whom or to what, he was alluding. 'Why,' said Mr. Cooper, 'you don't mean to say that you are not my nephew, Astley Cooper?" Really, sir, I have not the pleasure of knowing any such person. My name is, of the th," replied the young scapegrace, naming with unflinching boldness, the regiment of which he wore the uniform. Mr. William Cooper apologised, although still unable to feel assured he was not being duped, and bowing, passed on." Soon after the detection of this very theatrical piece of imposition, which cannot fail to remind our readers of a precisely similar incident in Bourcicault's comedy of "London Assurance," we are informed that the articles of indenture were transferred from Mr. William Cooper to Mr. Cline. This translation seems to have had a wonderfully salutary effect upon the youthful masquerader, and henceforth his genius for adventures appears to have taken quite a new turn, and displayed itself solely in the acquisition of "subjects" for experiment. These consisted principally of purloined dogs, and in the "Life" already referred to, we are complacently furnished with several anecdotes of the reformed Astley's painstaking system of scientifically torturing these poor animals, which, however, with a little more respect for the feelings of our readers, we shall refrain from introducing here. Astley speedily acquired great favour with Mr. Cline for the zeal and earnestness with which he took to the practice of dissection, and erelong, under that great surgeon's tuition, he made rapid progress in all the knowledge requisite for his profession. In the year 1787, being then nineteen years of age, he spent one winter at Edinburgh. He had good introductions, and, besides attending diligently on Dr. Cullen's medical course, Fyfe's anatomical lectures, and Black's chemistry, found time to be rather an active member of the "Speculative Society," a debating club then and afterwards of considerable celebrity and influence. His notes make us acquainted with some of the connections he formed here, and which must have been highly useful to him. Amongst others, besides those of his medical teachers, he mentions the celebrated names of Dugald Stewart, Adam Smith, Lord Meadowbank, and Charles Hope. Of Dr. Gregory, from a variety of others, we select the following beautiful and touching anecdote. "It was the custom for each professor to receive at his own house the fees from the new pupils. One day Dr.Gregory, thus engaged, had used all his blank tickets, and was obliged to go into an adjoining apartment to procure another for a student whom he left sitting in his consulting-room. The accumulated money was lying on the table, and from this sum, as he was re-entering the room, he saw the young man sweep a portion, and deposit it in his pocket. Dr. Gregory took his seat at the table, and, as if nothing had occurred, filled up the ticket, and gave it to the delinquent. He then accompanied him to the door, and, when at the threshold, with much emotion said to him, I saw what you did just now; keep the money. I know what must be your distress; but, for God's sake, never do it again, it can never succeed.' The pupil in vain offered him back the money, and the Doctor had the satisfaction of knowing that this moral lesson produced the desired impression upon his mind." In After making a tour into the Highlands on horseback, in the following summer, Cooper returned to England, and resumed his attendance at the best schools in the metropolis. He now studied under John Hunter, and that eagerly, and with vast profit; and to his bold adoption and clever exposition of the doctrines of this illustrious preceptor, are mainly to be attributed the subsequent distinguished rank which he himself took, and the fortune he made as a lecturer and surgical teacher. 1789, he was appointed demonstrator at St. Thomas's Hospital; and in 1791, Mr. Cline paid him the high compli ment of procuring his nomination as joint-lecturer with himself in anatomy and surgery. From this date his career was one of rapid and uninterrupted advancement. In December of this year, we hear of his marriage with a Miss Anne Cock, the daughter of an inti mate friend of Mr. Cline, a rich retired merchant, who inhabited a villa near Tottenham, but who, strange to say, died upon the very day that had been first settled for the wedding. Mr. Bransby Cooper thus relates the sequel: "A short time subsequent to this bereavement the friends of the young people considered it advantageous that their marriage should be no longer deferred. In December a christening was to take place from the house of Mr. Cline, and he thought that and as practitioner, an eminence, which for a man of his standing, is perhaps without a precedent. The next great step, however, the appointment as surgeon to Guy's Hospital, met, in consequence of his French politics, with considerable opposition. But the difficulty was overcome by his avowing his determination to "relinquish the companionship and intimacy of his late democratical