"Eheu fugaces Postume Postume
Labuntur anni: nec pietas moram
Rugis et instanti senect?
Adferet, indomit?que morti."
Hor.
"How swiftly glide our flying years,
Alas! nor piety, nor tears,
Can stop the fleeting day;
Deep-furrow\'d wrinkles, frosting age,
And Death\'s unconquerable rage,
Are strangers to delay."
Francis.

We have already observed that Abernethy had begun to feel the wear and tear of an anxious and active life, when, after a tenure of office for twenty-eight years as assistant, he was appointed surgeon to St. Bartholomew\'s Hospital. After a few years, he took a house at Enfield, where he occasionally went at leisure hours, on Wednesday and Saturday; and, as the Spring Course of Lectures came near to a conclusion, and in the summer, sometimes on other afternoons. At this season, he had been accustomed to doff the black knee-breeches, silk stockings, and shoes, sometimes with, sometimes without, short gaiters, and refresh one\'s rural recollections with drab kerseymeres and top-boots; in which costume he would at that season not unfrequently come down to lecture. He was fond of riding, and had a favourite mare he called Jenny; and many a time have we seen her jogging along on a fine summer afternoon, and her master356 looking as happy as any schoolboy that he was escaping from the botherations of Bedford Row and the smoke of London. Jenny was a favourite mare, which Abernethy had for nearly twenty-five years. She was a great pet, and her excellent qualities had been associated with almost every little excursion of relaxation or pleasure. All things, however, must have an end. At last, the poor animal became affected with a kind of rheumatism, attended with much suffering. After various hesitations, the pain of which those who are fond of animals can very well understand, the order was given that she should be destroyed. This took place in the stables behind Bedford Row. The family were all in one apartment, except Mr. Abernethy, who was heard pacing up and down his private room. A short pause, and the coachman is seen running from the stable to say that Jenny was no more. One of his daughters ran to Mr. Abernethy\'s room to say, "it is all over, papa." "Good girl," said he, patting her head, "to come and tell me so soon." He is said to have suffered greatly on this occasion.

Some years before this, he met with what might have been a serious accident: in stooping forward, his horse threw up his head and struck him a violent blow on the forehead and nose; as Mr. Abernethy first thought, breaking the bones of the latter. He rode up a gateway, and, having dismounted, was endeavouring to adjust the bruise and staunch the blood, when some people ran to assist him, and, as he said, very kindly asked him if they should fetch him a doctor; "but," said Abernethy, "I told them I thought they had better fetch me a hackney coach," which they accordingly did. He was conveyed home, and in a short time recovered from the accident.

His taking the house at Enfield was probably a prudent measure; he seemed to enjoy it very much, and especially in getting a quiet friend or two down on a Saturday to stay over till the Monday; amongst whom, a very favourite visitor was our respected friend Mr. Clift, of whom we have already spoken. Abernethy had always, however, had what he used aptly enough to term a fidgetty nervous system. From early life he had been annoyed by a particularly irritable heart. The first time he ever357 suffered materially from it was while he was yet a young man. He had been exceedingly depressed by the death of a patient in whose case he had been much interested, and his heart became alarmingly violent and disordered in its action. He could not sleep at night, and sometimes in the day it would beat so violently as to shake his waistcoat. He was afterwards subject to fugitive returns of this complaint, and few, unless by experience, know how distressing such attacks are.

We suspect that surgeons are more frequently thus affected than is generally supposed. A cold, half-brutal indifference is one thing, but a calm and humane self-possession in many of our duties is another, and, as we saw in Cheselden, not obtained always without some cost; the effects of this sometimes appear only when the causes have ceased to recur, or are forgotten. A lively sensibility to impressions was natural to Abernethy; but this susceptibility had been increased by the well-known influence of the air and excitement of crowded cities on people who are engaged in much mental exertion. His physical organization, easily susceptible of disturbance, did not always shake it off again very readily. At one period he suffered an unusually long time from the consequences of a wound in dissection.

These not uncommon accidents occur perhaps a hundred or a thousand times without being followed by any material results; but, if they happen in disordered conditions of health, either of mind or body, they are sometimes serious affairs, and usually of a more or less active kind—that is, soon terminating in death or recovery. Not so in Abernethy. The complaint went through various phases, so that it was nearly three years, he used to tell us, before he fairly and finally got rid of the effects of it. One of the most difficult things for a man so actively engaged in a profession in London as was Abernethy, is to get the requisite quantity of exercise; whilst the great mental exertion which characterizes a London, as distinguished from almost any other kind of life, requires that the digestive organs should be "up to" pretty good living.

Then, again, Abernethy lived in the days of port wine; when every man had something to say of the sample his hospitality358 produced of that popular beverage. Abernethy, who was never intemperate, was very hospitable, and always selected the finest port wine he could get, which, as being generally full and powerful, was for him perhaps the least fitted.

