as a physician, that the list of his hospital patients presented a larger proportion of cures than that of any of his colleagues. I doubt not that the statement is true, but the conclusion from it is wrong. Hospital patients as well as private patients have their preferences, and those who labour under dangerous diseases will take some trouble to be admitted under the care of the physician or surgeon in whom they repose the greatest confidence; while those whose ailments are less important are contented to take their chance of being admitted under one person or under another. Moreover, many patients are sent to a hospital by private practitioners, and it is no matter of wonder that those who, if they themselves laboured under severe illness, would consult not Young, but Chambers or Nevinson, showed the same preference as to poor persons in whom they were interested.

Of my other colleagues whose names I have mentioned, Dr. Chambers was at that time but little known to the general public. But he was assiduous in his attentions to the hospital, and

He

laying up that store of experience which afterwards enabled him to attain the highest position in his profession. He had great natural sagacity, and a clearness of perception and judgment which enabled him at once to see the important part of whatever subject was placed before him, discarding all irrelevant matter. had other and, I may say, still higher qualities, which caused him to be very generally popular. He was a gentleman in the best sense of the word honourable in his dealings with others; kind and affectionate to his friends; using no mean arts to enhance his own reputation or depreciate that of others. To this may be added that he was an accomplished scholar, and having extensive literary attainments. I owe much to the long intimacy which existed between us, and which terminated only with his death. Rose and Jeffreys, though, as I have already stated, my seniors in age, were my juniors in the hospital. Their career was short; the former being taken from us in the year 1829, and the latter in a year or two afterwards.

Although I had been previously consulted by

the King (George IV.), it was only on some rare occasions. In the spring of 1830 some symptoms under which His Majesty had long laboured, arising from disease in the semilunar valves of the aorta, became much aggravated, and thus commenced the illness which terminated in his death some months afterwards, and during which he was attended by his physicians, Sir Henry Halford and Sir Matthew Tierney. It was early in May that Sir William Knighton called on me one forenoon, and said, 'I have the King's commands that you should accompany me immediately to Windsor. They have got into a difficulty, and you must come and see if you can help them out of it.' On my arrival I found that the King's lower limbs were dropsical and enormously swollen, and that they had been scarified with a lancet, the consequence of which was that the swelling was not at all relieved, and that they were highly inflamed and in danger of gangrene; a further delay of twenty-four hours would probably have placed him beyond the hope of recovery from this local mischief. I at once made a good many punc

tures with a round needle of the size of that which is known by the name of a worstedneedle. This produced an immense discharge of fluid; and the success of the punctures and of the other treatment which was continued with it was complete. In the course of a fortnight not only were the limbs free from inflammation, and reduced to their natural size, but the state of his chest was so much improved that, instead of being scarcely able to breathe except he was in a sitting posture, he could throw himself on his bed and sleep in a horizontal posture with no other support than a pillow under his head. His Majesty was not only sensible of the relief which he thus obtained, but full of expressions of gratitude for what I had done for him. After the first three weeks all that I had been especially required to do was accomplished. He would not, however, allow me to discontinue my attendance on him. My habit was to go to Windsor every evening after an early dinner, sleep in the castle, and return to London, after a very early breakfast, in the morning. I generally went to the King's

apartments about six o'clock in the morning, and sat by his bedside for one or two hours before my departure, during which he conversed on various subjects, not unfrequently speculating on his own condition and prospects. In his more sanguine moments his mind would revert to the cottage which he had built at Windsor Park, and he expressed the pleasure which it would afford him to return to this his favourite retreat, as if he had found the comparatively retired life which he led there much more suited to his taste than the splendour of Windsor Castle. The impression made on my mind by the very limited observations which I was able to make on these occasions, was that the King would have been a happier and a better man if it had been his lot to be nothing more than a simple country gentleman, instead of being in the exalted situation which he inherited. If William IV. retained his simplicity of character, and his freedom from selfishness, it was because he ascended the throne at a late period of life, having had no previous expectation that he would ever be thus elevated.