"Yes. I'll trouble you for some of those walnuts." Well, but what do they tell you then is the use of the brain ?" "Oh! we're not examined in that. It's the great centre of the nervous system." "Did not Gall and Spurzheim, Sir, prosecute their enquiries according to Inductive Philosophy?" "Oh! I don't know. Philosophy's all moonshine. I like something practical. By the way, I'll tell you a capital joke. Gall had a son; the young chap had the bump of self-approbation too big; so old Gall got a tin plate, and a screw fixed to the head with an apparatus that he invented, and screwed the plate tighter and tighter every day to keep down the bad bump." "Indeed; and pray, with what result?" "Child kicked the bucket-hopped the twig-went off in convulsions! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" "Is not that story rather apocryphal?" Apoc eh? It was Gall or Spurzheim, I forget which." "The ladies retire; the gentlemen talk about horses, politics, agriculture, and practical meteorology, the state of oats, and of the weather, until coffee is announced. Music is the order of the evening: a lady sits down to the piano, to take a part in "La ci darem' la mano," in the middle of which our young gentleman signalises himself by a sudden and loud ebullition of mirth, probably imagining that he is listening to a comic song. The music not suiting his taste, he betakes himself into a corner, and soon becomes engaged in deep and earnest conversation with a medical friend who has accompanied him. His remarks are quite audible : "Well, I never thought that was the kick, however. Why, they gave us wine and water after dinner, in great glass jugs-without sugar, too! I'd rather have had some cold without.' "What do you think of the girl who is singing?" asks his friend. "Oh! she's smartish-deuced fine neck-clavicles and sternocleidomastoidei too prominent though. Crico-arytenoidei postici and laterales very well developed, I fancy, judging from her voice. Talking of that, I wish you'd give us a grind—ask us anything?" "Well then, come, what have you between the layers of the great omentum?" "What have you?-come, no gammon !-why nothing to be sure." "Oh! haven't you though? I can tell you they rejected Popjoy on that very question last Thursday." "Pooh! that's a regular catch question. I tell you what-if they floor me on a question like that, I'll pretty soon floor them, that's all. But, I say, they're going; come, let's be off; I'm tired— arn't you?-we shall be just in time for The Cyder Cellars,' and I'm tarnation hungry."-(Exeunt.) We shall conclude with a brief summary of Mr. Hogmore's remaining moral and intellectual qualities. The leading feature of his disposition is amour propre. He piques himself greatly on his sharpness and cunning, and, considering every one else a rogue, is especially solicitous to avoid being taken in or deceived. Accordingly, his favourite maxim is not merely to doubt, but positively to disbelieve whatever he does not clearly understand. His convictions, however firm, are, consequently, of a very limited nature. History is with him little more than a grand peut-etre," and he probably esteems the account of Julius Cæsar's death quite as apocryphal as the story of St. George and the Dragon: as he believes nothing but what he can comprehend, so he comprehends nothing that he cannot see. Anatomy is, in his estimation, the most exalted of all sciences, and this not in consequence of its real bearings upon medicine-for of those he has very little idea; but because there is something in the mechanical process by which a knowledge of the human frame is acquired, particularly gratifying to his taste and genius. Refinement is, in his opinion, synonymous with effeminacy; and he is perfectly innocent of the fine arts in general, and of literature in particular. To the latter, indeed, he seems to have a conscientious objection, as though it tended to interfere with his professional pursuits. He thinks it much better to employ his leisure hours in drinking, smoking, playing practical jokes, and investigating human nature wherever it may be seen to the least advantage. His studies are of a material, his pleasures of an animal nature. It is not denied that there are exceptions to the above description of a Medical Student. There are those who have adopted their profession as a branch of science, and a means of benefiting mankind. In the revolting tasks which unavoidably fall to their lot, they engage not from inclination, but from duty: these are Philosophers, and so many as there are of them, so many gentlemen are there in the Medical Profession. THE MAID OF ALL-WORK. BY CORNELIUS WEBBE. SPLISH, splash, splash, splish, flap, slap, slap, flap! Whew!-what a wind! Whish!—what a whirling shower! What a day to be out in! "Ye houseless wretches"-but there goes that poor girl over the way, at Mrs. Doublekey's, through the wind and the rain, "With her heigho and her nonny no!" but with neither bonnet nor umbrella, the street-door key "dangling at her cold finger's end," as merry and careless as if May, and not November, reigned. Now, where can she be going to "in such an hour as this?" Oh, I see-to" The Three Jolly Gardeners!" What, in November? Bless that poor girl, ye Fates!-who make up marriages-with a good husband; and thou, good Fortune-as she conducts herself with the strictest propriety in her ten-pound a-year servitude as a Maid of All-Work and not an hour of play-look out, for her, for a place where wages is no object (on the mistress's side), the work is light, and three more maids and a man are kept, to divide two servants' work equally and impartially among them, and grumble at the hardness of their lot! Barbara Briggleswiggle-for these are her baptismal names, and she makes no secret of them-is the most exemplary (quite the pattern) Maid of All-Work in our street, which is the largest in our parish, and our parish is the largest parish in the three United Kingdoms, and the three United Kingdoms don't care one button how big the other kingdoms of the world are. So that Barbara Briggleswiggle may be allowed to have a pretty wide reputation-one that will bear taking in, or letting out, indifferently, and still wear well, and permit examination. My maid Susannah (a good girl enough, and contented with one elder) is envious of Barbara's reputation as a good servant far and near; and yet, acknowledging her remarkable merits, says, very candidly, that " She can't, for the life of her, make out how Barbara can do for three such troublesome people; Mr. Doublekey-who does nothing but get tipsy twice a day,"-(and that is a proof of G |