Few things were more pleasing or valuable in Abernethy, than his modesty and his sense of justice. He knew his superiority well enough, but he measured it—as Science shows us all should do—with reference to what was still beyond him, and not by the standard afforded by the knowledge of others. His sense of justice was, we think, never appealed to in vain. The following letter has appeared to us significant in relation to these points. Amid the peaceful glories of a useful profession, there is nothing that sinks deeper or interests our regard more, than a man, in the hour of success, remembering what is due to others. We think this remark particularly applicable to the late Mr. Tait, in the following case. The letter from Abernethy was obligingly sent us by Mr. Tait's son and successor. The remarks with which Mr. Tait concludes his case, are as creditable to the writer as to him whom they were intended to honour. We have stated that Mr. Abernethy had been the first to extend the application of John Hunter's celebrated operation for the cure of aneurism, to a vessel nearer the heart (the external iliac artery), on which Mr. Abernethy placed a ligature in 1797. Mr. Tait, of Paisley, had an extraordinary case of aneurism in both lower extremities, so high up as to oblige him to place a ligature on the external iliac artery on both sides of the body. The case occurred in an old dragoon, and the two operations were performed at separate times, with great judgment and with complete success. The case of course made some noise, and was highly creditable[71]. In closing his account of the patient, Mr. Tait observes: "The complete success which has attended these operations, while, certainly, it affords me one of the highest gratifications the practice of my profession can procure me, chiefly affects Mr. Abernethy. "Accident has placed under my care a case which, so far as I know, is unparalleled in the history of surgery, and it has been cured; but I have only put in practice what every surgeon of the day ought to have done. When, thirty years ago, Mr. Abernethy formed the firm resolve of cutting open the walls of the abdomen and seizing the external iliac artery, he made a mighty step in advance, he formed an epoch in the history of his profession. John Hunter, upon reflecting on the hæmorrhage proceeding from the vessel below the sac, after an operation in 1779, when Mr. Broomfield, 'for security,' had tied the artery three or four inches above the aneurism, had probably the first glimpse at his great improvement of tying the artery, in cases of aneurism, nearer the heart. His eminent successor has extended the principles of the illustrious Hunter.