this moment he felt a shoot of the lumbago, and casting a rueful look first at the paper, and then upon the countenance of his friend, he exclaimed, "My dear Mr. Abernethy! I am most happy to see you; but-only consider my situation; prescribe you must, and shall, by." Here he was immediately cut short by the other, whose eye had been rivetted on the bottle. They again sat and commenced discussing the other bottle of wine. The hours glided away unheeded, and it was past eleven before he perceived, by the approaching depletion of the Tο χλεψόινον, as he held it in his hand, that it was high time to pull the bell, with an inquiry for his servant, &c. Our host was started from a vision of gaiety by the unexpected summons, and grasping with eagerness the hands of his guest, did his utmost to drag him down to his seat, with, "For heaven's sake, dear Abernethy!-now-why, you forget-you' are not going without prescribing for me! let me have your advice! what shall I do?" With a waggish expression of countenance, Abernethy commenced the following address to the patient: "Do, my good hospitable friend," pointing significantly to the neighbourhood of the gastric region, "do, let me entreat you, take care what you put into that big stomach of yoursthere is the seat of your many ailments-consult my book-read it with care and attention, and I can assure you, you will not for the future stand in need of my advice."

Some years before his death, as Mr. Abernethy was walking up Holborn, he overtook one of his pupils :

as was his custom when he had once noticed intrinsic talent, he entered into familiar conversation with him, observing that he had missed him for some time in the dissecting room. The young man, with tears in his eyes, told him he was involved in debt, and that his parents, overtaken like himself by the shafts of adversity, could not grant him the necessary supplies. "To what amount are you in debt ?" "About £80 sir," answered the poor bankrupt. "Well," said Mr. A., "call at Bedford-row to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, and I will see what can be done for you." The young man was obedient to the wishes of his kind instructor, when a letter sealed up was put into his hand, on opening which he discovered a cheque for ninety pounds! This young man was seen at the grave of his late benefactor completely grief-stricken.

Poor John Abernethy was facetious to the very last. He exhibited the ruling passion strong in death.* A short period before his death his legs became ædema

* Instances of the ruling passion strong in death are numerous. Stories of Rabelais' sportiveness and wit to the last are familiar to every one; such as his dressing himself in a domino, a short time before he died, and sitting in it by his bedside, in order, when asked why he committed so ill-timed an extravagance, he might reply," Beati qui in Domino moriuntur." An anecdote of Malherbe, who was "nothing if not critical," is not perhaps so well known as those relating to Rabelais. An hour before his death (says Bayle), after he had been two hours in an agony, he awakened on a sudden to reprove his landlady, who waited upon him, for using a word that was not good French; and when his confessor reprimanded him for it, he told him he could not help it, and that he would defend the purity of the French language

tous; and upon some one inquiring how he was, he replied, "Why, I am better on my legs than ever: you see how much stouter they are!" His hobby retained full possession of his mind to the end of his life. He attributed his disease to the stomach. He said, "It is all stomach; we use our stomach ill when we are young, and it uses us ill when we are old."

It is singular that he left express commands that his body should not be opened after his death.

until death. When his confessor painted the joys of Paradise with extraordinary eloquence, and asked him if he did not feel a vehement desire to enjoy such bliss, Malherber, who had been more attentive to the holy man's manner than to his matter, captiously replied, "Speak no more of it; your bad style disgusts me." He was critical to the last gasp. Poor Sheridan, like Rabelais, in the midst of all his miseries preserved his pleasantry and his perception of the ridiculous, almost as long as life lasted. When lying on his death-bed, the solicitor, a gentleman who had been much favoured in wills, waited on him: after the general legatee had left the room another friend came in, to whom the author of the School for Scandal said, "My friends have been very kind in calling upon me, and offering their services in their respective ways; Dick W. has been here with his will-making face."

CHAPTER III.

EARLY STRUGGLES OF EMINENT MEDICAL MEN.

Dr. Baillie-Dr. Monro-Dr. Parry-Medical Quackery-Sir Hans Sloane-An Episode in Real Life-Dr. Cullen-Dr. T. Denman-Mr. John Hunter-Dr. Armstrong-Ruling Passion strong in Death-Dr. Brown.

SMOLLETT says, in a letter to his friend David Garrick, "I am old enough to have seen and observed that we are all the mere play-things of fortune, and that it depends upon something as insignificant as the tossing up of a halfpenny, whether a man rises to affluence and honour, or continues, to his dying day, struggling with the difficulties and disgraces of life."

The author of "Roderick Random," spoke feelingly; he was a medical man, and knew, by painful experience, the peculiar difficulties with which every medical aspirant has to contend.

The Roman satirist has expressed, in the wellknown ode, commencing,

"Justum et tenacem propositi virum,

Non civium ardor prava jubentium," &c.

his high gratification at the sight of a "brave man struggling with the storms of fate."

It is difficult, however, to induce the combatant to take the same philosophic view of the matter, or to say, with a sage of antiquity, "that he delighted to create difficulties in order to experience the high enjoyment of overthrowing them."

"Can anything," says an eminent writer, "be conceived more dreary and disheartening than the prospect before a young London physician, who, without friends and fortune, yet with high aspirations after professional eminence, is striving to weave around him, what is technically called, a connexion ?"*

It is true, that the members of the medical profession have to go through the same ordeal which other professional men have to encounter; and therefore, it may be urged, they have no just ground of complaint. But many of the obstacles with which the medical man has to contend are of a peculiar nature. No other men have to combat with more heart-rending trials and disappointments. How many spirits are broken in endeavouring to stem the torrent to which the great majority of practitioners in early life, are exposed! He who enters the ranks of medicine must prepare his mind to encounter impediments and mortifications of no ordinary character; he must subdue his own prejudices-the prejudices of his patients, their relations, and contend also against the ill-office of opposing interests; for it unfortunately happens, "that the only judges of his merit, are those who have an interest in concealing it."†

Success in no profession is so uncertain as in that

* Diary of a Physician.

+ Dr. Gregory.