Mr. Lloyd, of Fleet Street, who was one of the old-fashioned family wine-merchants, and one of the best men of his day, was the purveyor of his Falernian; never was there a more correct application of nomenclature than that which gave to him the title, by which he was best known, of "Honest John Lloyd." He was one of the kindest-hearted men I ever knew: he had a great regard for Mr. Abernethy; and was treated himself by almost everybody as an intimate friend. One day I went there just as Abernethy had left. "Well," says Mr. Lloyd, "what a funny man your master is!" "Who?" said I. "Why, Mr. Abernethy. He has just been here, and paid me for a pipe of wine; and threw down a handful of notes and pieces of papers with fees. I wanted him to stop to see if they were right, \'for,\' said I, \'some of these fees may be more than you think, perhaps.\' \'Never mind,\' said he; \'I can\'t stop; you have them as I took them,\' and hastily went his way."

Sedentary habits, however, as people now begin to find, do not harmonize well with great mental exertion, or constant and anxious occupation. In 1817, Abernethy felt his combined duties as surgeon to the hospital, as lecturer there, and also at the College, becoming too onerous, and therefore in that year resigned the Professorship. On this occasion, the Council sent him the following unanimous expression of their appreciation of his services.

    "At the Court of Assistants of the Royal College of Surgeons in
    London, holden at the College on the 15th day of July, 1817;

    "Resolved unanimously:

    "That the thanks of this Court be presented to John Abernethy, Esq. for the series of Lectures delivered by him in the theatre of this College, in the years 1814, 1815, 1816, 1817, with distinguished energy and perspicuity, by which he359 has elucidated the physiological and pathological opinions of John Hunter, explained his design in the formation of the Hunterian Collection, illustrated the principles of surgery, and thereby has highly conduced to the improvement of anatomical and physiological knowledge, the art and science of surgery, and to the promotion of the honour of the College."

This seems to have gratified him, as, under all circumstances, we can readily understand it might do; and he accordingly replied to it as follows:

    "TO THE MASTER, GOVERNORS, AND COUNCIL OF THE ROYAL
    COLLEGE OF SURGEONS.

    "Sir and Gentlemen,

    "To obtain the good opinion of others, is a universal object of human actions; and we often strive to acquire it by circuitous and absurd means; but to obtain the approbation of eminent and judicious characters, by pursuing the direct path of professional duty, is the most gratifying mode of seeking and receiving this object of general ambition.

    "I have ventured to premise these observations, to show you, gentlemen, that I do not write inconsiderately, or merely as a matter of form, when I thus return you my warmest thanks for the distinguished honour you have conferred on me by your public approbation of my endeavours86 to discharge the duties of an arduous office, to which I was elected through your kindness and confidence.

    "I have the honour to remain,????
    "Sir and Gentlemen,??
    "Your very grateful and obedient servant,?
    "John Abernethy."

We insert in this place a letter which he wrote about this time to Sir William Blizard; because it shows two things which360 are characteristic: the one, how constant he was in not allowing any considerations to interfere with the lectures; and the other, the endurance of his old attachment to Sir William Blizard. It is an apology for not having been present at the Council.

    "Dear Sir William,

    "I was yesterday desired to see a patient residing seven or eight miles from London. I could not go that day, for it was lecture evening; I cannot go to-morrow for the same reason; consequently I must go this evening. I hope you will consider these circumstances as an apology for my absence from the Board.

    "If you cite my example as one misleading future Professors, be so good as to remember that I retired, leaving the task which I had undertaken incomplete, wherefore it became necessary to explain publicly to an indulgent audience my motives for resigning the Professorship.

    "I remain, dear Sir William,??
    "Yours unremittingly,?
    "John Abernethy."

Abernethy had at various periods of his life been subject to an inflammatory sore throat of a very active kind, which would on some days impede so as almost to prevent his swallowing, and then suddenly terminate in abscess, leaving him perfectly well again. He was young when these sorts of attack began; for in his lectures he used to speak of one of them having subsided only the night before he had some lectures to deliver before the Council of the College, when they were accustomed to meet in the Old Bailey.

As he advanced in life, the disposition to disorder of the digestive organs, which had hitherto shown a tendency to terminate in inflammation of the mucous membrane of the throat, began to affect other structures; and he became teazed and subsequently greatly tortured by rheumatism. The disorder so termed (a kind of general name for various conditions of disorder very different from each other, and which occasionally affect, not only361 joints, but other structures) is in many cases, as we all know, extremely painful; and is never more excruciating than when muscular parts thus conditioned are affected by spasm. These spasms were a source of much acute suffering to Abernethy. His constant occupations gave him no opportunity of relieving himself from work, except there was that accommodation of indisposition to convenient times, which of course seldom happens.

In the early parts of his life, Abernethy, when he was out of health, would take the first opportunity which his occupations allowed of going a little way into the country; and there, by diet, and amusing himself by reading and exercise, he would soon get well. But as he advanced in life, he was not so ready to attend to himself as perhaps he ought to have been. Besides, he would occasionally do things which incurred unnecessary risks, which we ourselves have sometimes ventured to mention to him.

Living, at the time to which we are now alluding, in Ely Place, and attending his lectures long after we had commenced practice, we frequently walked down with him to lecture; sometimes in the rain, when we used to think his knee-breeches and silk stockings looked most uncomfortable. Besides this, he was very careless about his umbrella; I never recollect him on such occasions calling a coach, and I hardly ever knew him come down to his evening lecture in his carriage. He generally came to the two-o\'clock lecture some minutes before the time; and, as he often complained of cold feet, he would stand opposite one of the flue openings in the Museum. One day, I ventured to suggest to him that the transition of ............