Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

man, does all fhe can to maintain the variance, and keep up his anger to me, that her nephew may do the better on my ruin. I have not writ to him fince my being in England: Nor have I met with any one who could give me any account of the family. This is my cafe, Sir.

And what (Dr. Fitzgibbons faid) is this fine religious difpute, which has made your father fall out with a fon he was once fo fond of?-It was about trinity in unity, Sir: a thing I have often heard your fon argue against by leffons he had from you, as he informed me. My father is as orthodox as Gregory Nazienzen, among the ancient fathers, or Trapp and Potter, Webster and Waterland, among the modern doctors; and when he found out, that I was become an unitarian, and renounced his religion of three Gods, the horrible creed of Athanafius, and all the defpicable explications of his admired divines, on that fubject;-that I infifted, that notwithstanding all the subtle inventions of learned men, through the whole chriftian world, yet God Almighty hath not appointed himself to be worshipped by precept or example in any one initance in his holy word, under the character of Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft; that the worship of three perfons and one

K 3

God

God is exprefly contrary to the folemn determination of Chrift and his Apoftles;and in numbers of inftances in the New Teftament it is declared, that the one God and Father of all is the only fupreme object, to whom all religious worship should be directed:-that for these reasons, I renounced the received doctrine of a co-equal trinity, and believed our great and learned divines, who laboured to prevent people from feeing the truth as it is in Jefus, would be in fome tribulation at Chrift's tribunal, where they are to appear stripped of all worldly honours, dignities, and preferments, poor, naked, wretched mortals, and to answer for their fupplement to the gofpel, in an invented herefy of three Gods. -When my father heard these things, and faw the religious cafe of his fon, his paffion was very great. He forbid me his table, and ordered me to fhift for myself. He renounced me, as I had done the triune God.

The doctor wondered not a little at the account I had given him, (as my father was reckoned a man of great abilities,) and tak ing me by the hand, faid, I had acted moft gloriously that what loft me my father's affection, was the very thing that ought to have induced him to erect a ftatue to my honour

honour in his garden:-that fince I was, pleafed to accept of his offer, his friendThip I might depend on :-that if I would, I fhould begin the next day the study of physic under his direction, and at the end of two years, he would give me his daughter, who was not yet quite twenty.

$.5. Juft as he had faid this, Mifs Fitzgibbons entred the room, and her father introduced me to her.

The picture of
Julia Fitzgib

bons.

The fight of her aftonished me; though I had before feen fo many fine women, I could not help looking with wonder at her. She appeared one of thofe fineft creatures, whom we cannot enough admire, and upon acquaintance with her, became much more glorious.

What a vaft variety of beauty do we fee in the infinity of nature. Among the fex, we may find a thoufand and a thoufand perfect images and characters; all equally ftriking, and yet as different as the pictures of the greatest mafters in Italy. What amazing charms and perfections have I beheld in women as I journeyed through life. When I have parted from one; well I said, I shall never meet another like this inimitable maid; and yet yet after all, Julia appeared divinely

K4

The

divinely fair, and happy in every excellence that can adorn the female mind. Without that exact regularity of beauty, and elegant foftnefs of propriety, which rendered Mifs Dunk, whom I have de fcribed in thefe Memoirs, a very divinity, Julia charmed with a graceful negligence, and enchanted with a face that glowed with youthful wonders, beauties that art could not adorn but always diminished. choice of drefs was no part of Julia's care, but by the neglect of it fhe became irrefiftible. In her countenance there ever ap peared a bewitching mixture of fenfibility and gaiety, and in her foul, by converse we discovered that generofity and tendernefs were the first principles of her mind. To truth and virtue fhe was inwardly devoted, and at the bottom of her heart, though hard to discover it, her main bufinefs to serve God, and fit herself for eternity. In fum, fhe was one of the finest originals that ever appeared among womankind, peculiar in perfections which cannot be clefcribed; and fo inexpreffibly charming in an attractive sweetness, a natural gaiety, and a ftriking negligence, a fine understanding, and the most human heart; that I found it impoffible to know her without being in love with her: Her

power

power to please was extenfive indeed. In her, one had the lovelieft idea of a woman.

The Author marTM*

gibbons bis feries Mifs Fitzventh wife.

§. 6. To this fine creature I was married at the end of two years from my first acquaintance with her; that is, after I had ftudied physic so long, under the care and instruc tion of her excellent father; who died a few weeks after the wedding, which was in the beginning of the year 1734, and the 29th of my age. Dying, he left me a handsome fortune, his library, and house; and I imagined I fhould have lived many happy years with his admirable daughter, who obliged me by every endearing means, to be exceffively fond of her. I began to practise upon the old gentleman's death, and had learned fo much in the two years I had studied under him, from his lecturing and my own hard reading, that I was able to get fome money among the opulent round me, not by art and collusion, the cafe of too many doctors in town and country, but by practifing upon confiftent principles. The method of my reading, by Dr. Fitzgibbons's directions, was as follows; and I fet it down here for the benefit of fuch gentlemen, as chuse to study in the private manner I did.

K 5

A ME

« AnteriorContinua »