timent, much to the discomfort of the Tory vicar, his father. He rapidly progressed through the successive stages of advancement, as Demonstrator of Anatomy, Lecturer, Surgeon to the Hospital, the first surgeon in the city, Surgeon in the West End, Surgeon to the Duke of York, and finally to a Baronetcy and the position of Surgeon Extraordinary to the King. Sir Astley Cooper was by nature cool and intrepid, of a phlegmatic temperament, and acknowledged by his biographer to have been incapable of very warm attachments. He was purely practi cal, averse to theory and imaginative speculation. We trace here the elements of his distinction as a surgeon. Surgery, unlike Medicine, is a certain science, and deals with the practical, appealing to the eye for its knowledge, and to the skill and nerve of the hand for its application. Sir Astley Cooper was a great surgeon but a poor physician. He was sensibly alive to his own interest, and left no opportunity unimproved to advance. his position. His first impulse, on recovering from an attack of giddiness which had laid him prostrate at the feet of an influential patient, was an injunction of silence. And we read, that, upon discovering that his political opinions were inimical to his worldly progress, he abandoned them and the intimacy of his democratical friends, without a passing regret. Such was the worldliness of an essentially worldly character-an appropriate step to his future elevation as the Surgeon of the Court. Sir Astley Cooper's fame as a surgeon brought with it the more substantial satisfaction of a large income. His average annual receipts, for many years, amounted to seventy-five thousand dollars; and for one year his income reached the enormous sum of a hundred thousand. Nowhere but in London does professional merit meet with so high a reward; in Paris, no surgeon derives from his practice an income beyond twenty thousand dollars; and twelve thousand is near the limit of that of the most successful in New York. In accordance with our truly commercial spirit, the relation of patient and physician is very similar to that of debtor and creditor, an affair of ade, accompanied with the usual business details, of bills rendered, receipts given, and the other et-cetera of a trading transaction, while in London, the reward of the surgeon is left to the generous impulse of his patient. The following extract will illustrate the generosity of the princely merchants of London: Mr. "In the year 1813, my uncle [says the biographer] performed the operation for stone upon Mr. Hyatt, a West Indian merchant, who presented him with a fee of a thousand guineas. Mr. Hyatt had recovered from the effects of the opera- . tion and necessary confinement to the house, when a day was appointed by him, for the last formal visit of the medical men. My uncle arrived rather late, and the physicians, Dr. Lettsom and Dr. Nelson, had already seen the patient, and were talking upon the liberality of his remuneration for their services, he having presented them each with £300. Cooper therefore went up alone, talked to Mr. Hyatt, congratulated him on his recovery, and listened with emotion to the grateful expressions which he poured forth towards him as his benefactor. last, he rose to leave the room, and had reached the door, when his patient, who was sitting by the fire, took off his nightcap and threw it at him, saying, at the same time, There, young man, put that guessing the contents of the missile, inin your pocket.' My uncle, however, serted his hand, and took out from it a piece of paper; chucking the cap to his patient, and at the same time saying, At that he would not rob him of so useful an article, he put the paper into his pocket, and took his departure. On subsequently examining it, he found it to be a check for one thousand guineas. The liberality of Mr. Hyatt was no less remarkable to his apothecary. One day, on running in. haste to his patient, he fell and hurt his knee, so that he walked lame on entering. Mr. Hyatt, observing this, immediately asked, 'Dobson, old fellow, what's the matter?' and on hearing the nature of the accident, remarked, as he opened a box, I have here the best plaister in the world for a bruised knee. He then, drawing out a £100 bank note, applied it over the injured joint, and desired him to keep it there.* The most liberal fee of modern times was that received by Dr. Dimsdale, of Hertford. His celebrity as an inoculator in the small pox, recommended him to the Empress Catharine, at whose invitation he visited Russia. His successful inoculation of the Empress and her son was rewarded with the rank of Baron of the Empire, besides a pension of £500 per annum, and a present of £12,000. The position of Sir Astley Cooper as a lecturer brought him into relation with the Resurrectionists, to whom, previous to the passage of the Anatomy Act, the anatomist was indebted for his supply of subjects. These men were a bold, adventurous class, har dened by their loathsome and illegal occupation, who allowed no scruple to oppose the success of their trade. They were continually skulking about grave yards, concealed themselves in the vaults and charnel houses, and resorted to every device to supply themselves with the material of their disgusting commerce. An extensive trade was carried on by some of the most expert, who contrived not only to supply the home demand in London, but to ship, packed in crates and hogsheads, quantities of dead bodies to the provinces, to Dublin and Edinburgh. A few of these adventurers amassed large sums of money, while the most of them terminated their lives less fortunately, after a career of horse-stealing, burglary, murder, upon the gallows, or in the penal colonies. The following is a specimen of the extraordinary methods resorted to by the bodysnatchers, for a supply of dead bodies: "An intimate friend of Patrick's (a famous resurrectionist) was employed in the service of a gentleman. One day this man called on Patrick, and informed him that his master was dead, and that he thought something in the way of business might be done with the body, as it was lying in the back parlor, the windows of which opened on a large lawn. Patrick made several inquiries, and having ascertained that the funeral was to take place on the following Sunday, said in conclusion, The coffin, then, will, most probably, be screwed down on Saturday; if it is, let me know; I will have nothing to do with it till that part of the work is done.' Things fell out as Patrick anticipated; and accordingly on the night of Saturday, he entered at the back of the premises, and, being admitted to the parlor by the servant, commenced his operations. Unassisted by any light, he drew out all the screws, took off the lid, and, having formed an estimate, as accurately as the circumstances would allow, of the weight of the body, removed it into a box which he had brought with him for the purpose of containing it. He next placed in the coffin a quantity of earth, which the servant had procured trom the garden, corresponding to the weight of the corpse. The lid was then replaced, carefully screwed down, the pall thrown over it, and the box containing the body passed out of the window to Patrick, who hid it in a tool house at some distance from the dwelling-place." We are presented in these volumes with some records left by Sir Astley Cooper, of his impressions and opinions of his royal patient, George the Fourth. These are but shadowy and imperfect sketches, seemingly memoranda dotted down for his own behoof. Our surgeon had removed a tumor from the royal scalp; "The King bore the operation well, requested that there might be no hurry, and when it was finished, said, 'What do you call the tumor?' I said, A steatome, Sire.' 