Our space will not allow us to dwell more on this subject or the Museum just now. But where is our excellent conservator—where is Mr. Clift, the assistant, the friend, and young companion of John Hunter? He, too, is gathered to his rest. He, on whose countenance benevolence had impressed a life-long smile—he who used to tell us, as boys, so much of all he knew, and to remind us, as men, how much we were in danger of forgetting—is now no more. How kind and communicative he was; how modest, and yet how full of information; how acceptably the cheerfulness of social feelings mantled over the staid gravity of science. How fond of any little pleasant story to vary the round of conservative exposition; and then, if half a dozen of us were going round with him the "_con_ticuere omnes," when, with his characteristic prefatory shrug, he was about to speak of Hunter. Then such a memory! Why once, in a long delightful chat, we were talking over the Lectures at the College, and he ran over the general objects of various courses, during a succession of years, with an accuracy which, if judged of by those which had fallen within our own recollection, might have suggested that he had carried a syllabus of each in his pocket. We had much to say of Mr. Clift; but, in these times of speed, there is hardly time for anything; yet we think that many an old student, when he has lingered over the stately pile reared by John Hunter, may have paused and felt his eyes moistened by the memory of William Clift. When Mr. Abernethy lectured at the College, there was no permanent professor, as is now the case; no Professor Owen, of whom we shall have to speak more in the sequel. Both the professorship of anatomy and surgery, and also that of comparative anatomy, were only held for a comparatively short time. It is not very easy to state the principle on which the professors were selected. The privilege of addressing the seniors of the profession has never, any more than any other appointment in the profession, been the subject of public competition; nor, unless the Council have had less penetration than we are disposed to give them credit for, has "special fitness" been a very dominant principle. Considering the respectability and position of the gentlemen who have been selected, the Lectures at the College of Surgeons, under the arrangements we are recording, were certainly much less productive, as regards any improvement in science, than might have been reasonably expected. The vice of "system" could not be always, however, corrected by the merits of the individual. One result, which too commonly arose out of it, was, that gentlemen were called on to address their seniors and contemporaries for the first time, who had never before addressed any but pupils. It would not, therefore, have been very wonderful, if, amongst the other difficulties of lecturing, that most inconvenient one of all should have sometimes occurred, of having nothing to say.