"Votary of what?" said little Captain Norris, looking up from the walnuts he was assiduously peeling.

"Not of Bacchus, Norry," answered Lord Orpington, with some significance. "Help yourself, and pass the Madeira to Smallridge."

The intelligent reader will have perceived that this second talk was not going on in the smoking-room at Boodle's. We are, indeed, for the moment in Berkeley Square, sitting round Orpington's grand mahogany, after an almost téte-a-téte dinner with "poor little Norris," as the master of the house would have described him. The only third person was a kind of walking shadow, a lean, middle-aged chaplain, who had come up to town to inform my lord that the old incumbent in Bedfordshire was reported to be at his last-at last. He, Smallridge, had long been promised the living; he was not displeased to supply the name of Themistocles, when his patron's Oxford memory was at fault. Norris may be sketched, so far as it is incumbent on us to notice him, in a stroke or two. He was a sort of established toady and major duomo in Orpington's retinue: a smug little man, with shining red nose and cheeks that seemed to point the moral of his patron's rejoinder about the Madeira. He had been enrolled as a volunteer during some late patriotic movements, and thus had managed to secure to himself the military title by which his friends were requested always to address him. He knew London, and life, there and elsewhere; had travelled, and had brought home from the Continent a pair of mustaches, a smattering of French, and a superficial knowledge of virtú. He had narrowly escaped finding himself among the detenus at Verdun. Finally, after more than his share of ups and downs, Norris had now established himself as factotum and indispensable companion to the young earl, who hardly knew how to get rid of him, and indeed had never quite made up his mind that he really wished it.

"No," replied the soi-disant captain, unabashed, "that is one thing lamentably wanting in this perfect gentleman of your lordship's worship. For my part, I could find another fault or two in him, besides his letting the bottle go by."

"I know," laughed Orpington; "he was never an idol of yours. You have never forgiven him the snub you got from his Sublime Transparency, when you asked him for an introduction to Westmoreland House, for the last ball."

"Snub ?" ejaculated Norris, smashing a walnut to shivers"Eustace snub me?"

"Well, that's not the right word I grant," pursued his host, who, having no better amusement on hand, was determined to follow up this one, till it was time to go to the opera. "Snub?-why, no. rather the lofty unconsciousness, my Norrey, of the Apollo Belvidere, when he has launched his shaft against the Python. You remember,

It was

or Smallridge will tell us, how he stood (Apollo, I mean), and who sings it. Let me see, let me see: 'Fixed '*-how does it run?aye,

"Fix'd in the majesty of calm disdain,

Proud of his might, yet heedless of the slain,

The heavenly archer stands—””

But Orpington read in the flushed brow of his dependant no response to his light-hearted rattle; and when he saw that Norris was vexed, his good-nature instantly checked him. Few men were more faithful to that monitor, on the rare occasions when he had, however slightly, transgressed its precepts.

"Old fellow," he said, "you can't think I was anything but joking? and heedlessly enough, I acknowledge. Come, Eustace is an unapproachable Spanish don, a hidalgo of the Golden Fleece-and we'll fleece him to-morrow night at Crockford's, to your full satisfaction."

"He, he," simpered the chaplain; "if I may cap your lordship's verses, I will bring in Miss Edgeworth

"Miss who?" asked Orpington, with some hauteur, for his reading had not lain in that direction.

"The authoress of 'Eton Montem,"" pursued Smallridge, unobservant, and delighted at finding a new quotation: "She shall describe the Apollo more truly." And he repeated, ill-naturedly enough:

"Who'll buy my Lord John? the fishwoman cried

A nice oyster, shut up in a choice shell of pride !'"

The chaplain's intended joke fell dead, and elicited no smile. His patron was sensitive about Eustace; still more so about any jest regarding the aristocracy of the country. Moreover, he was thinking of the next evening at Crockford's.

