in eating his breakfast. He received me with a pleasant smile upon his countenance, and said, 'Well, Doctor, you find me taking breakfast, and I assure you I have had a good one. I thought it very probable that this might be my last chance, and therefore was determined to enjoy it, and eat heartily.' I expressed the great pleasure which I felt at seeing him so cheerful, and said I hoped all would soon be happily over. He replied to this that he did not feel the least anxiety or uneasiness respecting the operation or its result. He said that he had not the slightest desire to live laboring under the sufferings to which he was then subjected; that he was perfectly ready to take all the chances of an operation, and he knew there were many against him; and that if he could be relieved by it, he was willing to live out his appointed time, but if not, would rather die than hold existence accompanied with the pain and misery which he then endured. "After he had finished his breakfast, I administered to him some medicine; he then inquired at what hour the operation would be performed. I mentioned the hour of eleven. He said 'Very well; do you wish me now for any other purpose; or may I lie down and go to sleep.' I was a good deal surprised at this question; but told him that if he could sleep, it would be very desirable. He immediately placed himself upon the bed, and fell into a profound sleep, and continued so until I was obliged to rouse him, in order to undergo the operation. "He exhibited the same fortitude, scarcely uttering a murmur, throughout the whole operation; which, from the peculiar nature of his complaint, was necessarily tedious." Dr. Physick's last operation, like the first recorded in his private journal, was upon the eye. Peculiar circumstances, bringing with them what he regarded as an imperative obligation, led him to undertake this most delicate, and in the operator's state of health, almost impracticable operation. He once more nerved himself to duty, and performed it with a hand steadied, and a mind composed to the required hardihood, by that same despotic will which had carried him through the ten thousand trials and perils of his earlier life. From this memorable day, the 13th of August, 1837, the symptoms and sufferings of his disease increased rapidly. Dropsy of the chest set in, oppressing his breathing to an extent that prevented him from lying down for days and nights together. The effusion extending itself on the system, the lower extremities, from continual standing, became enormously swollen, and finally gangrenous; the scene closing gently upon this drama of toil, triumph, and suffering, on the 15th of December, 1837, in his seventieth year. ence. To a man of such moral excellence, and such habitual devotion to all the duties of life, religion could not be a matter of indifferWe shall not attempt to conceal that at one time he was beset with doubts which were most distressing to a man who longed for settled convictions in religion. These were in no degree the outcome of arrogance of intellect, or of the wish to reject the received doctrines of Christianity. "I am very certain," says the best informed of his biographers, "that a more pure and ardent seeker after Divine truth, I never knew." In his latter years, he was intensely occupied with religious investigations; employing all the means, and accepting all the helps, humble as they might be, that could serve for guidance and assurance. For very many years-years of comparative health and strength, no less than those of sickness-he had been in the habit of reading a portion of the New Testament daily; and when at last his infirmities made him incapable of so doing, his children were constantly employed in reading to him the Scriptures, and other books of a religious character. In these latter days, the doubts which had once harassed his mind, seemed to be laid to rest. "I feel assured," says the same authority, "that the hopes and promises of the Christian religion were the greatest sources of consolation in him, in the closing hours of his life, and smoothed his passage to the tomb." 66 With a brief statement of the honors awarded to him by his contemporaries, and his peers in science and public service, we close our sketch of his life and character. The first, and far from the least distinction, was the meed of his youthful work, the testimony of John Hunter's estimation. In 1791, he received the present of a valuable service of plate from the Managers of the Bush Hill Hospital, with the flattering acknowledgment of his services already mentioned. In 1801, he received the appointment of Surgeon Extraordinary to the Alms |