cords of the surgical art, though it cannot be said that any of them reflect credit on their author as compositions. But the principal merit of this compilation is in the clear light it throws on the actual life-the daily existence of a first-rate London surgeon. Astley Cooper made more money than any surgeon that ever lived before him. In one year, 1815, his professional income amounted to upwards of twenty-one thousand pounds. No physician in the world has at all approached this. We do not believe that any barrister--not even Lord Abinger as attorney-general-came very near it. The nephew, the pupil, and frequent assistant of such a man as this must have his memory stored with details, which, if but tolerably set forth, are sure to be thankfully received. Mr. Bransby Cooper, however, tells his tale with such profuse verbosity and long-windedness that it must, in mercy to the reader, undergo a compressing process.

Throughout the whole thoroughly active period of his life, then, Astley Cooper was in his dissecting-room, winter and summer, by six o'clock at the latest; by eight he was dressed (perhaps rather over-dressed) for the day, and at the service of gratuitous patients, who occupied him till half-past nine. Young physicians and surgeons owe much, of course, to their practice among the poor; but the generosity with which the bestemployed men in both branches devote many hours every weekevery minute being a guinea'-to this inestimable charity, is perhaps not sufficiently considered by the wealthier classes when the matter of fees is in discussion. No professional men sacrifice time to duty and benevolence at such a heavy cost to themselves. Few men liked money better than Cooper; but he never abandoned this honourable custom. His breakfast with his family occupied but a few gay minutes; and by ten his waiting-rooms were thronged with patients, who continued to stream in by the dozen until one o'clock :

:-

To the right of the hall were two large rooms, occupied by gentlemen patients; two drawing-rooms immediately above were appropriated to the reception of ladies. The hall had generally servants waiting for answers to notes; the ante-room was for the one or two patients next in succession. The farther room on the right was full of gentlemen waiting their turn. These were anxious, perhaps, but still in a much less pitiable state than the occupants of the first to the right. All in this room had undergone some operation, which unfitted them for the present to leave the house. It was certainly an object of interest, at times partaking no little of the ludicrous to me as an inconsiderate youngster, to see six or eight persons who had never set eyes upon one another before, contorting their features into expressions of all the kinds of suffering, from the dullest torment to the most acute pain-[happy youngster, and happy language!]-others moving in anxious restless

ness

ness to different parts of the room-while some one would be asking his neighbour with eager curiosity what was the nature of the infliction he had undergone, still writhing, perhaps, under the effects of his own. These patients used to remain in this room until either their pain had ceased, or Mr. Cooper himself dismissed them after completing the operation to which they had been subjected.

The patience of the ladies, perhaps, was more severely tried than even that of the gentlemen; for as in Charles's judgment their occupation was not likely to be so important, nor their time so precious, he was accustomed rather to expedite the admission of the gentlemen than theirs. He most ungallantly used to observe, "There was more difficulty in drawing one lady than two gentlemen;" meaning in withdrawing the lady from Mr. Cooper's presence. The manner by which the ladies exhibited their impatience was by frequently opening the drawing-room door, peeping over the banisters, or sometimes coming down into the hall and supplicating Charles; requests which he knew well enough how to answer.

The ante-room was sometimes applied to another purpose than the legitimate one, for Charles had some few chosen friends, who knew how to pay their way into this room at once.

'Sometimes the people in the hall and ante-room were so numerous and so importunate that my uncle dreaded the ordeal of explaining the necessity for his departure. He was in the habit, under such circumstances, of escaping through the back-yard into his stables, and so into the passage by the side of Bishopsgate church. He would then run round past his carriage, which was standing at the front door, into Wormwood Street, to which place he would be immediately followed by his coachman, who well understood this ruse.'-vol. ü. pp. 72-77.

He was in a few minutes at Guy's-where a hundred pupils were waiting on the steps. They followed him into the wards of the hospital, and from bed to bed, until the clock struck two-then rushed across the street to the anatomical theatre, and the lecture began. At three he went to the dissecting-rooms, and observation, direction, and instruction kept him busy here for half an hour. Then he got into his carriage, attended by a dresser, and his horses were hard at work until seven or half-past seven. His family were assembled: dinner was instantly on the table, and he sat down apparently fresh in spirits, with his attention quite at the command of the circle. He ate largely, but cared not what-after twelve hours of such exertion he, as he said, 'could digest anything but sawdust.' During dinner he drank two or three large tumblers of water, and afterwards two glasses of port—no more. Then he threw himself back in his chair and slept. He seldom required to be roused, but awoke exactly as the allotted ten minutes expired-started up, 'gave a parting smile to everybody in the room, and in a few seconds was again on his way to the hospital.'

There

There was a lecture every other evening during the season-on the odd nights, however, the carriage was equally at his door by eight-and he continued his round of visits till midnight, often till one or two in the morning.

His carriage was well lighted; and by night as well as by day, in passing from one house to another, his attendant was writing to his dictation-the chronicle of each case kept pace with the symptoms;

'And Sunday shone no sabbath-day for him.' When called into the country he usually said to the postboys'I give threepence a mile for bad driving, fourpence for good, but sixpence if you drive like the devil.' Such for full fifteen years was the existence of the great surgeon of Broad Street, Saint Mary Axe.

