BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 61
means he soon waxed warm, and by degrees his imagination became dreadfully
excited. Before leaving Edinburgh, he was so miserably reduced in his circumstances
as to be committed to prison for debt, where his pupils attended his
lectures. His liberation from jail was principally attributable to the exertions
of the eccentric but amiable Lord Gardenstone.
Shortly after his arrival in London, the peculiarity of his appearance as he
moved along-a short, square figure-with an air of dignity, in a black suit,
which made the scarlet of his cheeks and nose the more resplendent-attracted
the notice of certain '' Chevaliers d'lndustrie," on the look-out for spoil in the
street. They addressed him in the dialect of his country: his heart, heavy as
it must have been from the precariousness of his situation and distance from his
native land, expanded to these agreeable sounds. A conversation ensued, and
the parties by common consent adjourned to a tavern. Here the stranger was
kindly welcomed to town, and, after the glass had circuIated for a time, something
was proposed .by way of amusement-a game at cards or whatever the
Doctor might prefer. The Doctor had been too civilly treated to demur ; but
his purse was scantily furnished, and it was necessary to quit his new friends in
search of a supply. Fortunately he applied to Mr. Murray the bookseller, who
speedily enlightened him as to the quality of his companions.
A London sharper, of another denomination, afterwards tried to take
advantage of the Doctor. This was an ingenious speculator in quack medicines,
He thought a composition of the most powerful st,imulants might have a run
under the title of " Dr. Brown's Exciting Pill ;" and, for the privilege of the
name, offered him a sum in hand, by no means contemptible, as well as a share
of the contemplated profits. Poor Brown, needy as he was, to his honour
indignantly rejected the proposal,
By his sojourn in London Brown did not improve his circumstances : he
persisted in his old irregularities, projecting at the same time 'great designs,
and entertaining sanguine expectations of success ; but on the 7th of October
1788, when he was about fifty-two years of age, he was seized with a fit of
apoplexy, and died in the course of the night.
No. XXVII.
DR. BROWN IN HIS STUDY,
Writing, we have little doubt, his " Elements of Medicine," a new edition of
which, revised and corrected by Dr. Beddoes, was printed in two vols. 8v0, in
1793.