When I, alas! within two years after my arrival in Germany, lost the lovely idol of my heart, the amiable companion of my former days, I exclaimed a thousand times to my surrounding friends, _Oh! leave me to myself!_ Her departed spirit still hovers round me: the tender recollection of her society, the afflicting remembrance of her sufferings on my account, are always present to my mind. What mildness and affability! Her death was as calm and resigned as her life was pure and virtuous. During five long months, the lingering pangs of dissolution hung continually around her. One day, as she reclined upon her pillow, while I read to her “_The Death of Christ_,” by Rammler, she cast her eyes over the page, and silently pointed out to me the following passage; “My breath grows weak, my days are shortened, my heart is full of affliction, and my soul prepares to take its flight.” Alas! when I recall all those circumstances to my mind, and recollect how impossible it was for me to abandon the world at that moment of anguish and distress, when I carried the seeds of death within my bosom; when I had neither fortitude to bear my afflictions, nor courage to resist them, while I was yet pursued by malice, and traduced by calumny; I can easily conceive, in such a situation, that my exclamation might be, _leave me to myself_. To a heart thus torn by too rigorous a destiny from the bosom that was opened for its reception; from a bosom in which it fondly dwelt; from an object that it dearly loved, detached from every object, at a loss where to fix its affections or communicate its feelings, solitude alone can administer comfort. Solitude, when it has ripened and preserved the tender and humane feelings of the heart, and created in the mind a salutary distrust of our vain reason and boasted abilities, may be considered to have brought us nearer to God. Humility is the first lesson we learn from reflection, and self distrust the first proof we give of having obtained a knowledge of ourselves. When, in attending the duties of my profession, I behold, on the bed of sickness, the efforts of the soul to oppose its impending dissolution, and discover, by the increasing torments of the patient, the rapid advances of death; when I see the unhappy sufferer extend his cold and trembling hands to thank the Almighty for the smallest mitigation of his pains; when I hear his utterance choked by intermingled groans, and view the tender looks, the silent anguish of his attending friends; all my fortitude abandons me; my heart bleeds; and I tear myself from the sorrowful scene, only to pour my tears more freely over the lamentable lot of humanity, to regret the inefficacy of those medical powers which I am supposed only to have sought with so much anxiety as a mean of prolonging my own miserable existence,