Chemistry at Edinburgh would become vacant, Dr. Black at once communicated the fact to Cullen, adding :

"From some hints I have received, I have reason to suspect that I am not excluded the possibility of an offer; but I assure you, doctor, I am absolutely resolved to refuse it, if there is any hopes of its being of any advantage to you."

In 1745, William Hunter writes:

"Dear doctor,-I could not let slip the opportunity of thanking you for your kind letter; and in answer, I wish I could say anything that might convince you of my sense of your goodness in everything, but particularly in this case. You have interested yourself warmly in my brother's (James's) health; and in the hurry of business and lecture-reading, have taken time to write to me of him. Indeed, it was kind; I thank you in his name, and I thank you for myself. You see I pretend to gratitude; so love me, God, as I am sincere. Well, how does the animal economy appear to you, now that you have examined it, as one may say, with precision? I have good reason to put the question to you, because, in my little attempts that way since I began to think for myself, nature, where I am best disposed to mark her, beams so strong upon me, that I am lost in wonder, and count it sacrilege to measure her meanest feature by my largest conception. Ay, ay, the time will come when our great philosophers will blush to find, that they have talked with as little real knowledge, and as peremptorily of the animal powers, as the country miller who balances the power of Europe."

Then we have Cullen writing to William Hunter :—

"I value your friendship in the highest degree, and owe so much to it that I think you have the best title to advise me-direct me with regard to my sons. I sent them to London in high expectation of the benefits to be received from your friendship and instruction, and I had some confidence in their conduct, else I had not trusted them in London; but in the last article I have the highest satisfaction in finding that they have got your approbation, who are so good a judge, who never did a foolish thing yourself, and therefore may be a little rigorous with respect to others."

We find Dr. Cullen writing to other pupils:

"Dear Fordyce,-Your letter last night was very welcome. I suspected that your laziness had banished you from me for ever. I won't tell you with what regret I felt that; but the sight of your hand was very agreeable. I shall be glad to see your specimens, and more so to see yourself, when you have been exotic."

Again :

"Dear Fourie [Balfour Russell],-I shall always be glad to have your letters, when they inform me of your own success and happiness, though they tell me of nothing else. . . . I would fain play off Fordyce and you against each other. Fordyce set out with as handsome a margin

as you gave me, but he has very discreetly filled it afterwards. I expect no margins from you hereafter, especially after so long a letter as this is. I mean to show you that one may write a long letter to a friend without saying anything. I may perhaps show you that I can send a letter to another quarter of the globe with no more in it than what I would say in yawning at my own fireside.”

As with his pupils so was Cullen with his patients. Dugald Stewart, when a boy of fourteen or fifteen, was attended by Cullen for a slight indisposition and was recommended by him to relax his studies, and have recourse to some light reading, Don Quixote being suggested :

"In subsequent visits to this patient," Dr. John Thomson states, "Cullen never failed to examine him in the progress he had made in reading the humorous story of the great pattern of chivalry, and to talk over with him every successive incident, scene, and character in that history. In mentioning these particulars, Mr. Stewart remarked that he could never look back on that intercourse without feeling surprise at the minute accuracy with which Cullen remembered every passage in the life of Don Quixote, and the lively manner in which he sympathized with him in the pleasure he derived from the first perusal of that entertaining romance."

Of Cullen's family habits of thought, a charming illustration is preserved in a letter addressed to one of his sons, then leaving home for the first time. As we read this delightful epistle the inmost peculiarities of the man's thoughts appear to be opened out before us.

"Edinburgh, 11th November, 1765.

"Dear Jamie,-I am afraid you do not consider the anxiety we have about you, or you would have continued to give us a letter from Glasgow; but I hope you will mind better for the future to take every opportunity of giving us accounts of you. We have received your letter to-day, and Mr. Leitch and your brother Patrick came home before dinner. Your letter is a little concise, and I beg you will be always as full as you can, for we wish to know every particular that happens to you. Keep memorandums of what you may write; so that, when you sit down, your materials may be ready. It is common in sea journals to set down occurrences, though not relating to the reckoning. I wish you would mark as many as you can, if not in your journal, at least in another book. One cannot begin too early to make remarks on everything. It is a very improving exercise, and through life, attention and observation are the foundation of success, and distinguish the able and wise from the weak and foolish.

"I hope you have got everything necessary, and a proper chest to put them in. I beg you will study to keep it always in good order, and all your clothes in good condition; and, particularly, I expect to observe

that while you have perused your books you have also kept them clean. As I hear that Mr. Kippen is not well, if he is not able to go with you, it will pretty certainly take you into the store at Antigua, which I shall think very lucky; but I tremble for your handwriting, and I beg of you, in the most earnest manner, to take pains on that article. If you have any regard to my satisfaction you will; and, for your own sake, consider that nothing so much gives the appearance of mean and low breed as bad writing. Take every opportunity, therefore, to practise with attention, and, if possible, never without it. As you are not to go to Ireland, you may find the two dissertations an agreeable present to some doctors in the West Indies. I find Mr. Anderson refuses to take your money, but press him to it again, and at least to keep it to lay out for you. If he declines it in every

shape, I desire you may leave it with Mr. Hamilton, as I have much use for it. In the meantime, let me know what he lays out for you. Dear Jamie, I hope to write to you, and, perhaps, to send you letters for Virginia. I shall be glad to know what letters you get from your uncle. I hope few advices are now necessary. Study your trade eagerly, decline no labour, recommend yourself by briskness and diligence, bear hardships with patience and resolution, be obliging to everybody, whether above or below you, and hold up your head both in a literal and figurative sense. I trust that honour, truth, and discretion, shall always guide you, and give the utmost comfort to, my dear Jamie, your affectionate father,

"WILLIAM CULLEN."

