Fortunately I had no favours to ask of her or of any one else; but during thirty years of intimate acquaintance with her, I never knew her miss an opportunity of showing me any small mark of kindness in her power. At Holland House I made some valuable acquaintances; among whom I may especially mention Samuel Rogers, Sydney Smith, and Allen. The latter had originally travelled on the continent with Lord and Lady Holland as their medical attendant. When I knew him he was master of Dulwich College, and resided with them as a friend rather than in any other capacity. He had formerly been a lecturer on physiology in Edinburgh, but afterwards had devoted himself almost entirely to general literature and history. He was a considerable Anglo-Saxon scholar, this being with him a favourite pursuit; but he had a vast knowledge on all subjects, and was a most instructive companion. At Holland House, also, I became acquainted with Lord Holland's son Charles, now General Fox, and he has continued one of my very best friends down to the present day. Without his literary attainments

he has many of his father's qualities—sincere, open, generous-with a character so transparent that whoever knows him must know him thoroughly.

I had previously, although not apparently a very strong person, enjoyed sufficiently good health, and had been able to go through a good deal of rather severe labour; but in the autumn of 1814 my health began to fail. I became dyspeptic, and lost flesh, and altogether looked so ill that many of my acquaintance believed that I laboured under some serious organic disease. I was told of a medical dinner-party in which the question arose as to who would make the next vacancy at St. George's Hospital, and they all agreed that it would be myself. I attribute my illness to unceasing occupation of mind and body for a long period, and partly to having been during ten years in London, never breathing the air of the country for more than two or three days at a time, and even then only on some rare occasions. My indisposition was not sufficient to prevent my attending to my profession as usual; but it depressed my spirits, made

exertion difficult, and my life altogether wearisome and uncomfortable. I continued to suffer -sometimes more, sometimes less-until the following autumn, when I went, accompanied by my friend Brande, for a short time to the seaside. It was remarkable how much, and what immediate refreshment this change of air and freedom of labour afforded me. I returned to London quite an altered person, and had only an occasional recurrence of my former symptoms during the following winter:

During the long war in which we were engaged, with only a brief intermission, from 1793 to 1815, we had little or no intercourse with scientific or professional men of other countries. On the conclusion of the war, however, several of our collaborateurs on the Continent visited this country, with some of whom I became well acquainted. Among these were Roux (who was at that time surgeon to the Hôpital de la Charité, and who afterwards succeeded to the same office in the Hôtel Dieu, and was for many years the principal surgeon of Paris), Orfila, and Magendie

I

and then Ekstrom of Stockholm, Wagner, and others from Germany. There was a Milanese professor, Assalini, who had been with Napoleon in Egypt and Russia, was present at the burning of Moscow, and used to give us some curious details of what occurred in those expeditions. Dupuytren was here only once, and that some years afterwards, when he came to be present at a marriage in the Rothschild family. Among the men of science not immediately connected with the medical profession, those whom I knew best were Blainville and Berzelius. I saw Humboldt only on two occasions, once at Sir Joseph Bank's soirée, and once at the Royal Society. On the last occasion I walked back with him to the west end of the town from Somerset House, and I remember that he talked without intermission, displaying an immense store of knowledge, but passing from one subject to another, often without there seeming to be any very due connection between them. When I afterwards read that very remarkable, but rather unreadable production of his later years, 'Cosmos,' it reminded me very forcibly of the conversation

I had with him, or rather which he had with me, more than thirty years previously.

In what I am now writing I do not pretend to give an account of my domestic life; I must not, however, omit to notice the most important event belonging to it, and which must have exercised a great influence over my professional life also, which occurred in the year 1816. Serjeant Sellon, who had been a barrister of a good deal of repute, and well known to lawyers as the author of 'Sellon's Practice,' a work much valued by the legal profession, had been for some years a friend of my elder brother, and through him I became acquainted with the Serjeant's family. His third daughter and myself became much attached to each other; and in the spring of the year above mentioned she became my wife. She was nineteen years of age, and I had not quite completed my thirty-third year. At the time at which I am now writing (1855), we have been married nearly thirty-nine years, and our affection for each other has remained unaltered. She has been an excellent wife to myself, and an