attached, appear to have been returned on
the death of the professor, in 1819, to Dr.
Hesselius. They are written, some in
English, some in French, but the greater
part in German. I am a faithful, though
I am conscious, by no means a graceful,
translator, and although, here and there, I
omit some passages, and shorten others, and
disguise names, I have interpolated nothing.

CHAPTER I. DR. HESSELIUS RELATES HOW
HE MET THE REV. MR. JENNINGS.

THE Rev. Mr. Jennings is tall and thin.
He is middle-aged, and dresses with a
natty, old-fashioned, high-church precision.
He is naturally a little stately, but not at
all stiff. His features, without being handsome,
are well formed, and their expression
extremely kind, but also shy.

I met him one evening at Lady Mary
Heyduke's. The modesty and benevolence
of his countenance are extremely
prepossessing.

We were but a small party, and he
joined agreeably enough in the conversation.
He seems to enjoy listening very
much more than contributing to the talk;
but what he says is always to the purpose
and well said. He is a great favourite of
Lady Mary's, who, it seems, consults him
upon many things, and thinks him the
most happy and blessed person on earth.
Little knows she about him.

The Rev. Mr. Jennings is a bachelor,
and has, they say, sixty thousand pounds
in the funds. He is a charitable man.
He is most anxious to be actively employed
in his sacred profession, and yet, though
always tolerably well elsewhere, when he
goes down to his vicarage in Warwickshire,
to engage in the active duties of his sacred
calling, his health soon fails him, and in a
very strange way. So says Lady Mary.

There is no doubt that Mr. Jennings's
health does break down in, generally, a
sudden and mysterious way, sometimes in
the very act of officiating in his old and
pretty church at Kenlis. It may be his
heart, it may be his brain. But so it
has happened three or four times, or
oftener, that after proceeding a certain
way in the service, he has on a sudden
stopped short, and after a silence,
apparently quite unable to resume, he has
fallen into solitary, inaudible prayer, his
hands and eyes uplifted, and then pale as
death, and in the agitation of a strange
shame and horror, descended trembling,
got into the vestry-room, and left his
congregation, without explanation, to
themselves. This occurred when his curate was
absent. When he goes down to Kenlis,
now, he always takes care to provide a
clergyman to share his duty, and to supply
his place on the instant, should he become
thus suddenly incapacitated.

When Mr. Jennings breaks down quite,
and beats a retreat from the vicarage, and
returns to London, where, in a dark street
off Piccadilly, he inhabits a very narrow
house, Lady Mary says that he is always
perfectly well. I have my own opinion
about that. There are degrees of course.
We shall see.

Mr. Jennings is a perfectly gentleman-
like man. People, however, remark
something odd. There is an impression a little
ambiguous. One thing which certainly
contributes to it, people, I think, don't remember
—perhaps, distinctly remark. But I did,
almost immediately. Mr. Jennings has a
way of looking sidelong upon the carpet,
as if his eye followed the movements of
something there. This, of course, is not
always. It occurs only now and then. But
often enough to give a certain oddity as I
have said to his manner, and in this glance
travelling along the floor, there is
something both shy and anxious.

A medical philosopher, as you are good
enough to call me, elaborating theories by
the aid of cases sought out by himself, and
by him watched and scrutinised with more
time at command, and consequently
infinitely more minuteness than the ordinary
practitioner can afford, falls insensibly into
habits of observation which accompany
him everywhere, and are exercised, as some
people would say, impertinently, upon
every subject that presents itself with the
least likelihood of rewarding inquiry.

There was a promise of this kind in this
slight, timid, kindly, but reserved gentleman,
whom I met for the first time at this
agreeable little evening gathering. I
observed, of course, more than I here set
down; but I reserve all that borders on
the technical for a strictly scientific paper.

I may remark, that when I here speak
of medical science, I do so as I hope some
day to see it more generally understood,
in a much more comprehensive sense than
its generally material treatment would
warrant. I believe that the entire natural
world is but the ultimate expression of that
spiritual world from which, and in which
alone, it has its life. I believe that the
essential man is a spirit, that the spirit is
an organised substance, but as different in
point of material from what we ordinarily