In the same house, we believe, that had been occupied by Penn[146], resided an author who must not be passed over in a work of this kind; to wit, the indefatigable and honest antiquary, Dr. Birch. He came of a Quaker stock. Birch astonished his friends by going a great deal into company; but the secret of his uniting sociality with labour, was his early rising. This, which appears to be one of the main secrets of longevity, ought to have kept him older, for he died at the age of sixty-one: but he was probably festive as well social, and should have taken more exercise. Being a bad horseman, he was thrown on the Hampstead road, and killed on the spot; but the doctors were uncertain whether apoplexy had not a hand in the disaster. In speaking of Birch, nobody should omit a charming billet, written to him by his first wife, almost in the article of death. The death took place within a year after their marriage, and was accelerated by childbed.
"This day I return you, my dearest life, my sincere hearty thanks for every favour bestowed on your most faithful and obedient wife.
In Norfolk Street, for upwards of thirty years, lived Dr. Brocklesby, the friend and physician of Dr. Johnson. Physicians of this class may, _par excellence_, be styled the friends of men of letters. They partake of their accomplishments, understand their infirmities, sympathise with their zeal to do good, and prolong their lives by the most delicate and disinterested attentions. Between no two professions has a more liberal and cordial intimacy been maintained than between literature and medicine. Brocklesby was an honour to the highest of his calling.
"In the course of his practice," we are told that "his advice, as well as his purse, was ever accessible to the poor, as well as to men of merit who stood in need of either. Besides giving his advice to the poor of all descriptions, which he did with an active and unwearied benevolence, he had always upon his list two or three poor widows, to whom he granted small annuities; and who, on the quarter-day of receiving their stipends, always partook of the hospitalities of his table. To his relations, who wanted his assistance in their business or professions, he was not only liberal, but so judicious in his liberalities as to supersede the necessity of a repetition of them. To his friend Dr Johnson (when it was in agitation amongst his friends to procure an enlargement of his pension, the better to enable him to travel for the benefit of his health), he offered an establishment of one hundred pounds per year during his life; and upon Dr. Johnson's declining it (which he did in the most affectionate terms of gratitude and friendship), he made him a second offer of apartments in his own house, for the more immediate benefit of medical advice. To his old and intimate friend Edmund Burke, he had many years back bequeathed by will the sum of one thousand pounds; but recollecting that this event might take place (which it afterwards did) when such a legacy could be of no service to him, he, with that judicious liberality for which he was always distinguished, gave it to him in advance, '_ut pignus amicitæ_:' it was accepted as such by Mr. Burke, accompanied with a letter, which none but a man feeling the grandeur and purity of friendship like him could dictate."[148]