though others might have regarded it as mere drudgery-that he disdained so long as it came to him in the way of duty. A rich man, as the world goes, he might well have withdrawn years before he did from the hard work he had undertaken in connection with the School of Medicine. But he continued to lecture there with the greatest regularity down to the close of 1877, long after men who were younger than himself had thought themselves entitled to leave the task in other hands; and even when, by his retirement from the council, he had ceased to have any personal interest in the success of the School, he continued, for the benefit of his old colleagues, to give his time to the discharge of the wearisome and often trivial duties of the treasurership.

In the preparation of his lectures to the successive generations of students whom he helped to prepare for their profession, he spared no expenditure of either time or trouble. In an earlier chapter something has been said of the number of these lectures. His first class, as is there stated, was in Botany. To illustrate his lectures he executed with his own hand a very large number of coloured diagrams, enlargements chiefly of the engravings and woodcuts in standard scientific works, which of themselves furnished a wonderful testimony both to his graphic skill and to his patient and conscientious devotion to

the work of teaching. It was noticeable, too, that he took the same pains year by year to keep his lectures abreast of the progress of science. With laborious exactness he constantly strove to give his pupils the very best that he could bestow upon them.

His delivery of his lectures, unfortunately, was not attractive in manner. It was altogether plain and unvarnished-a simple statement of the truths he wished to bring home to his class, devoid of all rhetorical ornament. The result was that his lectures did not produce the impression which they might otherwise have done upon careless or indifferent students. But by those who were anxious to learn they were appreciated at their true value, and there were few lecturers who succeeded in imparting a larger amount of knowledge to the diligent student than he did.

As a practising physician he won in a very marked degree the confidence of his patients, whilst in consultations with his professional brethren he enjoyed their high esteem and respect. As has been explained elsewhere, he never attained a large practice, except that which fell to him in connection with the work he performed for the various charitable institutions of the town. But those who came in contact with him as a consulting physician had much reason to admire the thoroughness with which he investi

gated the cases with which he had to deal. In diagnosing a disease he made use not merely of his own personal experience, but of the knowledge gained by the leaders in his profession; for throughout his life he was most careful to keep himself abreast of the advancing tide of medical discovery, and at any moment he could elucidate the case of a patient who was the subject of a consultation by reference to the most recent investigations of scientific men which happened to bear upon it. The declaration of his fellow-doctors in Leeds was that in consultations on difficult cases Dr. Heaton talked like a book.' The fact was that he talked out of the fulness of his knowledge of what other persons thought upon the particular disease with which he was dealing, and also out of his own readiness to suppress himself. He was one of those men, rarely to be met with, who are willing to accept the undoubted experiences of others as being equal in importance and significance to their own. He offered himself, as it were, as a witness in the case with which he was dealing, but in pronouncing judgment he relied upon the general weight of testimony and experience rather than upon his own evidence alone. I never,' says one of his colleagues, 'knew a man who in his dealings with his patients was more completely self-effacing-I mean who thought less of himself and of the impression he might make either on the patient, his friends, or the

practitioner in attendance. This indifference to outward effect doubtless had something to do with the comparative smallness of his practice. He would have disdained a reputation which depended in any degree on graces of manner or the arts of insinuation. Esse quam videri was the motto of his life, and in nothing was his adherence to this principle more clearly displayed than in his professional labours as a physician.' It should be added to this that among the poorer class of patients he enjoyed a very marked degree of popularity. They liked him for his quiet and unpretending manner and genuine kindliness, and their regard for him was touchingly shown at the time of his death, when one very poor woman sent what she described as a 'reefe' of flowers to be placed upon his coffin, and others testified in similar ways their gratitude for his kindness to them.

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CHAPTER IX.

EDUCATIONAL WORK-THE YORKSHIRE COLLEGE.

THE steady growth, not merely in usefulness, but in sympathy with all works which he regarded as likely to benefit his fellow-creatures, and above all those with whom by the accident of position he was brought into most immediate contact, which had marked the whole public career of Dr. Heaton, was never more conspicuous than during the last decade of his life. We find that during these closing years he was often complaining of decaying physical powers, and had evident forebodings of a comparatively early close to his life. His spirits had never been high, and as he advanced in life they did not improve. Like other men he had his disappointments, though it was fortunate for him that they were in no case of a serious character. Yet, if they were not serious in themselves, they weighed upon his spirits, from which the elasticity of youth was gone, and often compelled him to take a somewhat gloomy view of the future. This fact must be borne in mind by those who wish to appreciate the singular devotion which he showed