oaaui children Avho died shortly after its birth. Althougli Ichthyology is the only department of