John Abernethy, the pupil and friend of John Hunter, was remarkable for eccentricity and _brusquerie_ in his dealings with patients. But there are many instances to show that his roughness was only external, and that a very soft and gentle heart beat in his bosom. He was sometimes successfully combated with his own weapons. A lady on one occasion entered his consulting-room, and showed him an injured finger, without saying a word. In silence Abernethy dressed the wound; silently the lady put the usual fee on the table, and retired. In a few days she came again, and offered the finger for inspection. "Better?" asked the surgeon. "Better," answered the lady, speaking for the first time. Not another word followed during the interview. Three or four visits were made, in the last of which the patient held out her finger perfectly healed. "Well?" was Abernethy's inquiry. "Well," was the lady's answer. "Upon my soul, madam," exclaimed the delighted surgeon, "_you are the most rational woman I ever met with_!" "I had heard of your rudeness before I came, Sir," another and less fortunate lady said, taking his prescription; "but I was not prepared for such treatment. What am I to do with this?" "Anything you like," the surgeon roughly answered. "Put it on the fire if you please." Taking him at his word, the lady put her fee on the table, and the prescription on the fire, and, making a bow, left the room. Abernethy followed her, apologizing, and begging her to take back the fee or let him write another prescription; but the lady would not relent. When the bubble schemes were flourishing in 1825, Mr. Abernethy met some friends who had risked large sums of money in one of those speculations; they informed him that they were going to partake of a most sumptuous dinner, the expenses of which would be defrayed by the company. "If I am not very much deceived," replied he, "you will have nothing but bubble and squeak in a short time." BLOMFIELD'S REBUKE TO NON-RESIDENT RECTORS. Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London, had occasion to call the attention of the Essex incumbents to the necessity of residing in their parishes; and he reminded them that curates were, after all, of the same flesh and blood as rectors, and that the residence which was possible for the one, could not be quite impossible for the other. "Besides," added he, "there are two well-known preservatives against ague: the one is, a good deal of care and a little port wine; the other, a little care and a good deal of port wine. I prefer the former; but if any of the clergy prefer the latter, it is at all events a remedy which incumbents can afford better than curates." DEVOTION OF A CATHOLIC PRIEST.