friends, and abandon for the future all participation in the strife of politics and party," a pledge to which he faithfully adhered. Fortune seems to have delighted in favouring him, for about this time he also succeeded to a great share of Cline's lucrative city practice, the latter having removed to the west end of the town. Mr. Cooper now occupied the spacious premises in St. Mary Axe, which Cline had vacated; and as yet, the great merchants of London, had not, generally speaking, abandoned the old custom of having their town-residences in connection with their places of business, he found himself in the centre of a most intelligent and opulent society, and soon became accustomed to munificent fees. For example, one ancient merchant, Mr. Hyatt, when pronounced all right again, tossed his night-cap to the surgeon, who, bowing politely, put it into his pocket, and, on entering his chariot, found pinned inside a bank-note for £1000 !-Others regularly paid him liberal annuities. A Mr.Coles, of Mincing Lane, for a long course of time, gave him £600 every Christmas. While on the subject of fees, it may be somewhat encouraging to struggling practitioners, as well as interesting to our readers generally, to insert here the following curious statement from Sir Astley's feebook: this would afford an excellent opportunity for his young friends to be united. The marriage was solemnized, and they afterwards retired, as if they had been merely witnesses of the christening. On the evening of the same day, Mr. Cooper delivered his surgical lecture with all the ease of manner which characterized him on ordinary occasions, and the pupils dispersed without a suspicion of the occurrence. After lecture he went to the house in Jefferies-square, which Mr. Cock, promising to himself the happiness of seeing his daughter surrounded with every comfort, had but a short time before his decease purchased, and furnished for them." In June of the following year, the memorable 1792, the happy couple proceeded to Paris. The object of this nuptial excursion was, it would appear, in so far as Mr. Cooper at least was concerned, twofold. Along with his friend Cline's anatomical instructions, he had also imbibed that gentleman's peculiar political principles. Cline was a democrat, living in friendship with Horne Tooke, and Cooper was one of the most promising, and about this time, probably one of the most enthusiastic of their disciples. His visit to Paris, therefore, was, in the first place, more with a view to gratify his curiosity by attendance at the debates of the National Assembly, &c.; and secondly, of improving his professional knowledge by comparing the Parisian practice of surgery with our own, than for the sake either of change or amusement. During the terrible three months he remained there, he is said to have attended the hospitals daily, decorated with a demoeratie badge, which ensured his personal safety in the streets. He witnessed the 10th of August and the 2d of September, and notwithstanding the many atrocities 'My receipt," says he, "for the first brought under his eye, his Parisian ex-year was £5 5s.; the second, £26; the perience did not disturb his adhesion third, £64; the fourth, £96; the fifth, to Mr. Cline's political views. On the £100; the sixth, £200; the seventh, contrary, we learn upon good authority £400; the eighth, £610; the ninth, that on his return, he was an active £1100, although I was a lecturer all steward of the festival of the Revolution the time on anatomy and surgery." In Society of London, in 1793." his later years, however, he is said to have 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! The secret of all this, as has already been remarked, was industry. Throughout the whole thoroughly active period of his life, we are informed, Astley Cooper was in his dis This circumstance, however, did not interfere with his being, in the very same year, appointed to the professorship at Surgeons' College, and he filled the chair with so much approbation that he was re-elected to it year after year, as long as he could place his services at their disposal. Before the close of the century he had reached, both as lecturer 66 secting room, winter and summer, by six o'clock at the latest, by eight he was dressed for the day and at the service of gratuitous patients, who usually occupied him till half-past nine, an honourable custom which he never abandoned, fond as he was of money. His breakfast with his family occupied but a few 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. These patients used to remain in the room until either their pain had ceased, or Mr. Cooper himself dismissed them after completing the operation to which they had been subjected. Sometimes the people in the hall and ante-room were so numerous and importunate that he 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 run round past his carriage, standing at the front door, into Wormwood Street, to which place his coachman, who wel! understood the ruse, would immediately follow him. 