No doubt some minds are so constituted as to be moderately certain of success or distinction in almost any pursuit to which they might have been directed; and we are disposed to think that Abernethy's was a mind of that order; but there is abundant evidence to show that his talents were at least equalled by his industry. One paper of his, which contains a beautiful and discriminative adjustment of a difficult point of practice in Injuries of the Head—which contains no intrinsic evidence of such industry—was not published until after he had attended to every serious injury of the head in a large hospital for almost twenty years; besides examining the bodies of all the fatal cases. Nor can we estimate this industry properly, without recollecting that all this time he was only an _assistant surgeon_, whose duties, for the _most_ part, neither required nor _permitted_ him to do more than to _observe_ the treatment; and that, therefore, the whole of this industry was simply in the character of a student of his profession[12]. All biography is full of this kind of evidence; and art, as well as science, furnishes its contribution. Who could have imagined that the peculiar, chaste composition, the easy and graceful touch of Sir Augustus Callcott, could have owed so much to industry as it undoubtedly must have done? It is known, for example, that he made no less than forty different sketches in the composition of one picture. We allude to his "Rochester." Had Abernethy been allowed to choose his profession, he, no doubt, would have selected the Bar. It is impossible to reflect on the various powers he evinced, without feeling that, had he followed the law, he would have arrived at a very distinguished position. "Had my father let me be a lawyer," he would say, "I should have known every Act of Parliament by heart." This, though no doubt intended as a mere figure of speech, was not so far from possibility as might be imagined, for it referred to one of his most striking characteristics; viz. a memory alike marvellously ready, capacious, and retentive—qualities common enough separately, but rare in powerful combination.