From 1760-62, Panning, a well-known literary man of the day, lived with Struensee, and the couple started, in July, 1763, a new literary experiment, called the "Monthly Journal, for Instruction and Amusement." The first number is now lying before me; but there is nothing very wonderful in it. It is supposed that an article, under the heading of "Thoughts of a Surgeon about the Causes of Depopulation in a given Country," was written by Struensee, because the essay contains ideas which were afterwards set in practice by him. Although the magazine contained various articles quite equal to the average of those days, it was dropped at the end of six months, and when Struensee was asked why he had not gone on with it, as it was generally popular, he replied that literature did not pay. Afterwards, he published some medico-scientific treatises, and an essay on the respect which an author ought to entertain for the public. Struensee's studies and reading were not restricted to professional topics. One of his favourite authors was Voltaire; but he also had a great veneration for J. J. Rousseau. With Helvetius, he inclined to the opinion, that as all men have equal organisms, they must be competent to attain the same things, and this axiom he applied to himself through the flattery of others. With Boulanger, he also assumed at that time that fear of all mighty nature was the primitive source of all religions among the ancient nations. Although Struensee never swerved in his belief that the universe and the human race had their origin in Deity, he could never be brought to the conviction that man was composed of two substances. He assumed that God set human nature first in action, but that when the machine ceased acting, _i.e._, when a man died, he had nothing more to hope or fear. In the meanwhile Struensee continued to work faithfully in his profession. Some successful cures gained him a reputation, and as he was sincere and frank, never condemned others or judged too severely, he acquired numerous friends. His agreeable person and pleasant manners helped to make him a popular physician, and we can quite understand how the ladies selected the good-looking doctor to attend to their maladies, real or pretended. After the fashion of the day, the ladies had their little jests with him, and he confessed, though always in a delicate manner, that he was an admirer of the fair sex. When, however, persons tried to make him blush by repeating to him some loose anecdote connected with himself, he always blunted its point by displaying the utmost discretion.[95] It is to be regretted that he did not follow the same good rule in the awful crisis of his life.