Abernethy had been a real and laborious student in science, and he was now reaping an abundant and well-deserved fruition. Few surgeons have arrived at a position so calculated to satisfy the most exacting ambition. Although the full extent and bearing of his principles were by no means universally understood, yet the general importance of them was so, and in some measure appreciated. In a greater or less degree, they were answering the tests afforded by the bedside in all parts of the world. Ample, therefore, as might be the harvest he was reaping in a large practice, he was enjoying a still higher fruition in the kind of estimation in which he was held. He had a high reputation with the public; one still higher amongst men of science. His crowded waiting-room was a satisfactory evidence of the one, and the manner in which his name was received here, on the Continent, and in America, a gratifying testimony of the other. He was regarded much more in the light of a man of enlarged mind—a medical philosopher—than merely as a distinguished surgeon. From the very small beginnings left by Mr. Pott, he had raised the school of St. Bartholomew's to an eminence never before attained by any school in this country. I think I may say that, in its _peculiar character_, it was at that time (1816) unrivalled. Sir Astley Cooper was in great force and in high repute at this time; and, combining as he did the schools of _two_ large hospitals, had, I believe, even a larger class. Both schools, no doubt, endeavoured to combine what is not, perhaps, very intelligibly conveyed by the terms practical and scientific; but the universal impression, assigned the latter as the distinguishing excellence of Mr. Abernethy, whilst the former was held to express more happily the characteristic of his eminent contemporary. Whatever school, however, a London student might have selected as his Alma Mater, it was very common for those whose purse, time, or plans permitted it, to attend one or more courses of Abernethy's lectures; and it was pleasing to recognize the graceful concession to Mr. Abernethy's peculiar excellence afforded by the attendance of some of Sir Astley's pupils, and his since distinguished relatives, at the lectures of Abernethy. As I have said, his practice was extensive, and of the most lucrative kind; that is, it consisted largely of consultations at home. Still, he had patients to visit, and, as he was very remarkable for punctuality in all his appointments, was therefore not unfrequently obliged to leave home before he had seen the whole of those who had applied to him. The extent of his practice was the more remarkable, as there was a very general impression, however exaggerated it might be, that his manners were unkind and repulsive. His pupils were enthusiastically fond of him; and it was difficult to know which was the dominant feeling—their admiration of his talents, or their personal regard.