Hope. Our extracts are of the anecdotic turn.

_Abernethy._

An anecdote illustrative of the sound integrity, as well as of the humour,
of Mr. Abernethy's character, may here be introduced. On his receiving the
appointment of Professor of Anatomy and Surgery to the Royal College of
Surgeons, a professional friend observed to him that they should now have
something new.--"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Abernethy. "Why," said the
other, "of course you will brush up the lectures which you have been so
long delivering at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and let us have them in an
improved form."--"Do you take me for a fool or a knave?" rejoined Mr.
Abernethy. "I have always given the students at the Hospital that to which
they are entitled--the best produce of my mind. If I could have made my
lectures to them better, I would certainly have made them so. I will give
the College of Surgeons precisely the same lectures, down to the smallest
details:--nay, I will tell the old fellows how to make a poultice." Soon
after, when he was lecturing to the students at St. Bartholomew's, and
adverting to the College of Surgeons, he chucklingly exclaimed, "I told
the big wigs how to make a poultice!" It is said by those who have
witnessed it, that Mr Abernethy's explanation of the art of making a
poultice was irresistibly entertaining.

"Pray, Mr. Abernethy, what is a cure for gout?" was the question of an
indolent and luxurious citizen. "Live upon sixpence a-day--and earn it!"
was the pithy answer.

A scene of much entertainment once took place between our eminent surgeon
and the famous John Philpot Curran. Mr. Curran, it seems, being personally
unknown to him, had visited Mr. Abernethy several times without having had