Industry of such high pressure' had, of course, some interruptions of relaxation; but the diversions of the very busy are rarely very delicate. They are willing to accept what is nearest at hand, and may be entered on without preparation, and enjoyed without effort. He was hospitable to his pupils, whose reverence and submission made them attentive listeners and ready laughers. He also entertained, though less frequently, those of his own or the other branches of the profession, with whom he had been connected familiarly in early years, or whom he encountered daily in the rounds of his practice. Of these such as were, like himself, successful-were, if not like himself actually overworked, aware that he was so, and under the habitual impression of his great professional ability; if the less fortunate did not always regard his prosperity without envy, his authority was so extensive, that some advantage might be anticipated from the cultivation of his goodwill: among neither set, therefore, was he likely to find over-critical guests. With accomplished men, beyond his own calling, he seems in his prime neither to have held nor desired to hold much social intercourse; and in no particular did he less resemble most of those among his own brethren who in our time have attained similar reputation. Their minds have, in general, been expanded and refined by a variety of studies; they delight in the society of their intellectual compeers; and we think on the whole, of all orders of professional men, their conversation in mixed company has been commonly acknowledged to be the most interesting, affording the happiest combination of instructiveness and entertainment. We might, it is possible, fill an amusing page by quoting from Mr. Bransby Cooper's picture of his uncle's city dinners and suburban clubs, but we are afraid that the result might be to leave a somewhat disrespectful notion of the profession itself -that which has perhaps justly been called our most accom

plished

plished profession.' We leave therefore some chapters, filled with what seems low-enough merriment, and occasional verses, in which we can discover nothing but dismal imbecility, to be explored by those who are curious in such matters. Cooper's own chief distinction amidst these scenes of festivity appears to have depended on joyous hilarity, practical jokes (much in the style of his youth at Yarmouth), and, above all, the incessant audacity of puns.

It is, however, well attested that he was even then a very different sort of converser in a tête-à-tête. When shut up by chance in the same carriage with any man of talents, the tenacity of his memory -the searching sagacity with which he had observed whatever the course of life had brought under his view-and the unaffected frankness of his temperament, seem to have been more than sufficient to render his talk richly diverting. To hear him thus, we suppose, was like being present at one of the best of his easy colloquial lectures on comparative anatomy. The truth is, he was then, as at his lecture, enjoying the exertion of his powerful faculties. In the favoured conviviality of the evening he thought only of unbending them; or if, indeed, he had come at last to confound boisterous pleasantry with the fascinations of wit, we must not forget how easily almost any man who is much flattered learns to flatter himself; and that of all weaknesses the most harmless, as well as the most common, is vanity.

Of his memory his nephew gives some striking examples; and they will be considered as of great importance by those whose experience has brought them to our own conclusion—namely, that this faculty is almost always in exact proportion to the general capacity and vigour of the intellect. It may be greatly strengthened by culture: but where it has not been largely given, or successfully improved, all other talents are vain and fruitless. We are aware that some people on the verge of idiotcy will exhibit an all but miraculous power of memory as to some one particular class of objects; but we speak of cases where the mind is not actually incomplete or deformed-where there is the usual set of faculties to be measured and appreciated.

His sagacity was shown in some remarkable extra-professional incidents. Being called in to see Mr. Blight of Deptford when wounded in 1806, the aspect of the partner, Mr. Patch, instantly conveyed to him conviction of his being the assassin. When, on examination of the localities, he signified that the shot must have been fired by a left-handed man, the attendants, who were far from having taken up any similar suspicion, exclaimed that there was no left-handed person near except friend Patch -who was tried and condemned, and who confessed before his execution.

execution. In like manner when Nicolson, the trusted and respected old servant of Mr. and Mrs. Bonar, arrived in Broad Street with the news of that midnight catastrophe, the man's countenance satisfied Astley Cooper that the murderer was before him. We all know how slow the family were to adopt this opinionand also that he too confessed his crime. In neither of these cases, however, could the acute anatomist pretend to define the source of his impressions. He could only say There was an indescribable something.'

To illustrate the happy exercise of these gifts within Sir Astley's professional department would be to write his life-as it has not yet been written.

By 1815 the change in city habits was well advanced, and he had besides come into very great practice among the nobility and gentry at the other end of London. He therefore made up his mind to do as Cline had done before him, and established himself in the neighbourhood of the Court-New Street, Spring Gardens-where he continued a course of life not much unlike that of Broad Street, except that he had now retired from his professorship at the Royal College, and begun to affect more silkiness of manner and finery of habits.

With his private patients he was, we believe, more popular than any other contemporary practitioner in either branch. His goodly person had its effect with the ladies-his good-nature with alland the varnish of feeling with most. With oil enough for every wound, he was the conveyer of more comfort than any one of his more sensitive brethren. We know, from Cheselden's account of himself, that the greatest of surgeons may feel his profession a burden and torment all through the most successful of lives. John Hunter turned pale as death whenever he had to use the knife. Abernethy, in our own time, whom many took for a coarse man merely because of his rough humour, could never think of an operation without heart-sickness. It was the same with that great and ill-requited genius, Sir Charles Bell-we must not name living names. But all came and went more easily with Astley Cooper. When a friend of ours, returning casually with him from a consultation one day, dropped something in a melancholy tone about the anxieties of their common profession, 'I don't understand you,' said he; upon my word I think ours a very pleasant life. Is it such a hardship to chat with a succession of well-bred people every morning, and seal up a round sum for your banker as often as you get home? But we must not understand such sayings too literally. No man had a better right to the natural satisfaction of reflecting that human sufferings had been largely relieved by his ministry.