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 He ate the command of the circle. The following portrait of him is from the pen of Mr. Travers, one of the most distinguished of his pupils: "Astley Cooper, when I first knew him, had decidedly the handsomest, that is, the most intelligent and finely-formed countenance and person of any man I remember to have seen. He wore his hair powdered, with a queue, then the custom, and having dark hair, and always a fine healthy glow of colour in his cheeks, this fashion became him well. He was remarkably upright, and moved with grace, vigour, and elasticity: nor was he altogether unconscious of the fine proportions of his frame, for he would not unfrequently throw his wellshaped leg upon the table at a lecture, when describing an injury or operation of the lower limb, that he might more graphically demonstrate the subject of his discourse. He would look at particular or urgent cases before and after lecture, and he generally went round à loisir, as a florist would visit his parterre, with two or three elder students on a Sunday morning." Dr. Roots says of him: "From the period of Astley's appointment to Guy's, until the moment of his latest breath, he was everything and all to the suffering and afflicted; his name was a host, but his presence brought confidence and comfort; and I have often observed, that on an operating day, should any thing occur of an untoward character in the theatre, the moment Astley Cooper entered, and the instrument was in his hand, every difficulty seemed overcome, and safety generally ensued." A high character, and, in a great measure, a true one. Sir Astley Cooper, nevertheless, is declared by some to have been a great actor in his way, and his love of display is alleged to have been as obvious on such occasions as his skill. Like many other actors of less importance, he had an unbounded confidence in his own abilities; and his admirable manual dexterity is stated to have been the result of his retaining the most perfect possession of himself in the operating theatre. He was kind and hospitable to his pupils, whose reverence and submission made them attentive listeners; and, under the habitual impression of his great professional ability, admiring spectators of the most ordinary operations when performed by him. With his private patients he was also very popular, more so perhaps than any other contemporary practitioner in either branch. His goodly person had its effect with the ladies, his good-nature with all, and his affectation of feeling with most. John Hunter is said to have turned pale as death whenever he had to use the knife; even the comparatively coarse and rough-humoured Abernethy could never think of an operation without heart sickness. It was the same with Sir Charles Bell and many other distinguished men who might be named. All, however, came and went more easily with Astley Cooper; with scarcely any feeling, but with oil enough for every wound, he was the conveyer of more comfort than any one of his more sensitive brethren. With his hospital patients, however, we do not find that he was much in the habit of using the oil alluded to. Amongst them, and surrounded by his obsequious pupils, in whom, no doubt, he found ready laughers, Sir Astley's conduct was most remarkable for a facetiousness, which, to all but his attendant dressers and box carriers, must have been excessively dismal. And even with himself was probably as far from being genuine as it was unquestionably unbecoming and inappropriate. No man, however, had a greater right to the natural satisfaction of reflecting that human suffering had been largely relieved by his ministry. In 1815 Mr. Cooper removed from Broad Street in the city, to New Street, Spring Gardens, in the neighbourhood of the Court, as he had now come into very great practice among the nobility and gentry of London. About the same time also he retired from his professorship at the Royal College. Some time after taking up his residence at the west end, although not on the Royal establishment, he was chosen by George IV. to remove an "ugly tumour from his head." It was rumoured abroad at the time, that on this occasion the great anatomist's nerves failed him, and that Mr. Cline, who was present, performed the operation. This, however, we believe to have been but " a weak invention of the enemy." And the story receives a sufficient confutation from the fact of the king soon afterwards making Mr. Cooper his sergeant-surgeon, and, in due time, conferring upon him also the title of baronet. This latter circumstance completed the change which time and prosperity had been gradually working in his political sentiments. There are some interesting passages in his Notes of this period; and they are for the most part not only entertaining, but well written. The following is not perhaps one of the best, but it is a fair average specimen, and possesses, besides the additional recommendation to us of being shorter than most of the others. Sir