16G 
THE LATE Sill ASTLEY COOPER. 
pleasing. There was no affectation of superiority — no wish to 
force his own peculiar views on his hearers. There was little or 
no studied elegance of language, but there was the strong deep 
feeling of the importance of his subject, and the evidence of long 
and severe study to make himself master of every important point 
connected with it. His language was fluent and clear, and his 
meaning was never doubtful. Then there was the peculiar cha- 
racter of the man — his uniform affability, and kindness of heart — 
his happy tact of comprehending the wishes and the fears of the 
person with whom he was conversing ; — these things diffused a 
charm about his society that was not soon forgotten. 
It was, however, as an operative surgeon that he stood on the 
highest ground. He was a profound anatomist. He had an inti- 
mate acquaintance with the minute structure of every part — yet 
he prided himself not on this. He was not seduced to the perform- 
ance of any singular, or, in other hands, hazardous operation. His 
anatomical and physiological knowledge was employed in ascer- 
taining when an operation was necessary, and when it could be 
safely dispensed with ; and none of his patients ever forgot the 
benevolent satisfaction that beamed in his countenance when he 
could safely say that there was no necessity to mutilate or to 
punish. 
When, however, an operation was requisite, who can forget his 
kind and soothing manner to his patient — the boldness, the skill, 
the rapidity, almost without parallel, with which he proceeded ; — 
yet no hurry — no confusion — the most trifling minutiae attended to, 
and the dressings generally applied by his own band 1 
It will not be surprising that fame and fortune attended the 
course of such a man ; not perhaps to the extent which has been 
asserted, but far beyond that which in his early days he could have 
anticipated, and enabling him to bequeath a princely fortune to his 
relatives. That, as years and honours multiplied upon him, he 
was somewhat more difficult of access — that, as his power of patro- 
nage accumulated he looked first of all, and yet not exclusively, 
to his numerous relatives — that occasionally, and yet the instances 
of this being few and far between, he somewhat rudely treated the 
rivals of early days — that the censorious and the hypercritical 
have the power of hinting at, foibles like these, is that to be wondered 