It is requisite to note that Cullen's kind-heartedness rendered him indifferent to pecuniary success, and when he died he left to his family little else than his great fame.

Among the intimate acquaintances of Cullen were David Hume, Adam Smith, Lord Kames, and Robertson the historian, and there is little doubt that the writings and companionship of these gifted men exercised no small influence upon Cullen's tone of thought. Contemporary with him, in the medical profession, were Huxham, George Cleghorn, Sir John Pringle, Donald Monro, Francis Home, Brocklesby, the two Linds, and Sims all men who laboured to establish medicine upon observation and experience alone, and whose writings contributed rich material for the active, generalizing mind of Cullen. He had, as his biographer remarks, "fallen on good days;" but these days were necessary for the development of a Cullen. The most powerful genius would abort unless the circumstances necessary to its development were present. The great man may be said to be as much the product of the epoch in which he lives as of his own intellectual greatness. Both elements are necessary for the full birth of mental grandeur. When Cullen began to study,

theoretical medicine had commenced to wane, and the sciences of organization and medicine were fast becoming matters of true observation and experiment. Many inquirers were in the field, and facts and observations accumulated rapidly; but both medicine and the collateral sciences lacked connexion and coherency. Cullen's sagacity early saw this, and he set himself steadily to work to remedy the evil in so far as medicine and the sciences most immediately connected with it were concerned, and in this endeavour he succeeded. He was eminently qualified for the task by his untiring perseverance, accurate observation, cautious, but sound judgment, and intimate practical and experimental acquaintance with the subjects to which he chiefly devoted his care. He linked together the floating facts of the different sciences, and consolidated them into systems in which there was only so much theory as to give a healthy vitality to them, Thus he gave a vast impulse to, and built a sound foundation for, the future study of medicine; and the subsequent history of the science shows how deeply we are indebted to Cullen for its vigorous growth since the period when he taught.

Cullen died on the fifth day of February, 1790, aged seventynine years and eleven months. The story of his mental life is one of rare interest. His early cultivation of habits of independent thought, and the never-tiring assiduity he displayed throughout life, show that he won his way to fame by the old, old path of hard, relentless work. Hence the story is one that appeals strongly to the true student. We have assayed to tell somewhat of its character, but he who would rightly know it must turn to the invaluable volumes from which we have derived our knowledge.

ART. VI.-INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IN THE ASYLUM OF QUATRE-MARES.

BY DR. LEGRAND DU SAULLE.

IF we recollect rightly it is more than twenty years since Drs. Parchappe and Debouteville started a class of vocal music in the important asylum of St. Yon, and gave there a series of private concerts, and even an annual public féte, in which the chorus took the principal part. This tradition is preserved at St. Yon, and the establishment at Quatre-Mares, which was opened for patients on the 1st January, 1852, has soon followed the example

of its senior. Some difficulties, however, presented themselves upon the separation of the men from the women. Nothing, in fact, is more difficult than to make lunatics of the same sex sing in different tones, whatever may be their voice, and nothing becomes more tiresome than a psalm-tune sung by forty or fifty voices in unison. In Germany these things come about differently. There the appreciation of varied intonation is developed naturally and without instruction; the least well-to-do classes of the population possess this musical taste, which with us, in most cases, is only obtained as the result of care and study. In all probability many years will elapse before our Orpheists will have been able to propagate this taste, which we are, perhaps, too much in the habit of considering as an aptitude inherent in certain nationalities.

However this may be, Dr. Dumesnil, chief physician of the asylum at Quatre-Mares, soon ascertained that all the efforts of a professor would have little or no success in any attempt to teach part singing methodically to a number of lunatics.

But, seconded by a very zealous superintendent, M. Goubaux, and by a very distinguished professor of instrumental music in Rouen, he saw a possibility of teaching the patients under treatment to perform some pieces together upon wind instruments. Several of the attendants also gave their assistance to the work, but these two elements taken, so to speak, from the most mobile portion of the inhabitants, were not sufficient to form a proper nucleus. It was then attempted to incorporate in the band patients considered to be incurable, and the sojourn of whom in the asylums of the Seine-Inferieur sometimes continues for twelve or fifteen years.

The success obtained by M. Dumesnil is truly surprising, and we have been told that the inspector-general, M. Parchappe, at his last visitation of the asylum, exhibited very marked satisfaction, and even a certain emotion, on seeing poor invalids whom he had long left in an intellectual condition not susceptible of cure, answer correctly numerous questions on the principles of musical art, and play with precision and considerable taste, a series of pieces which would do honour to more than one society of amateurs. We can speak of this from our own knowledge, for during a recent excursion we made in Normandy, we received, on the strength of our having been a former medical resident in the asylum, a serenade at our arrival and departure. We were fully sensible of this unexpected honour, and we felt the greatest pleasure in listening to a series of selections from, and overtures of, standard operas. For about two years, fifty or sixty lunatics have taken part in these exercises. There are never less than fifteen