"Bracton will be there," he continued, more gravely: "Bracton, that unassailable gamester, whom I like as little as Norris likesahem. Do ring for coffee, Monsieur l'abbé, and we'll see whether my cabriolet has come round. Siddons is to play Queen Catharine at Covent Garden; or would you like to look in upon Coleridge's new tragedy of 'Remorse' in Drury Lane? It is reported to have had a great success. Smallridge, how say you? Will it suit your cloth to come too-no? Then we will order candles into the library, and make you monarch of all you survey there. No more of that decanter, Hal, an thou lov'st me. Let me offer you one of the cups that cheer, but not inebriate; and then we'll go and kill Time with the tragedy queen, or the metaphysical dramatist, at your choice."

*This is a slight anachronism, but the lines were too tempting. They occur in the finished and classical prize-poem (the "Newdigate") by the late Dean Milman, and their true date is some five years after our story.

IT

SIR DOMINIC CORRIGAN.

BY E. D. MAPOTHER,

PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS.

T has been thought fitting that he who in these pages sketched "Great Irish Surgeons" should offer a tribute, however humble and hasty, to the memory of the greatest Irishman who ever practised physic. Mine will be simply a record of events in the order of their occurrence, and a commentary on great thoughts bestowed during a long life on his profession and his countrymen. A full and philosophical biography must needs be written, for the name of this typical Celt is already classic.

Pre-eminence may be claimed for Graves and Stokes; but illustrious as were their talents, and popular and enduring as are their writings, these well-born men owed much to fortune and to the aid they generously gave each other. Graves was the son of one leading Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and nephew of another. Graduating there in 1818, he was, after a visit of two years to the continental schools, appointed to the Meath Hospital. Stokes was the son of a Fellow and Professor in the same University, where also his grandfather and granduncle had held similar rank. A few months after he had taken his degree, he succeeded his father in the Meath Hospital, and in 1845, followed him in the Regius Chair of Physic. Corrigan was a merchant's son and the follower of a then oppressed faith.

On December 1st, 1802, he was born at 91 Thomas-street, where the Augustinian Church and John's Lane Distillery now touch, and where the late Sir J. Power was also born. The baronetcies in these families as well as in those of Guinness, O'Brien, Ennis, and others had their origin in the genius or commercial enterprise and munificence of natives of this portion of the city.

The Irish Parliament had established a lay as well an ecclesiastical department in Maynooth College. Richard Lalor Sheil and Woulfe were among its earlier pupils; and there young Corrigan spent many years. Amongst his school-fellows were the Very Rev. Dr. Ffrench Whitehead, R. M. Bellew, Lord Fingall, Dean Meyler, Daniel Clancy, Francis Codd, and Drs. Fleming and Lentaigne, of whom the three lastnamed alone survive. He became thoroughly versed in Latin, as it was known that the lectures he should attend in Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital were delivered in that language; and of Natural Philosophy he acquired from Dr. Denvir a knowledge and a love which lasted through life. His writings, even the earliest, and his speeches were remarkable for a terse and vigorous style of English; and the origin and history of

words and phrases were always favourite subjects of discussion with him.

Having been apprenticed to Dr. O'Kelly of Maynooth, he mastered the rudiments of medical practice and pharmacy. That respected practitioner, early recognising the energy of his character, foretold the highest success. Living until about ten years ago, he often rejoiced at the fulfilment of his predictions, and Corrigan was his consultant at the College from 1831 to 1866.

The Dublin School of Medicine had at this time little renown, the University and the College of Surgeons having each but some forty students; and Corrigan, together with William Stokes, repaired to Edinburgh, where they both graduated in 1825. All through life these renowned men maintained the warmest friendship, and each had not more willing themes than the greatness of the writings of the other, and the progress of the Dublin School. To estimate the latter in a commercial way, £90,000 are annually spent by medical students amongst our lodging-houses and shopkeepers.

