The Hunterian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons in London / [Honoratus Leigh Thomas].
- Thomas, Honoratus Leigh.
- Date:
- 1827
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The Hunterian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons in London / [Honoratus Leigh Thomas]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![f [ 15 ] talent, but by his powers of application, and extraordinary memory; for an effort of which, at the early age of thirteen, he obtained the prize given by Dr. Ersken of Culross. Amongst the middle ranks in Scotland at that period, any indication of superior abilities was predestined for the church; and there is something peculiarly respectable, in this pious dedication of first rate talents, to the service of him, who bestowed them. In consequence of this appro- priation of intellectual endowments, his father removed him at the age of eighteen to the University of Glasgow. After a residence here of four years, he took the usual de- grees—having by his assiduity and application, in every respect fulfilled the hopes of which his early talents had given promise. His facility of acquiring languages, had enabled him to teach himself French and Italian—at that time considered rare acquisitions, and he was employed in giving private lessons in these languages to the students. He was now selected by Provost Buchanan, as tutor to his family. He afterwards resided in the same capacity at Lord Dundonald’s. At this important period of his life, he most happily met with a kind and able friend, in that acute observer of men and manners, the late celebrated Dr. Moore—to whose sons he became private tutor for a short time. To him he first communicated the scruples of conscience which had arisen during the prosecution of his theological studies;—his repugnance to entering the church,—and his very strong predilection for physic. Dr. Moore rather encouraged than dissuaded him from fol- lowing the bent of his inclination; and gave him every assistance in his power for that purpose. Under his roof,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22005286_0021.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
