BOTTLED PATIENTS. 421 



and inclination bound, let ns begin with the gentle- 

 man, leaving, as they do in hospitals, the less influen- 

 tial patients to wait to be operated upon — as a 

 friend of mine used to say, " they will keep." He 

 was a surgeon, and a very skilful one, an excellent 

 fellow, and moreover a true lover of fox-hunting ; but 

 the consequence of the latter propensity was, that he 

 was at times, when wanted in his business, what he 

 was always when going across country — very dijicidt 

 to catch. I do not mean that he neglected his patients: 

 his heart lay in too good a place for that ; but he 

 sometimes, as he called it, " bottled them," if hounds 

 came within his reach, that is, such patients as he 

 used to say " would keep." Now I trust the gentle- 

 men-jocks will keep — the gentlemen's gentlemen shall 

 keep, "by G — ," as Sterne would say: so we will 

 bottle them up for a time, though they may become 

 a little corked by our so doing. 



In comparing any two or more objects, I conceive 

 the first thing to be done is to define precisely what 

 constitutes each in its separate and relative position ; 

 and then I conclude, though I never learned systema- 

 tically either waiting or arithmetic in my fife, that by 

 a little addition, subtraction, and division we shall 

 come at the dividend of each. 



To this end let us first consider what is a gentle- 

 man ? Many may say that every one knows what, or 

 rather who is and who is not a gentleman. / fancy 

 / do ; but I am quite prepared to expect that many 

 who may read my ideas on the subject will say I do 

 not. Probably they may be right ; but as my fancy- 

 ing I do know what constitutes a gentleman is very 

 far from proof of the fact, so their opinion to the con- 

 trary is no certain demonstration that I do not. If 



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