230 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. vn. 



' gtk. — Mr. Bransby Cooper cannot begin his 

 lectures as announced, owing to some bereave- 

 ment. This brings R.'s lectures at once upon 

 him ; but he seems rather glad of it, as they will 

 be the sooner off his mind.' 



' igtk. — A gentleman came and left a present 

 for R. in the shape of a guinea, which was 

 affirmed to have been in the possession of John 

 Hunter. Unfortunately, upon examining the 

 guinea we discovered that it was coined in 1798 I 

 John Hunter died in 1793.' 



We then have an account of Owen's first 

 dinner at Sir Robert Peel's, in a letter which he 

 wrote to his sister Catherine, dated March 10, 

 1844. ' It was my first visit,' he remarks, 'but 

 not my first invitation.' Among the guests 

 assembled, twenty-five in all, he mentions the 

 American Minister (Everett), Mr. Charles Barry, 

 Sir B. Brodie, Mr. Charles Eastlake, Wilson 

 Croker, and the Dean of Westminster (Turton). 

 ' A quiet sort of conversation with one's neigh- 

 bours, which after dinner became more general, 

 and merged at last into instances of very old 

 people. Sir Robert said he canvassed, at the last 

 election, an old lady who remembered the Scotch 

 rebels at Derby, and that he had ordered the 

 Queen's bounty to be given to an old Highlander 

 who fought at Fontenoy. Croker slyly added 

 that that was the way to find out many old soldiers 

 who would remember that battle, and he argued 