Astley writes of the king. "He often awoke early, and read from five or six o'clock in the morning until nine or ten, and thus he became acquainted with all the new books of every description which he read, novels, pamphlets, voyages, travels, and plays. And he liked to talk of them. He usually received me at from ten to eleven o'clock, in his bed, chatted with me for half an hour or an hour, and was generally very agreeable, although now and then irritable. He was not strictly attentive to facts, but embellished all his stories to render them more amusing, so that it would not answer always to repeat his sayings of others. When ill the king would never allow that it was caused by his own imprudence. One morning his tongue was white, and he was much heated. By G-' said he, 'it is very extraordinary that I should be thus heated, for I lived very abstemiously, and went to bed in good time. I must have some beaume de vie, sir.' When we went out of the room, W-said, 'you must not professionally act upon what his Majesty said, he was drinking maraschino at two o'clock this morning.' He was a good judge (continues Sir Astley) of the medicine which would best suit him. He bore enormous doses of opiates, one hundred drops of laudanum for instance. In bleeding, also, I have known from twenty to twentyfive ounces taken from him several times. He was irregular in his times for eating and drinking. 'Bring 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." · This is, in all conscience, but a sorry picture of regal life and manners; it bears, however, the impress of fidelity, and our readers, no doubt, will gladly turn from it, to this sketch of an illustrious lady, but recently passed from among us, which is equally remarkable for its unexaggerated truthfulness. Sir Astley was also sergeant-surgeon to King William IV., and thus he speaks of the late Queen Adelaide: "We often saw the Queen, who appeared a most amiable lady, elegant but simple in her manners, and sensible in her conversation. She was, in truth, an excellent person, and, though gracing the dignified position which she occupied, would equally have made an admirable clergyman's wife, and in such a situation have employed herself among her parishioners in acts of kindness and benevolence from morning to night." As a specimen of parasitical twaddle, which it would be impossible to surpass, we cannot refrain from also extracting what follows: "The abilities of George IV., 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, (hesitatingly observes Sir Astley,) 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 last sentence will be puzzling to those who endeavour to extract any other meaning or information from it, than they are in the habit of receiving from the most common-place nonsense. However, revenons à nos moutons. It will be almost a superfluous piece of intelligence to make known that Sir Astley was by this time very rich, and he now affected more silkiness of manners and finery of habits than he used in his city days. He also indulged himself by purchasing a considerable estate in Hertfordshire, with a handsome mansion and grounds, to which he often retired for repose and relaxation. By degrees, it is said, he became extremely fond of the place, and usually spent three days of the week there. For a full and particular account of the sports and pastimes most in vogue at the medical Baronet's rural retreat with himself and the brother sportsmen and visitors, who at different times shared his hospitality, those who feel any curiosity on the subject are referred to Mr. Bransby Cooper's book. The guests, however, we may remark by the way, consisted principally of physicians or surgeons of renown; (with accomplished men beyond his own calling Sir Astley, indeed, never seems to have held nor desired to hold much social intercourse.) And as an illustration of how little it took to entertain them, we make room for the subjoined fragment, which will also serve as a mild sample of the staple run of anecdotes with which Mr. Cooper has tastefully enlivened the greater portion of his narrative. rarely happens," says he, "but that one or two of the dogs which we had out with us, had been submitted by Sir Astley to some operation or experiment, which, in some measure, accounted for their inferiority as sporting dogs! Some amusement was always afforded by the timidity which these animals manifested when near my uncle." Just so, what the dogs were deficient in for sport in one way they made up for in anotherhumane guests! wonderful uncle! sensible nephew! As a kind of set-off to this, however, it would be unfair not to mention a more becoming feature in Sir Astley's Hertfordshire pursuits. With that keen eye to the main chance which characterised him so strongly throughout his life, he now spent a considerable part of his time as follows: Michael, his coachman, having informed him that the horses sold at Smithfield were almost all cripples, "my uncle," (says Mr. Bransby,)" desired him to go 'It |