She had paid him to the
uttermost farthing for her poor son.
But here Mrs. Robson was mistaken. She did him justice in esteeming
his medical abilities, which were great. He had made medicine the
study of his life, and not allowing any other occupation to disturb
his attention, he became master of that science, but remained
ignorant of every other with which it had no connection. He was the
father of a family, and, in the usual acceptation of the term, a very
good sort of a man. He preferred his country to every other, because
it was his country; he loved his wife and his children; he was kind
to the poor, to whom he gave his advice gratis, and letters to the
dispensary for drugs; and when he had any broken victuals to spare,
he desired that they might be divided amongst them; but he seldom
caught his maid obeying this part of his commands without
reprimanding her for her extravagance, in giving away what ought to
be eaten in the kitchen: "in these times, it was a shame to waste a
crumb, and the careless hussy would come to want for thinking so
lightly of other people's property."
Thus, like many in the world, he was a loyal citizen by habit, an
affectionate father from nature, and a man of charity because he now
and then felt pity, and now and then heard it preached from the
pulpit. He was exhorted to be pious, and to pour wine and oil into
the wounds of his neighbor; but it never once struck him that piety
extended further than going to church, mumbling his prayers and
forgetting the sermon, through most of which he generally slept; and
his commentaries on the good Samaritan were not more extensive, for
it was so difficult to make him comprehend who was his neighbor, that
the subject of the argument might have been sick, dead and buried
before he could be persuaded that he or she had any claims on his
care.
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