rules were then laid down as to the number of lectures which I was required to attend. The examination at the College of Surgeons was sufficiently good, as far as it went, but it was of a very simple and elementary kind. It was no more than a diligent student might pass without any special preparation for the purpose. The consequence was, that I was enabled to take my education very much upon myself;

and

I soon found that I could nohow obtain so much useful knowledge as by a diligent attendance on the dissecting-room, and on the wards of the hospital. I cannot say that I neglected the use of books, but it was more in the way of reference and illustration than by a regular course of reading. I attended lectures on Anatomy, and, during one season, Dr. Crichton's lectures on the Practice of Physic, Materia Medica, and Chemistry, the latter especially with some advantage. During my first season in London, I had entered as a pupil to Mr. Abernethy's lectures on Surgery; but having at that time seen no surgical practice, I did not understand them, and soon ceased to attend them. I afterwards

entered to some other lectures on Surgery, at the West-end of the town, but found that I learned nothing from them, so I ceased to attend there also. Mr. Home was accustomed to give an annual course of twelve surgical lectures gratuitously to the pupils of the hospital. These were excellent, and I attended them, year after year, with great advantage. Altogether, I do not suppose that I attended one-fourth of the number of lectures which the unfortunate students are now required to listen to under the direction of the constituted authorities. But I was acquiring knowledge in other ways, and much more substantial knowledge than can be acquired from such dull and humdrum discourses as lectures usually are; and, which is better still, I had leisure to make my own observations, to think and reflect. Nor was this style of education peculiar to myself. I remember when Mr. Abernethy complained that Lawrence would not attend lectures. My friends and contemporaries, Jeffreys and Lawrence, took the same course; and so it had been with Nicolson, who was some few years in advance of us. I can

easily conceive that, if I had been compelled to sit on the benches of a theatre four or five hours daily, or tempted to compete for prizes as students are, and to get crammed for various examinations, my position in life afterwards would have been very different from what it has been in reality.

It so happened that when I was about to give up my office as house surgeon to the hospital, Nicolson, whom I have just mentioned, being engaged to be married, and finding that some few years might probably elapse before he could conveniently do so if he waited for practice in London, determined to seek his fortune elsewhere, and accepted an appointment in the service of the East India Company in Bengal; and that Mr. Home proposed to me that I should supply his place by assisting him in his private operations. I conclude that he thought that I should answer his purpose in this respect, but I know that he was partly led to do so by the circumstance of my having made myself a pretty good anatomist, and by the wish to have my help in carrying out the enquiries in comparative

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anatomy in which he was generally engaged. As these occupations were quite compatible with those which I had in the Windmill Street School, I was very glad to undertake them. They afforded me the means of learning much as to my profession which cannot be well learned in a hospital; and further, by initiating me in the study of anatomy and physiology generally, without limiting my views merely to that which is required for surgical practice, they led me to scientific enquiries, which for many years afterwards formed a most agreeable addition to the drudgery of my every-day duties. My connection with Mr. Home also made some addition to my income, as I saw those of his patients who were disposed to have the advice of so young a man as I was while he was in the country for three weeks in September, and as I also received a few fees on some other occasions. My gains, however, in this way were very small; Mr. Home never had a very large practice, such as at all corresponded to his reputation. One year, and that was before I knew him, he had received about 6,7007. in fees. This was much less than

what Mr. Cline, or Sir Astley Cooper, or myself, have received since; but his income while I knew him never, I imagine, amounted to 5,000l., and as he had a large family and lived expensively, he had nothing to spare out of it for others. Still, what I gained from that source and from teaching anatomy, enabled me to make a somewhat smaller demand on my mother's slender means; and as I always looked to the future, and not to the present results of my exertions, I was quite contented.

For nearly two years and a half after I had ceased to reside at the hospital as house surgeon, there was little change in my pursuits or mode of life. During the greater part of that time I lived in lodgings in Sackville Street. The winter months supplied me with a good deal of occupation in the dissecting room; and whatever time I could spare from my duties as a teacher of anatomy was well devoted to the hospital. I assisted Mr. Home in his private operations and on some other occasions, and to a still greater extent in his researches in comparative anatomy. In this latter employment I was