to deliver a temperance address, to preside at a public meeting, or to make a speech on the subject of internal improvement, or the Bible or missionary cause. For a similar reason, he stepped out of his way to write his letters on Slavery, and his discourses before the Cincinnati Medical Library Association. No man in our land could have done these things better, few, indeed, so well; but, useful as they are, it is to be regretted that he undertook them, because they occupied much of his time that might, and, in the opinion of his friends, ought to have been devoted to the composition and completion of his great work, the ultimate aim and object of his ambition. Like Adam Clarke, he seemed to think that a man could not have too many irons in the fire, and the consequence was that he generally had the tongs, shovel, and poker all in at the same time.

It was the same restless feeling that caused his frequent resignations in medical institutions. Had his disposition been more calm and patient, he would have been satisfied to identify himself with one school, and to labor zealously for its permanency and renown. In moving about so frequently, he induced people to believe that he was a quarrelsome man, who could not agree with his colleagues, and whose ruling passion was to be a kind of autocrat in every medical faculty with which he was connected. But, while his own conduct gave coloring to such an idea, nothing could have been more

untrue.

Dr. Drake always cherished a profound respect for Christianity; but it was not until 1840, that he made a public profession of his religious views. He now united himself with the Episcopal Church, of which he remained ever afterwards a devout member. He was strongly opposed to the High Church movements, and spared no pains to counteract what he regarded as its evil influences. Indeed, so much did he have this subject at heart that he was induced, only a few years before his death, to discuss it, at some length, in the Philadelphia Episcopal Recorder, in a series of articles marked by great judgment and ability. They appeared under the sig

nature of a "Western Layman," and attracted much attention. At the period of his death, he was under an engagement to furnish a series of papers for a new Review, about to be established by the leaders of the Low Church party. He was well read in the Bible, and had no inconsiderable acquaintance with theological literature.

The personal appearance of Dr. Drake was striking and commanding. No one could approach him, or be in his presence, without feeling that he was in contact with a man of superior intellect and acquirement. His features, remarkably regular, were indicative of manly beauty, and were lighted up and improved by blue eyes of wonderful power and penetration. When excited by anger, or emotion of any kind, they literally twinkled in their sockets, and he looked as if he could pierce the very soul of his opponent. His countenance was sometimes staid and solemn; but generally, especially when he was in the presence of his friends, radiant and beaming. His forehead, though not expansive, was high, well-fashioned, and strongly denotive of intellect. The mouth was of moderate size, the lips of medium thickness, and the chin rounded off and well-proportioned. The nose was prominent, but not too large. The frosts of sixty-seven winters had slightly silvered his temples, but had made no other inroad upon his hair. He was nearly six feet high, rather slender and well-formed.

His power of endurance, both mental and physical, was extraordinary. He seemed literally incapable of fatigue. His step was rapid and elastic, and he often took long walks, sufficient to tire men much younger, and, apparently, much stronger, than himself. He was an early riser, and was not unfrequently seen walking before breakfast with his hat under his arm, as if inviting the morning breeze to fan his temple and cool his burning brain.

His manners were simple and dignified. He was easy of access, and remarkably social in his habits and feelings. His dress and style of living were plain and unostentatious. His house was the abode of a warm but simple hospitality. For

many years, no citizen of Cincinnati entertained so many strangers and persons of distinction.

In politics, he was a Whig, and never failed to exercise his elective franchise. During the Presidential canvass of 1840, in which his early friend, the late General Harrison, himself at one time a student of medicine, was the Whig candidate, Dr. Drake evinced a deeper interest, and took a more active part, than he ever did before or afterwards, in any contest of a similar kind. He was the ardent friend of rational liberty throughout the world; and no man ever gloried more in the institutions of his country.

He was naturally conscientious. A desire to execute every trust that was confided to him, promptly and faithfully, formed a prominent trait in his character. He was always unhappy, if, through neglect, inadvertence, or misfortune, he made a failure. This feeling pursued him through the whole of his life. A little incident, of which he himself has furnished the particulars, strikingly illustrates the truth of this remark. One day, when hardly six years old, he was sent to borrow a little salt from one of the neighbors, an article which was then very scarce, and which cost at least twelve times as much then as now. It was a small quantity, tied up in a paper, which, when he was about half way home, tore, and out rushed the precious grains upon the ground. "As I write," says he, "nearly sixty years afterwards, the anguish which I felt at the sight seems almost to be revived. I had not then learned that the spilling of salt was portentous, but felt that it was a great present affliction."

He was a man of extraordinary refinement. This feeling was deeply engrafted in his constitution, and always displayed itself, in a marked degree, in the presence of the female sex. Although his parents were uncultivated persons, and hardly ever mingled in the more refined society, they cherished a high and pure idea of the duty of good breeding. The principle of politeness was deeply rooted in both, and they never failed to practise it in their family and in their intercourse with the world.

To those who are engaged in scientific, literary, and educational pursuits, or in the practice of medicine, it will not be uninteresting to know that Dr. Drake was poor, and, until the last eight years of his life, pecuniarily embarrassed. It was not until after his connection with the University of Louisville that he began to lay up anything from his earnings. His medical journal only brought him into debt. The first volume of his great work sold slowly, and had not yielded him one dollar at the time of his death. Since that period, his son-in-law, Alexander H. McGuffey, Esq., has received, as his literary executor, two hundred and fifty dollars as the balance to the author's credit up to that time. This sum is not more than one-tenth of what he paid for the maps alone contained in the work, and engraved at his own expense. Nothing, in fact, that Dr. Drake ever undertook was pecuniarily profitable. Money-making was not his ambition. His aims were always so lofty, and so far removed from self, that he never thought of money except so far as it was necessary to their accomplishment.

S. D. GROSS.

NATHANIEL CHAPMAN.

1780-1853.

THE medical profession of Philadelphia has numbered among its most shining lights a long list of men, born and reared in our Southern States, who, drawn to the metropolitan school for their professional education, have remained among us, and fought their way to eminence. Of the generation that has just passed away, Virginia furnished not a few. Chapman, Horner, Mitchell, and Mütter, whose careers were closed by death within the last decade, were the representatives of a noble stock, for above a century the support of the Philadelphia school of medicine, of which they themselves were among the most illustrious ornaments. The name of Chapman was identified with the history of the University of Pennsylvania for a period of nearly forty years; and after the death of Physick, universal consent placed him at the head of the American profession.

Nathaniel Chapman was descended from an ancient and honorable English family. His paternal ancestor came to Virginia with the very first colony, under the auspices of Raleigh, to whom he was nearly related by blood. He had been a captain of cavalry in the British army, and received a considerable grant of land in the new territory, upon which his distinguished kinsman had just bestowed the appellation of the Virgin Queen.

The old seat of the Chapman family in Virginia is still in their possession, on the river Pamunkey, some twenty miles above Richmond. A branch of the family, about the year