Jebb, with all his bluntness, was a mean lover of the atmosphere of the Court. His income was subject to great fluctuations, as the whims of his fashionable employers ran for or against him. Sir Edward Wilmont's receipts sank from £3000 to £300, in consequence of his having lost two ladies of quality at the Court. Jebb's revenue never varied so much as this, but the £15,000 (the greatest sum he ever made in one year) often fell off by thousands. This fact didn't tend to lessen his mortification at the loss of a great patient. When George the Third dismissed him, and took Sir George Baker in his place, he nearly died of chagrin. And when he was recalled to attend the royal family in the measles, he nearly died of delight. This ruling passion exhibited itself strongly in death. When he was on his death-bed, the Queen, by the hand of a German lady, wrote to inquire after his condition. So elated was the poor man with this act of royal benignity, that he grasped the letter, and never let go his hold of it till the breath of life quitted his attenuated body. This chapter has been for the most part on the feasting of physicians. We'll conclude it with a few words on their fasts. In the house of a Strand grocer there used to be a scientific club, of which the principal members were--W. Heberden, M.D., J. Turton, M.D., G. Baker, M.D., Sir John Pringle, Sir William Watson, and Lord C. Cavendish who officiated as president. Each member paid sixpence per evening for the use of the grocer's dining-room. The club took in one newspaper, and the only refreshment allowed to be taken at the place of meeting was--water. The most abstemious of eminent physicians was Sir Hans Sloane, the president of the Royal Society and of the College of Physicians, and (in a certain sense) the founder of the British Museum. A love of money made him a hater of all good things, except money and his museum. He gave up his winter soirées in Bloomsbury Square, in order to save his tea and bread and butter. At one of these scientific entertainments Handel offended the scientific knight deeply by laying a muffin on one of his books. "To be sure it was a gareless trick," said the composer, when telling the story, "bud it tid no monsdrous mischief; pode it but the old poog-vorm treadfully oud of sorts. I offered my best apologies, but the old miser would not have done with it. If it had been a biscuit, it would not have mattered; but muffin and pudder. And I said, _Ah, mine Gotd, that is the rub!--it is the pudder!_ Now, mine worthy friend, Sir Hans Sloane, you have a nodable excuse, you may save your doast and pudder, and lay it to that unfeeling gormandizing German; and den I knows it will add something to your life by sparing your _burse_."