An eulogy on John Coakley Lettsom ... late president of the Philosophical Society of London, who died on Wednesday, November 1st, 1815, delivered before the Society, on Monday, Nov. the 20th 1815 / [Thomas Joseph Pettigrew].

  • Pettigrew, Thomas Joseph, 1791-1865.
Date:
1816
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An eulogy on John Coakley Lettsom ... late president of the Philosophical Society of London, who died on Wednesday, November 1st, 1815, delivered before the Society, on Monday, Nov. the 20th 1815 / [Thomas Joseph Pettigrew]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of reason, for the same ends, explores the mineral, the vegetable, and animal king¬ doms; and extracts from all, those various properties, by whose well directed applica¬ tion strength is imparted to his constitution, and length is added to the measure of his existence. To life, in its present mode, we are bound by strong and powerful ties. Death, in all its forms, is awful, and in but too many cases, the king of terrors; our ap¬ prehensions are awakened at the most dis¬ tant sound of his footsteps. To look into his cheerless mansions, and to consider our¬ selves destined to become their slumbering tenants; shut out from the cheering light of the sun, and the enlivening society of our fellow men; to anticipate the view that the places we now hold shall be occupied by others, and ourselves scarcely missed from them; our very names forgotten, and our virtues remembered no more; or treasured only by a few faithful friends, to whom we were once dear; our present energies ex¬ changed for inactivity, and our comeliness turned into deformity; to consider the coffin and the shroud, as the utmost wealth can