'Then,' said he, I hope it will stay at home, and not annoy me any more."" Truly a royal pleasantry!-only fit to raise a smile upon a courtier's lip. We continue these extracts: "When he returned from Scotland and Ireland, he said, The Scotch were a worldly, respectable people, but,' said he, 'the Irish are all heart. You would have been delighted to have seen their enthusiasm.' The impression the Irish had made character, and, but that he soon forgot, [the upon him was of the most affectionate italics are ours] he would have done something for that fine country and people." But that he soon forgot; how clearly these words illustrate the heartlessness of princes, and that of George the Fourth, the most heartless of them all. Sir Astley seems to have entertained the most exalted notion of the mental capabilities of his royal patient. "The abilities of George the Fourth were of the first order. He would have made the first physician or surgeon of his time, the first lawyer, the first speaker in the House of Commons or Lords, though perhaps not the best divine. As a king he was prosperous, for he had the good sense to be led by good ministers, although, however, he did not like them all. The king was indolent, and therefore disposed to yield to avoid trouble; nervous, and therefore anxious to throw every onus from his own shoulders. He was the most perfect gentleman in his manners and address; possessing the finest person, with the most dignified and gracious condescension, yet excessively proud; familiar himself, but shocked at it in others; violent in his temper, yet natural- found, I believe, in Pennant.' 'Oh,' he said, them." Verily, a most imposing array of princely accomplishments! All this glowing description must be taken cum grano salis. Sir Astley's own accomplishments were not sufficiently extensive to render him a very capable judge of mental endowments in others, nor was his abandonment of his liberal principles calculated to make him a less partial judge of kingly attainment. We have not much faith in the opinion that George the Fourth was a prodigy of learning and wisdom, though he quoted Horace, and had read De Grammont. The licentious poet and lascivious historian appeal to other than intellectual tastes. We believe his majesty to have possessed a ready conversational talent, much miscellaneous and gossiping information, and a memory tenacious of personal anecdote and scandal. We do not suppose that his attainments were other than of the most superficial character, that he knew much more of Latin than of Greek, or that he was capable of high intellectual effort. Sir Astley seems to confirm, in his statement of the king's inability to write, the well-founded opinion (we believe) that he could not spell. He may have been every inch a king, but he had none of the nature of the higher man. George the Fourth was endowed by nature with a fine person, was of a lofty and imposing stature, and welldeveloped figure. He possessed the grace and ease of the finished man of the world. How far he was entitled to the character of the high-minded gentleman, the man of truth, of courteous bearing, of pure and lofty converse, of kind sympathies, and chastened tastes, we leave our readers to judge by our closing extracts: "The king used to say, as soon as Lord Liverpool went out of the room, What an awkward creature that is!' and then he mimicked all his peculiarities, so as to By me cold chicken,' he would say at eleven, before he rose. Yes, sire.' Bring it, and give me a goblet of soda-water.' Soon after he ate again, and at dinner largely; but he did not in general drink much at dinner, unless tempted by the society of men he liked. "Lord said, that George the Fourth and the Duke of York, although generally lavish, were fond of having money in their bureau, which they did not like to expend, and related the following anecdote in illustration. Mrs. Fitzherbert told the king that one of his horses was likely to win at Newmarket, but the stakes were not paid. George Lee came and told him the same thing. Yes,' said the king, I told Lake to pay them.' But, replied Lee, he has no money.' 'Do you pay them, then, my dear fellow. Oh! yes, you pay them.' He could not pay them either, and half an hour only remained; when he was told that his horse could not win, as the stakes were not paid. Yes, but I have told Lake to pay them, and I told Lee to pay them.' But they have no money, your majesty.' And then, very unwillingly, he went to his drawer to take out the sum." He ill deserves the reputation of "the first gentleman of Europe," who lived the life of a glutton, and clung to his gold with the avarice of a miser. These volumes are singularly deficient in interest. We have "a pennyworth of bread to an intolerable deal of sack." The material for a biographical column in Mr. Urban's Magazine, has been, by the aid of uninteresting detail, a diffuse style, a large type, and broad margin, extended over two large octa VOS. This work might have been a valuable acquisition to the medical profession, had not the biographer been diverted from the view of his subject as a surgeon, his real claim to interest, by his fancied importance as a man. We have succeeded in selecting a few points of interest; beyond these, the general reader can have no concern. To the medical world the work is of no solid value. TO THE NOBLE GERMAN POET, GEORGE HERWEGH. HE yield to Prussia's monarch? No! The spirit of his song shall flow, And make those Prussian slaves rejoice. What! interdict the Poet's speech, And strive to stop the light of Heaven! Aye! though it jar and loose those chains The KÖRNER voice becomes a sword, And fires the Peasant with its flame: Then strive not, King, with Herwegh's word, For Freedom's speech thou can'st not tame. |