In 1826, having settled in Dublin, Dr. Corrigan took part in the distribution of food in his native parish, St. Catherine's, in which there was much distress and sickness. The food was by his advice always given in the cooked state, and those who were not wholly pauperised had to pay one penny daily for it. During the first six months £277 were collected in this way. In the Lancet, 1830, he very forcibly urged that famine always precedes great fever outbreaks as their cause; and in 1846, in a very famous pamphlet, he warned the authorities of the impending epidemic. For a hundred years the story had been the same, usually owing to the failure of Raleigh's gift, which has been to poor Ireland a root of much evil. In the epidemic of 1817-18, one quarter of the population (then six millions) took fever. Corrigan always felt that there should be hospitals for the self-supporting, and remarked that "sickness should not be made a chain to drag a man into a poorhouse." Another favourite axiom of his was, "The health of a city very often bears a direct ratio to its prosperity;" and of no city is it more true than of Dublin. He was rather sceptical of the disinfection then in vogue, asking what was the use of whitewashing the rooms of a poor fellow who had no fuel to dry them? In later years he took much interest in sanitary matters, and enthusiastically aided Sir John Gray's efforts for getting the Vartry water supply, by evidence before the House of Commons Committee. He was most anxious that children should be taught the outlines of physiology and health, and gave me many a hint for my little school-book, "The Body and its Health." Three months ago he revised one of the National Education reading books.

Dr. Corrigan's earliest and ablest medical essay was given to the Edinburgh Journal, 1832, there being no similar periodical in Dublin. VOL. VIII. No. 81

13

It described the effects which follow disease of the three valves at the beginning of the aorta or main vessel from the heart. Sir Philip Crampton, in an address as President at the College of Surgeons in 1838, described him as "placed among the ablest pathologists of the day" by this essay. Not long after, the renowned Professor Trousseau of Paris named the affection "la maladie de Corrigan." As the discovery was made nearly half a century ago, its author has been supposed in the remote continental schools to have long since passed away.

An account of a peculiar contraction of the lung following inflammation and also the ravages of consumption, essays on heart-maladies in the Dublin Medical Journal, several articles on skin diseases in the "Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine," and short descriptions of cases before the Pathological Society, were contributed within the following twenty years. His largest work is "Lectures on Fever," and it is remarkable for its pleasant pithy style and sound practical advice.

It is often said that he owed his success to the study of morbid anatomy; but he himself did not over-estimate this science, and has observed that an architect could ill judge of an intricate building by examining the ruin. His peculiar forte was a wondrous, almost intuitive power of rapidly distinguishing diseases. This quickness, his decided treatment, and highly honourable dealing, of which the demanding of a full fee was an essential part-for juniors must be let live- made him a most favourite consultant.

Corrigan's first appointment was to the Sick-Poor Institution, Meath-street. He became successively physician to Cork-street Fever Hospital, Jervis-street Hospital (1831), and the House of Industry, which last-named he attended from 1840 to 1866. To his death he held the offices of Consulting Physician and of Governor.

In 1843, before the Medical Charities' Committee of the House of Commons, he testified to the exclusion of Catholic medical men from most of the Dublin Hospitals, and defended the system of gaining office in others by payment towards the charity and to the retiring officer. At the Statistical Society, June, 1869, the purchase of hospital offices was under discussion, and an extract on each side of the question may not be out of place:

"You will be surprised to hear that the buying of hospital places has defenders who believe the system to be good Foremost amongst such is the great leader of the profession, Sir D. Corrigan. Before the Medical Charities' Committee he urged that a young surgeon who thus invests his money will work earnestly to repay himself by winning eminence and public confidence; but surely there is no reason to suppose that the man whom merit, not money, has qualified, will be less zealous. Have men born rich been the great ones of our profession? May not a rich but incompetent man buy an hospital through pride ?—for notwithstanding all that has occurred to depreciate it, a surgeoncy is an honoured post: or may he not covet 10 or 12 per cent.-for such is the interest of some hospital stock? Of course there are men above such sordid views;